A military soap opera? Like, seriously?
CBS tried in 1983 with Emerald Point N. A. S., from Dynasty creators Richard & Esther Shapiro. It had the hallmarks of a evening soap, particularly an all-star cast, which, in this case, included Dennis Weaver (ex-Gunsmoke, Gentle Ben, McCloud), Susan Dey (ex-The Partridge Family), Richard Dean Anderson (ex-General Hospital), and Patrick O'Neal, who would be replaced by Robert Vaughn before the season was over. Unlike Dynasty, this didn't come from producer Aaron Spelling, who hadn't had anything on CBS since his days at Four Star. Instead, this was produced by 20th Century Fox.
CBS slotted Emerald Point on Mondays, figuring that, weekend aside, they could bookend the week with soaps, what with Dallas & Falcon Crest holding down 2/3 of the Friday block. They had hoped that the Shapiros could do the same thing for them that Dynasty had done for ABC. Ummmmmm, no.
The problem? NBC was still running movies on Mondays, and there was the small matter of, oh, you know, Monday Night Football on ABC during the first half of the season. That Emerald Point lasted 6 months, not quite the full season, was an accomplishment.
Let's take a look at part 1 of the pilot:
Of course, you know that Susan Dey & Richard Dean Anderson would each rebound from this (L. A. Law & MacGyver, respectively). If memory serves, I think this was Dennis Weaver's last series.
No rating.
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