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The 1950s & 1960s
The drama series on TV can be traced back to crime shows (notably
Dragnet) and kids westerns (The Lone Ranger) on
television in the early 1950s, to film noir and the cowboy movies, and
to all sorts of pulp fiction. But its growth in American television
(and therefore ultimately the Western world), was initially a response
to the needs of the ABC network. This third-ranked network sought to
improve its finances and stature by scheduling programs with more
punch than previous efforts. An alliance with Warner Brothers brought
to television such adult westerns as
Cheyenne and
Maverick,
as well as glamorous detective programs like
77 Sunset Strip
and Hawaiian Eye. The most violent of the shows,
The
Untouchables, came from Desilu where the initial work was
supervised by Quinn Martin, who would later produce
The
Fugitive, The FBI, and
The Streets of San
Francisco, though none so full of gun play.
ABC's rivals responded with their own brand of mayhem and westerns
and detective dramas quickly became the top-rating TV genres. Such a
glut led to burnout, and the wave of westerns receded, eventually
disappearing from TV in the next decade. Even so the networks did
experiment with new kinds of drama series': war dramas (notably ABC's
Combat), the cult hit
Star Trek, and spy stories
like I Spy. Never again would action-adventure drama programs
dominate the TV schedule as it had in the Sixties. But the popularity
of action-adventure did revive, especially in the early 1970s when
crime shows became all the rage.
The 60s was also the decade in which some major soap operas were
created. In Britain in1960, Granada TV launched
Coronation
Street, a representation of daily life in a Northern working class
community. The series originally screened in the north west but was
soon to be networked across the country. It remains at the top of the
audience ratings to this day. In 1964 ATV introduced the highly
popular Crossroads, a soap set in a Midlands motel, which ran
for 24 years. Until 1985 when the BBC introduced the highly successful
EastEnders the non-commercial channel did not fare well with
its soaps. Two were experimented with:
Compact was set in the
offices of a magazine, and The Newcomers presented the
story of a London family that moved to a country town.
The 1970s
In the 1970s, TV Producers turned from the excess of violence seen
in drama series' of the 60s, to seek other ways of stimulating the
audience. First off the mark was ABC's
The Six Million Dollar Man,
about the cyborg, Colonel Steve Austin, who could perform incredible
feats of strength and speed. Realism gave way to fantasy and its
success spawned imitators like The Bionic Woman,
Wonder Woman,
Spiderman, and
The
Incredible Hulk, all of which downplayed violence for
displays of muscles and gimmicks.
One of the surprise hits of the early 70s was
Emergency!, an
hour-long weekly drama that followed the events at a Los Angeles
hospital, as well as a neighboring fire department. But nothing beat
good old-fashioned family values in these turbulent times, and
Little House On The Prairie, a heart-warming (some would
say sick-making) series about a rural family, had them by the
wagonload.
In Britain, drama in the 1970s moved away from the experiments of
the 1960s into safer territory. For example, apart from
Play
for Today, original TV drama was replaced with period and
novel-based serials. These included such series as
The Six Wives of
Henry VIII and
Upstairs Downstairs. On the
soap front Yorkshire TV produced a rural daytime serial,
Emmerdale
Farm which began in 1972 and became increasingly popular as
Emmerdale. The BBC also experimented with an all black soap
(written by a black author), Empire Road (1978-79).
The 1980s
If the TV show you are watching features a swag of characters in
unfeasibly large shoulder pads and an excess of hair gel, do not
adjust your set - you are watching television as seen in the 1980s.
The 80s was the decade in which American soaps such as Dallas
and Dynasty dominated the
ratings, media coverage and popular debate. Dallas
was a
behemoth! The biggest episode of all was the one which The
Simpsons later parodied in Who shot Montgomery Burns?. It dealt
with the mystery of who offed evil bastard JR (Larry Hagman). Equally
brilliant was the way the show dealt with falling ratings - A season's
worth of storyline was dismissed as just a dream in order to bring
back dead hero Patrick Duffy to save the show!
Aaron Spelling (who later would produce Melrose Place
and 90210 as well as siring an unnaturally ugly daughter)
firmly established himself in the Eighties. It all began with the
trials and tribulations of the Carrington's and Colby's in Dynasty.
Spelling was also responsible for the introduction of Joan Collins as
superbitch Alexis Colby. American soaps, with their lavish sets and
costumes, dominated Western television in the 80s.
The 1980s also represented a period when some very expensive
classic drama was produced. In Britain this included Death of a
Princess which gained notoriety because it was about the public
beheading of a Saudi princess and her lover. The Saudi government
tried to stop it being transmitted and banned its importation to Saudi
Arabia (Because of video technology it was being clandestinely viewed
in that country within 24 hours of first transmission in the UK).
Almost as controversial was the BBC's
Boys from the
Blackstuff, about unemployment in Liverpool. Granada TV produced
the hugely expensive but highly successful 13-part
The Jewel
in the Crown which was entirely shot in India. The BBC also
produced the film-noir style six-part drama,
Edge of Darkness
about the attempt to sabotage a nuclear power station.
EastEnders went on the air in the UK in 1985. The
twice-weekly soap from Albert Square featured the Beales, the Fowlers
and Den and Angie at the Queen Vic. It quickly won the hearts of a
nation and knocked old-timer Coronation
Street
from it's
perch at Number One. From a European perspective possibly the most
disastrous attempt to compete with the United States head on was the
production of Chateauvallon (1985) where five European networks
attempted to produce a competitive European equivalent to Dallas.
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