Prime-time players made mark

In addition to the classic daytime soap operas, prime-time television soaps - a serial with a large ensemble and prolonged story arcs rather than self-contained episodes that wrap up in an hour - have been around just about as long as television itself.

Remember the 30-minute hit show Peyton Place, adapted from a book and movie of the same name, back in the 1960s and airing on ABC from 1964 to 1969? The show launched the careers of stars like Mia Farrow, Ryan O’Neal, Barbara Parkins and Mariette Hartley.

In the late 1970s and early 1980s, the popularity of prime-time soaps bubbled over, peaking with the likes of CBS’ Dallas (the longest-running U.S. prime-time TV soap opera, airing from 1978 to 1991. Who can forget that summer when the entire nation wondered who shot J.R., portrayed by Larry Hagman?); ABC’s Dynasty, ruled by Joan Collins, Linda Evans and John Forsythe; and CBS’ Falcon Crest, starring Jane Wyman and set in the vineyards of California.

So successful were these nighttime soaps that spin-offs - The Colbys from Dynasty and Knots Landing from Dallas - soon followed.

Others hitched their wagons to the allure of daytime dramas - ABC’s half-hour prime-time parody of soap operas titled Soap, which ran from 1977 to 1981, and a quirky late-night one by Norman Lear dubbed Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman, which aired from 1975 to 1978 and evolved into Forever Fernwood and later a talk show parody, Fernwood 2 Night.

The popularity of theprime-time soaps led to some TV drama shows such as NBC’s Hill Street Blues, L.A. Law and St. Elsewhere and CBS’s Cagney & Lacey incorporating the soaps’ unique open-plot structures even as, during this time, the demand for prime-time soaps had waned.

In the 1990s, prime-time soaps enjoyed a resurgence, with a younger cast of characters, on shows like Fox’s Beverly Hills, 90210 and Melrose Place and WB’s Dawson’s Creek.

More recently, shows like ABC’s Desperate Housewives, Grey’s Anatomy, Brothers & Sisters, Revengeand Nashville and AMC’s Mad Men and HBO’s True Blood (based on the Sookie Stackhouse Southern vampire-laced series of novels written by former Magnolia resident Charlaine Harris) and PBS’ Masterpiece Classic anthology, Downton Abbey, have drawn large viewing audiences.

And some old shows - including 90210, resuscitated and then recently dropped by the CW, and Dallas (now airing on TNT with some original stars returning) - have been revived with a new, younger generation of cast members and viewers.