CAPITOL

March 26, 1982 - March 20, 1987 (CBS)

INTRODUCTION

CBS cancelled its longest-running soap Search for Tomorrow (1951 - 1982) , which it deemed too old-fashioned, to make room for the new series CAPITOL. The network wanted a daytime show that could bring in the audience watching the more fashion-conscious primetime serials which at the time were the hottest shows on TV. Toward that end, John Conboy was hired to work his magic on Capitol.

CBS could not have given Capitol a better timeslot for its premiere. The primetime soap Falcon Crest was pre-empted so that a special one-hour episode of Capitol could air inmediately after the number one ranked Dallas, marking the first time that a daytime soap opera had debuted in primetime. Ratings for the show's firt week in its daytime slot (2:30) averaged 5.8, the highest any soap had ever pulled in during its premiere week. Unfortunately, the show's ratings would never climb much higher than that.

Although the series was titled Capitol, much of the action took place in the fictional suburb of Jeffersonia. In the beginning, two core families dominated the show, the Cleggs and the McCandless. The long-running feud between them dated back to the 1950s when - in an inspired use of real life political history - Myrna Clegg ( Carolyn Jones, later Marla Adams and Marj Dusay) had branded Clarissa McCandless's ( Constance Towers) father Judson Tyler (Rory Calhoun) a communist, thereby running his political career. Despite the fascinating back story, the show followed the conventional Romeo and Juliet route with the family feud storyline: Myrna's daughter Julie ( Kimberly Beck Hilton, later Catherine Hickland) fell in love with Clarissa's son Tyler ( David Mason-Daniels, later Dane Whiterspoon).

In 1986 the show ratings fell and CBS cancelled the show in 1987 to make room for a new soap by Bill Bell. Search for Tomorrow had been dumped for the most glamorous Capitol, which in turn was being dumped for the even more glamorous The Bold and The Beautiful.

Rather than tying the remaining plot twists together, Capitol ended with a cliffhanger. Following a prince's death, Sloan Denning ( Deborah M. Farentino) had been sentenced to death in Baraq, and in the last scene faced a firing squad. The show ended with these words: " Ready, aim...".

Note: All the information of this page is taken from The Soap Opera Encyclopedia by Gerard J.Waggett