Carrie Fairchild
Telly Talk Enthusiast
Elsewhere on the forum, we’ve looked at the US primetime and daytime soaps that didn’t get off the ground, so I thought it would be fun to look at some of the UK soaps that suffered a similar fate. I’ve a few that come to mind but please add in any that you know of, as I always enjoy reading tidbits about soaps that I haven’t heard of.
Late 00’s ITV soap spinoffs: I think I’ve discussed these before although there’s nothing about them online (I remember reading about these on Teletext). When ITV were proposing to launch a new daytime soap in 2007/08, they looked to their primetime dramas for potential spinoffs. There was talk of an Emmerdale spinoff set in a vets practice, a Coronation Street spinoff set in Weatherfield police station and a The Bill spinoff set in the local hospital (Sun Hill General). In the end, they went with The Royal Today, a present day spinoff of their Sunday night period drama The Royal.
Also on ITV, after losing Home & Away to Channel 5 in 2000, the network put a call out for a replacement teen soap. In the hunt for one, they ended up with two - the revived Crossroads and the surreal soap Night and Day (originally titled Life Etc. then Trafalgar Road). However, there were a handful of other soaps that were pitched, which made it down to the final few.
Richfield: glossy soap set in London from the production company behind Sky’s football soap Dream Team. I remember it being described as a British take on Beverly Hills 90210.
Big Smoke: Jonathan Harvey (Beautiful Thing, Gimme Gimme Gimme, Corrie) penned soap set in a block of flats.
Hope Point: gritty author Kevin Sampson (Powder) was paired with Corrie & Hollyoaks writers for this soap about modern families.
Big City: another London based soap, this time set in a run down boarding house on the fictional Hansford Road, NW1, where the young residents culture clash with the more settled families of the area. Produced by Shed Productions, who at the time were best known for Bad Girls, the creative team included Corrie’s infamous “mad axeman” Brian Park (who was also responsible for blowing up the Hart clan in Family Affairs) and Ann McManus & Maureen Chadwick, who would later create Footballers Wives and Waterloo Road.
The Family: Phillip Bowman (Aussie producer responsible for bringing Nicola Freeman into Crossroads) originated this idea about a soldier who was leading a double life between his family back home in Australia and the family he started while serving in Vietnam. While based in the UK, Bowman realised the potential of reworking the idea and setting the show between UK/Australia instead. Brookside producer Phil Redmond came on board and they pitched it to Granada, as a potential entry into a daytime soap race that ITV were opening at the time….
Ocean View: …. with Granada seemingly losing interest in The Family, Redmond was approached by TVS about pitching a show on their behalf for the aforementioned daytime soap competition. Ocean View was to be escapist fare, described as “Brookie-on-Sea” it would be set in a marina village on the sunny South Coast.
As Redmond tells it, while at an industry event, he ran into the Granada exec he’d pitched the supposedly long forgotten The Family to, who asked “how’s our show coming along?”. Confused and presuming he was asking about TVS’s Ocean View, Redmond asked if he was speaking in reference to the ITV network as a whole. The exec doubled down, confirming that he was talking about “our show with the Australians in it” that he’d just OK’d the finances for. It transpired that Granada were pitching an Aussie/UK show after all, it just wasn’t the one that Redmond had come to them with although it was extremely similar. And to add to the drama, when it came down to the final two shows being considered, Redmond’s Ocean View was facing off against Granada’s Families, which would eventually run for three years from 1990 - 1993.
Saxon House: created by Russell T Davies and Paul Marquess, this was to be a daytime soap set in the 1800’s.
Late 00’s ITV soap spinoffs: I think I’ve discussed these before although there’s nothing about them online (I remember reading about these on Teletext). When ITV were proposing to launch a new daytime soap in 2007/08, they looked to their primetime dramas for potential spinoffs. There was talk of an Emmerdale spinoff set in a vets practice, a Coronation Street spinoff set in Weatherfield police station and a The Bill spinoff set in the local hospital (Sun Hill General). In the end, they went with The Royal Today, a present day spinoff of their Sunday night period drama The Royal.
Also on ITV, after losing Home & Away to Channel 5 in 2000, the network put a call out for a replacement teen soap. In the hunt for one, they ended up with two - the revived Crossroads and the surreal soap Night and Day (originally titled Life Etc. then Trafalgar Road). However, there were a handful of other soaps that were pitched, which made it down to the final few.
Richfield: glossy soap set in London from the production company behind Sky’s football soap Dream Team. I remember it being described as a British take on Beverly Hills 90210.
Big Smoke: Jonathan Harvey (Beautiful Thing, Gimme Gimme Gimme, Corrie) penned soap set in a block of flats.
Hope Point: gritty author Kevin Sampson (Powder) was paired with Corrie & Hollyoaks writers for this soap about modern families.
Big City: another London based soap, this time set in a run down boarding house on the fictional Hansford Road, NW1, where the young residents culture clash with the more settled families of the area. Produced by Shed Productions, who at the time were best known for Bad Girls, the creative team included Corrie’s infamous “mad axeman” Brian Park (who was also responsible for blowing up the Hart clan in Family Affairs) and Ann McManus & Maureen Chadwick, who would later create Footballers Wives and Waterloo Road.
The Family: Phillip Bowman (Aussie producer responsible for bringing Nicola Freeman into Crossroads) originated this idea about a soldier who was leading a double life between his family back home in Australia and the family he started while serving in Vietnam. While based in the UK, Bowman realised the potential of reworking the idea and setting the show between UK/Australia instead. Brookside producer Phil Redmond came on board and they pitched it to Granada, as a potential entry into a daytime soap race that ITV were opening at the time….
Ocean View: …. with Granada seemingly losing interest in The Family, Redmond was approached by TVS about pitching a show on their behalf for the aforementioned daytime soap competition. Ocean View was to be escapist fare, described as “Brookie-on-Sea” it would be set in a marina village on the sunny South Coast.
As Redmond tells it, while at an industry event, he ran into the Granada exec he’d pitched the supposedly long forgotten The Family to, who asked “how’s our show coming along?”. Confused and presuming he was asking about TVS’s Ocean View, Redmond asked if he was speaking in reference to the ITV network as a whole. The exec doubled down, confirming that he was talking about “our show with the Australians in it” that he’d just OK’d the finances for. It transpired that Granada were pitching an Aussie/UK show after all, it just wasn’t the one that Redmond had come to them with although it was extremely similar. And to add to the drama, when it came down to the final two shows being considered, Redmond’s Ocean View was facing off against Granada’s Families, which would eventually run for three years from 1990 - 1993.
Saxon House: created by Russell T Davies and Paul Marquess, this was to be a daytime soap set in the 1800’s.