The Unseen Soap: Rituals

[Toni]

Hello everybody:

I just uploaded to The Tube the last one-hour (almost complete) Series Finale of the unseen, barely remembered daytime soap "Rituals". You can watch it in the links below with a catch: it´s dubbed in Spanish. So dust off your books and refresh your Spanish!

The show centered around a boarding school owned by a millionaire family whose patriarch died in the Pilot. One of the villains was played by our Tina Louise, who just disappeared after that episode and was replaced by another actress who didn´t look like her at all. There were other alumni here, like Monte Markham and Dennis Patrick, and also Gina Gallego, who played Skipper´s girlfriend on "Flamingo Road", and went on to become a staple on Daytime, as many others of the younger cast, like Kin Shriner, (insanely hot) Kevin Spirtas, Christine Jones (probably the strongest in the cast), Jon Lindstrom, Peter Haskell, or Mary Beth Evans. You could also see (not in the video) George Lazenby (of James Bond tarnished fame) and Claire Yarlett (of the even more tarnished Colbys fame!).

I only watched a few episodes at the time, but noticed that:
a) Everybody looked sooo beautiful!
b) Every cliché was used in it.
c) The story demanded for a primetime drama, if not a short supersoap.
d) The faces changed as soon as you can say Donna Reed.
e) The supporting cast was truly remarkable.

There is another single episode on the Tube, but, aside of that, I´ve only seen some wiki references of it. Enjoy the videos!

 

[Daniel Avery]

All I can recall about Rituals is that it was produced for first-run syndication, thus aired at all sorts of weird times (if it aired at all) across the country, which handicapped the show from the beginning. Yes, it had a nice mix of newcomers and well-known actors, but like you said there was a lot of turnover and recasting. If it had been given a more consistent time slot it likely would have lasted longer, since soaps need that consistency to get viewers to keep tuning in (especially when they're new).

 

[Carrie Fairchild]

All I can recall about Rituals is that it was produced for first-run syndication, thus aired at all sorts of weird times (if it aired at all) across the country,

It’s for this reason that I thought for the longest time that Rituals was specifically produced for late night, as I’d only ever seen references to it airing at that time (whether online or through old promos on YouTube). It was through a discussion on another thread here that I discovered that it also aired in daytime.

 

[Soap archives]

You have a great channel