I'm not the typical soap opera watcher, if there is such a thing. I'm a male between the ages of 18 and 49 which is precisely the demographic NBC was seeking when they canceled Another World on April 12, 1999. Even though I'm not a woman, I suspect that age was more important to the suits. The network brass stated that the 35-year-old serial no longer fit their profile. Why? because it had too much class? Thanks to my beloved Grandmother, I started watching Another World back in the fall of 1968. The show was 30 minutes long and in black and white. (It may have been in color but our TV was B&W.) I was just a kid. Most of the time I didn't quite know what characters were talking about. However I knew the faces and I knew who everybody was. So I stopped arguing for cartoons and watched Another World every day. Back then it started at 3:00 and I was home from school in time to see it. Whoever thinks the soaps are trash obviously never watched AW. The acting was excellent, something that never changed from 1968 to 1999. I've seen just about all of the other soaps since 1968. I have to say that none of them ever equaled Another World's caliber. The stories were very much like real life except with much more bad luck. The characters from Rachel Davis and Walter Curtin in the 60's and 70's to Lila, Cameron, Cindy and Paulina in the 90's, were always striving to get to their own "another world". A place, in their minds, that they thought they ought to be. Their perception of the world around them was colored by their preconcievd emotions and aspirations. The best example of this, in my opinion, was the Walter/Lenore storyline which played out over four years and included a murder trial, the birth of a baby,and the value of material possessions versus truth and respect between a husband and wife. There was so much history in the show. NBC just threw it away like an old shoe. In an era where hundreds of channels are available, NBC canceled the one show which would have kept me watching NBC no matter how many choices I had. But no more. In September I will be put in charge of a "people-meter" to measure and inform the neilsen ratings people on what I watch. I'm told that I'll represent 250,000 viewers. I don't know how that can be considered accurate, but that's how the ratings people do it. Bad News for NBC and Passions. They have both just lost 250,000 viewers in the "good" demographic.
Review of Another World
