Jez_CymruWales post_id=24624 time= user_id=1544 Wrote:James2001 post_id=21075 time= user_id=956 Wrote:Feels a bit like Family Affairs, which also had a revamp which didn't appear on screen until after the axe was announced.
And Brookside! And Crossroads series 1 in 1987/8. Its almost like the kiss of death when a soap gets a revamp.
Guess you can understand why, if they know a show's struggling and a revamp is a last ditch measure to save it. Only they tend to end up ailienating the remaining viewers and doing the opposite. Happened plenty of times with shows across all genres.
Admittedly Brookside doesn't entirely fit into the same category as Holby and Family Affairs, the revamp happened a few months before the axe was announced. In fact they basically revamped twice in 2002, and you could argue again in 2003 when it went once-a-week post watershed. Crossroads definitely counts though, they were part way through a revamp into changing the name to "King's Oak" and making it about the village rather than the hotel, and they'd changed the titles and theme music and retitled the show to "Crossroads King's Oak", but the show was axed before the final step.
Though you can add The Bill into the same category as Brookside, a revamp which was completed but basically signed the show's death warrant, though the axe didn't come until a few months later.
Reading up on the history of revamps, it seems the strangest one was probably 77 Sunset Strip in the 60s, where they basically changed everything except the lead actor and the character's name- even the characterisation and backstory changed, so you basically had a completely new show that just happened to have a character with the same name and actor. Unsuprisingly it didn't complete that season, and those episodes went pretty much unseen for over 50 years.
