The Doctors

From anthology to serial

The Doctors debuted on April 1, 1963, using an anthology format with different characters in each story; this was in contrast to all of the other daytime dramas on air at the time. The viewership numbers were not encouraging, however: in that first season, The Doctors pulled only a 3.4 rating, next-to-worst among network TV soaps. Beginning on March 2, 1964, however, the Doctors became a traditional continuing serial, more than doubling the ratings to 7.5 mark.

For most of the series, storylines revolved around Hope Memorial Hospital and its patriarch, chief of staff Dr. Matt Powers (played by James Pritchett), who started on the program on July 9, 1963, although Pritchett originally appeared on the series during its weekly anthology period, in another role.

The cast for the original daily concept, which lasted from the premiere on April 1, 1963, until July 19, 1963, was:

Jock Gaynor as Dr. William Scott (April 1, 1963 – July 19, 1963, premiere cast)

Richard Roat as Dr. Jerry Chandler (April 1, 1963 – January 17, 1964, premiere cast)

Margot Moser as Dr. Elizabeth Hayes (April 1, 1963 – July 19, 1963, premiere cast)

Fred J. Scollay as Rev. Sam Shafer (April 1, 1963 – 1966, premiere cast)

The early cast for the second, weekly concept, which lasted from July 22, 1963, until February 28, 1964, was:

Richard Roat as Dr. Jerry Chandler (April 1, 1963 – January 17, 1964, premiere cast)

Fred J. Scollay as Rev. Sam Shafer (April 1, 1963 – 1966, premiere cast)

Storylines

In the program's early years, The Doctors was considered to be more bold in storyline choices than its primary rival at the time, General Hospital (which premiered on the same day, with a similar premise to TD). While the doctors on General Hospital worked in harmony with one another for the most part and in some cases were intimate friends, the physicians on The Doctors were shown in stories that balanced personal and professional concerns. Some doctors were depicted as competitive and cutthroat. The Doctors incorporated humor and realism into its storylines, and remained anchored to actual medical work in its setting.

For example, when Matt Powers was on trial for murder, he was forced to rescind his chief of staff position. His successor schemed to remove his allies, such as Dr. Althea Davis, from positions of influence in the hospital. Althea's stories included her challenges as a female doctor working with a mainly male staff; one story outlined how Althea's divorce was discussed by the board as a moral issue in a way that no male doctor's personal life had ever been discussed.

Awards and production

In 1972 and 1974, the serial received a Daytime Emmy Award for Best Drama. During that period until a new opening sequence was created in 1977, announcer Mel Brandt (who was also known for his announcing the animated "Laramie Peacock" color opening in the 1960s and 1970s) would inform the audience at the beginning of each episode: "And now, The Doctors, (The Emmy-Award winning program) dedicated to the brotherhood of healing."

The iconic theme song "Patterns", which was updated with a new version in 1977 and 1979, stayed with the program through August 1, 1980 and was composed by in-house musician Bob Israel at Score Productions. It debuted with the episode which aired on May 24, 1971.

Episodes of The Doctors were originally taped in black and white at Studio 3B, one of NBC's production studios at 30 Rockefeller Center in New York City. It was the last NBC daytime serial to transition from black and white to color on October 17, 1966.

Broadcast history

Original series run

From the late 1960s until the mid-1970s, The Doctors ranked as one of the top five daytime dramas in the United States. It peaked at fourth place in the 1973–1974 television season, behind CBS' As the World Turns and fellow NBC serials Days of Our Lives and Another World. However, within a period of three years, The Doctors plummeted from fourth to eleventh in the ratings. The decline in ratings was partly attributed to two serials with which The Doctors shared its timeslot: ABC's One Life to Live and CBS's Guiding Light, which expanded to an hour in consecutive years; Guiding Light made this move in 1977, while One Life to Live along with fellow ABC soap General Hospital expanded in 1978.

As the 1978–79 season began, the entire NBC soap opera lineup was suffering in the ratings. While The Doctors was not alone in this, the network began a series of relocations involving the veteran serial that year, which would amplify the series' ratings trouble and eventually lead to its demise. The first move was done to help further increase the ratings of Another World, which had tied for the #1 spot in daytime the previous season. In an unprecedented (and since unrepeated) move, NBC decided to extend Another World and make it the first serial to run for 90 minutes daily. The Doctors, as part of the schedule shuffle that ensued, was moved to 2:00/1:00p, which placed it against the second half of As the World Turns on CBS and the first half of One Life to Live on ABC. The ratings declined slightly, but NBC was not done.

Procter & Gamble Productions (PGP), the producers of Another World, began development on a new serial in 1980 that would evolve into a spin-off of that serial set in Houston. The new program, Texas, was picked up by NBC who envisioned it as a daytime version of CBS' hit primetime drama Dallas. NBC needed to free up one hour of its schedule for Texas, and did so by cutting the runtimes of Another World (which reverted to its previous 60-minute slot) and The David Letterman Show by 30 minutes each. Launching on August 4, 1980, Texas was placed in the 3:00/2:00 p.m. hour with Another World, which had dropped to ninth in the ratings, moving to 2:00/1:00 to serve as its lead-in.

The cutting of Letterman resulted in a movement across the earlier portions of the daytime schedule as well, with Wheel of Fortune moved to 11:00/10:00 a.m. and Password Plus to 11:30/10:30 to follow it. The Doctors, which needed to move to accommodate Another World, thus took the place of Password Plus in the 12:30 p.m./11:30 a.m. slot following Card Sharks. The noon hour would often see affiliates of the three major networks opt not to air their offerings for at least part of, if not all of, the timeslot and usually air a local newscast or some other programming, and The Doctors disappeared from some markets when it made the move. In addition, the 12:30 timeslot was a competitive one for the three networks. ABC's competition came from Ryan's Hope, which had been beating The Doctors by nearly a full ratings point in the overall rankings. The serial's competition on CBS originally consisted of the long-running Search for Tomorrow, which was also pulling in significantly higher ratings than The Doctors had been. In June 1981, CBS moved The Young and the Restless to 12:30 and the ratings faded even further. The Doctors fell to a 3.8 rating at the end of the 1980–81 season, which was tied for last place with Texas.

Reruns

In July 2014, Retro TV announced that it would begin broadcasting reruns of The Doctors in the latter half of the year, starting with episodes from December 1967.

On September 29, 2014, the network began airing two episodes of The Doctors each weekday, starting at 12 p.m. (ET)/11 a.m. (CT).

Retro TV started off their reruns of The Doctors in September 2014 with the episode which originally aired December 4, 1967, and stopped its run of episodes with the December 31, 1979 episode on April 23, 2020, at which point syndication on Retro TV restarted with the December 4, 1967 episode on April 27.

Episodes from December 1967 to September 1980 are available to watch on demand for free at Retro TV's It's Real Good TV site. The October 1980-December 1982 episodes were not provided to them and may no longer exist because NBC erased and reused the tapes holding them.

The Doctors has been distributed by SFM Entertainment, which has 4,865 episodes available for syndication, only 290 episodes short of the entire run.

As of July 2018, Retro was running the series seven days a week, but from three different periods of time, with Monday through Friday with one time frame, and then Saturday and Sunday each with two additional respective time frames in the series.

Cast

Core characters during the series' run included:

James Pritchett as Dr. Matt Powers (1963–1982)

Ann Williams (1963–1965), Bethel Leslie (1965–1968), Kathleen Murray (March 1968), and Lydia Bruce (1968–1982) as Dr. Maggie Hansen Powers

Gerald Gordon as neurosurgeon Dr. Nick Bellini (1966–1975, 1976)

David O'Brien as Dr. Steve Aldrich (1967–1982)

Carolee Campbell (1967–1976), and Jada Rowland (1976–1982) as Carolee Simpson Aldrich, R. N.

Elizabeth Hubbard (1964–1969; 1970–1977; 1981–1982) and Virginia Vestoff (1969–1970) as Dr. Althea Davis

Glenn Corbett as Jason Aldrich (1976–1978; 1979; 1980–1981) // Chris Bohn as Jason Aldrich (1971)

Many well-known actors and actresses had roles on The Doctors throughout its long run, including:

Marc Alaimo as Frank Barton (1971-1972)

Jane Badler as Natalie Bell Dancy (1981–1982)

Alec Baldwin as Billy Aldrich #5 (1980–1982)

Nancy Barrett as Nurse Kathy Ryker #2 (1971–1972)

Kathy Bates as Phyllis (dayplayer, 1978)

Doris Belack as Dr. Claudia Howard (1980)

Peter Burnell (1968–1973), Armand Assante (1975-1976), as Dr. Mike Powers,

Main crew

Some notable writers, producers and directors of The Doctors: Henry Kaplan, Dennis Brite, Douglas Marland, Frank Salisbury, Malcolm Marmorstein, Rita Lakin, Elizabeth Levin, Gerald Straub, Orvin Tovrov, Allen Potter, Joseph Stuart, Robert Costello, Leonard Kantor, Eileen and Robert Mason Pollock, David Cherrill, Peter Brash, Doris Quinlan, A.M. Barlow, Heather Matthews, Kate Brooks, Ralph Ellis, James Lipton, Eugenie Hunt, William T. Anderson (Lighting).

Head writers

Orin Tovrov, April 1, 1963 – July 1, 1966

Ian Martin, July 4, 1966 – January 13, 1967

John Kubek, January 16- June 16, 1967

Rita Lakin, June 19, 1967 – May 31, 1968

Rita Lakin and Rick Edelstein, June 3, 1968 – June 26, 1969

Rick Edelstein, June 27, 1969 - November 6, 1969

Ira Avery, November 7, 1969 – April 17, 1970

Ira Avery and Stanley H. Silverman, April 20, 1970 – September 25, 1970

Eileen and Robert Mason Pollock, September 28, 1970 – August 19, 1975

Robert Cenedella, August 20, 1975 - February 19, 1976

Margaret DePriest, February 20, 1976 - September 17, 1976

Douglas Marland, September 20, 1976 – September 30, 1977

Mel Brez and Ethel Brez, October 3, 1977 - April 10, 1978

Linda Grover and David Cherrill, April 11, 1978 – February 26, 1979

Elizabeth Levin and David Cherrill, February 27, 1979 - December 14, 1979

Ralph Ellis and Eugenie Hunt, December 17, 1979 – October 31, 1980

Lawrence Konner and Ronnie Wencker-Konner, November 3, 1980 – September 4, 1981

Executive producers

Orin Tovrov and Jerry Layton, April 1, 1963– July 16, 1965

Jerry Layton, July 19, 1965– August 25, 1967

Allen M. Potter, August 28, 1967– September 4, 1973

Joseph Stuart, August 10, 1973– July 1, 1975

Jeff Young, August 20, 1975– July 12, 1977

Chuck Weiss, July 13, 1977– August 3, 1979

Doris Quinlan, August 6, 1979– November 21, 1980

James A. Baffico, November 24, 1980– November 20, 1981

Robert Costello, November 23, 1981– March 26, 1982

Gerald Straub, March 29- December 31, 1982

Awards and nominations

Primetime Emmy Award wins

23rd Primetime Emmy Awards (Drama Series)

24th Primetime Emmy Awards (Drama Series)