#Soap tv show jessica on benson series#

Benson clearly despises Chester, but has a soft spot for their son, Billy (Jimmy Baio). The wealthy Tate family employs a sarcastic butler/cook named Benson (Robert Guillaume). On later occasions, it becomes clear Jess has always known on some level about Chester's affairs but never allowed herself to process the information. Heartbroken, she sobs in her sister's arms. Even though everyone tells Jessica about Chester's continual affairs, she does not believe them until she sees his philandering with her own eyes: while out to lunch with Mary, Jessica spots Chester necking with his secretary Claire (Kathryn Reynolds).

Jessica Tate (Katherine Helmond) and her husband, Chester (Robert Mandan), are hardly models of fidelity, as their various love affairs result in several family mishaps, including the murder of her sister Mary's (Cathryn Damon) stepson, Peter Campbell (Robert Urich). The Tates live in a wealthy neighborhood (the announcer calls it the neighborhood known as 'Rich'). In the opening sequence of the first installment, the announcer says 'This is the story of two sisters вЂ“ Jessica Tate and Mary Campbell'. John Ruthledge in the radio version of Guiding Light. Robert Mandan (Chester Tate) had previously appeared on Search for Tomorrow as a leading man for Mary Stuart, and Donnelly Rhodes (Dutch Leitner) had played the first husband of Katherine Chancellor on The Young and the Restless. The cast also included three former soap opera actors. The show starred Katherine Helmond and Cathryn Damon as sisters/matriarchs of their own families. It ran on over-the-air television on Antenna TV, until December 30, 2012.

#Soap tv show jessica on benson series#

In the past, the series has rerun on local syndicated channels as well as on cable on Comedy Central and TV Land. There is a box set of season 1 on region 2 DVD. Like most sitcoms of the era, Soap was videotaped, but this coincidentally helped further its emulation of the daytime soap opera format, as most such productions were also videotaped.ДЄll episodes are currently available on region 1 DVD in four separate box sets. These hour-long episodes were later split in two, yielding 93 half-hour episodes for syndication. Eight of these (including the final four) aired as one-hour episodes during the original run on ABC. The show aired 85 episodes over the course of four seasons. Two of these retrospectives were made available on VHS in 1994, but were not included on any DVD collections. Each returning season was preceded by a 90-minute retrospective of the previous season. The show was created, written, and executively produced by Susan Harris, and also executively produced by Paul Junger Witt (Harris' future husband) and Tony Thomas.