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The show was controversial for its time, as it included one of the first regular Gay characters depicted in a prime-time network Television Series in the United States . (''Soap'' is commonly mistaken for the ''first'' series to include a sustained gay character, but at least two other series, 1972's '' The Corner Bar '' and 1976's '' The Nancy Walker Show '', preceded it.) This character, Jodie Dallas, was played by actor Billy Crystal . Many stations refused to air the series because of this character, and the (incorrect) report of a priest being seduced in a confessional the first episode. The show, which took place in the fictional town of Dunns River, known as "rich". The Tates employed a sarcastic butler, Benson, played by Robert Guillaume , who was perhaps the only "normal" character on the series (the character of Benson was spun off into his own series, '' Benson '', in 1979.) Jessica and her husband, Chester, were hardly models of fidelity, as their various love affairs resulted in several family mishaps, including the murder of Peter Campbell ( Robert Urich ), the first son of Mary's second husband, in the early days of the show. Even though everyone told Jessica about Chester's affairs, she did not believe it until she saw it with her own two eyes: one afternoon, while out to lunch with her sister Mary, she spotted Chester necking with his secretary. Heartbroken, she sobbed in her sister's arms. While ''Soap'' was a sitcom at its core, the show, at times, had many dramatic scenes that were performed like a real soap opera. Mary's family, the Campbells, were more middle-class. Mary also liked life but the announcer intoned that "life wasn't so crazy about her." The Campbells had the problem that Mary's son Danny Dallas was a junior gangster in training. Danny was told to kill his stepfather Burt when it was revealed that Danny's father did not commit suicide, but instead was killed by Burt out of self-defense. In the fourth season, it was revealed that Chester was in fact Danny's true father, the product of an affair between him and Mary before he married Jessica. |
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