Skipper Weldon (Woody Brown) - son of local town power baron Claude Weldon (Kevin McCarthy) was inconsolable for months after his beautiful fiancé Annabelle Troy perished in a mysterious fire at his father's paper mill.
Lane Ballou (Cristina Raines) always blamed crooked town sheriff Titus Semple (Howard Duff) for the fire and accused him of orchestrating it. Annabelle had been Lane's best friend. She had also been a girl that Titus loved like a daughter.
Annabelle's mother arrives in Truro County after 20 years absence to find out what really happened. Skipper, Lane and local newspaper publisher Elmo Tyson (Peter Donat) try to help her get to the truth.
In Florida, political campaigns don't have the most pristine of reputations. Indicative of that is Fielding Carlyle (Mark Harmon) in his run for the state senate. Carlyle has cheated on his wife with Lane Ballou a woman who works in a brothel and used to be stripper. But he has found something potentially more damaging on his opponent Mike Drucker that would cinch victory.
Fielding's wife Constance (Morgan Fairchild) goes public with the information much to the consternation of others including her candidate husband and his campaign chairman Sam Curtis (John Beck). Sam, a former supporter of Drucker and still on friendly terms with the man has asked him about the allegations and heard him deny it...At least mostly.
So now we're getting somewhere! The focus on a more character-driven approach to the narrative and shunting of implausible events in to the back-story goes a long way toward gaining back some credibility with viewers. We also see Fielding developing more as a character and because of that Mark Harmon was clearly getting a better feel for the role.
But ultimately the 'Who's your daddy?' fact which pulverizes credibility in soap operas still surfaces yet again. Somebody is revealed to be the illegitimate offspring of somebody else. So much of that was going on in Truro County it was like a very isolated trailer park.
Lane Ballou (Cristina Raines) always blamed crooked town sheriff Titus Semple (Howard Duff) for the fire and accused him of orchestrating it. Annabelle had been Lane's best friend. She had also been a girl that Titus loved like a daughter.
Annabelle's mother arrives in Truro County after 20 years absence to find out what really happened. Skipper, Lane and local newspaper publisher Elmo Tyson (Peter Donat) try to help her get to the truth.
In Florida, political campaigns don't have the most pristine of reputations. Indicative of that is Fielding Carlyle (Mark Harmon) in his run for the state senate. Carlyle has cheated on his wife with Lane Ballou a woman who works in a brothel and used to be stripper. But he has found something potentially more damaging on his opponent Mike Drucker that would cinch victory.
Fielding's wife Constance (Morgan Fairchild) goes public with the information much to the consternation of others including her candidate husband and his campaign chairman Sam Curtis (John Beck). Sam, a former supporter of Drucker and still on friendly terms with the man has asked him about the allegations and heard him deny it...At least mostly.
So now we're getting somewhere! The focus on a more character-driven approach to the narrative and shunting of implausible events in to the back-story goes a long way toward gaining back some credibility with viewers. We also see Fielding developing more as a character and because of that Mark Harmon was clearly getting a better feel for the role.
But ultimately the 'Who's your daddy?' fact which pulverizes credibility in soap operas still surfaces yet again. Somebody is revealed to be the illegitimate offspring of somebody else. So much of that was going on in Truro County it was like a very isolated trailer park.