“Love in the Afternoon” here at Temporary Layoffs will focus on the world of TV dramas very other Thursday!
One of the most expensive (and strangest) events in Soap Opera history took place on One Life to Live in 1989. Selected residents of Llanview stumble upon a secret underground city named “Eterna”.
For several months, several members of the cast were trapped in this underground city, where the soap opera’s grand dame, Vicki Lord discovers that the city was created as a strange experiment in the 1960’s and one of its residents had escaped and dated her for awhile. Vicki became pregnant, but her father hid the pregnancy and had Eterna sealed forever.
Over several months, Vicki learns the truth about her past and eventually escapes with the help of her husband. Eterna is sealed again, with most everyone escaping its clutches. The storyline was one of the most ambitious ever attempted on a Soap Opera at the time and the set was the most expensive ever built. It was a huge risk for a daytime drama, but one that apparently paid off with impressive ratings.