The Crossroads Reputation

The Crossroads Fan Club looks at the reputation the series has gained.

When the show launched in 1964, the reviews on the series were mixed. Some TV critics loved it, others loathed it. Something that would last its entire run.

When Coronation Street launched, the press went out to kill it off over its first six-weeks on air, but when ratings started to fly through the roof they - in their typical two faced fashion - started to support it.

Crossroads and the Critics

We're not going to look at what TV critics thought of it, as someone once said about critics: "Those that can - do it! Those that can't do it - teach it and those that can't do either become critics."

Birmingham Mail

Lets face it, the critics didn't insult the show, they insulted the 16 to 18 million people who watched it every week - and viewers who watched it, ignored their views.

Why did some telly critics dislike the show? Well my thinking is that they disliked Crossroads because it was unique on British Television when it launched. Never before had we had a five-days-a-week half hour soap opera, in fact the UK never had, until 1964, a soap. Plenty of twice weekly serials, but never a soap.

And that is the problem. "soap opera" is an American term. Up until ATV launched the Midland soap no other British broadcaster had touched the format. Emergency Ward Ten and The Grove Family were 'continuous drama serials' - not 'American style soaps.'

I feel the critics didn't want British television working to American formats - no doubt they thought it would lower standards - so that was possibly the first gripe.

Also, the fact it was based in an American-devised location a "motel" can't have helped matters. While 'serial' Coronation Street was very British, gritty, working class and down-to-earth, Crossroads was escapist, glamour-filled, middle class and frothy.

Critics, I believe disliked it for this, and set out to have it removed. They didn't however always attack its middleclass 'upstairs downstairs' nature, instead they opted to knock its technical standards.

Crossroads Technical Issues

Crossroads was ahead of its time according to many who worked on the show, ATV tried to make a daily soap when everyone said that it was 'impossible' to do. And, pretty much it was an uphill struggle.

Unlike Granada's Coronation Street, Crossroads had the extra problem of not being produced in a television studio. The programme was made in an old ABC Cinema on the outskirts of Birmingham.

In the early days the show shared the limited floorspace with almost every other ATV programme, a tiny old cinema had to host numerous programmes. There wasn't space for 'proper' studio sets, so 'flatpack' theatre stage style sets were used - easy to move and store, perfect for the limited facilities of ATV Aston.

Unfortunately, these flatpacks had the habit of wobbling, and while they worked fine for variety and entertainment shows, when it came to drama, they fell short of the standard. The critics had something to shoot the show down with, and they did.

However, that issue was later fixed, and when Crossroads moved into the specially built ATV studio complex in Birmingham City Centre in 1969 the sets wobbled no more and no less than any other programme of that era.

So from 1969 onwards, the critics had no reason to knock the wobbly sets - as they wobbled as much as the ones in Coronation Street or Emmerdale Farm.

Crossroads Compared To..

While we can compare wobbly sets and lighting, we can't really compare Crossroads to any other programme of the time. This is also another problem non regular viewers and critics fell into.

They would often compare the scripts and feel of the soap opera to the continuous drama serials. This is like comparing a pig to a donkey. They are both very different formats.

The only other soap of the 1970s that was being made in the same way as Crossroads was Grundy TV's 'The Young Doctors' and it didn't air in the UK until many years later. Crossroads was the only full length daily soap shown in the UK up until the arrival of Neighbours in 1986.

So, Crossroads' reputation wasn't helped by people comparing it to other shows. Scripts could not be as perfect as the twice-weekly series, having said that in the standard of soap opera, Crossroads did often make well crafted scripts and storylines - and certainly better than the American counterparts which the show had been originally based on.

Crossroads Tame Visuals

Crossroads was deemed tame, and not as graphic as other shows and dramas. This wasn't often out of want, but out of law. The TV regulator stated for many years Crossroads could not show a murder, it couldn't show people smoking and it couldn't show bedroom scenes.

The reason in the main was simply that Crossroads wasn't a networked programme. It was shown on ITV at local times. Some regions aired it at 3.55pm, others 5.10pm and many regions 6 or 6.30pm. It was deemed too early in the evening for 'graphic' scenes.

While Coronation Street airing later at night could do more graphically, Crossroads had to use speech and implying rather than seeing. Many fans liked this more, as it gave people more to think about rather than it being all shown on-screen.

Of course the non regular viewers didn't, popping in and out of such plots would leave people baffled. And the fact things weren't shown left the critics amused. In 1982 when Channel 4 launched it was definately one rule for Brookside and another for ITV soaps. Brookside was allowed to get away with things Crossroads, and even Emmerdale Farm were not. Thanks to the arrival of the Channel 4 soap, ITV eventually was allowed to show more, however Crossroads never really did venture into being more sensational or more graphic. Mainly due to its time slots, but also because it was always billed as a 'family show' that all ages could watch and enjoy.

That again, seems to be something to laugh at for some. If its good fun, good natured drama and entertainment, then its just not 'proper drama.'

Crossroads Comedy

When episodes, or more often clips of the show, are aired in 'isolated' instances, sometimes people find what is happening amusing. But that can be done with any soap opera - even Coronation Street as Harry Hill has proved in his 'TV Burp' clip show.

If people are not into a story, or into the lives of the characters then the scenes won't be viewed in the same context as intended by the writers.

CAS

Crossroads Production Standards

Crossroads most likely did have the lowest budget, lowst production standard and quickest turn around of any television programme in the 1960s, 70s and 80s in the UK. But that was because it was the only soap opera. Had their been a soap on the BBC then they'd have both been much the same.

Crossroads basically produced five-episodes a week in an era when production facilities simply didn't allow for standards to be as high as the twice weekly shows. Maybe it wasn't worth the flack it gained because of that, and possibly it should have only been a twice or three times a-week show. However only TV bosses and critics disliked the show and only Lew Grade and ATV were brave enough to attempt it.

It wasn't until technical standards had advanced that Yorkshire TV or Granada turned their once high budget continuous drama serials into soap operas - and some may say, the scripts and technical production is often today no better than Crossroads was in an era when it wasn't afforded the luxury of editing suites and re-takes.

It might have been cheap, often ropey, but it was loved by millions for decades. And there are many big budget shows that can't say the same. The critics ignored the fact the show, and some of its stars, were winning awards in their own newspapers. It seems the early reputation from the 1960s wasn't going to be erased by viewer support.

But Crossroads must have had something, to gain such a loyal - and often defensive - following. It was claimed once that people only watched it to laugh at it. If that is true, then they must have a terrible sense of humour to then also go out and year on year vote for it in TV awards, which in one way or another it usually won something at each event.

Crossroads Today

The repuation may have by now gone, had the show stayed on air. In the 1980s it had started to turn, a lot of critics had started to be nicer about the show - but of course by then the soap had turned into a continuous drama serial - and conformed to how the critics thought TV should be.

The reputation returned after Crossroads went off air. And, possibly was inflated somewhat by 'handed down' views of TV critics. These are the same critics that if you ask for recollections of scenes they personally remember from the show where things went majorly wrong, they can't often tell you.

First review image courtesy of ITV Archive - from Reg Watson's personal collection