Dusty, browning editions of Fortune magazine lie neatly on a modern coffee table. Nearby sit copies of a Reader’s Digest article, circa 1944.
The remains of spring cleaning? No, research for ABC’s new Homefront, airing Tuesdays at 10 on ABC. The hour long drama replaced thirtysomething and was some advertisers’ pre-season pick as the first new series to be canceled, but it has avoided that fate.
“We didn’t bump thirtysomething off the air,” says Bernard Lechowick co-creator and co-executive producer of Homefront. “But there could be something of a thirtysomething backlash.”
In its two outings so far, Homefront has ranked 41st and 43rd, better than the much-lamented thirtysomething, ABC notes.
Lynn Marie Latham, co-creator and producer and Lechowick’s wife, shrugs off the negative predictions. “If people like the characters, they will watch the show.”
Homefront has soap opera elements, with 14 characters populating the period piece. That should not be surprising, given the producers’ previous experience: Latham, Lechowick and co-executive producer David Jacobs have worked on Dallas, Knots Landing and NBC’s last attempt at a soap, Berrenger’s.
Jilted fiances, lost loves, broken promises – it’s all here. Almost like thirtysomething, the producers say.
Latham says the post-WWII era is rich with stories. “There was a tremendous amount of hope then. Everybody was jumping back into life.”
That feeling of euphoria is different than the mood in this country at the end of the Persian Gulf war, she says: Then, “After five long years, people didn’t want to talk about the war.”
ABC hopes those women who are not fascinated by NBC’s Law & Order will tune in to Homefront. Because the show depicts life 47 years ago, Latham says, Homefront could “have an incredible appeal to young people.”
Young women are tuning in, and
they’re usually the core audience for soaps. Last week, while ranking 43rd
overall, the show ranked 21st among women 18 to 49.
Jeanne Seniff of Conroe, Texas, not only watches Homefront every week, she lived it.
A 68-year-old native of Belgium, Seniff’s story inspired Homefront. She came to the USA after World War II as a bride of Staff Sgt. Earl Seniff. Homefront creator Lynn Marie Latham is a childhood friend of Seniff’s daughter Linda and had heard Seniff’s stories.
“They were just my impressions of coming over here,” says Seniff. “This is not the story of my life.”
Latham considered writing a novel in 1983 about war brides, but after breaking into TV decided to try it as a series.
Homefront portrays two war brides: a timid young Italian woman who arrives in the USA to find her husband has died and a bawdy English woman.
Seniff wasn’t like either. “I was 24 and a little older, so I was not frightened.”
But she did share one thought with the characters: “My impression of what I thought was different was that I thought life was easier. But you must remember, we were coming from 4-1/2 years of war.”
More than anything else, Seniff is proud of Latham. “She made it very big in Hollywood. I am grateful that she has not forgotten me after all these years.”