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''Capitol'' is an American soap opera which aired on CBS from March 29, 1982 to March 20, 1987 for 1,270 episodes. As its name suggests, the storyline usually revolves around the political intrigues of people whose lives are intertwined in Washington, D.C. ==Synopsis== ''Capitol'' revolves around the Denning, Clegg, and McCandless families, who live in the fictional Washington, D.C. suburb of Jeffersonia. At the center of the drama are feuding matriarchs Clarissa Tyler McCandless (Constance Towers) and Myrna Clegg (Carolyn Jones; Marla Adams; Marj Dusay). Kindly and down-to-earth Clarissa and vituperative and vindictive Myrna are former best friends who in their youth had been rivals over the love of Baxter McCandless; in retaliation for Baxter falling for Clarissa and not her, scheming Myrna had spread lies about Clarissa's father, liberal Congressman Judson (Rory Calhoun), linking him to communists during the McCarthy era. Baxter has left Clarissa a widow, and Myrna is married to wealthy industrialist Sam Clegg (Robert Sampson; Richard Egan). The longstanding feud between the women is inflamed when Clarissa's war-hero son Tyler McCandless (David Mason Daniels; Dane Witherspoon) falls in love with Myrna's daughter, Julie Clegg (Kimberly Beck; Catherine Hickland). Despite Myrna's best efforts to destroy this match, they eventually marry. Also featured are Myrna's other children: Trey (Nicholas Walker), who is being groomed for the presidency; Brenda (Leslie Graves; Shannon Terhune; Ashley Laurence; Karen Kelly), and Jordy (Todd Curtis). Ironically, despite their mother's scheming and conniving, Trey, Julie, Jordy and Brenda were not like Myrna whatsoever. Besides Tyler and her father, Judson, Clarissa's family includes sons Wally (Bill Beyers), a young man with a gambling problem, Thomas (Brian Robert Taylor; Michael Catlin), a doctor, and Matt (Shea Farrell; Christopher Durham), a handsome athlete. Also living with them for a time was Clarissa's niece, Gillian (Kelly Palzis). Meanwhile, Clarissa is in love with Senator Mark Denning (Ed Nelson) who is in an unhappy marriage with agoraphobic Paula (Julie Adams) and is the father of reporter Sloane Denning (Debrah Farentino). Clarissa later falls for Jarrett Morgan (Ron Harper), who turns out to be her presumed-dead husband Baxter. While the original focus was on the Romeo and Juliet style love story of Tyler and Julie, the bulk of the storyline quickly switched to Trey and Sloane whose 1984 wedding was filmed on location at the Jefferson Memorial. Trey's previous relationship with former prostitute Kelly Harper (Jane Daly Gamble; Jess Walton) produced a son, Scotty, and eventually caused Trey and Sloane to divorce. Julie and Tyler dealt with constant interference by Myrna as well as Julie's inability to have a child. Playboy Jordy had several serious romances, most notably with feisty Lizabeth Bachman (Tonja Walker and sweet Leanne Foster (Christine Kellogg). "Capitol" was also notable for having a major handicapped character, Dr. Thomas McCandless, a successful surgeon in spite of having to walk with the help of crutches. Thomas was paired originally with the flirtatious Lizabeth who loved him in spite of also being attracted to Jordy. Later on, after Trey and Kelly broke up, Thomas became involved with Kelly, which involved him in another triangle with a member of the Clegg family. The Cleggs and McCandlesses became further tied together, to Myrna's chagrin, through the romance of Wally and Brenda. The older characters were busy in storylines as well, most notably Clarissa and Mark who had to deal with the psychotic Paula (Julie Adams) who pretended to be agoraphobic as she plotted to murder Clarissa, while Myrna had to struggle with the news that Matt McCandless's girlfriend, Amy Burke, was Sam's illegitimate daughter. Lana Wood, Natalie Wood's younger sister, was cast in the part, but the storyline was dropped after a little more than six months. The older character's pasts were explored more deeply when the wheelchair bound Jared Morgan (Ron Harper) was revealed to be Clarissa's supposedly deceased husband, Baxter. The performances of the older actors were honored with several Soap Opera Digest Nominations, but none of the cast were ever Emmy Nominated. Primetime TV veteran Marj Dusay took over the role of Myrna in April of 1983 when Carolyn Jones became too ill to continue and her temporary substitute, Marla Adams, joined "The Young and the Restless". Dusay was credited for helping to flesh out the character of the scheming Myrna to make her more multi-dimensional and would remain on the show through the remainder of the run. The casting of Jess Walton as Kelly Harper was also critically praised as the extremely complex Sloane returned to her old scheming nature in order to keep her marriage to Trey on solid ground. Veteran character actor Arthur Malet ("Young Frankenstein", "Heaven Can Wait") was cast as Kelly's older friend who had taken her in while she was pregnant with Scotty, and later on, Lola Falana was cast as an artist's representative who took an interest in Kelly's painting and aided her in pursuing a career as an artist. This storyline also cast ''Dark Shadows'' veteran Lara Parker as a distinguished gallery owner, but unfortunately, Falana's storyline was never developed beyond the hint of a mysterious past. With Washington D.C. having a large black population, soap critics complained that "Capitol" writers were not taking advantage of this fact to tell important stories, and Falana lasted less than a year. The re-casting of Julie Clegg McCandless with Catherine Hickland was a plus, especially when the mysterious Zed Diamond Bradley Lockerman appeared on the scene, shocked by her resemblance to his late wife, Jenny. Eventually, the character of Jenny was revealed to be alive, also played by Hickland, and gave her the opportunity to show off her chops playing a dangerous character, Jenny being revealed to have major psychological problems. When Jenny and Zed's storyline took off, Julie faded into the background, having gone off to find husband Tyler who was revealed to be involved in an off-screen affair. After Jenny's demise, Hickland remained off screen for several months, only returning as Julie for the last few months of the show with basically no storyline of her own. Hickland would go on to several other soaps playing a variety of schemers as would Jess Walton, Constance Towers and Marj Dusay. At one point, Hickland, Towers and Dusay were dominating all of the ABC soaps as villainesses of very nefarious natures while Walton found great success on ''The Young and the Restless'' by taking over the role of Jill Foster. As with other soap operas in the mid 1980s, ''Capitol'' tried its hand with adventure storylines, pairing Sloane with Prince Ali Peter Lochran, the potential King of Baraq, a fictional Islamic nation undergoing political strife. Much of the action took place outside the United States and while it paralleled much of what was going on in the real world, audiences began to drift away. Soap Opera Digest praised the Sloane and Ali pairing, naming their romantic moments as the best love scenes of 1986. In spite of that praise, the show was criticzed for taking its storyline twists to bizarre extremes. Within short periods of time, Sam Clegg was revealed to have fathered Scotty, not Trey, and Mark Denning was revealed to be a traitor. This infuriated veteran actor Ed Nelson so much that he quit in disgust. Rory Calhoun had also departed the show, although he did sign a new contract shortly before the cancellation announcement, reappearing around the same time as Catherine Hickland. The last weeks of the show focused on Sloane's taking over as Queen of Baraq (Ali was presumed dead) and her efforts to hide from his enemies. Several new characters were introduced, the most memorable being Laureen Clegg (Janis Paige), Sam's first wife and Trey's real mother, who kept her identity secret and became Scotty's nanny. Sam, having become involved in an affair with the much younger Kate Wells (Cheryl Ann Wilson), found himself the victim of blackmail after breaking off with Kate as she had discovered the truth about Scotty's paternity. This lead the show to present two cliff-hangers, Myrna's vowing of war after Sam at Kate's demand demanded a divorce, and Sloane's standing in front of a firing squad. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Capitol (TV series)」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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