Welcome to The Crossroads Years, the storyline database from the Crossroads Fan Club focusing on the first decade of the soap, as produced by Reg Watson who went on to create other series such as The Young Doctors, Prisoner: Cell Block H, Sons & Daughters and Neighbours.
Foreword By John Jameson-Davis, founder of the Crossroads Appreciation Society.
“A few years ago Peter Kingsman spent a full week at Central Television working for UK Gold and managed to get hold of a copy of these items thanks to the archive team in Birmingham.
“ATV and Central kept every episode of Crossroads in script form; a valuable source of information on the show now stored on microfilm rather than paper documents to save space. Central allowed us to make duplicates of the episodes, and various ITC Synopsis information.
“However, they copied very badly. I later typed some of them out on my old Amstrad and this has now been formatted into a modern document. So here it is in all its glory, our exclusive look at classic episodes of Crossroads. Especially episode one, as originally penned by Peter Ling. I’d forgotten so many aspects of this wonderful first episode, especially the ending. Episode two follows with the cliffhanger where Meg meets Carlos, expecting him to be a woman.”
Crossroads was a daily serial that aired on commercial television in the UK from ATV. It was produced in Birmingham and revolved around the stories of a Midland Motel in the hamlet of Burbank near the village of Kings Oak. The series starred West End actress Noele Gordon in the lead role of Meg Richardson, later Mortimer, the owner of the Crossroads Motel of which the programme took its title. The episodes were also screened in several other countries including France, Malta, China, and Australia.
Here we bring highlights of arguably the show’s best years – those overseen by Reg Watson. Reg oversaw the first decade of the motel saga and The Crossroads Years charts the episodes of that time. While Reg’s years may have been the best for Crossroads it also, sadly, is the era most missing episodes in the videotape archive of ATV. So these synopsis, in many cases, are all that remain of those early years of the show.
The synopsis information featured here is not copied from the archive versions word for word. The plotlines and character information have been written especially for these pages from four archive information sources to provide the most accurate details for each edition.
How we compile the information. There are four sources of episode details that we use to bring, hopefully, the most accurate details of each edition of Crossroads. Firstly there are the ‘Production Meeting Notes‘. These are usually from around three months before the episodes were recorded and detail plot progression, character development/creation and any changes that have to be made. These meetings were overseen by Reg Watson with writers and directors in attendance.
Secondly, there is the ‘Episode Script’ itself. These provide the dialogue and scene details. The script is also useful to note characters/actor appearances in episodes who are omitted – in error – or for other reasons from the TV listings. For example, an actor may be in an episode but not speak – so they do not get a listing credit in the television guide. Then there is the ‘Programme Synopsis‘. These were created for the TV listings magazines and also to provide ITC Distribution with each episode’s information for overseas sales. These are the most accurate as they were made from what was actually recorded in each episode.
The fourth and final information details come from the ‘TV listings‘ themselves – TV World/TV Times – which confirm cast names and actor details. This is handy as sometimes the script doesn’t provide an updated character name or misses out on casting information if it was done ‘last minute’.
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CROSSROADS continued with Jack Barton as producer until 1984, then Philip Bowman and finally Willam Smethurst. From January 1982 the production company was Central Television through to April 1988. The soap was revived for a short period in the 2000s when Carlton attempted two new series in 2001 and again in 2003.
Information from TV World, TV Times, ITC Synopsis Press Releases and the Central Television Archive (1997). Additional information courtesy of John Drury, John Kavyo, Bob Hope and Richard Danes.