Behind the Screen was created by
David Jacobs (
Dallas,
Knots Landing) for CBS, which wanted a late night counterpoint to ABC and NBC's more successful efforts in that timeslot. Drawing upon his experience with the prime-time serials,
Behind the Screen was a dramatization of the goings-on at a fictional TV soap opera called
Generations. This was not the first attempt to explore the concept of a "soap within a soap" as radio soaps had used the idea as far as back as the 1940s (
A Woman To Remember). ''
Ryan's Hope'' had also done a similar storyline in the early 1980s. The show premiered as an hour-long special, and regular episodes were 30 minutes. It revolved around the beautiful young star of
Generations, Janie-Claire Willow (
Janine Turner), who was a pawn in a power struggle between her wheelchair-using mother Zina (
Joanne Linville), her powerful agent Evan (
Mel Ferrer) and her show's leading man, Brian (
Michael Sabatino). The show's early pacing was described as "a bit meandering" ==Cast and characters==