Family Passions (German: Macht der Leidenschaft) was the first hour-long television serial produced in Canada and Germany.
To assist with bringing in a German audience, the show went on location to Hamburg when a jewel thief and his lover (who had been in a coma for seven years and wanted revenge on the woman her husband had married in the meantime) stole the Dimarco diamond from a museum in that country.
Another milestone of this show was the exploration of a lesbian couple attempting to adopt a daughter whose biological mother was deemed unfit because of her addiction to cocaine.
Family Passions featured popular soap actors such as Kin Shriner, Roscoe Born, Andrew Jackson and Gordon Thomson as well as many Canadian actors including future The Walking Dead actress Laurie Holden, future Star Wars actor Hayden Christensen, Barry Flatman, Jennifer Dale, Jason Cadieux, Susan Hogan and Von Flores.
Also German actors such as Dietmar Schönherr, Raphael Wilczek [de], Adelheid Arndt and Tina Ruland made an appearance on the show.