[2] The Corringtons' initial concept was for a show set in the antebellum South entitled Reunion, but NBC wanted something more in line with the hugely successful CBS primetime soap Dallas,[3] which was dominating the ratings.
The debut episode featured Iris on a plane, leaving Houston after visiting her son Dennis, who had relocated to Texas with his new love to open an art gallery.
During the first season of the series, the stories centered around the daily lives of the wealthy Wheelers and Bellmans and the middle-class Marshalls, and their ranching and oil interests.
In addition, Canadian viewers who either lived near the border and had access to NBC terrestrial affiliates or a cable TV subscription had the option of viewing the series mornings or afternoons, respectively.
A popular storyline at the end of 1981 called Hitopah[5] involved numerous characters in adventurous settings and intriguing circumstances to locate Sutars Rock, which nonetheless offered comic relief provided by good friends Ruby and Lurleen.
Hitopah was about an ancient Indian artifact called the Fire Compass that was covered with runes and which Ruby's boyfriend Beau Baker opened.
Also, while he never appeared on the actual series, Texas Lieutenant Governor William P. Hobby, Jr., took a tour of the program's Brooklyn studio, and praised the show's realistic visual feel.
The premiere of Texas came at a time when NBC's daytime lineup (consisting of Another World, Days of Our Lives, and The Doctors) had fallen into ratings trouble, after a highly successful period in the early and mid-1970s.
Due in no small part to the then-peak success of ABC's General Hospital, Texas remained in the bottom echelon of the daytime serial chart with a 3.8 rating, tying with The Doctors for last place, 12th, in 1980.
[7] The show had a very difficult task from the beginning in the ratings for NBC; its 3:00 pm timeslot competitors were ABC's General Hospital, then the highest-rated daytime soap opera due in large part to the popularity of the Luke and Laura storyline, and CBS' Guiding Light, which had undergone a ratings resurgence due to popular, more youth-oriented stories and characters created by headwriter Douglas Marland.
Critics complained that Iris Bancroft (who was known on Another World as being a villainess) had become too tame in her new environment in Houston, and that other roles were poorly cast or suffered from paper-thin writing.
In addition to popular Shriner, veteran actor Jay Hammer, who had a notable credit role as Allan Willis during the 1978–1979 season on the primetime CBS sitcom The Jeffersons, replaced Chandler Hill Harben in February 1981 as Max Dekker.
In late 1981, Gail Kobe became executive producer and Pam Long (who appeared on the show as Ashley Linden Marshall) became head writer.
Several Texas actors appeared shortly after Long began writing the show; Jay Hammer, James Rebhorn, Harley Jane Kozak, and Michael Woods were all cast in new roles on Guiding Light.
Long and Kobe also wooed Beverlee McKinsey back to daytime to portray Baroness Alexandra Spaulding Von Halkein, a role she played until 1992.
This move, though, may have exacerbated the ratings problems for Texas; although it no longer had to face General Hospital, it was now directly against CBS' hit game show The Price Is Right.
Shortly after the cancellation of Texas and The Doctors, NBC turned its focus back to game shows and improving the struggling but still higher-rated soaps Days of Our Lives and Another World in early 1983.
Texas was used as a starring vehicle for Daytime Emmy-nominated Beverlee McKinsey, whose Another World character of Iris Carrington, penned in 1972 by Harding Lemay on the mother show as the rich, spoiled daughter of publishing magnate Mackenzie Cory, was made the focal point of the series.
In 2006, Procter and Gamble began making several of its soaps available, a few episodes at a time, through America Online's AOL Video service, downloadable free of charge.