Secrets of Midland Heights

Series overview

Secrets of Midland Heights was a television drama built around the romantic entanglements and hidden truths of teenagers and their parents in the fictional college town of Midland Heights. It aired Saturday nights at 10 pm Eastern, but failed to draw viewers and was cancelled after just eight episodes. The series was often compared to a darker, 1980s version of Peyton Place, with its focus on scandalous affairs and buried secrets. The central character, Lisa Rogers, played by Linda Hamilton, was caught between two love interests: college athlete Burt Carroll, portrayed by Lorenzo Lamas, and fraternity member Mark Hudson, played by Bill Thornbury.

Meanwhile, the seemingly perfect heiress Ann Dulles, played by Doran Clark, was secretly seeing high school dropout John Grey, played by Jim Youngs. Holly Wheeler, first played by Linda Grovenor and later by Marilyn Jones, was eager to become intimate with her boyfriend Teddy Welsh, played by Daniel Zippi. But the teens were stunned to learn that Holly’s mother Dorothy, played by Bibi Besch, was having an affair with Teddy’s father Nathan, a widowed professor at the college.

The show also featured a rivalry between two wealthy families: the Millingtons, made up of the widowed Margaret and her son Guy, and the powerful Wheeler clan. The series was produced by David Jacobs, Lee Rich, and Michael Filerman, who had previously worked on other serial dramas such as Flamingo Road and Knots Landing. After the show was pulled, the producers said it would be retooled and possibly return. Many cast and crew members later worked on a different ABC serial, King's Crossing, which also had a short run. Following the end of Secrets of Midland Heights, Lorenzo Lamas went on to join the cast of the soap opera Falcon Crest.