Somerset (sometimes called Another World in Somerset or Another World: Somerset) is an American television soap opera which ran on NBC from March 30, 1970, until December 31, 1976. The show was a spin-off of another NBC serial, Another World. The show was created by Robert Cenedella and was produced by Lyle B Hill. Overview Initially, the show revolved around Melissa "Missy" Palmer Matthews (Carol Roux), Lahoma Vane Lucas (Ann Wedgeworth) and Sam Lucas (Jordan Charney) and Missy's young son Ricky Matthews. These were popular characters who were first seen on Another World. They moved to the fictional town of Somerset, an area in the northern Detroit suburbs in Michigan and started their lives anew. The first stories on the serial revolved around the trio's progress in starting new friendships and romantic entanglements. In Somerset, the other families of importance were the Davis family, the Buchanans, the Grants and the Delaneys, who ran Somerset's major employer, Delaney Brands. Within six months, Missy was gone and new characters had been added, including a new family, the Kurtz family and several female characters to act as love interests for Dr. Stan Kurtz and Peter Delaney. In early 1971, the show changed writers, with Robert Cenedella leaving the show in favor of famed mystery writer Henry Slesar. Further, Somerset slowly moved away from the traditional soap opera format, and started telling stories that dealt heavily with the Mafia and other types of crime, not unlike CBS's The Edge of Night which Slesar also wrote. After the departure of Slesar, several other writers attempted to bring the show's ratings up with varying mixtures of the two previous formats, each of them slowly removing nearly all of the original characters. One of them, Roy Winsor, was the creator of Search for Tomorrow, Love of Life, and The Secret Storm. The premiere cast included Jason Bernard (as Ricky Matthews), Douglas Chapin (as Tony Cooper), Ralph Clanton (as Jasper Delaney), Nicolas Coster (as Robert Delaney), Len Gochman (as Peter Delaney), Alice Hirson (as Ellen Matthews), Georgann Johnson (as Ellen Bishop Grant),Ed Kemmer (as attorney Dick Grant), Susan MacDonnell (as Jill Grant Farmer), Ron Martin (as David Grant), Walter Matthews (Gerald Matthews), Wynne Miller (as singer Sandy Buchanan Delaney), Gary Sandy (as Randy Buchanan), Fred J. Scollay (as Harry Wilson aka Ike Harding) Dorothy Stinnette (as Laura Delaney Cooper), Paul Sparer (as Rex Cooper), Philip Sterling (as Rafe