Age of Melodramatic Miniseries

Glamour, power, champagne breakfasts in satin sheets--welcome to television''s most dazzling and overlooked genre: women-centric melodrama miniseries of the 1980s and 1990s. Decades before Real Housewives, rags-to-riches fantasies depicting strong women overcoming tragedy to take charge of their destinies were a big hit with TV audiences.

Reflecting the "greed is good" ethos of the day and en...