One Life to Live

One Life to Live is an American soap opera that follows the lives of the people in the fictional town of Llanview, PA. When the show was first aired it was 30 minutes long, then after several years it was expanded to 45 minutes and a few years later to an hour. The show focuses most of its attention on the Buchanan family and the Lord family, and the people who enter and leave their lives. The Lord family publishes the local newspaper. The Buchanans are a very wealthy family from Texas. The two families are linked by the former marriage of Victoria Lord and Clint Buchanan and their children Kevin, Joe and Jessica.

The Lord family has had a number of family members come and go over the years. When the story began the family was Victor Lord, Victoria's father, and Victoria's, or Viki's, sister Meredith. Both Victor and Meredith have since died. The family grew again when Viki's long-lost siblings, Tina and Todd, were discovered. The Buchanans started with two brothers Clint and Bo, and their patriarch and father, Asa. The two families then acquired an additional connection when Tina married Clint's long-lost son, Cord Roberts.

Besides featuring the loves and traumas the families have experienced, the show has tackled several social issues, such as inter-racial marriage, sexual abuse, the social divides created by money, ethnic origin and race, and heart trouble in women. One notable storyline was the topic of rape when the victim has been drinking and throwing herself at several college students during a party.