When the series lengthened from a half-hour to an hour in 1980, multiple cast members who portrayed characters from the original core families departed because their contracts only bound them to performing in a half-hour show. A number of the characters were recast until one of the few remaining original actors, Jaime Lyn Bauer, who portrayed Lorie Brooks, decided to leave. When she announced her intention not to renew her contract, Bell decided to replace the original core families. "As I studied the remaining cast, I realized I had two characters- Paul Williams, played by Doug Davidson, and Jack Abbott, played by Terry Lester- both of whom had a relatively insignificant presence on the show," Bell said. "They didn't have families. Hell, they didn't even have bedrooms. But these became the two characters I would build our two families around."