As The World Turns Discussion Thread

[DramatistDreamer]

It's amazing how consistent a character Susan Stewart was through various regimes.  Actually characters like Bob, Kim and even John (with the exception of a wayward storyline here or there) were remarkably consistent over decades.  My one quip is that the final decade, the writers made Susan quite oblivious with the Dr. Rick Decker storyline but the writing was far from top shelf at that point.  But when you compare these characters with characters like Craig, whom they took a sledgehammer to in the final decade and even having Barbara jump out of windows, many of the characters who were created in the 60s and 70s remained pretty true to their personalities-- you didn't see a whole lot of OOC stories.

[All My Shadows]

I think it was a blessing in disguise that they weren't always running frontburner stories for the older characters. They were able to take on the supporting roles that they were due to inherit, making it easy for the actors to continue to play them with the same spirit that they'd played them with for years. If they'd been hot commodities at the end, they would have been obliterated.

Edited February 4, 2016 by All My Shadows

[Mitch]

Agreed...I never thought it was bad that the vets took on a supporting role in later years...Grandpa Hughes and Judge Lowell werent out screwin' around either. It just got to the point with some of the vets that they werent included when they should have been to add "richness," to the show....i.e. Lisa being involved with Carly..etc. I always thought they did a good job of keeping Bob and Kim involved and the respected patriarch and matriarch of the town...though I still can't beleive they took away Kim's kitchen and we had to have holidays at Tom and Margo's or wherever.  Look at how Guiding Light ended with Reva and Josh...they had been given storyline after storyline to stay on the frontburner and it just screwed them up..by the time the show ended they were well past the date where instead of running around finding new partners they should have settled down..it got tedious. If ATWT continued on Carly and Jack and Holden and Lily would have ended up the same...as Reva and Josh a revolving door of partners breaking them up to just end up at square one again...

 

 

 

 

[DramatistDreamer]

Yeah, I have to agree that the writers' lack of intense storylines for the older characters toward the end of the show's run spared them from a lot of potentially character annihilating storylines.  A good writer would've been able to put them in the midst of active storylines without putting them OOC but we know good writers were almost completely nonexistent toward the end.

 

This is probably going to be an unpopular opinion but I'm not even sure that Lily and Holden should ever wind up together, their indecisive ending actually appeared true to form when you think about their history as a couple- they spent enormous amounts of time apart, were married to others at least twice,etc.  They spent so much time "on the outs" with each other that it seemed fitting that as the show was ending, they were again "on the outs" , with a slight possibility of reconcilation. To a lesser extent, Carly and Jack would've been headed in that same direction since that seemed all the writers were capable of at that point.  They only seemed capable of creating these convoluted make up to break up storylines.  I guess that was the one saving grace of the old characters being somewhat neglected at that stage.

[P.J.]

I wish the writers would have been brave enough to simply end Holden and Lily when Martha Byrne left.

[DRW50]

I think it's more that the show more often than not chose not to trash the characters to prop up their kids. They did sometimes, like the rewrites claiming that Susan was drunk and neglectful throughout that waste of space Alison's childhood, or all the times Barbara was written as Cruella to push story for Paul, but more often than not, they didn't. 

 

When they did write more for characters like Lucinda and Barbara at the end, I thought the writing was decent enough.

[Scrapple]

It still infuriates me to no end how ATWT ended it's run. AMC had virtually no time to wrap things up, and their fans seemed okay with the end. ATWT had almost a year, and the ending was awful. It was as if they were ending a show that had been on for 5 years, not a 54-year run. I bet everyone reading this could have come up with better storylines/endings for characters than Goutman and Company.

[DRW50]

 

Well that's because Agnes Nixon wanted to tie up to the show even with the strong possibility of a revival, while Goutman just wanted to do what he wanted to do. I think he even said they were going to act like they hadn't been canceled, which is ludicrous. He had no respect for ATWT's history or its fans, and he made that clear. 

Edited February 5, 2016 by DRW50

[Paul Raven]

Reading old synopses about the introduction of Melinda Grey in August 77. TPTB obviously wanted a new young character on the show and tied her to Kim,Bob etc by making her Jennifer Hughes' long lost daughter.

I wonder why they went to all the trouble of creating Melinda when Jennifer's daughter Barbara already existed? She was in the same age range and had been off the canvas for years after a short time onscreen.So her personality could have been shaped to that of Melinda.

Also,that brings up some questions.

If Barbara and Melinda were around the same age,what were the circumstances of Melinda's conception? Who was her father? Shortly after giving up Melinda did she marry Chuck Ryan and get pregnant with Barbara?

How was it explained that Barbara never visited her mom when she was sick and died? Was this dealt with when Barbara finally arrived in Oakdale in late 78?

[SoapDope]

Those are very good questions. I also wonder why they never had Kim have a child by her first husband Jason Reynolds who had died before she arrived on screen.

 

 

 

[Mitch]

I think Melinda filled the role of someone who was "in the family," but "on the outside." (ironically a role filled by Barbara after Marland reshaped her.)  I think they needed someone with an axe to grind perhaps...(not sure if she did but most illigit long lost soap kids have axes to grind...) Also, being that her mom was dead and she never knew her, gave Kim and Bob a good guilt reason to parent her. I have no idea if they actually did that or not as the clips I see of her she just seems to be there and not really at odds with anyone. Too bad they killed her off because of back stage politics between the Dee actress and Zenk.  Instead of writing her out they should have had her hook up with Tom after Babs dumped him for James. Babs would be kinda jealous..especially when James true colors appeared and like his father, Tom needed a vixen to wake him up.

[DRW50]

Keith Charles circa his ATWT run.

 

[DramatistDreamer]

I'm watching episodes from 1990 with Heather Rattray and perhaps this has been discussed before (please tell me if it was) but I'm wondering whether there would have been less or little to no backlash if TPTB had waited a little while longer before recasting Rattray in the role?  I'm comparing it to Frannie and I think Mary Ellen Stuart worked pretty well because there was a period of time where we didn't see JM's Frannie, plus I think because Frannie had been recasted a few times in the past viewers may have been more open to a new actress in the role.  Martha Byrne was only the 2nd Lily and she was the one to play most of the events in the Lily's life.

And the shift in Lily's personality, from naive young woman to sophisticated and worldly  femme fatale aspiring business mogul must have been jarring for some fans of the Lily character.  Taken in isolation, those scenes between Heather and Burke Moses are fantastic (as well as her scenes with Michael David Morrison and Elizabeth Hubbard), and Lily's champagne scene with Sean Baxter, with her blunt manner of seduction but it is a vast departure from the Lily last seen a very short while ago.  Contrast that with the Frannie character, who also underwent a shift (somehow I couldn't imagine JM's Frannie having such a big fallout with her sister Barbara) but her shift was gradual with a lot of time for viewers to get used to it that by the time Frannie and Barbara had become mutual antagonists.  Although, I have to be honest, I was never too keen on what was once a very tight sisterly bond being dissolved like that.

 

Remember when some of us were wishing that Iva had not been written to put everyone else's happiness above her own?  I was just thinking, what if Iva had interrupted Kirk and Ellie's wedding?  I think that could have been cool as hell and Lisa Brown, Tom Wiggin and Renée Props probably would have played it wonderfully.  And someone should've stopped that tacky azz wedding anyway.

 

I feel badly for Casey who doesn't feel comfortable in some social situations.  Too bad those robotic arms were not in use back when this storyline was being written.  Casey would not have been so self-conscious about eating in public.  Did Bill Shanks decide to leave the show or did they just decide to end Casey?  I thought there was plenty of story left for the character.  Oh well.

[All My Shadows]

Here's a Patricia Bruder Debrovner interview from last year, mostly on her work in the ethical movement. She talks for a few moments about ATWT beginning at the 9-minute mark. I'm so happy that more and more of her work on the show is being shared online.

 

Edited February 11, 2016 by All My Shadows

[DRW50]

I think he wanted to leave. I'm not sure. I know he agreed to extend his stay by 6 months so that Casey would have a bond with Ellen Dolan's Margo the way he had with HBS, otherwise they knew viewers wouldn't have as much emotional involvement in Margo pulling his plug. 

 

I think they could have waited longer to recast Lily, but I also think that the changes were just too abrupt in Lily even with more time. Things like telling sending a letter to tell Hal that Barbara had known Adam's paternity - that was pure spite. Lily at worst would have told Hal in anger, in a spur of the moment action. Frannie was basically still Frannie, and Julianne Moore had not even really had that much of a role as Frannie in her last year on the show. She'd split her scenes between Frannie and Sabrina, and Frannie left town a lot. 

 

I was reading an old SOD from 1990 about the nastiest thing your character has done. Liz Hubbard said during the John/Susan affair, she wanted to make Susan fall off the wagon, but the show wouldn't let her. While I respect them for that choice (later regimes would have loved it), I have to admit it would have been interesting to see.