All My Shadows

I’m home sick from work, and I’m just imagining a new soap coming on at this precise moment. I need this to be a hit!

I've been on an LHOTP high ever since a few weeks before the Simi Valley reunion. I've joined several FB fan groups to discuss the show (and man, those older ladies can be quite cntty with one another, but it's hilarious), and I've been watching it constantly via Freevee either through their live channel or random episodes on demand. I literally cannot get enough of my Walnut Grove peeps at the moment, and I love it.

Jonathan Gilbert coming back into the fold has probably been the most special thing of this 50th anniversary year. You could tell that he was a little hesitant in the beginning to embrace being part of such a devoted fandom, but he's certainly found some comfort in it, and it's just really sweet. I hope we hear more from him as time goes on.

Thanks for the tag, @DRW50!! Looks like a new unearthed episode to me - I know I've never seen it before. I'll check it out later tonight!

I'm in a Facebook group that posts tons of vintage TV listings, and it never ceases to amaze me how much variety there used to be in network daytime. Even with an adequate supply of soaps and games, there was still plenty of room for primetime repeats, movies, talk shows, cartoons, local programming, etc. You would think that with 24/7 access to news via cable and the internet, surrendering time to the affiliates would offer more than what it has over the last 20-25 years.

11 hours ago, Khan said:

I wouldn't say he's "hot as hell," but he definitely has become a very handsome young man, lol.

He was such a dorky kid on ATWT, I thought he was a child then, but it turns out he and I are only three years apart in age. The power of a good haircut must never be underestimated.

Good GOD, Mick Hazen is hot as hell.

And bless you, Eileen! That was a nice visit.

On 3/13/2024 at 12:01 PM, safe said:

  Here are some Soapnet episodes that were put up over on YouTube over the last year under rogershope --- 2, 10,12, 14, 16,23, 24, 26, 28, 30, 43, 45, 46.

 

If you click on Ryan's Hope, Part 1 playlist--- rogershope combined what TheSquirrelyGirl had put up ---with those episodes they added that I had listed above.

 

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCfFJmfIGg9Exuwf17gb5-Kw/search?query=Ryan's+Hope

 

 

 

Thank you so much!

I really wish I had more time to go crazy and speculate a million things about this new soap, but once summer is here, I expect to be obsessed.

Some random thoughts I've had...

- I love the fact that it's rumored to be replacing THE TALK. Get that outta here! Nothing would be sweeter than to see this new soap avenge the death of one of the old guard. Even if the random talk show survives this, I like the conversation centering around it being easily expendable in favor of a new soap.

- I hate "The Gates" as a title. If it's titled after a family, then I hate it EVEN MORE because unless their last name is just "Gate," the title should be "The Gateses," which sounds clunky. If it's a reference to a gated community, I still dislike it, and then I also dislike the premise of it being set in a gated community because no daily hour-long American daytime soap needs to be set in one neighborhood. For all of that, go UK and give us 3-4 half-hour eps a week.

- I know I'm alone in this and it's not gonna happen (and really shouldn't because this is 2024 and we are in modern times and not everything needs to have the grandmaw aesthetic as much as I wish it did), but give me a good old-fashioned syrupy soap title. "Behind Hidden Gates." "Through the Gates Unlocked." "

- The longest-running soaps to debut at an hour are PSNS (9 years and a month) and Santa Barbara (roughly 8 and a half years). We're in a different era, so that information might not be indicative of anything, but if we got 8-9 years out of this new soap, I'd be happy with that.

- Again, one neighborhood is too small for a daily hour soap, but so is one family. An old-fashioned standard that still works is the "two family" set-up that started off ATWT, AMC, and Y&R. With an hour soap, maybe up it to three families, with the third family built gradually around a character (or characters) who might seem to be strictly supporting in the beginning.

- Going back to old-fashioned things that I already know most people will say the new show should avoid. I want this baby shot on video tape, please and thank you. Three cameras, please and thank you, and all three cameras better know how to get all up in some faces for the tight close-ups. If we're gonna do a soap, then let's do a soap.

- What will CBS need this thing to do in order to consider it a success? If they're expecting numbers higher than Y&R, then I'd rather them just not do it at all. They need to be happy with substantially less than what Y&R is bringing in, and hopefully there's enough buzz to make it a streaming hit.

- Let's cast it. If we're doing two families at the start, then I want one headed by a veteran soap star (Debbi, where you at?) and one headed by a slightly younger name from a classic primetime series (like Karyn Parsons, if she still acts).

And most important. More important than anything else. Clarence.

Love of Life credited cast members in its opening sequence throughout the 50s, as seen in the several episodes available online, and Paradise Bay credited Keith Andes (and maybe Marion Ross too?) in the 60s, but I haven’t seen anything from that show since one episode was posted on WoST over 20 years ago.

52 minutes ago, danfling said:

The late Mr. McCourt played Kevin McGuinness on Ryan's Hope.   He also appeared on Search for Tomorrow and One Life to Live.

He also made a few appearances at Christmastime on AMC in its last few years on ABC.

In regards to RH, why are the earliest months of the show so inconsistent to find online? I don't think I've ever seen the second and third episodes, and there are plenty more within the first 60 or so that are missing. Surely they must have aired on SOAPnet?

On 3/8/2024 at 4:17 PM, applcin said:

I'm binging "Little House On The Prairie"; starting season 3 now. I haven't seen most of them in decades and it's their 50th anniversary this year so as good a time as any. A lot of the cast and guest stars keep doing interviews on youtube so the behind-the-scenes info is pretty cool, too. And they do love putting out their memoirs, lol; they think Alison Arngrim's is particularly good.  Many of them have a lot of love for Michael Landon and Victor French. Not so much for Melissa Sue Anderson. Charlotte Stewart (Miss Beadle) was quite the free spirit; having been "buddies with benefits", as she called it, with guys like French and Jim Morrison. (Now I have a mental image of Miss Beadle with Mr. Edwards, lol.)
Anyway, it's been nice to revisit something familiar from childhood yet where I don't remember a lot of the episodes. Also, seeing how many of the old-time film stars they brought on as guests is cool, too. Melissa Gilbert compared it to being like The Love Boat, lol.

Enjoy! Little House was always an institution within my extended family growing up, so I decided to try it out for myself when I was maybe 11 or 12, and I've been an avid fan ever since. Season 4 is my absolute favorite - so many memorable episodes like The Wolves, Whisper Country, The Handyman, The High Cost of Being Right, Castoffs, My Ellen, and I'll Be Waving as You Drive Away.

4 hours ago, Khan said:

But "Hotel"...?  About half of their regular cast was okay to watch, and almost none of them played a character with any real substance, which was especially noticeable whenever the stories in a particular episode were dull (which was entirely too often, IMO).

I think the cast was too big, to be honest. There were seven of them! Obviously you're gonna have Peter and Christine, but Billy *and* Julie *and* Dave *and* Megan *and* Mark? Not to mention Anne Baxter. Had it been a true soap, then sure, but as the continuity for the guest characters, there was no need for that many people. At the very most, they could have kept it to Peter, Christine, Billy, Mark, and Julie, and then each character would have had a purpose within the bigger picture of a hotel stay.

I'd love love love a combination Love Boat/Fantasy Island/Hotel channel. Pluto really has the tools to create two Spelling channels - one for the soapy dramas and one for the action/adventure stuff. I'd watch both constantly.

I know a few months ago, I said the exact same things about Hotel and not understanding why it gets the primetime soap label lol

I, too, have the complete series box set and have only watched a tiny bit of it. It not being a real primetime soap makes it hard to keep watching episode after episode. It's a much more casual watch that you'll enjoy sometimes and maybe not at other times. I think it's true place would be co-opting some time on Pluto TV's Love Boat channel for a few hours each day (like how the Happy Days channel switches to Laverne & Shirley and Mork & Mindy for a while). It's a channel surfing show.

3 minutes ago, Franko said:

I've been spending the last few minutes trying to think of a recognizable, not currently active, preferably with some history on CBS, game show that could be revived and run in any spare 30-minute timeslot.

Concentration? The Joker's Wild? Tic-Tac-Dough? Sale of the Century? Scrabble?

I'd personally love to see a Tattletales or Hollywood Squares revival, but who do you get as stars in this day and age? Also, some shows were already revived too recently (To Tell the Truth, Match Game, Card Sharks).

I feel like any new game show revival would have to be host-heavy, to go along with TPIR and LMAD. Maybe a new run of Millionaire?

Gosh, if they cut The Talk and put in this new soap plus a new game show, CBS would have three soaps and three game shows, which...once again, never in a million years did I think we'd ever be back here.

This is tremendous news for our favorite genre! I saw it on Facebook earlier, but I have to say, coming here and seeing a big red breaking news banner at the top of of the page warmed my heart. Never in a million years did any of us think we'd see a new daytime drama again, and here we are.

P&G's involvement gives me hope that we will see (at least) GL and ATWT given the post-mortem respect they deserve. I don't see them ever being revived, but I'll gladly eat crow if I'm wrong. I'd be satisfied with more official releases (preferably DVD but streaming is fine) and some merch.

Fingers crossed that this comes to fruition and gives us everything we've been wanting. Definitely looking forward to tons of speculation about various aspects of the show with all of the great soap minds we have here on SON!

For example, the format and timeslot. I can't see it being a full hour, and AFAIC, Let's Make a Deal has never had any business being a 60-minute show. Cut that back to thirty minutes, slot The Gates at thirty minutes, and somehow find a way to pair it with Y&R. The TPIR/Y&R combo (whether back to back or with the news in between) has been an institution for decades now, but in order for this show to succeed, it has to feed off of Y&R.

21 hours ago, applcin said:

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/charles-dierkop-dead-butch-cassidy-and-the-sundance-kid-police-woman-1235836234/

Charles Dierkop, Actor in ‘Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid,’ ‘The Sting’ and ‘Police Woman,’ Dies at 87

This is even more significant as Police Woman, up until now, had been the oldest TV series in which its entire regular cast was still alive.

On 2/10/2024 at 2:22 PM, I Am A Swede said:

Anyone who has died on-screen in front of the audience.

Yes. And any supervillain type character that shows end up using as a crutch - REGARDLESS OF POPULARITY - such as James, Stefano, Mitch, etc.

On 2/13/2024 at 9:26 AM, Althea Davis said:

Hello there lovers... As it seems... ATWT is the only soap I haven't tried and watched and I am in my goal for 2024 to watch multiple soaps at the same time... I am already watching Bold, Days, Guiding light and GH classics.. and am looking forward to try ATWT - I haven't seen even an episode... OLTL is definitely not my cup of tea from the episodes I have tried.

If some good person can help me - what year should I start with... are there complete years available somewhere... are there enough on youtube.

I will be very appreciative for any help! 

Thank you!

Also, am I in for a great soap? 

Everyone will tell you to watch the late 80s, but don't sleep on the precious few episodes from the 50s-70s that are out there, especially anything you can find from the early 60s. They basically set down the foundation for everything that comes later on.

AMC:
- Jesse should not have been killed off in 1988. Not even ten years later, they were already trying to put DW and DM back together on Loving and The City, and when that flopped, they had ghost Jesse popping up on AMC. They realized they made a mistake and finally brought him BFTD in '08, but imagine if Jesse and Angie could have just been reunited without a convoluted storyline in the mid-90s. There's no guarantee that they would have stayed through to the end, but it's likely they would have.
- Simone Torres. She really became a good, classic Nixonian character, serving as comic relief when needed but also involved in the light romance storylines, but there was a stupid serial killer storyline to be told...
- Anne Tyler. This one is tough. The general consensus is that she was all out of story by the early 80s, and the show didn't seem interested in finding a suitable long-term recast, but Anne's death kinda solidified Phoebe as just Brooke's wacky, bourgie aunt when she could have had more to do as Anne's mother. The show also lacked women who were older than Erica, Brooke, and Ellen but younger than Phoebe, Mona, and Ruth.

I have one of the AMC storyline novels from the 70s somewhere, along with "The Man from Oakdale," which was an ATWT tie-in from around 2005 or so.

17 minutes ago, DRW50 said:

Did Jane actually leave at this time? For some reason I thought she chose to leave, rather than being fired.

Liz was sent off to a sanitarium for a bit after her miscarriage before coming back and learning that Susan was pregnant with Dan's child. Most online sources say that the recast from JH to Judith McGilligan happened in 1972, but based off this interview, it seems more likely to have happened in 1971.

I don't know why I thought KA had already had a child. Congrats to her, though. It's always good to see "our" people thriving in a post-soap world.

21 minutes ago, Khan said:

And who will sleep with anyone (unlike AMC and OLTL, who have much too much self-respect).

And died an early death after moving to The City and getting hooked on hallucinogenic drugs. My synesthetic mind could probably do this all day.

On 2/1/2024 at 10:47 AM, Darn said:

How about some of the ones where it's claimed Irma or Agnes (I can't remember who) killed off a family in a plane crash? Or having someone fall up the stairs?

"Fall up the stairs" comes from ATWT, where character Liz Talbot (Betsy's mother) died from a ruptured spleen after "falling up the stairs." It's always been my understanding that she fell while running up the stairs, but describing it as "falling up the stairs" is more quirky/interesting, so that's what the anecdotes stuck with. Another part of the story claims that Irna killed Liz off because she objected to actress Jane House appearing nude onstage in a play, but Liz was already recast to Judith McGilligan by the time she died.

On 2/2/2024 at 2:41 PM, Darn said:

What the hell does sister soaps even mean? Is that just a fancy term for spin-off?

I was hoping/waiting for someone to ask this question because there is literally no definition of what makes or doesn't make two shows "sister soaps," so any overblown examination of what makes two soaps "sister soaps" is pointless overindulgence. No one is about to wait around for someone to decide what it means in her head so that the rest of us can then have permission to use the term accordingly. As far as I'm concerned, AMC and OLTL are sister soaps, and Loving is their little sister who lived in their shadow. GL and ATWT are sister soaps, and AW is their stepsister by another dad.

I've watched the odd episode here and there over the years, but I definitely plan to watch it from beginning to end within the next few months. To me, EIE is to Family as Little House is to The Waltons. EIE/LHOTP were a bit more over-the-top with the emotions, drama, sentimentality. Waltons/Family were more understated. The four together are to the 70s what Dallas/Dynasty/Knots/FC are to the 80s, as far as I'm concerned. It's highly possible we might not have had the 80s soaps without those 70s family dramas.