All My Shadows

For a hot minute, they had Lisa running a teen club called Crash, and honestly, the place looked like the inside of Oleson's Mercantile on Little House on the Prairie, but that could have been the in they needed to put the two together as friends. Plus, Lisa's soft spot for Jade could have created some slight tension between her and Carly, Gwen's half-sister. Jesse Soffer was hot, but I never really got why Jade was so attracted to Will. I've said it a million times, but let me just say it again. I needed/wanted a triangle between Jade, Aaron, and Dallas. There should have been a real bi triangle with Luke, Noah, and Maddie. To me, Gwen and Will were suited for the "stable" young couple role and honestly could have just been talk-tos to everyone else after their own drama cooled off until they left town. I low-key lied a few days ago when I said ATWT was never truly embarrassing. Cleo Babbitt. I forgot all about her. That was the low point for me.

It was so dumb, and I had blocked it out my memory until a few months ago. I liked Marnie S. but her Alison was bland and plain. Someone who'd been through what she'd gone through should have had more rawness, more fire. If they insisted on making her the cleanest, goodest girl, they could have at least did like AMC and introduced an Annie to her Marissa. But then again, Jade Taylor was right there, ready to be the biggest thorn in Oakdale's side, but they wasted her.

RIP to Santoni. I definitely associate him most with Owen Marshall: Counselor at Law, which is one of the many shows on YT that I need to make time to watch more of one of these days. I did a lot of off-and-on watching of RHODA this past weekend on the Decades network, and it reminded me of how much I love Billy Goldenberg's theme song for the show. I went to look up some of his other work and learned that he passed away last week. Definitely one of the GREAT film/TV composers. My favorite of his TV themes is probably Harry O. I've been in love with the variation of the theme that opens the first act of this particular episode for years.

My latest 1979 musings: - I knew Anna Maria Horsford was on the show in the late 70s, but didn’t realized she played a prisoner. Not really sure why I’m surprised by that. What makes it worse is that Clara is such a slave-like character! She comes in, listens to Holly’s stressing, swoons over Massah Chapman and Miss Holly’s romance, then vanishes off to her work in the prison. AMH has been a favorite of mine for years and years, and I just hoped that her first foray into soaps would have been better. - I’m so damn tired of everyone calling her “Evie.” It’s just Eve, damn it. Rita and Viola should be the only ones calling her Evie. - Speaking of Rita, I didn’t know that she’d eventually decide against having an abortion. I was really loving the idea of her standing firm in her decision and being annoyed and plagued by everyone around her telling her what she needed to do. I guess they were going for a warm Thanksgiving “miracle.” - I know people have different opinions of Mart Hulswit as Ed, but I’m loving his super emotional, highly dramatic version. I have next to know history at all with Peter Simon’s Ed, so I’m not sure how the character changes, but MH’s yelling and weeping Ed seems to be in line with any clips I’ve seen of Robert Gentry’s 1966-1969 portrayal. It’s a nice contrast to cool and calm Mike, and honestly both of them are believable as sons who were raised in Bill and Bert’s dysfunctional home. - It’s interesting how much more time and energy is spent on exploring the Bauer men’s antagonists, Roger and Alan, rather than on Ed and Mike themselves. - The time has come for anything, video or audio, from Roger’s early years on the show to surface. - Katie is one of the sweetest and most kind-hearted soap characters I’ve ever seen. Everything about her is just so pure and clean without her being written as the perfect, delicate flower that needs protection at all costs. I love her and the puppets! - Did ATWT and GL share music cues when Mi-Voix took over scoring the shows? There’s a distinct cue that plays from time-to-time that sounds identical to one heard at the very end of a 1975 ATWT episode that used to be online. - Speaking of music, I think I’ve identified a character theme for Elizabeth. I guess I didn’t expect that to still be a thing at this time, besides for characters who had been on for 10+ years by this point. - Were Jackie and Elizabeth always on good terms who was there ever heavy tension between the two? They’re good in 1977, and they’ve been good through 1979, but in between, there had to have been some drama, right? - I really dislike Viola. She’s pushy and kinda passive-aggressive, and she doesn’t really seem to care about Rita’s well-being at all. - Was Ann Jeffers ever more than just Mike’s assistant?

Yes! That crossed my mind. I shudder to even call it a "story" because it just wasn't. Everything was just a mini-story, and the result was that sometimes you got some really, really good single episodes (Bob and Kim's anniversary drama, for example), but never a really, really good full story.

I started watching as a child in 2001 because the stories interested me, and as came to learn more about the shows' pasts, I became even more invested in what was going on. Nearly 20 years later, I'm glad to actually be able to regularly watch so much of those older episodes because they're good, and it's great to be able to see so many stories and characters that I'd only ever read about back when I was still watching first-run soaps. It's nice to keep building familiarity with each soap.

And this was a part of the bigger problem - the show did not tell many long-term stories in its last five years. No slow build-ups, no very deliberate attempts to touch on every possible emotion attached to an event, no satisfying climax (whew, calm down), no lengthy period to pick up the pieces afterward, none of that. It was an endless cycle of cartoon villains who came in and terrorized the town for a month or two before heading out and relationships that happened because...they just happened. Part of what made it frustrating for me was that this was a soap that was known, more than any of the others, for being so slow-moving, so deliberate, so life-like in how things developed.

I have very strong feelings about ATWT’s last five years, but this about sums it up. There were so many tools in place for it to be a great show, but those tools were never utilized to their fullest potential, and it just made for a frustrating show. You had a solid core of important families, a decent spread of characters in all age groups, a cast that had a history working together on the show, characters that had long histories with each other, large enough openings to introduce new characters and explore new relationships, etc., but every single time it seemed like we were headed for something with substance, it was derailed for some short-term villain of the month story or side-lined for a boring A story. That being said, I give a lot of credit to maybe the first two years of JP’s run because for all of the show’s faults, it was mostly not a sick or embarrassing soap. I came into ATWT after watching JER’s second run at DAYS, which became an embarrassing joke. AMC was turning into a joke as McTavish’s third run quickly soured. Later, I was deep into Ronald’s OLTL until it, too, became a sick joke. As boring and lame as JP’s ATWT became, and as far from its glory days the show had strayed, it never had dead people transported to a tropical island, never had an aborted fetus roaming its sets, and never had men running around in their underwear trying to hide bags of blood. ATWT’s “bad” was nowhere near the level of bad that I saw on other shows that I had once enjoyed watching, so it’s just hard for me to beat up on it. Of course, I was a teen then, and I didn’t have the luxury of comparing the show to previous eras, but in the grand scheme of soaps in 2005-2010, ATWT was far from the worst, IMO.

William R. Moses interview from a few weeks ago. FC is talked about near the beginning.

I agree with three being the worst for those reasons. That's why I can understand JHB saying that Jesse's return wasn't that great. The fact that he was back - great. The path they had to take to get him back - stupid dumb sh!t. If characters died and stayed dead, I think we would have seen less reliance on serial killers and natural disasters. But then again, the UK soaps generally keeps dead characters dead, and they will still decimate a cast in the name of celebrating Christmas, the show's anniversary, or...anything, really. I think Cady was excited in the beginning. I remember listening to a podcast interview with her and MEK, and they were both very happy to be working together again, but we all know how it turned out. MEK was already checking out, but I think the Dixie fiasco might have been the last straw for him and he was mostly just collecting a check until 2011. It's depressing, honestly. McT might have cared about Babe and Krystal, but it's not like her caring translated to writing decent stories by this point. How do you manage to squander the talents of Cady, MEK, Bobbie Eakes, and David Canary? AMC had a goldmine, but it was wasted.

This is my problem with back from the dead stories, in general. You have to suspend any understanding of basic human emotion to buy into it, and that's a no-go for me. Your assessment of the story is right on the money. The false starts were stretched out for way too long that by the time Cady's Dixie returned and reunited with everyone, you just didn't care anymore. The backstory was so convoluted, and that made it even harder to accept her return without reservation. It just never felt like she was really "back" for good, so when she was killed off again, it wasn't very surprising nor was it really that sad. The show was just in a really ugly place by then. Di was never fully developed as an actual character because I guess they didn't think they'd have to? So she became yet another aimless character in that age range, sharing the role of "female Aidan" with Erin Lavery. Mustn't forget the de-SORAS'ed frat boy Del.

Man, I was so in love with Raul and his style, that voice, those eyes. I’d love to see DL in something else these days.

I remember her telling that story on her Intimate Portrait wayyyyy back (which was the first time I'd ever seen clips of the scene), and homegirl broke completely down in tears as she told it. She's always so honest and genuine any time she discusses OLTL, and it's never in a "Well, that's what I did before I became somebody" way. She considers OLTL the beginning of her being somebody, and I love that.

Charlie G. Hawkins (ex-Darren) recently spoke about his problems with being on the show. (here's the full podcast) I loved me some Darren when I watched regularly, and I've often wondered what he's been up to. I missed hearing that voice more than I thought I did! I kinda love him calling out WW for negativity. Digital Spy should've been shaded, too, but those folks would take that as a compliment.

Everyone losing their sh!t over Paul showing "lil Paul" to the rest of the world is so over-the-top, and I love it! Unpopular opinion, but Doug Davidson was hot then and is still good-looking now. Fight me on it, I don't care.

When the show was on both radio and TV, were each day's episodes the same, just formatted differently, or was it a continuing story where you had to watch on TV and also listen on radio to fully keep up?

They brought Dani back for a pretty forgettable six-month stint in 2008-2009 where they very disgustingly paired her with Craig. It was gross. They completely missed the boat by not bringing in Christina Hughes at some point. I will say it every time her name is mentioned. Christina and at least two of the Ward quads.

I just got to where Rita learns she’s pregnant and wants to keep it to herself but Viola decides to call Eve and tell her, and even though this is such a tiny transgression, I don’t think I’ve ever felt as quick and as intense a hatred as I feel towards Viola right now. How pushy and meddlesome! Fu.ck!

Thanks, Toups!! It was the 11-day year I was remembering. At the time, we were all just sighing and shaking our heads at both the 11-day year and the 4-day month, so I must’ve mixed them up in my head.

There are soooooooo many extras in these scenes in today's 2003 episode. Jesus, how the mighty have fallen.

I’m pretty sure it was PSNS, too. What year was Charity in Hell? @Toups, do you still have your pre-2005 episode counts?

Thanks for sharing that! I really enjoyed Ashley back in the day, and I still haven't forgiven them for killing him off they way they did (and calling it a 50th anniversary celebration!). This is one of my favorite Corrie scenes: I just really hated it when they paired him up as a comedy double act with that goddamn Graeme who was supposed to be the comedic god of Coronation Street but fizzled out after two or three years.

At one point, either DAYS or Passions had a total of 4 "days" advance over the course of a year's worth of episodes.

Lordddddddddddddddddddddddddddddd, the years have been good to that man. It's still summer time, so I almost feel justified in making a general all-soaps "Which oft-recast role was, on average, the hottest?" thread. Alan-Michael Spaulding might be my #1. And I'm honestly only bringing this up in regards to Chris Hughes on the strength of Korver and Dylan Bruce alone. Chase and Cosgrove were okay but they ain't it, boss.

That promo video was GREAT! No stuck-up pretension, no desperate attempts to be funny, just genuine excitement. Seeing all of those people took me right back to middle school lol The Parkers was my favorite, and not one single solitary ounce of me expected to see Mo'Nique or Countess in this lol. Glad they were able to get the others, for however briefly they appeared (RIP Yvette Wilson - she would have been all over this).