All My Shadows

I had no idea Split Second was in development as early as 1965 - assuming this is the Hatos-Hall game that would end up airing on ABC from 1972-1975 and then in syndication from 1986-1987.

Anyone watch this CW drama? I started the second season today, and I'm hooked - it's one of the few shows that I can sit and easily watch four or five episodes while being 100% engaged the entire time. It has obvious call-backs to my wonderful, wonderful favorite, Friday Night Lights, but it falls short of FNL in some categories (I get that the football culture in California is not near the level of that in Texas, but I can't get over how low-energy all of the games are on AA) while actually doing some things better than FNL did (let's face it - FNL's biggest shortcoming was its handling of race). Outside of just comparing it to another high school football show, though, I generally like most of the characters here, and yeah, most of the stories are typical teen soap fare, but it's good stuff, and the strong cast makes it work. I thought the first half of season one did a great job of blending its two worlds - high school football and gang activity - together seamlessly. Everything just fit together so well, but later, there seemed to be more of a separation between the stories and characters with Spencer as the only thing connecting them (which makes sense). Season 2 seems to be fixing that a little bit. Lastly - I have absolutely no business being in love with a fictional 17-year-old, but here we are. These two need to just sleep together.

I love that early glimpse of Erica interacting with a disenchanted ex-husband, something we'd end up seeing so much over the years.

I watched these about a month or two ago, and I really enjoyed them. I mean, it really was a brilliant idea to jump on the "beach party" trend and do a teen soap in that vein. It might've been smarter to model it more after Peyton Place, with an evening timeslot where teens could actually tune in. ABC did have Gidget that same season, though, so maybe they didn't want to have thematically similar shows on in primetime? Honestly, NTY probably lasted about as long as it needed to. I'm holding out hope that the entire series is out there and will become available to us at some point.

Wait - I really need to know or don’t really need to know what this is about Helen being naked in the makeup room. Please inform.

Who was the first of the true "warm, loving matriarch" characters? Maybe Alice Horton? It seems like by the 80s, soaps decided that viewers no longer were interested in those older females outside of them just being sweet and kind talk-tos for the younger characters. https://www.welovesoaps.net/2011/04/as-earth-turns-original-story-bible.html

Ooooh chile, I can't. I'm all tapped out when it comes to energy to explain this sht to people who don't get it.

The story bible says that Susan was 14 when she jumped into the high school pool and suffered a fatal concussion. I'm assuming that point must have changed by the time the show got on the air. The Helen Wagner firing story always gets simplified as Irna just didn't like the way Helen poured coffee, but I wouldn't be surprised if Irna, in true fashion, had major issues with Helen's portrayal and saw the coffee pouring as the last straw.

I've been wondering, too. I remember some DS fans were actually hopeful for the new series given that it was promoted as a sequel series and not a reboot - they just want the original series to still be canon and not tossed aside in favor of a whole new story. I'm with them on that.

2000 Malibu Road was WILD, and I'm so sad it just ended like that. Does anyone know anything about the Lisa Hartman Black narration to wrap up the series? I'd love to know how they tried to tie it all up. Idc idc, Tuesday Knight stole the entire show from start to finish. Hunnybunny never stopped hustling, and the comedic chemistry with Scott Bryce was so strong. Brian Bloom - as gorgeous as EVER, but Drew Barrymore's character was a total bore! Jennifer Beals was depressing, but it was so easy to root for the character and want her to end up all right. Lisa Hartman's story was honestly the dullest, maybe because there were so many things we just didn't know and never would find out. Loved Constance Towers, though.

I reread the original ATWT (or...ATET) bible last night, and I wonder if stuffy was what Irna was going for with the Hughes family in the beginning. The basic premise was to delve a little deeper into what seemed to be a cookie cutter 50s suburban family to see that there was less love there than what you'd imagine. The family really only loved each other in pairs - Chris and Nancy, Penny and Don, and Bob and Grandpa. Chris and Nancy had tension with their older children, and there was tension between Nancy and Edith, and over at the Lowells', there was tension between Jim and the Judge, between Jim and Claire, and between Ellen and both her parents. It's a wonder that ATWT somehow became known as a warm family soap when for so much of the beginning, it was the opposite. I remember last year I wrote a post comparing the early Hughes family with the early Bauer family, and I said it was "The Hugheses against the world" and "The Bauers against each other," and I think I might have missed the mark there. The Bauers were more emotionally extreme. When the drama was on, the drama was ON, but when the love was there, it was THERE. The Hugheses were more subdued.

So wait, re: AMC - Tad first appeared in 1972? I've seen 1973 established as his first appearance forever. I also didn't realize Tempo Magazine had been a part of the show going that far back. I'd never heard of the Erica scheme of trying to play "happy housewife" for a magazine story, but it's so typical of her, and Mona no-doubt flusteredly (yet with conviction) played right along. Interesting that Phoebe and Charles aren't mentioned anywhere in these 1972-1973 summaries (yet). I wonder if Agnes had always intended for Charles to leave her for Mona or if the idea came to her while wondering what to do with them beyond just having Phoebe be disapproving of her children's romantic lives. Also - the final years of Secret Storm really don't seem that bad! There's a really good April 1973 episode on YT (audio only), so it's nice to read a little more from the months before and after that ep. It sucks that the Ames family was old news by now, but the Mark/Laurie story seems like it hit a ton of beats over a long period of time. I'd love to see or hear some of the Texas stuff with the Reddins.

I think the thing with Tyler's shows (which have been fervently eaten up by my mom and contemporaries) is that they will never get that type of media coverage because their audience doesn't care about reading articles about their shows online (or even in print). They watch, they enjoy, they call up their sister or sister-in-law or whomever, it's a lot of "Girl, you saw that?" "And then she got the nerve to..." "They was wrong for that!" "That was good for her ass!" and then it's over until the next episode lol And there's nothing wrong with that, because they're still watching. The same can mostly be said about Hallmark Channel's original series, such as WHEN CALLS THE HEART and GOOD WITCH, which usually pull between two and two-and-a-half million viewers an episode and exists in their own very small bubble of a fanbase. There's probably less phone chatter about them since they're not the provocative soaps that HAHN and ILYIW are, but they're also catering to an audience that once watched soaps.

Mustn’t inflict “the dreaded soap opera effect” on actual soap operas that actually were made with that look in mind. It’s stupid.

It better be the only time, too. The excitement of watching classic episodes on TV or DVD is that you get to see them look nice and smooth, the way they originally aired. Today's episode looked like it came from the internet, which obviously as soap fans, that's how we watch most old episodes anyway, but if it's going to be on TV, I want my videotaped programs to look like they were done on videotape.

Right? I think it sounds amazing!

Today's episode has been processed to look like film

Yes! She gave Jeb Hollister the opportunity to be more than just the big bad villain while further connecting the two families, but the whole Hollister angle just seemed to be dropped until they brought Rose back to tie up a season’s worth of story in one episode. Another character who was there and just vanished was Marlene, Roy’s pregnant ex-wife and estranged mother of his son. Another character who could have generated lots of story with the family and on her own but just dropped. It’s like someone was hell-bent on making Cybill Shepherd the only adult woman in the cast.

I love Chuck Connors, but I thought Jeb was too old to be the main nemesis of the Champions, especially since all of the surviving Champions were younger and portrayed as mostly honest people. If Wade were still alive, then those two old boys fighting it out could have been fun. They had the perfect solution to this with Rose. I haven't done any BTS research on the show yet, so I don't know how committed Jane Russell was to the series, but having Rose make peace with Chance and then become a matriarch figure at the ranch, putting her in the position to lead all battles against Jeb - that would have been amazing. I can't believe they didn't do more with Rose or with the deliciously devious Caryn Cabrera. Yes, the cast was fantastic. David Soul is the stand-out for me, and honestly, I think Roy was the most complex character. He's the reluctant patriarch to a family, kinda in love with his dead father's widow, angry that this long-lost half-brother has shown up and is taking all the glory (and the love interest), wanting to hate him, but it's not who he is to hate a man who isn't doing him any harm, also trying to raise his son as a single father while the ex-wife is low-key fighting against him, etc. He was great. It really did start well. They kinda did these multi-episode stories that had a beginning, middle, and end over two or three episodes, and the very first one with drug smuggling that led to the murder of Colleen Champion's boyfriend and later a respect ranch hand from the Rose wasn't that great, but then they did the cattle drive, which actually made for some good soapy moments mixed with the adventure theme. Then we had a slow and completely pointless multi-ep arc with Buddy Ebsen as an escaped prisoner trying to reunite with his family. The self-contained episodes weren't all bad either, but the bad ones were terrible. I'm not sure which was worse - Edward Albert's Quisto (who really does nothing much the entire series except as a devil's advocate yelling out legal points and speaking in Spanish with a creepy grin on his face) sneaking into a slave labor camp that targets illegal immigrants or the same character trying to expose an abusive foster parent. The introduced one of the other Champion siblings, Greg Evigan as a gambling-addicted rodeo star, in one ep, and it was good, and obviously he should have stayed and had conflict with the family, but he was a one-and-done. There was mention of another sister when the family was voting on whether to start drilling for oil or not, but she never showed up.

I was absolutely in lust with Eric Steinberg any time I flipped by Y&R back then - him and Eyal Podell, who I think was at least part Israeli? The Carla wedding clip from OLTL posted earlier just makes me so sad. Knowing how much time and care was put into the character and her story in the beginning and how many conversations the characters had onscreen, prompting conversations for the audience...and knowing that the vast majority of that incredible work has been lost forever, leaving Carla's video representation in the show's history down to ridiculous waste of time sht like this wedding...it's just sad. Imagine a soap going head-first into a story about race in 2020 or 2021. Agnes did it within two years of MLK's assassination. These chumps making these shows and the networks airing them are nothing, absolutely nothing.

Recently watched THE GREAT on Hulu and loved it for the most part. Catherine is one of my favorite monarchs to teach, and my students usually enjoy learning about her. I’m so glad this version of her story is completely upfront about being purposely inaccurate and more concerned with their own narrative than with the actual history. There’s nothing wrong with that, especially when it comes out like this series did. I know Nick Hoult has done lots of amazing things, but this is the role that made me no longer be repulsed by him after watching his two series of Skins three or four times. Also finished THE YELLOW ROSE today after getting frustrated with it halfway through a few weeks ago. Shares my thoughts in the primetime soaps thread. I kinda want to watch SWEET MAGNOLIAS. I haven’t decided if it’s something I’d enjoy or if it’s too mushy for me. I guess watching it’s the only way to know.

Okay, so The Yellow Rose lol I'm not sure if the people in charge ever really knew exactly what they wanted the show to be or what they wanted to be about or WHO they wanted it to be about or anything. It started off as "We are NOT a soap, but we do have soapy elements," then it was "Okay, yeah, we're a soap, let's fck sht up!" then it was "We ARE NOT A SOAP, and we need to remember that, guys!" and then it kinda just ended with each episode being a cock-measuring contest between the entire cast except for the two old men and the little girl. The idea of it being a true primetime soap mixed with classic western was actually pretty awesome, and there's a stretch of episodes that starts with the Champions running an old-fashioned cattle drive and goes into some backstabbing and dirty dealing that really just worked and showed tons of potential in the show's basic premise, but then they dropped all of the characters who could have provided conflict for the Champions, cut out all of the inner conflict in the family, and made it a show about the Champions fighting weekly bad guys. I enjoy a good old-fashioned western, but they had such a good thing going with the soapy side of things.

I'm black and I have no idea what "ADOS" stands for me. Pls halp. I hate that any attempt at making a black character "real" runs the risk of being deemed stereotypical by either TPTB or segments of the audience. I btched about it a month or two ago, but if you want to write real black characters, they're not going to all fit a mold that will be relatable to all black people. Some black people are "The Cosby Show," and others are "Sanford and Son," and obviously there are those who are everything in and between those two depictions. I think the bigger problem, though, is that daytime does not write real people at all anymore. No characters seem to have any type of cultural background or heritage nor does any character fit into any kind of historical context. Real world events that affect real people don't exist in soaps and don't affect the characters. It's pitiful when you consider that 50 years ago, the Vietnam War factored into three years' worth of All My Children.

Yes, they giddily went along with this stupidity then a year later referred to it as "brazen" when melodramatically eulogizing Ronald's OLTL. A full decade has passed, and it still sticks in my craw.

Very few things will sting me the way Franklin and Ronald basically sucked anything of diverse substance out of OLTL in early 2010. There were so many interesting things going on at that time, not just racially, but in terms of representation and the potential to really explore different types of people. They had viable black characters in soaps' prime age range for drama (Layla, Greg, Rachel, Shaun, and even Destiny, which the actress was greeeeeeeeeen but she could have grown or gotten recast). Kyle and Oliver were decent gay characters in the beginning. I will forever weep for the wonderful story possibilities of Natalie/Jared fighting Jessica/Brody for custody of Jessica's kids, which would have touched on mental illness. Just some good stuff going on, and then...it was gone. The Fords, Stacy, "Hold the Diploma," etc. Ugh. The ONE thing that came out of the foolishness that I really should not have found so damn funny but still makes me laugh so hard to this day when I think about it is when John Wesley Shipp, as the Fords' homoerotic dad, referred to a random Ford girlfriend as "broke azz." GOD it's so stupid, but I can't stop laughing.