All My Shadows

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.

Mary's death and its aftermath on AMC had to be heartbreaking for viewers at the time. She had been written as so pure and faultless from her first appearance, even moreso than Tara, and to have her brutally gunned down in her own home as a child watches - yikes. I never knew they kept her on as a "vision" in the months following.

Finishing up that full December 1972 episode. As always, I am so hungry for more 70s ATWT!! The shoe was so male in this era - both Hughes brothers, both Stewart brothers, Tom, John, Chris, Grandpa, Judge Lowell. I’m not 100% on a cast list, but I feel like the men outnumbered the women. I say it all the time, but they did Ellen WRONG. It’s just ridiculous that Pat Bruder was in her 30s and was playing mom to these two grown ass sons who were clearly written to be in their 30s. Ellen was stifled from so many good story possibilities, and it just sucks. I do wonder if the decision to keep the fact of her being Dan’s mother a secret for so long was meant to kinda make their relationship was believable? Side note - I’ve never seen a Father Lowell scene before! Now just give me some Alma Miller. Irna had a penchant for killing off main characters, and Paul and Liz are no exception, and I wonder what her point of view was in regards to keeping characters around and viable for the long-term. Did she view soap opera as something that could and should go on and on and on for decades, or did she feel that shows should have a natural end and that even popular characters were disposable?

Wow, thanks for the heads up, Carl!! I’m going to watch the full episode later, but the clip is interesting. I don’t think I’ve ever really seen Paul before, and the Dan/Susan/Paul/Liz triangle is the classic storyline I’m always looking for more of. For the reputation that the P&G soaps get, I have to say that most of what I’ve seen of GL, ATWT, and AW from this time period has a deeply intimate, personal feel. Not sexually, but just lines like Betsy’s “Paul is my daddy, so I love him more than you.” Depictions of couples and families just seemed realer. Betsy’s mention of Paul’s headaches reminds me of all those behind the scenes soap parodies where a performer learns they’re being killed off when the script specifically mentions a headache or a cough

It was most certainly Megan McTavish because at the time, Cady did an interview where she consistently referred to her simply as "The Writer" and refused to even speak her name

That 1981 episode is on the first DVD release ("20 Classic Episodes").

Terrible news. I enjoyed her on ATWT, even though her Alison was pretty vanilla (which is saying a lot, I know). She had a sweet quality about her. Hoping all the best for her and her family. Am I making this up, or didn’t she debut as Alison on Y&R first then head to ATWT?

That's super sweet, and I love all of those people, so I can't wait to watch!

Since I've been devoting a lot of time to digging into AMC eras I haven't actually watched before, I want to do the same for ATWT. What would be a good starting point in the 80s for a mostly unbroken run of episodes that last at least a few years? I'm undecided if I just want to start with 1985 so I can see pre-Marland and then into his stuff or if I want to see earlier in the decade as well.

Lord, Shemar walked onto the set and was immediately the sexiest man on CBS at the time. If it wasn’t established that they were brothers, I would’ve been reading way too much into Malcolm giving Neil “fck me” eyes through the entire episode.

"You're Neil." "You're Malcolm." "It's been a long time. Aren't you going to let your brother in?" Classic soap introduction of the long-list sibling.

I pulled out the 25th anniversary book, and it has a different photo from the same wedding listed as being their second wedding and occurring at Thanksgiving time in 1980: "An anguished Dr. Frank Grant came close to leaving Pine Valley when his ex-wife Nancy accepted Dr. Russ Anderson's proposal of marriage. As their wedding drew near, Nancy realized she still loved her ex-husband Frank, and they remarried in a Thanksgiving wedding." It's gonna stay IDK how I feel about a couple coming in and commanding so much time, especially in Cliff and Nina's case. Nothing from their introduction into the show is online at all, and I don't think it ever has been - we have one 1979 episode that doesn't feature them, but we do have that string of masquerade ball episodes from Feb. 1980 thanks to Eric. I just want to see how they were integrated into the show, and I definitely want to see more of Sybil.