DRW50

Yeah, I don't know why he/she took it down, I really doubt there would have been a copyright complaint. I loved how it was narrated by Ernie Anderson, the voice of ABC during the '80s ("From the Emmy Award-winning creator of All My Children...").

Was that EdgeofLlanview? I think he took his clips down because of the quality of them, or something like that. Then he said he was going to start putting them back up.

I think what made Loving work was the commitment of the actors. It's interesting because AMC always had a VERY distinct identity, and it kept that identity for many years. I think Loving was more like OLTL, a show which Nixon also took a reduced role on (even more than Loving), and which had many different identity changes. I guess the big differences with Loving and OLTL were OLTL had stronger showrunners and their timeslot helped provide better ratings, along with their stories, and some of their casting moves (like Reinholt and Courtney). And OLTL started in an earlier era, when ratings were healthier all around.

The City tried to be so many things. They tried social issues, but didn't seem to know how to handle them. There was a hint of nighttime soap, but that also didn't quite pan out (and the scuttled Born/Fairchild pairing didn't help). Then they revamped with the Masquerader. I thought everything with Tracy's arrival was brilliant, she really gave a huge breath of fresh air. Carla was also great. When I watched at the time that was what kept me tuned in. The Ally/Tony/Carly/Danny stuff and Angie's baby needs didn't do a lot for me. Tess's cancer story was good, what I remember of it. I think the show always had a problem knowing what it was and how to mix the fresh filming style with storytelling which eventually became very safe.

I think the only person from Loving who won an Emmy was Bernie Barrow.

The City should have been an obvious choice for Soapnet, but then, that channel has almost always had odd choices.

I really enjoy most of Loving when I get the chance to see it. Some of the material some feel very generic, but the actors often make it work. In some ways I think it was ahead of its time, in that the show was very plot-driven and did not have a strong identity, and the actors had to push ahead.

Nancy Wickwire didn't die until 1974. She even appeared on "Days of our Lives" as Phyllis Anderson after departing "Another World."

Oh. For some reason I thought she'd stayed with AW until she passed away.

I've never seen Egypt, only heard about her. It's interesting that she was like Opal.

One thing I like on the lesser-rated soaps is they often have more room for eccentricity. I don't mean AMC, of course, but I mean stuff like Cass/Cecile/Felicia/Wallingford on AW (who ended up being a family in a soap which by that time had no real core family), or on Loving, Ava, and Deborah, and so on.

I've never seen any of the Jeremy/Gilbert stuff either. Is it as bad as I've heard? Or just dull? Or not too bad? Jean LeClerc is such a distinctive actor, putting him in a dual role seems odd to me. The only time I saw Gilbert was at Jeremy's funeral. At the time I swore they were hinting he wasn't really Gilbert, that it might have been Jeremy. Or I might have imagined that. I think they also tried to throw some suspicion on him for the murders.

I can't believe we're up to 11 pages. I guess Loving really was the little show that could

He passed away in 2005.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perry_Stephens

Here's a 1989 episode he was in.

I've watched some of those 1994 clips; the show has a very strong vibe and energy. It's a shame the ratings didn't go up.

All that with Steffi and Cooper/Clay always seems a bit odd to me. And then she left The City with Cooper, and he was her husband in real life.

I'm so used to him for his NCIS role it's always a bit strange seeing him as Cooper.

I watched the first two or three of those, but haven't seen the rest yet. It's odd to think that the guy in the scene with Casey, who seems very nice and reasonable, later becomes a psycho. I guess that show had so many writing changes.

The bit where his dead mother is watching is nicely done.

Tracy luv will be making a comeback this year.

Steve must be quaking as we type.

http://www.itv.com/soaps/coronationstreet/news/katefordreturns/

Harding Lemay did not "decimate" the Matthews family. The only family member he wrote off was Mary, and Lemay was the writer who actually brought Liz and Susan back to the canvas.

That's true, but wasn't Liz only gone because the previous actress had passed away from cancer? I thought Susan was usually only a short-term character on her returns.

I didn't mean to overstate what happened to the Matthews family under his watch, but given how important Alice and Mary were to the family dynamics, losing them (or losing the actress most identified as Alice) must have hurt. Perhaps Courtney would have left no matter who was writer or producer.

I guess what happened with Pat's and John's kids was more on Rauch. I never knew why they never brought Michael back.

Good question, not sure about that. But like you, I tend to hope (and hold out) that someone else will put up the stuff I've got, and in some cases, that has already proven to happen. And most folks would probably be frustrated with my clips as I hardly ever have full episodes, just bits and pieces (inexplicably recording while flipping channels ).

I usually did keep full episodes, mostly because I wasn't able to watch them when they were on, but some is just blips and clips. Oddly enough most of what I have on tape is probably B&E era; I thought that era of the show was generally entertaining on a daily basis (minus stuff I skipped -- usually anything with Michelle/Jesse), although the stories themselves were often not very good. At the time I was satisfied because the show wasn't making me furious the way it had for much of 1994-1996.

Beverlee's Alex was more ice and Marj's was more fire.

I think if I'd never seen Bev I would have enjoyed Marj more from the start, that and if they'd never had the obsession with Nick and Mindy.

I have some 90s soaps on tape too but I never really know what to do with them; I usually hope most of it will go up on Youtube because I assume others also have that stuff, but who knows. I've been saving some to DVD, although I had heard that putting it on DVD doesn't really save it as they only last a few years, if that. Is that true?

I do like the Windass family. They stopped writing them as being horrible and nasty and started trying to make them more sympathetic. Gary could be a decent young guy, and he's not too hard on the eyes.

Molly/Kevin was a mistake from the start. The age difference doesn't bother me so much as the lack of chemistry, the poor pacing, the awful dialogue early on ("jump your bones" "you like me when I'm sweaty") and that the woman who plays Molly is not suited for any type of young vixen role.

Her first scene back was walking into the Beacon, right? I remember that Marj had finished with AMC and had gotten some needed surgery, and was still recovering from that when she got the call from GL. I guess the past relationship with Conboy might have made him be more supportive of her, although that story where Alex was drugging Alan was awful. Joan was better off not having to stay around for that.

I initially had a very hard time with Marj as Alex. I started to warm to her eventually, I guess around 1995; although I think a lot of people hated her scenes with Hawk (I thought they were sort of entertaining). Over time I just felt sorry for Marj, because I really don't think she ever had one well-written storyline in her entire tenure. She was good in the "Who Shot Roger?" story, but that was more of Alex the gorgon (which is one of the reasons Beverlee left the show), not Alex the person. Probably some of the strongest material I remember her having was when she met Fletcher again and grieved for Alan and left town. Sad that after 16 years, off and on, it took cancellation for her to have a few minutes to shine.

The one thing i hated about this episode was the Tina McQueen-esque character. Her hair was looking a mess. Also, what type of character does the big bad woman from Bad Girls play? Is she evil? And is the little boy in the wheelchair ever going to walk again? As a US soap fan I need to know whats up with that.

I preferred Tina to her, as this girl (Libby) is just dreary, but they do look somewhat similar.

The boy in the wheelchair is never going to walk, as he was cast with an actor who is in a wheelchair. The show did this for diversity. The character is very dull and stuck up, so I'm hoping he will leave when his mother does.

The woman from Bad Girls -- I guess that's Shirley, friend to Heather, AKA annoying comic relief/let's pity the fat woman but still make endless fat jokes about her.

Shirley's not evil, she does have a soft spot, but she can be very rough and brutal. Shirley was married to Kevin Wicks (he was killed off a few years ago -- he was married to Denise, mother to Libby, now married to a serial killer). She had two kids with him but neglected and basically abandoned them. She moved to Walford about 4 years ago to try to get to know them again, but they were never close.

She was basically brought in to be a younger Pat Evans, but that never really worked out. Over the past few years her role has been sidekick and friend to Heather, and pining after Phil Mitchell. She helps him get what he needs. He usually only goes near her when he's drunk, or desperate, or both.

I don't think they meant to do that to the Frames -- they cast a lot of actors in those roles who were not interested in staying long term, they were mostly theater actors.

I do think they had some issues with the Matthews. Lemay's book suggests it was the actors, but I kind of wonder if they resented that this popular, established family was on the show and they had not created the family. They really broke that family up, they killed off or wrote out everyone but Pat and Liz and Russ and the Matthews father (who passed away in the early 80s), and it seemed like Pat and Russ left a few years after Lemay did. Susan came and went but never stayed. The family became very disjointed and scattered and that made it easy for later regimes to snuff them out.

One problem for AW was that they always struggled to keep young talent. This is a problem for all soaps but it seemed to really hit AW. This started in the 70s and it left an empty canvas.

Lemay and Rauch decimated the Matthews family to replace them with the Frames, yet by the end of Lemay's run, the only Frames left were Willis, who was gone by 1981, and Janice, who was made into a psycho.

Eastenders doesn't do character development now. People go around and around in circles. I am hoping this will change with the new producer. I think there could have been a great opportunity to let us know more about what makes Christian tick, not to mention Syed, but instead they were just written as pawns. The same has been true for Amira, but I think Amira automatically gets a large portion of audience sympathy anyway, because she's the mistreated fiance/wife. This type of story, with the cheating, callous men and the betrayed wife, has been done so many times. Most of this story feels extremely by the numbers. The only difference is it involves Muslims. You can tell when a show cares about people and when they don't; there is a lot of care put into Zainab and Masood. Christian, Syed, and Amira, they're just interchanegable with a million other gay stories.

But all the shock value stories and big moments have paid off in the ratings. Eastenders got around 12 million for yesterday's episode.

Eastenders was the first soap that made an effort at ethnic diversity, they had all creeds and colors in the early days of Walford, and they were all given insights and drives. There were no tokens. Over the years that started to seriously decline, but in the past few years they've started to go back to that. For an Indian wedding to be their main story and to get 12 million viewers is wonderful. Tony Holland and Julia Smith would be so proud.

The main problem with AW of the 80s and 90s was how many different people were in charge of the show. Considering how many people were, I'm actually surprised at how well the show held up. Just look at the insanity of things like Grant Harrison being in prison or near prison for various crimes, then a year later, he was mayor.

I do think the last 3-4 years were not good, but even then, the acting was generally quite strong, and I enjoyed Culliton's stint, especially for Cass/Lila, and for a break from Grant as the evil schemer.

I liked Joan as Alex. I thought she gave the role a panache it had lost with Beverlee McKinsey's departure, although to be fair to Marj, they gave her awful writing as Alex for most of her run.

I don't remember anything about her not remembering her lines. It seemed like they just cast her short term then looked for a reason to fire her. I believe one reason was they refused to give her time to promote her book.

I would just watch the wedding.

I was just coming to talk about the wedding! So there is a gay storyline with that sexy indian man? That story actually sounds good. Eastenders must have changed a lot since the last time I watched. I may want to look at some episodes from this story and I definitely want to see the wedding.

The story sounds a lot better than it actually is. The men playing Syed and Christian are both attractive (although Syed looks like he's going to cry most of the time), but they don't have a lot of chemistry together and neither of them are the strongest of actors. The relationship was not built up to -- not long after they met, Syed made a move on him. Most of their relationship has taken place offcamera. What does take place oncamera is often them being unhappy and being nasty to each other. It's treated as some big shock if they ever even kiss. Their relationship was basically:

Syed: You make me sick/This is wrong.

Christian: I love you and you love me!

Syed: Yes, but I'm miserable. Can you see my face? I'm so miserable.

Now there's this happy wedding plan, and frankly, Syed looks much happier with Amira than he ever did with Christian. Christian is written as the typical bitter ex, who wants to spoil the wedding.

A casual viewer would probably see the relationship as unhealthy and unpleasant and want Syed to be happy with Amira. Or want Amira to dump him, and see Christian and Syed as losers. Syed is generally a whiner and very selfish -- he even convinced his mother that his father was having an affair, so she wouldn't suspect he was the one cheating.

There's no real gay perspective in the story at all, it's just shock value and stereotypes. Christian has had every stereotype in about two years. Being gay-bashed, weeping over the homophobic mother he can't live without, chasing after a teenage boy, being dumped for being too old, sleeping around, wanting to raise a child with his female best friend. I think the only one they've left off is an HIV scare.

The best characters in the story are Syed's parents, Zainab and Masood. The actors are wonderful, have amazing chemistry, can switch from comedy to drama without blinking an eye. So if you tune in to this story I'd suggest their love story more than Christian and Syed.

Hopefully that might change once the new producer arrives, who did some good-ish gay stories on Hollyoaks. As it is now Eastenders hasn't had any since the 90s.

IMDB doesn't list Nada Rowland as being gone. I'm not sure if she still acts, or does her cabaret routine.

I'd love to have seen Sandy Dennis on a soap. Her acting was perfect for soaps, so emotional and twitchy and neurotic. Her work in Four Seasons was something out of a good Ryan's Hope monologue.

It always bugged me that Christine Tudor got no work after Loving. She gave such a bravura performance, yet it seemed like, because she was on a show which wasn't well known and she wasn't a thin woman, and she wasn't a young woman, that was it for her.

The thing with Neal and Gwyn was so short, unfortunately. I'd love to have seen more.

Neal was a chef, he was played by the superb Larry Haines. He had a little seen romance with Ava's mother and then near the end of Loving he told Gwyn he was her biological father.

I thought the last 6 months of The City had some good moments. I loved the fake Qs Tracy hired. I loved her sparring with Carla. Tess's cancer was OK. The Tony/Ally/Carla/Danny stuff didn't do a lot for me. I liked seeing more of Angie but all that about her baby woe I could have done without. I felt like they were always trying to find their footing with Angie on both Loving and The City -- I wonder what the racism story might have amounted to if it hadn't been truncated.

She did have a gorgeous wedding to Jacob (I still want a Jacob/Jesse scene someday), and I liked her rivalry with Lorraine. That actress was one of a kind, I wish she got more work.

Near the end of Loving, they had the brief story where Neal turned out to be Gwyn's father. I think we just saw her reaction and not much else, as she was revealed as the killed not long afterwards. Was that a story set up before the show was canceled and they just had to wrap it up? I wish we'd gotten more of it.

I sometimes wonder if the characters they had sent to The City had been stronger, if the show might have lasted. Perhaps not, the show may never have had a chance, and the writing issues on The City didn't help, but Tony always got on my nerves and I was never entirely sure why they gave him so much airtime. Richard was OK I guess. I did like Danny and Ally. Alex was fine but never quite the same without Ava.