DRW50

I forgot Linden Ashby was in the role. He's very handsome but always a bit bland. I guess it worked out well for he and Susan Walters though.

I wish another show had hired Christine Tudor. She probably isn't even acting anymore.

Did you think any of the non-Marcantel Curtises were any good?

So Gwyn had an abortion? That's interesting. You don't see many of those on soaps unless it's from rape.

Oh, that was one of the Curtis recasts. I forgot how many times he was recast.

I had also forgotten Gwyn and Buck were once involved.

Ralph Ellis wrote for ATWT in the late 70s, didn't he, I think he used to write with Eugenie Hunt?

I wonder if Agnes did the split personality bit because she wanted Lily to be like Viki on OLTL. Fragile daughter of a cold man who abuses her, has a wild side manifested in an alter. It's interesting, as Viki, many years later, was revealed as being an incest survivor, although I know Agnes had nothing to do with that storyline. I saw a Daytime Dilemma promo which featured Lily's alter, although I don't know if it's still on Youtube.

Here are a few other promos:

Who are these two people in this promo? Is that Dinah Lee?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4wkyX5jvqUc&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=In0X-vcicxs&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QzNyKanOFSA&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qrMAkX7tmRw&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BqMbwWwBfKw&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1oRNXrvcLGE&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BQVoMahLF58&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1E_apWDzY2M&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TPqwqy5XKgM&feature=related

Start an affair with Trisha...er...Loving...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BjWFKA9oQ-A&feature=related

I also wish they'd used her more earlier on. She was a talk-to for Deirdre, she dated Dave Smith (a bookie who also dated Elsie Tanner), and for a few episodes ran the Rovers (can you imagine later Blanche doing that). She was a very different character back then. Then they wrote her out for years and mostly focused on Deirdre alone. It was only when they brought her back 10 years ago that they added more of the sarcastic touches, but even in the older stuff you can't take your eyes off her.

Of course she wasn't even the first actress to play Blanche but she did take over early on and she was amazing.

Funny, you can see Ken in that 1974 clip, looking on after the slap.

Thanks for all the detailed answers. It's odd that a show with Nixon and Marland would become such a mess so quickly.

The Donovans, they faded away as a family fairly quickly, didn't they?

Did Agnes Nixon do the plane crash which Jim and Jimmy died in? I know she did one at AW to kill off a bunch of characters.

That seems somewhat gruesome to kill off a young child. Was that an issue for Shana later on? I guess I can see why Nixon would write out characters who had been around for some years, but Shana did seem compelling to me.

I can't remember where I heard that about Patricia Kalember, but supposedly she got her hair cut without asking permission, and they fired her. Perhaps it isn't true, I don't know anything about her exit from the show.

This is the Corrie site tribute to Maggie/Blanche. She looks so different in her first appearance, smacking Deirdre's husband Ray Langton. Ray was a great character -- he and Deirdre always bantered and sparred, there was much less of the misery she has with Ken.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wY2pqLbGHK0&feature=player_embedded

Re the incest story.I read that ABC was premiering the TV movie Something About Amelia starring Ted Danson,which was being touted as a breakthrough in dealing with this topic.

ABC daytime got the word to drop the story as primetime wanted the movie to be hailed as a landmark and not some low rated daytime soap.

That sucks, especially since, from what I've heard, some people felt that movie was a copout, especially the ending.

I wonder if this is one the reasons Marland left.

I guess it must be. I didn't know they were forced to end it. That's odd, since ABC was more progressive than ATWT/P&G, yet that show allowed Marland to do a long, very painful incest story.

Or perhaps this was because Loving had just started out and they wanted happier stories for ratings?

Were Jack and Stacey the couple from early on or was Lily his original love?

So Steve was killed to bring Trucker in? I know Shana and Jim were written out around 1993 or 1994. Shana seemed very unique to me, so it's too bad she had to go. One of the reasons I was drawn into Loving when the show was winding down was their interesting female characters (Ava, Gwyn, Deborah...even Steffi and Ally, to a degree).

In the 1987 episode I didn't know what that was about with Gwen and the young man Ann and Ava accused her of having an affair with. So apparently he was her son. Did they ever bring him back? I'm surprised he wasn't killed in the Loving murders.

What did you think of Robert Duboc as Alex?

I was looking at the 1991 recaps and saw that Ally had been involved with a man who was falsely accused of rape. That's interesting, since she falsely accused Danny of rape later on.

Ann Williams' children put up a few clips of Ann's work as Lily Slater's mother.

It's interesting to see Jennifer Ashe as Lily. I think Meg suited her a bit more.

Patricia Kalember has a unique style for a young soap heroine. Was she the one with the priest brother? And Patricia was fired because she cut her hair, right? That seems silly.

The part I most liked, aside from getting to see more of Roya's Ava (she's quite striking, and she reminds me of Judy Tenuta for some reason) is the confrontation scene between Ann and Gwen. Ann seems like an interesting character. Why was she written out? Did they think Gwen was the only somewhat older woman they needed on the canvas?

That Lily is annoying. She replaced Jennifer Ashe, right?

I was surprised at how good Mantooth was as Clay. Or "Clay".

I love this part at the end. Margo Huntington asks Cliff Nelson if anyone has ever told him what a rude young man he is, and he somewhat sheepishly grins and nods.

Thanks for posting this, and mentioning the Youtube account. Someone had mentioned that earlier this year but I'd forgotten. I was very impressed by how raw those clips seemed. Jennifer's madness and gunning Eunice down seems so stark. And the scene where she believes John has cheated on her is amazing, especially her work when she called the lodge.

Do you think it was a mistake to kill off Eunice?

I also read about a serial killer story in 1986, which killed off Stephanie. Who else was killed? Do you think that was a good idea? I guess that was just about the end of the show anyway wasn't it?

Russ still has the baby, Jacqui keeps looking but hasn't found him yet. I just wish they would do anything with Jacqui, anything of value. I liked her with Tony but now he's stuck with Cindy.

There were rumors that Amy's absence was due to personal reasons. Or it may have been part of the story. In the story, Amy just vanished right after she gave birth. Ste had to take care of the kids on his own and this led to months and months of a story about a couple named Daniel and Abi and their plans to steal his baby.

It was confusing, so I'll just link to the Wikipedia writeup.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_minor_Hollyoaks_characters_%282009%29#Natty

Amy vanished for much of the year. No one is entirely sure as to why the show did this, as it wasn't really announced, although I guess it was for story reasons. Amy is struggling with post partum depression and this also somehow has made her not even want to see her older daughter, Leah. Ste is raising both kids. I imagine this will turn around by next year and we may see them go back to Ste as the villain, but who knows. I really like the actor who plays Ste.

I loved Jacqui when she first arrived. I still love Clare Cooper, who plays her, but I think they took a wrong turn with Jacqui when she became all about babies and when they took away her heart.

Did you think the move to supercouples (Liza/Steve and all that) and the trips to exotic locations modernized the show anyway? I haven't seen a lot of SFT but from what I'd read it seemed like people felt the show suffered from a loss of identity.

I was just thinking about how much I used to love the closing credits from around Christmas, showing the crew, with Jerry very Dorn saying, "From our family to yours..."

I still miss Ross so much

I wish I could see the show from the mid-70s as I'd heard that was a good period for them. It does seem odd to me that P&G never really made the effort to find a stabilizing writer. If they and the networks had taken better care of their soaps, what might daytime be like today?

Thanks for the article, Paul Raven. Interesting stuff.

Here's the last moments of the 1983 Christmas episode. They also have an episode from December 16 1986.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DYZhN-ID2nM

That's Jennifer Gatti in the holiday party at the end right? I didn't know she was on SFT. I always thought she had such an exotic beauty.

CBS had moved the show around to different timeslots and the show had gone through many different styles and regimes. Schmering said CBS felt the show was a "dinosaur." They replaced it with Capitol, which didn't last the decade. Then B&B, which has been more successful because of Y&R than because of itself.

I wonder if CBS ever regretted cancelling the show, given some of the erosion their lineup underwent later on. And Mary Stuart lived another 20 years, Larry Haines for another 25 years (using the time of the CBS cancellation), so with a proper overhaul, with Jo still in a good role, the show could have run for a long time.

Santer says the Mitchells are "the premier family in British soap." All I could say to that is, "That doesn't say much for the others, does it."

I really can't wait for this Christian/Syed stuff to be over. They both behave in horrible, selfish ways, made even worse because we saw no buildup to their relationship and we see no affection between them. If this story was supposed to be done to address how Muslims feel about gays, then throwing around an assortment of anti-gay stereotypes was an odd choice.

Here's his year in review.

http://www.digitalspy.com/soaps/s2/eastenders/news/a189593/producers-perspective-2009-diederick-santer.html

Mostly teens and gimmicks.

Calvin and Carmel suck as a couple, why they are hyping them getting married again baffles me.

The story which some felt was too close to a recent child killing in the UK has been amended, after the boy's mother went to a screening of the episodes and asked them not to proceed.

http://www.clickliverpool.com/news/national-news/127208-hollyoaks-drop-james-bulger-storyline.html

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704240504574586271381624280.html?mod=rss_Today%27s_Most_Popular

Deconstructing TV's No. 1 Show

Lucy Allan talks about 2009.

http://www.digitalspy.com/soaps/s13/hollyoaks/news/a190454/producers-perspective-2009-lucy-allan.html

She seems a bit prickly, although with some of the criticism HO has had this year, no wonder. I did laugh when she said she got rid of Ash Roy because he was becoming "panto." If Anita isn't a bad caricature, or panto, these days, I'm not sure who is.

At the time I did figure she'd been fired, just because she had stayed for so many years and I couldn't see why she would have left of her own accord as they were launching a new version of the show.

I think they wanted to make Alex more hip or sexy or whatever, and pairing him with Danny's sister (who was given the "mental illness makes her a prostitute" story so we could see how hot she was) was apparently supposed to do that. Alex/Jocelyn never did much for me.