DRW50

They always managed to give her a lot of soft and vulnerable moments along with the theatrics. Soaps don't know how to do that now. The only exception I can think of is Nicole on DAYS.

I think 1981 was the real killer for RH. The show was, at best, uneven, and was at times almost unwatchable. This was at a time when the ABC lineup was going great guns and RH didn't have the pieces which would have made it more compatible. RH's Erica/Heather/Tiffany/Dorian type character, Delia, was given awful material that constantly reminded viewers of what a joke she was. If Kimberly was supposed to take her place, that didn't work either, because Kimberly spent the entire year having bad things happen to her or wailing all the time. They put in a lot of mob stuff to ape GH, but this usually amounted to various old men and a petulant Joe. They never knew how to position Joe. On GH, it was all about Luke's struggles, Luke's break for freedom. It was entirely from his point of view. On RH that wasn't possible, because of Jack's strong presence. So you had a story where Joe basically destroyed Jack's life, and then, in no time at all, the focus switched to what a victim Joe was. The other problem was the show's leading ladies in general. By 1981 there was no real pop. Many of them were just unpleasant, stupid, or beaten down and stuck in changing times. It makes the writing and casting choice for Siobhan even more bewildering to me. When people could go across ABC Daytime and see so many vibrant young heroines, who is going to want to see cold-in-nose Ann Gillespie whining about Joe for months on end? By the time they tried to remake the show with the Kirklands, most of this felt dated, because the other ABC soaps had already gone through their big rich family phases, and were slumping. ABC either should have backed off entirely or gone all in, and fired Labine and Mayer in 1980.

I've seen some of this at Digital Spy - a rare break from the usual Eastenders hysteria. I'm sorry that so much of it centers on gay characters. For one thing, it's pathetic that gay characters are what drives the press against a show. For another, I have zero idea why the gay stories, which have generally been non-events, full of eunuchs who rush through plot points while managing to say the same thing every time, is controversial. I come to the conclusion it's controversial solely because it's on Corrie. That's where Collinson has failed. He doesn't bother to read the nature of the show, how the public perceives the show, or how a soap works. Instead it's just rushed stunt after rushed stunt. Who cares if Cindy Beale is fighting for her life? You barely know her. Why are she and Leanne already reconciled? People say oh well it's great they aren't doing this like Eastenders. It's great that they aren't actually bothering to tell a story at all? You can say very reasonable excuses for why ratings are down so much, and they'd all be true. But the fact that the press is even trying to push the idea of massive ratings loss is pretty damning. Clearly Corrie has done something to push their buttons. Even Collinson giving them every single detail of every story hasn't helped. That little report about Collinson's story meeting kind of tells what his vision of the show is. He was eager to get a big new story for Nick, since Nick is such an important character. Never mind that Nick could leave tomorrow and only Gail would really notice. Or that Ben Price has consistently ruined every story he's been in. Collinson always seems to champion the show's worst actors and characters. I'm also so tired of how he has destroyed Carla. He has made her the Sharon Newman of Corrie. She is beyond pathetic in every way.

I liked that Amira was able to leave with some semblance of dignity, after being used and humiliated for months (I used to hear that the way Christian treated her was OK because she wasn't really his friend, she just treated him like a toy, but she was a hell of a lot nicer than Roxy has been much of the time). I hope this won't be Amira returning as some bitch in order to move story for Christian and Syed. These characters have so much baggage that doesn't even involve Amira. There was some speculation a while back among Christian/Syed fans that she will be working with Yusef. There's also been spec that she lost her baby and that way the show will tie up the loose end of the baby.

I'm not sure. She had had a lot of experience at Y&R and they may have wanted to try a new writer who hadn't been able to create a soap before. Brandon Tartikoff was willing to try new things. When did Pat Crowley leave?

Finally, some stuff that we definitely know is during the 1988 strike (no writing credits). This is more of the 1888/1988 saga. Some fun comedy moments with Blaize, doing what I always enjoy in time travel stories - trying to get to grips with technology (and actually she does a pretty decent job of it). There is also some ridiculous melodrama with Clint setting a fire and leaving two unconscious men to possibly die (!) so he can break out of jail. You then get Clint working to save Ginny from being sold into slavery. This is tawdry stuff, but not as tawdry as you would expect of the Rauch era. Erika Slezak gives a ferocious performance that is on the right side of OTT and really shows you how inhuman this treatment is. Some of her best work.

I didn't know he was still alive. I couldn't remember if he was another of the male soap writers who passed away in the early 90's. Donna Hoke Hathaway took over the criticisms in the early 90's Digests, then finally, Carolyn Hinsey, by the middle of the decade. They were OK, but Genovese is more unflinching, as SOD generally was in that era. I wonder how much was his voice. They are very critical of incredibly popular characters like OLTL's Tina and ATWT's Lily, Holden, and the Snyders in general. That wouldn't happen today. Marlena de la Croix agrees with you about catfights - she was, I believe, pretty offended by the Generations catfight, from what I remember of her SPW column. Thank you as always for reading. I always look forward to your responses, and your avatar! amc I think SSM stayed through the end, but I'm not totally sure.

You make many great points. I didn't know what to say, because I haven't watched that much lately and sometimes I feel like my opinion is so wrapped up in other opinions, like if a producer is too hyped, or too hated. I haven't had a lot of connection to most of the British soaps lately, unfortunately.

September 5, 1989 Digest. Generations Report Card and review, by John Kelly Genovese. Acting C- Storytelling D Romance C Innovation B- GENERATIONS: Black and White - and Bland GENERATIONS was touted in press releases as the show that would catapult daytime drama into the 1990s. "Black and white - in color," the on-air promos blared. Naturally, we waited anxiously for the show which would ultimately elevate the serial art form. The opening credits are certainly a grabber - fast-moving photos of various points of American history (the industrial revolution, the Kennedy years, etcetera) are flashed on the screen while a jazzy, Scott Joplin-esque theme plays in the background. It sure beats an hourglass. The structure of GENERATIONS is also novel. For the first time in network soap opera history, one of the two core families - the Marshalls - is black. They mingle with the white Whitmores in friendship and business - and probably, in the future, in romance. This is a long overdue premise, allowing for no built-in excuses as to why black characters "ran out of story line' or "were difficult to assimilate with the rest of the show." What isn't novel is the treatment GENERATIONS gives these characters and their surrounding issues. Outside of the basic premise, we have yet to see anything new here - not to mention exciting. Granted, a new show must take time initially to introduce its characters. The audience must fully savor who the people are, what they want out of life and why it is so important that they have it. Unfortunately, after six months, the characters on GENERATIONS are still explaining themselves with very little of consequence going on. This would be more tolerable if the characters were given revealing monologues (instead of lengthy voiceovers, which are not only distracting but an antiquated technique) about what it was like growing up in Chicago; poetic glimpses into a character the way Claire Labine (former head writer of RYAN's HOPE) and Douglas Marland (AS THE WORLD TURNS's head writer) do so beautifully. The Marshalls and the Whitmores merely sit and chat about their family backgrounds, constantly hitting the audience over the head with their value systems and beliefs. It is almost as though GENERATIONS provides the facts about its characters, without character. An incredible amount of time is spent discussing career moves. Rebecca Whitmore (Patricia Crowley) agonized endlessly about her long-awaited law partnership. Entire episodes centered on the impending ice cream partnership between self-made, down-to-earth Henry Marshall (Taurean Blacque) and slick Martin Jackson (Rick Fitts). The clincher of the ice cream deal - a game of pool - was enough to make George Jefferson look like Donald Trump. This is supposed to be a flattering, accurate representation of successful black people? GENERATIONS also made much ado about whether Samantha ("Sam" ) Whitmore (Kelly Rutherford) would graduate from college. Frankly, this young lady is so obnoxious, we wouldn't have put it past Miss Frances to expel her from DING DONG SCHOOL. The bomb scare at her graduation ceremony could have served as a wonderful climax, kicking off a racially motivated mystery story and/or heavy romance.Instead, it was merely a prank pulled by a lovesick nerd. The most irritating quality about GENERATIONS, however, is the day-to-day script writing. This soap is not of the 1990s, but of the early 1970s. Social-climber Ruth Marshall (Joan Pringle) clicks her tongue to hr mother, Vivian (Lynn Hamilton) about the new living arrangement between son Adam (Kristoff St. John), Sam Whitmore and Sam's cousin, Monique McCallum (Nancy Sorel). Vivian shakes her head and sighs, "It's this new generation. Why, in my day, there'd be tongues a-waggin." Aw, shucks. Henry's South Side background comes out when he visits Martin and his flirtatious, addiction-prone wife, Doreen (Jonelle Allen). When Martin invites him to play a game of billiards, Henry whoops, "Mmm-mmm-mmm, this is sho' one beauty-ful pool table!" Wonder if he gets invited back. And the young people all speak in early YOUNG AND RESTLESS lingo. There is a lot of "Cool it, man," "She's laid a hell of a trip on me," and "That's the understatement of the century." When there is mystery surrounding a character, it is drummed into the audience incessantly. Monique's romance with Jason Craig (Tony Addabbo) should draw cheers from her relatives, but they immediately assume - with no basis - that something's rotten: "Who is this man? What's his background? This is your first serious boyfriend and we don't know a thing about him!" Considering the level at which GENERATIONS operates, one can only imagine Jason's horrifying secret. Maybe he was Henry's first ice cream distributor, and he purposely substituted Tabasco Walnut Fudge for Rocky Road to get back at Henry for beating his father at pool. For all of these harsh words, our purpose is not to damn GENERATIONS as a bad show or a waste of air time. Its premise is original and its cast is reasonably good for a new soap, but the pace is simply too slow - and the dialogue too stultifying - for any of these performers to truly shine and grow in their roles. There is a disturbing self-consciousness that creeps into this show about "issues" like upwardly mobile blacks, older working women or two sexes cohabiting in a platonic environment - when, truth be told, it's old news. In order to succeed and fulfill its promise, GENERATIONS needs to go in either one of two directions: It can become a daring, topical soap about race relations; exploring the ramifications of radical pressure groups, AIDS and violent city crime on the two families. Or, it can become a traditional family-based serial in which one family just happens to be black, a la COSBY's Huxtable clan. Either way, GENERATIONS could carve a niche for itself, developing its own unique style. As of this writing, however, GENERATIONS is still trying to find itself. And for all of Marshall's ice cream flavors, it's still afraid to sample anything other than vanilla.

Thanks. Were they listing all the contract players or just a selection?

September 22, 1987 Digest.

More on the Bachmann ex-gay therapy. http://www.thenation.com/article/161883/%E2%80%98god-has-created-you-heterosexuality%E2%80%99-clinics-owned-michele-bachmann%E2%80%99s-husband-practi The "family" group which pushed the pledge apologizes for the slavery reference. Bachmann's people said she didn't read it...even though this was only 4 pages long. http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/conservative-marriage-pledge-group-apologizes-for-slavery-reference/2011/07/09/gIQANT3C6H_story.html?tid=sm_twitter_washingtonpost