DRW50

Thanks for the clips and photos. I wonder if Brad Bell was just ashamed of the Spectras. His idea of "comedy" seems to be more along the lines of the latest scene where people tell Brooke she is a whore/Stephanie goes wild. That and Pam/Donna Duck. Perhaps he feels like he created those characters (since the Logans of today bear zero resemblance to anything Bill Bell created) so it shows how great he is.

I see a Daytime TV mention that "Natalie Israel" left as Patti in December 1974. Was this another name for Leigh Lassen?

Marcy is fun here. And I love Lisa's childishness about Ellen. I guess this story with Keith Charles went nowhere. There's another clip where Ellen is grilling Gavin and Arthur Claiborne about a retirement home property or something, and Charles was in that too. It's a shame they didn't develop the story for Ellen. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PaIdBRRalMI&feature=related

This is fascinating. I had forgotten the show lasted for 2 full years. That's quite a run compared to most of the soaps of the 60's (they usually seemed to either take off or die quickly). I don't understand why they would cancel the show after such massive ratings growth. They missed a trick, as Dark Shadows was on the way to make their channel much more youth-friendly. I had no idea so many soap names were on this. It's funny because Don Hastings said that - I think - Irna Phillips got Richard Thomas replaced on ATWT because she didn't care for him. When The Waltons started, and Irna told him she was impressed with John Boy, Don told her John Boy had played Tom. She refused to believe him. I wonder if she knew Richard at this show. The early story sounds very Peyton Place. Here's what Schemering said. I will skip the early part and just cut to more of the story: He also says the show was produced by Joseph Hardy and written by Don Ettlinger, and one of the directors was Tom Donovan.

Gary Swanson, who played Greg Mercer on Somerset, was one of the top contenders to replace Christopher Reeve on Love of Life. Adrian Zmed auditioned to play Max Holden after James de Paiva left in 1990, and was JdP's own personal choice for the role. If he'd gotten the role he would have probably sublet JdP's apartment (this was all in an SOD).

I remember the B&B book, which was a real labor of love, had a lot of cast shots. Look at poor KKL rocking the Nancy McKeon dress sense in that first one. I didn't think Michael Swan was on the show in 1997.

The fever?? Those are great. I didn't realize Jeff played any of the Thorne/Caroline/Ridge story.

Holden was around for about a year and a half after he took Aaron. He had that boring story with the mother of a deaf child, and with Janice, and sniffing around Lily (leading to the bell tower). At one point Emma castigated him for treating her as a babysitter instead of being a father. The mention of Aaron living with Julie was ludicrous and that was one of the first big hints that FMB had no real interest in ATWT's history. I always liked Julie and her flaws were one of the reasons why. To hear that she was raising Aaron and that she was seriously ill throughout the 00's (did they ever officially kill her off?) was pretty damn sad. At least I have my memories of her brief return for that Lilden wedding in early 1998, with Andy taking photos of her.

And now all those mentions are gone I guess the different version of AW that ABC wanted may have just meant Felicia? This is very well-written. I'm glad to know more about Mike Bauer's stories. I think JFP's tenure did bring in a ratings increase for a while but not enough, and probably not worth the financial cost.

I felt that way more about Thorne and Storm.

That awful wink is always my favorite part. The guy who played Dave was wooden but he had a presence that most of the other younger men on the show didn't have, aside from Ridge. I wonder why they let him go.

Taylor basically replaced Caroline (although I thought Taylor was a sanctimonious hypocrite from early on, which I never felt with Caroline...but then, the writing was better early on), so I guess they may have had some of the same stories. I do think Hunter Tylo's exotic beauty - she was, at one time, probably the most stunning woman on TV - helped give a real contrast to Brooke and made the eternal triangle more believable. In the long run Caroline was probably a character B&B couldn't have sustained, and she was better off leaving after a few years. It's interesting how that story starts in one of the very first episodes (Stephanie gets a phone call and she says never to call her at home). I wonder if it's all online. I know the story mostly because of how much Susan Flannery hated it. She said that the line about Angela's death - "she rolled all the way down 7th Avenue" - is one she used for years any time she thought a story sucked.

Thanks for starting this. That tagline for the ad always seemed tawdry to me, a weird contrast to how uber-serious the show was early on. For me the show was the characters that Bradley Bell likely had little use for - Sally, Darla, Bill Spencer (killed off for no good reason), Felicia. Characters like Taylor and Eric and Donna are one-dimensional and unfortunately so are most of the people they share story with. That and the show's inability to actually develop characters or tell stories mean that they just have to rely on stunts. I doubt I have as much as you do but I hope to post some stuff when I can find it again. My B&B favorite will always be Joanna Johnson. So regal, and pretty, yet never the typical weepy/dull soap heroine.

Sorry, I'd forgotten I hadn't finished the Anne Burr article.

The last episode. I think the last scenes are quite touching. It's a nice tonic to what soaps have become. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a5O6BknvMXs&feature=mfu_in_order&list=UL http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJ31mviiccE

I'm always so confused by the timelines with the Aaron story. I know in some mid-1993 episodes John and Iva are back together. I can't remember if he knew by then. In late 1993 he was going to sue her for custody (perhaps that was just for MJ). At the time did you think they had Iva get pregnant with MJ to somehow make up for the impending loss of Aaron? I have wondered for a while what the story plans would have been for Iva if Doug Marland had lived. He and Lisa Brown were very close friends and I don't know if he would have let them write Iva out, if he had any say in the matter. What I hated most about the Aaron story is that after Holden took Aaron I don't remember him spending any time with Aaron at all. He just dumped the kid off on people. At the time that infuriated me, especially since Iva was gone and that meant a year and a half of Holden moping about Lily and staring into space. No thanks.

I was so busy reading various boards talking about the episode that I never had the energy to comment on it myself. I thought it was pretty good, excellent in places. The only real complaint I have is in story mechanics - it was all too distracting, I was constantly reminded I was watching a TV show (a character is created just to overhear a conversation and blurt out a secret; Denise destroys a table of food; Yusef's cousin has to very blatantly, and repeatedly, tell us that Yusef started the fire). That aside, the Masood drama was top-notch, with wonderful performances from everyone, and high drama all around. Hamesh Patel's best performance so far was the scene where he told everyone he and Afia were already married. The scene where Masood punched Yusef was sudden and brutal - exactly what soap violence these days often is not. Seeing Christian and Syed integrated more into family life is a smart decision and it's been very well-paced. Syed is more of a mommy's boy but his steadfast support of Masood in the last few months, in spite of everything Masood has done to him, is touching, and I really wish we could see some more Syed/Masood scenes on their own.

Given that Santer utterly destroyed Tanya and made Max totally irrelevant, I can't imagine what he would do with the characters at this point. I'm just sorry they have, yet again, made Max all about Tanya. He's a very isolated character and he's gone from my favorite person to watch to someone I barely notice. That's the "Tan" touch. I hear a lot of talk about how Max drags Tanya down, but she interacts with a variety of characters, she has a great new friendship with Syed. Max has...

Oh. For some reason I thought the affair wouldn't come out until after she battles cancer. I didn't read closely. I think that there were many issues going on with Ryan onscreen and off that doomed him, and I have mixed feelings on Vanessa, but I would have kept Greg and Mercy, definitely. Greg is a very rare male character for Eastenders. I have no use for more "bad boys" or "hard men" or "ladykillers." I miss the days of Lofty Holloway.

I kept thinking this would be more than a pregnancy. I'm sure Jake and Jo will do a great job. I wonder how this will affect Greg's character - I can see him smothering Tanya and she pushes him out of her life.

I knew he was on by the mid-60's because of the books and the story and script breakdowns I posted some pages ago from that Mary Hartman Mary Noble book, but I didn't realize he was on from 1960. That's quite a run. How many Ricks were there again?

I do wonder about what was going on at the show at this time. This is a decided move away from the 50's episodes I've seen, which are much more full of clear "good" and "bad" characters. How did viewers adapt? What did they think of people like Barbara and Rick and did they miss Meg, or Paul? How long was this after Meg and Paul were gone? 2-3 years? Was the older woman the one who had an evil twin? I can never remember the stories. I have to admit that I wasn't overly enthralled with Rick and Barbara here, but I know how important Rick became later on. The older characters are the ones I was most interested in in this episode. I'd love to see the blooming flower one.

saynotoursoap has put up a 1960 episode which gives us our first glimpse (if we weren't watching the show back when it first aired) of Rick and Barbara. I wonder how long this theme lasted. I don't like it that much. I keep expecting to see Doctor Who grinning at me. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oXhKHSAUiCw&feature=mfu_in_order&list=UL http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CrGISjyL8n0&feature=mfu_in_order&list=UL