DRW50

Thanks!

Thanks so much. Really appreciate the help. I'll add that.

Someone (not sure if they want to be named but if they do, I'll happily give them credit) kindly gave me an hour of clips (with some commercials) from summer 1984 and an hour of clips (with some commercials) from spring 1985. I don't know if these had ever been up before, but I don't see them at present. I don't want to clog up the thread so I'm just going to post the first link. You can already see some of the big shift in the show from only summer 84 to spring 85. Chris Marcantel is such a little live wire as Curtis - a shame later on they just wrote him as a psycho. There's a big argument between Ava and Stacey at about 25 minutes. Not sure if it is their first but it's a defining moment. (this is still Patty Lotz Ava, so different from what we'd have with Roya and Lisa)

I would guess they blame the ratings drops in part on longer scenes. I do think viewers can watch longer scenes, but the reports out now of younger people who can't read (even college kids) and can only watch video clips makes me less sure than I was in the past.

I'd imagine he was upset about Sasha being pregnant, while he had no real emotional investment with Brook Lyn being pregnant. They did poor Swickford (is that his name? Swickard...?) dirty with that cap. I wonder if he has lost his alpha podcaster beard as a sign that he and tradwife Brook Lyn are splitting up. Not to already pile on to the conversations about her attire, but she was dressed today like she was going to do a K-Mart ad with Rosie O'Donnell and Penny Marshall. Lois has a much more fun wardrobe.

I remember an SPW interview which had Jane, while on set as Tracy, making changes to the lighting. (wish she could do that with GH but of course that isn't her job anymore) I liked Roscoe as Nick, but he would have made sense as a Dane recast. Morgan as Ann also makes a lot of sense. I think this also would have been a natural time to bring back Lorna, maybe with a teenage adopted daughter (as otherwise she'd be blood related to most of the younger men in Corinth we knew of - although I guess there was Ava's son). She and Tess might team up against Ava but then when Lorna sees how wicked Tess is, she double crosses her. And you could pair Lorna up with Danny, if he was still on the show.

The show definitely hinted:

@GymnastGuy Thank you SO MUCH for your priceless uploads and it says a lot that Vance let you have them. We talk so much about what actors have and often just assume this material leaves us when the actors leave us. And I am amazed at hearing of scripts too (I didn't even know he started on OLTL in 1974). @EricMontreal22 I definitely see what you mean about ATWT and GL (and I agree that the other P&G soaps don't seem quite as stuck in a theme from the scraps we have of them in that period). What's around of Search, AW, or Edge are a bit more current for the time period.

Thanks for reminding us of the history with Wakefield and Loving, which I always forget. I think Agnes' choices start to seep in after some of the initial material, although we have so little available it's hard to say (I'd give her credit for Ava and Kate, at least). The good news is if you go to the New Day In Eden/Loving Friends and Perfect Couples thread, a full New Day in Eden episode was finally put on Youtube earlier this month. We've gotten so much this month I am now going to feel spoiled for the upcoming drought.

@EricMontreal22 Great to see you on here again. Welcome back! We definitely appreciate all this material being uploaded, especially in today's climate where you never know what tomorrow will be, if there is a tomorrow. I remember Joe Stuart mainly for all the stuff about Courtney, Slezak, etc. but I can also see where his changes may have moved the show into a direction it needed to go in. There are stories under his pen that are hard to imagine happening before him, like the tragedy of Lana. I'm just sorry for some of the changes that were made that probably didn't have to be, like getting rid of Nancy Pinkerton. You're right about how different the P&G soaps were to ABC at this time, based on the material we now finally have available to watch. Even if the GL episodes were a tad stodgy in places, I think sticking to their traditional format worked for them. The attempts to ABC-ify both shows in the early '80s would be a big mistake, and ATWT only recovered when they managed to find the middle ground between modernizing and their roots (GL never really managed to fully recover).

Thanks for finding a timeframe. I hope we get to see some of this someday. I wish they hadn't made Rick such a full heel.

Sarah was originally meant to be on an Aremid or DAYS spinoff that never was, right? Now that Aremid is back they may as well call it a spinoff.

I'm guessing the latter.

https://deadline.com/2025/01/little-house-prairie-melissa-gilbert-megyn-kelly-wokeify-gripe-netflix-1236273929/

There was also Jerry. although I think that Jerry is married in real life to the woman who played Alice at the time, so maybe not. David Bailey (RIP) was so dull onscreen...if he was saving that for his personal life, it explains a lot.

That could have worked. If it was a woman they may have had Mike go between sisters like Leslie had with brothers. I also briefly thought it was Ross' house.

Before I forget, I wanted to say that even though the August 1973 episode has big technical issues, it's still worth a watch. I never thought I'd get to see the aftermath of Charlotte's death. What I appreciated most was the nuance in how Bert and Mike reacted to the news - as Bert said, she hurt Mike badly, but they still felt sorrow for her ending. Not sure we would have gotten that on the show enough in later years. It may have also been Lynne Adams' first episode back as Leslie. You can immediately feel an energy difference (and an age difference).

He was.

I think there is some character-driven basis on Jason's end, more than anything with Anna, or when he was with Britt, etc. but from Sasha's side it reinforces how much they just pass that character around. That would have been worth a watch, although Jake was shipped out as quickly as possible.

I agree. And it clearly did better in syndication than any other soap aside from Dark Shadows. That's also why I think the show could have been revived, and still could.

The part about having episodes all the way from February 1978 made me wish more of those had been made available by P&G. I guess that must not have been true.

I did wonder about the timeframe due to thinking Irna was still there at that time and also how heavily pregnant Kim was. So they fired Ellen and then brought her back in the mid-70s. I had forgotten Konrad played Roy. I assume Jennifer and Bob were married by this point and Jennifer was ready to have Frannie, based on the story about the crib. I wonder if Jennifer and Nancy ever get along or if Jennifer ever changes. They seemed to keep her as having a strong personality as we know a few years later there was the story about her wanting to go back to school and Nancy being unhappy.

Watching this now and it's such a pivotal episode. Kim hiding away in her last months of pregnancy and bonding with John. This is also a prime episode for the pre-Marland Nancy who is so much blunter and more manipulative. I wish I could see Jennifer - or anything of her outside of one tiny clip and her 1998 ghostly return. It's utterly fascinating, especially when soaps could often be black and white even in these more nuanced years, to have a heroine who is written as so forthright and uninterested in who might not react well to her, while Kim, who is on paper, more in the wrong, due to pursuing Bob, is the character seen as sweeter and easier to love, at least if Nancy is any indication. I loved that thole segment where Nancy is grilling Chris about why he hasn't been asking Grant more questions about his wife. I have seen wives in that type of moment with husbands. Were they already laying the groundwork for Joyce? Speaking of Grant, I had forgotten another actor played Grant (he isn't shown but is in the cast list) Larry Brygmann is styled in an oily manner in these years. Was it the Dobsons who let him look more like a leading man? I forgot Jay started this early on. I didn't know he had any early stuff with the Stewarts or Ellen. I get so confused about the timeline as I thought the Stewarts had been written out for a while. Had they already been brought back by this point? Or had they never been written out?

I have a soft spot for Loving but I can't really disagree about how by-the-numbers the show could often seem (with some exceptions, mainly in the early/mid '90s). I know Claire Labine stood by 30 minutes being the ideal format. I think she was right. There are few who can handle 60 minutes as writers or producers, and it's even more difficult today. In a world with increasingly short attention spans, 30 or 15 minutes are no-brainers to me. Warm and realistic is a good way to put it. I don't know if I credit OLTL enough for that in these years. I think it's something the show missed (as all soaps missed) later on, especially once JFP came in.

Watching the first episode...I didn't know we'd be getting some of the Victoria story (which I've never heard good things about). It mostly just seems dull here. Nice to see Barbara Rodell as Leslie. She certainly is styled differently than the other soap roles I've seen her in. Nancy Altman was even better than I expected. She brings a truly deranged air to the role of Kit that livens up a potentially moribund atmosphere (how many times did we need interior monologues). She left me unsettled even just from a few moments.