Soaplovers

Paige was a shot of energy that the show needed, the problem was that there was a lack of viable other characters in her peer group that could have helped sustain the show. Michael and Eric were created for a show that was originally supposed to be Family esque so they didn't really work acting/story wise when the show transitioned into a primetime soap opera. They always seemed kind of out of place to me. To me, Olivia vs Paige could have been an interesting story since we witnessed their warm friendship implode at the end of season 8/early season 9.. and that element could have been revisited in season 10 and season 11 since Greg did become Olivia's step dad in season 10 and I'm sure having Olivia working at the Sumner Group in season 11 would have ensured she wasn't islanded off.

I agree that the early 2000s Reilly serial killer story looked as though it was going to be a legit serial killer mystery. The Maggie arc especially was well done and gothic with some call backs to vital elements from her past (and the way she was 'killed' was by a demon she thought she managed to control). Melaswen (New Salem spelled backwards) as a location was probably planned.. but what that location was going to be was re-written/adjusted once the show did a 180 and had all the victims really live on the island. Reilly did love his offbeat and gothic locations... anyone remember Aremid (Dimera spelled backwards). I did think the lady in white had a promising start in Aremid.. but it was a major letdown. As the World Turns: Oddly as a kid, I remember the gothic period with Duncan's castle where someone was pretending to be Earl Mitchell.. which drove Lisa crazy while it look as though Grant Colman was behind it (I don't recall who actually did that.. perhaps it was James Stenbeck?). The other story I wished I could see involving Lisa was The Willows story from 1979 (which I believe was a Marland tale during his brief stint head-writing before he switched to GL). Guiding Light: Though the Dreaming Death Story was an odd story... I still think the scenes where Lesley ann succumbs to the illness and she's up in heaven is creepy.

The problem is that the writers are thinking Ashley/Naomi are the good guys and Derek is an evil entity that is holding poor sweet Ashley back with his manipulative ways. Thankfully most of the audience still have working brains and eyes and they aren't buying what the writers are selling. Ashley will be that individual that'll wake up one day when she's the same age as Jan and be regretful about where her life is... but unlike her mother, will naturally blame others instead of herself. Naomi, on the other hand, is being a world class witch to all men because she hasn't dealt with the anger she feels at her father over how he treated her mother...and I think she lashes out and never fully trusts Jacob because deep down she fears she'll be like her mother when she actually is more like her father than her mother.

It's a wonderful and haunting song about a gay guy that leaves his small town to find freedom to be himself in a bigger city. Surprised that the show decided to play that during that particular scene with a hetero character.

I know that pop music playing on soaps was a thing in the 80s... but did the producers understand the lyrics of this particular song? I'm going to assume no (most people in the 80s didn't understand what She Bop by Cyndi Lauper was about.. so doubt if they knew what this song was about)

Basically.... I'm team Todd, Team Jared, and Team John after watching the season and the mid season trailer. Unless there's physical abuse and/or cheating, I always side with the guy over the woman when couples fight. That trailer solidifies that for me.

I know O'leary came on in May 1983 after the Long/Kobe team came in... even though the other Rick was very cute. However, the other Rick probably wouldn't have worked chemistry wise with Mindy/Beth so I can understand why the decision to recast was made. Oddly, the brief stint where Temu Morgan was interacting with the original Rick and Philip pre Kobe/Long worked and was the first time where Temu Morgan had a bit of personality. While OG Morgan would have been out of place in the whole Josh/Kelly situation that developed in 1981/1982.... I think she would have been very effective in the whole Amanda/Jennifer/Mark story.. moreso than Temu Morgan was.

Eva entering without an invite because the door is unlocked makes me chuckle since entitled Dani loves to do that all the time, but also makes me think security needs to be beefed up. Chelsea being unaffected is a symptom of what's wrong with modern day soap opera telling... plot over character. She should have been the one to fly off the handle for Eva just randomly showing up.. but she was calm and rational. Bad writing. Samantha is a moron and a waste of airtime. Can she just go live with June and the two be written off? The look Caroline gave during her 1:1 scenes with Hayley makes me think she knows a lot more than we think (maybe she's more aware of Hayley than she, and the viewer, assumes). Martin flying off the handle is pretty in character.. and I've always thought that Martin and Smitty had an abusive undertone to it. The man tried to sabotage a job opportunity Smitty had because he didn't want him to work.. if that isn't a symptom of abuse, I don't know. What I like about the Kat/Eva dynamic is that both of them have good points and bad points. Kat is a spoiled and entitled princess, but she also knows how to read people and was/is right about Eva while Eva can be underhanded, but she's got drive and has had to hustle in a way that Kat has never had to do. It's been established that Hayley hasn't known Naomi and co for very long.. perhaps two years at most so it would make sense she wasn't aware that there was a 3rd brother.. especially if he's been off the canvas for awhile. Hayley being thristy is funny.. but she needs to stop being so sloppy.

Unpopular opinion, but I think the ship has truly sailed on a revival and I think this cultural obsession with revivals tells me that people have a difficult time letting go and moving forward. It was a great soap opera, but sometimes you need to let things rest in peace and move forward with new content/material.

Based on some of the episodes floating around Youtube, it looked as though Marland remained as head-writer until September 1982 (Mid September) with Pat Faken being headwriter in the October and November 1982 episodes (where the main focuses of the few episodes available online showed a heavy focus on Nola/Quint/Silas.. and Amanda/Mark/Jennifer with Josh/Morgan as support). The Christmas 1982 episode seemed well down with the various families all interacting with an interesting set up at the Marlers with Justin, Evie, Hope, Alan, Philip, and baby Samantha all together.. with Philip butting heads with Justin while Alan/Justin exchanging looks over their shared knowledge about Philip (plus, I believe there was an episode in December 1982 where Jackie's father had passed away with the theory he was in distress having to keep the secret of Philip's true paternity). The 1983 episodes from January through June 1983 for Philip are interesting where we saw Evie and Helena both being surrogate mother figures for Philip at different intervals. I believe Evie lasts airs in June 1983 after spending the first half of 1983 being saddened because she was missing Ben, who had left town while trying to be a buffer between Philip and Justin/Alan. I was surprised she lasted so long, but I have to say that I think she was the one character that was unaffected by the writer changes (in other words, her character remained a sweet and gentle individual without being insipid through the Dobson, Marland, and the brief writer regimes before being written out at the start of the Long/Kobe era).

I will confirm that it was a rom com/chick lit tv movie.

https://www.instagram.com/clarkpb01/

Sharing Richard - 1988 Tv movie A tv movie that featured soap actresses and one not talked about much. Basically these three women are good friends that each meet a man that turns out to be the same guy. So naturally the three women decide to share him without letting him know that this is being done. What can go wrong with an arrangement like this LOL An interesting bit of trivia that one of the writers of this tv movie went on to create CSI Miami, CSI NY, and CSI Cyber.

I had read that Marland quitting in a huff hurt the show because his stories were often these complex and intricate stories. While that can be a positive when things are going well behind the scenes, it can hurt a show if said head-writer quits and doesn't really leave any sort of visible way to resolve the stories. The reason Marland was able to come in and quickly get to effectively pick up where the Dobson's left off was because their stories were easy to pick up and run with. From what I recall, there were three short-term head-writing teams that tried to make sense of Marland's stories with varying degrees of success. Perhaps one of the short-term writers ( my guess is the L Virginia Browne/Gene Palumbo) that decided to combine the Mark and Mona/Rebecca stories... two birds/one stone. The fall-out was Amanda alienating her new found family of Jennifer and Morgan with her deceit, which sadly we didn't get to see followed through because of backstage issues once Long/Kobe were established on the show. My guess is that it was more Kobe that had an issue with Amanda than Long... especially when the actress that played Amanda theorized in her Locher Room interview that the new team wanted to move away from the European gothic elements of the Dobson/Marland era.. and her character didn't fit where they wanted to take the show (though there was an interview that Pam Long did in early 1984 where she raved about the actress that played Amanda.. so I'm sure Kobe was the culprit).

From watching the 1984 episodes, it seemed as though once the show came back from the two week hiatus (during the Olympics), it seemed as though the show went back to the basics with two pretty good mystery/plotlines: The Locked Room murder mystery and the mysterious backstory of newbie Liz, who was putting constructing a skull she had discovered. Only one of the two mysteries were concluded before the end of the show, but the Liz story did result in the return of Laurie Ann.. and her determination to find her child as the show concluded.

It sounds like the lady in black that the Dobson's introduced in the last few months of their tenue was going to be someone tied to the Spauldings (probably Amanda's bio mom). I'm curious who the Dobson's had in mind for that part of the story since I doubt very much insipid Jennifer was who they would have created.... they probably would have had something gothic/creepy without it veering into camp (most of Marland's gothic attempts were campy at best). In regards to Lucille, since she seemed intent on eliminating any man that got in the way of her control/hold over Amanda so I imagine that either Amanda would have killed Lucille in self-defense to protect herself and/or Ben... or Lucille might have taken her own life and framed Ben for it (figuring if she couldn't kill him, might as well frame him for it) had the Dobson's continued on beyond late 1979. Another question I had was did Elizabeth learn Phillip was Justin/Jackie's during the Dobson era, or during the Marland era? I find it hard to believe she would just give up the child that she'd raised for many years to a woman that had lied to her from the start. Unpopular opinion, but I'm glad Jackie died before Phillip found out he was her son because all of this mess was due to her and I think it was a nice karma that she never got to truly be a mother to him. She's the true villainess of this piece/story.

Was Alan married to Hope at the time? If so, it's possible that he and Hilary had interacted off screen. The Roger story was sort of a connector during the Dobson era, but the interactions/mentions were more realistic like how it would be in real life where you might know of someone and offer them good luck and/or pulling for you before returning back to whatever you were doing in your day to day life. Yeah.. I did remember thinking how Amanda was nice.. but also had a devious side she kept hidden/repressed. However, the whole Lucille element was creepy in 1979 especially when she was trying to kill Ben. I always wonder how the Dobson's would have resolved the Lucille element and how they would have revealed that Amanda was really a Spaulding.

The one element I liked about the Paige character was that she was one of the few characters that didn't treat Karen as if she was the second coming of Christ. She usually was polite to Karen with Karen also being polite to her. I think Karen knew if she was her usual 'Karen' self with Paige that Mac would have been pissed at her so even Karen knew when the reign in her toxic interfering ways. LOL

Let's face it, the only reason Marland was good at Guiding Light was because he had a strong foundation to work from... but his weaknesses became apparent eventually on the show. Not to say he wasn't talented, but there was a noticeable difference between how the Dobson's wrote vs the Marland's that became apparent once the Roger story was wrapped up. 1) The Dobson's had a diverse mix of female characters that weren't interchangeable. Elizabeth, Holly, Rita, Jackie, Diane, and Amanda were so uniquely different from one another... and they have positive and not so positive traits. Even the newer characters that debuted/returned in 1979 like Hope and Lanie seemed to have distinct personality traits (Hope in 1979 had confidence and drive while Lanie was warm and optimistic). Marland had trouble with most of those characters rendering Holly a zombie, not understanding what made Rita tick, turning Amanda & Hope into weaker characters, and Diane into a one note villainess. Even his female creations didn't seem any better (Nola, Vanessa, and Morgan weren't written very well... but thanks to Lisa Brown, Vigard, and Maeve Kinkaid.. they became interesting characters). 2) When watching a 1979 episode, there are long scenes of conversations that were realistic and allowed the actor to shine. When watching a 1980 episode, the conversations were mostly exposition with too much detail and unrealistic. 3) The Dobson's Guiding Light seemed to have story bubbles where certain character groups hardly interacted. It seemed more like Bill Bell's Y & R where characters existed in their own orbits. I didn't see a lot of overlap between the Jackie/Alan/Elizabeth/Justin crew or the Ed/Holly/Rita crew in the 1979 episodes unless it was a social gathering.. and even then it was more of a passing hello and not long drawn out conversations. Marland's Guiding Light.. he seemed intent on everyone interacting and knowing one another's business (he did this less so on GL than on ATWT where it was basically a gossip session most of the time.. unrealistic in real life). With that said, I would have been interested to see how the Dobson's would have resolved the Roger story since I don't think it would have involved falling off the cliff. If anything.. they probably would have either killed him on screen or carted him off to jail. The other story I wondered about would have been the Amanda story.. since Lucille was scarier in the 1979 episodes than she was in the 1980 episodes. I suspect how that story would have ended would have been more sinister/darker than how Marland resolved the Lucille aspect of the story.

- I happen to like Joey, he provides a nice contrast to the overly privileged Duprees. - BTG does have the wardrobe person from B & B on staff so it tracks. - Martin is acting just like Martin. An overly spoiled and pampered individual that probably was overly spoiled because of the stresses in Nicole/Ted's marriage when he was young. - Kat being the miracle baby is why she acts like such an entitled princess. - Therapist tend to have mal-adjusted children moreso than not so it's realistic that Nicole's kids lack of her more mature perspective.

And dare I say it... but I think deep down, Jan has a thing for Derek.. but can't admit it since he's with her daughter. Hence another reason why she's so pro Derek and trying to push him to stay with Ashley. I like that Jan didn't condone what Derek did, but also low key called out her daughter for lying to herself about where her true feelings lie. I'm truly hoping that this hasty reveal will now keep Derek/Ashley broken up.. and perhaps testing Derek with other people and also place Ashley at the hospital where she works best (plus, there are some handsome doctors that she could be looking at).

In regards to the conversations about Joey (white guy) being the villain against the mostly black characters... isn't that the point of a soap opera? To hate the villain and root for the other characters to defeat him? So the fact that all of you feel this way tells me that MVJ and co are doing their jobs well. I'm sure that eventually something will turn and Joey will be taken down (and I hope to god it isn't Vanessa that takes him down).

GL: Blake/Josh (they were tested after Reva/Jeffery were well received as a couple) Holly/Billy Holy/Buzz ATWT: Lily/Mike (they were supposed to be paired in 1996 until Shawn Christian opted to leave since Holden/Damian were no longer there and Rosanna/Carly were no longer there).

Could Ashley finding out about Derek slowly regaining use of his legs be a tweak by the showrunners and/or Tracy T's interference? It does feel like there has been some resets and tweaks going on in the last few weeks since the departure of Guza as co-headwriter.

I think Runyon settled more into the role in her last months as Sally once she was acting opposite Peter and Cass. I thought she had a vulnerable vibe mixed with an impulsive streak. Her Sally benefited from interacting with Liz, Jim, Pat, and Russ that helped establish her as a member of the Matthews clan.