Soaplovers

Barring the Gorilla appearing in the last episode and that stupid hip-hop dance to lure the gorilla out of the tree.. the rest of the last episode was wonderful. It had a wedding, had every single person give advice via a video montage (sort of a good-bye to the fans as well) and it ended with Rachel looking over all the photos in the Cory living room before she and Carl turned off the light and went upstairs.

I guess Kelly Preston (going under her maiden name) was on the show at the start but her character was phased out pretty quickly circa 1982.

The character I was always intrigued by was Brenda Clegg... sounds like she was the rebellious, party-girl. How did you get along with her parents and siblings? Was she into politics or the complete opposite of politics?

I agree that it's a shame the show didn't survive into the 90's. We could have seen how the show handled the Gulf-war, sex scandals, etc. A soap like this would be great to have now.

Btw, someone mentioned Catherine Hickland was a better Julie. Did she make Julie less sickly sweet? I can't imagine Catherine Hickland playing a nice character (only old enough to recall her stints on loving and One life to live.. neither of which she played a goody two shoe).

Season 3 seems to be the season that has some interesting self-contained episodes along with the ongoing plotlines of Karen's adjustment as a single mother, Abby showcasing her ruthless behavior (i.e. getting her kids back, taking Gary from Val, and trying to snag the wealthy dude to provide financial security for herself and kids), Laura/Richard's marriage breaking up and both seeking out other outlets.

I agree with an earlier post that this season along with season 4, to an extent, was more serial based as opposed to soap-opera based.

I still don't see the point after all these years of making Jill go completely crazy? If the point was to reunite Gary/Val, why did it take another two or three seasons afterwards to reunite them?

From what I've read, the writers just decided to make Jill go crazy.. no buildup, no long-term planning.. just have her go crazy. Viewing all the reruns, I liked that Jill was one of those gray characters. She was neither good nor evil and she fit in well on the show. She got along with karen/Mac, had an interesting relationship with Gary, had good bitchy rapport with Abby and later Paige. I just think she had potential to be a longer-term character especially given the exits of later characters.

Gary/Abby were one of my favorite couples on the show, so much could have been done with them.

I totally loved them as a couple along with Val/Ben. Somehow, I always believed that Val and Gary truly loved each other but were unhealthy for one another. It seemed like Abby and Ben helped bring out Gary and Val stronger sides (if that makes sense). Plus, Abby/Val seemed to always be civil/friendly during that period... which surprised me given all the crap Abby pulled on Val.

I was a kid when Knots Landing was a big hit so I didn't know the specifics of the early years of the show. When TNT reran the whole series in the 90's, I finally got to see the early episodes and was surprised at how different it was. My thoughts are as follows:

Self-contained vs. Serial: I was surprised the first three seasons were self-containted (the first season especially had only self-contained vs 2 & 3 that had some continuing elements going on). I think that this was a great idea because the audience got to know the characters and what made them tick. Once it went to serial form officially in the 4th season, we already knew the character's and cared about them. I think to revive the prime-time soap, you need to start a show with self-contained episodes then switch to a soap like structure down the road. That's what the new show 'Lonestar' is planning to do.

Val: I was surprised at how rural she acted but I also noticed that she had an inner strength and wisdom not seen in later years. To me, she seemed to be the advice giver and less of a victim in those early shows. Sadly in the later years, she became a caricature and always the weak one compared to Karen, Laura, and Abby.

As someone mentioned above, I liked that Val interacted with the other women more. She had some great scenes with Laura, a few with Ginger, and even got along with Abby. What fascinated me about Abby/Val was that they seemed to get along with each other in some respects. They would have coffee at each other's homes, worked out together, and took advice from one another. What's even more interesting was that Abby stole Val's husband but they seemed to still be somewhat friendly with each other in the later years.

Fairchild was delightful. She took over for another actress, and I don't even remember her name. Morgan was truly something special. Throughout my many years of watching soaps, I have always intuitively known when I was watching a special talent, and I had that feeling instantly about Miss Fairchild. I knew that her time in soaps would be shortlived, that she would move on to much bigger things, and she did. She took a somewhat cliched character and made her one of the most memorable in a soap which ran for 35 years -quite an accomplishment considering she was not even on for three full years. I feel that Morgan was well received by the audience. I felt pity for her even when she did terrible things. She was so beautiful yet insecure. She fell for Scott Phillips, an alcoholic who abused and neglected her (and Scott was more or less considered a nice character). He made her pregnant, married her, and still pined for the cold fish Kathy. Seriously, how anyone could ignore the beautiful Jennifer for bitchy Kathy beggars belief. Scott lied to Jennifer, and I will never the forget the day in July 1975 when a confrontation and violent argument between the two led to Jennifer falling in slow motion through their glass patio door. Jennifer was scarred horribly in the accident, miscarried her baby, and nearly died from a ruptured spleen. Scott went back to Kathy, and Jennifer thought no man would ever want her again because of the hideous scar running across her face. Once the scar was removed with surgery, Jennifer found herself falling for John Wyatt. Again, John was a typical man. He had problems with Eunice and turned to Jennifer, and when Eunice wanted him back, John dumped Jennifer. She was desperate to get him back. She and sidekick Stephanie (sort of a perverse Lucy and Ethel) cooked up a scheme to lure John back to Jennifer's apartment by claiming there was a mad rapist loose in the complex! When the plot failed, Jen took an overdose of sleeping pills. The pills caused brain damage which led to Jennifer's hallucinations and psychotic behavior later. It was really sad, and in the end, Jennifer ended up in a mental institution. I was disappointed to see Fairchild go, but she was so special -beautiful, sophisticated, talented, and charismatic- you just knew she was going places.

I just asking because my mom was a huge fan of SF during this time (she was in her late teens/early 20's.. the target demo) and totally remembers Morgan Fairchild, Michael Nouri, and Meg Bennett. When I was growing up, whenever any of those three were on a show, she instantly recognized them and recalled their stories back in the 70's.

I did ask her recently why she stopped watching SFT and all she said was that the show became boring and lost focus. Though she did remember Jane Krawkowski/Lisa Peluso/Cynthia Gibb/Michael Corbett as well but wasn't as big a watcher at that time.

I've never viewed any of Ann Marcus' work but perhaps her style fit better on SFT then other shows that she headlined. From what I heard, the several months at Love of Life were fairly well received (of course, the writer she replaced was horrible).

Just because a writer is fantastic on one show doesn't mean they will work on another show (i.e. Corringtons were great on SFT, so-so on Texas, and not well-received on Capital).

Yes... Santa Barbara and Loving.

How did Morgan Fairchild fair on SFT? I've only seen the one scene on youtube and it was chilling. Just was wondering how the audience viewed her back in the 1970's. Did her character ever interact with Jo?

Yeah, i remember this show.. I remember Michelle Stafford on it but I don't think she came on till near the end of the show. From what she said, her character was slated to become involved with one of the guys but the show went off the air beforehand.

From what I recall, the show did well in the cities that carried it but was too expensive to keep going.

I recently saw all 13 episodes of Paper Dolls on a website and have mixed reactions to the show.

1: Too many Characters: On a daily soap opera, the amount of characters would have been wonderful and more time would have been alloted to develop all the characters. On a weekly prime-time show, that doesn't work because you don't have time to develop the characters before thrusting them into the main plotlines. No character development=no character investments

2. Two shows in one: What I noticed most was that it seemed like two shows combined into one with minimum character interaction to connect the two shows. On the one hand, you had a dysfunctional family fighting each other for control of a company (ala Dynasty and Dallas)... and the other show was about a modeling agency and the models career and homelife (ala.. an early version of Model's inc.).

3. The best part of the show was Morgan Fairchild. She had the best lines, the best wardrobe, and basically interacted with all the characters.

From what I'd read, they had killed off Lloyd Bridges wife and were planning to bring on his sister or sister-in-law to do battle for control of the company. I think the only thing that could have been done was to pick which show to focus on (the family business dramas or the modeling agency angle). Either would have worked on it's own but not together as viewership dwindled over time.

I think the show gradually changing Maggie from her original incarnation to a weepy victim sort of downgraded Victoria's character. However, the thing I noticed about Victoria was that she had the trappings of the typical heroine but with a backbone.

I was watching some of the minisodes of Dark Shadows and I'm up to the part where Victoria has been recast. Based on the episodes I watched, it looked like Victoria was going to continue as a character (based on her presence at the start of the Quentin storyline) but then vanishes into the past.

I was wondering if the plan was to continue the character with Betsy Durkin playing her or was Betsy Durkin just bought in to usher out Victoria? Do you think the character would have served more purpose in the Quentin/david/Amy storyline then Maggie did?

So Loving was basically about the going ons at a university when it started, am I right? When did the show first start to veer away from this premise? From what I've read about the show, it seemed to focus on the Aldens and a revolving cast of young people. Perhaps, having a soap set in a college was just asking to fail. Think about it, people go to college, graduate, then move away. It is a constant revolving door.