Soaplovers

1) I 100 % agree with that point. It was realistic and very real life...and sometimes there would be random scenes where 2 characters from seperate bubbles would interact and kick off a new story (Victor seeing Nikki perform at the Bayou, Ryan sitting alone at Gina's and being invited to sit with Danny/Cricket/Nina, etc). 2) His plots were slow moving, but it wasn't like being in a hamster wheel...there was movement. 3) I remember when Victor wrote his codicil that Jabot would go back to the Abbots once he passed away. Then we got Victor persumed dead and a court case in 1993...long before the Brad/Jack take over story in 1998.

Marland needed a co head writer that could infuse a canvas with emotion and life. His soaps were kind of cold and listless without any spark of life. Hence why a Marland and Pam Long collab would have worked. She could provide ideas and infuse emotion/heart into a show while Marland would have implemented and provided structure to those ideas. And the blue collar family would have heart and have distinctive personalities (she did well with the Reardons and Lewis families that Marland had created).

Annemarie makes me almost miss Rinna and even Diana... and that's sad. RHONY UGT: Watched the first episode, so far so good

The show already had an expiration date by the time Pam/Addie joined as the headwriters. It was nice that the show was able to go out with a great final episode that tied up the show nicely. Based on the article, it does sound like Pam had great ideas.. just needed someone strong to implement them.. and I do think your idea of pairing Marland and Pam would have been a winner. His shows were tightly plotted, but the day to day stuff was kind of cold and lacking warmth.. while her shows were warm/earnest and watchable.. but her plots were a little out of whack at times.

Why bother recasting Taylor with a good actress that has the essence of HT if you don't want to write for her? If Bill Bell were alive, he would have had Taylor outside of the Brooke/Ridge orbit in her own story.

Yeah, I was dreading Tad possibly coming back had the PP version of AMC continued because his character was played out and it was nice to see Dixie as a character again on her own without Tad around to overshadow her. I had a feeling had Tad come back that Dixie would have been relegated to his arm piece instead of a character in her own right with loads of potential (dealing with Billy Clyde Tuggle's return, being supportive to JR, and a potential new love interest that she had chemistry with).

I'm glad that Walsh was able to fix what Granger did with the Cooper story as much as she could in 1994.

Her take on Pamela was interesting and it's a shame that the infighting marred the character of Pamela and whatever story was planned for her character. I imagine that the turn of Pamela from an anxious recluse into an Alexis esque character was supposed to have gone slowly. In her scenes as the character, she had a certain warmth/sweetness that could make people under estimate the real lethal evil lurking within the character. Marj couldn't have played that element. While she can play anxious, she couldn't play the warm elements that Shirley was able to play.

I remember trying to get my mom to sample the soap. It was a recap episode featuring Tabitha and Timmy...and my mom sat there for the entire episode baffled. She finally said 'I don't think Im who the show is aimed at. Have fun watching it.' I liked the first few years better than the later years because there was a soap structure Reilly was following.

Bergman in his early days as Jack had the sarcastic edge of TL, but once the impulse marriage of Jack/Nikki became an actual marriage...Jack became Cliff Nelson's long lost twin. At least Brenda's Ashley looked like Eileen's Ashley and even had some of her essence...just in a softer mode. Her breakdown scenes in late 1995 were awesome...and were better acted than Eileen's. When Brenda Dickson played Jill...she was more dead pan and cold. Once Jess took over, Jill always was raging and never cool under pressure. I imagine Jill vs Nina would have gone differently had Brenda stayed in the role (They had scenes together and it was an interesting vibe).

I think an instrumental opening would have worked much better. It seemed too focused on the gimmick and hardly anytime focused on developing characters the audience would care about.

Anyway that watched the Dawn series watched to see Donna Mills in action. And the #s looked pretty good so maybe a follow up movie taking place in the summer?

The Thorn Birds is a memorable mini-series and book. We have generational trauma, forbidden love, haves vs have nots, and an examination of religion and the complexity of it. I do wonder how different Meggie would have come across if Jane Seymour (under consideration for the role) had played the part (same as the part in Hollywood Wives that was played by Stefanie Powers).

I think I recall the only reason Abby finally said something was because her nephew Michael was going to be blamed for drugs that were Olivia's and she finally decided to fess up. And if I recall, she spinned it as though she didn't say anything until she had definite proof. I even remember a scene where Val told Abby she knew she was looking for the twins and wasn't super angry with her.

Lifetime has gotten better with their V.C Andrew's adaptations...now making them limited series

1980s: Windmills of the Gods, Masters of the Game, and Rage of Angels were pretty good Sidney Sheldon mini-series in the 80s. They were a nice mix of trashy and classy. For classy, I would say 'I know my first name is Steven' and 'Baby M' were pretty good.. and both so tragic. 1990s: Stephen King had some great mini series: It, The Stand, and the Tommy Knockers. A good good mix of trashy and classy. 'A woman named Jackie' and 'The Odyssey' were pretty good and classy.

@KhanI didn't watch ATWT much.. but my late mom did. She described Melanie's Emily as tortured and sensual. When I watch old Youtubes of her Emily... I see someone that is hard/tough on the outside (on the account of her childhood), yet very soft on the inside. That dichotomy was what made her Emily so compelling to watch. She reminded me of a 40s actress in terms of how she portrayed Emily. Kelley's Emily was colder, tortured, yet very neurotic. She lacked the sensuality and sadness that Melanie's Emily had... but I did think her Emily was a good one.... if you looked at her Emily as an entirely different character.

I would add Deidre Hall because she was very popular in the 80s on Days.. plus had a bit of success as a working prime time actress in the late 80s/early 90s. I knew Loni would be good because she has the comedy/sitcom background and knows how to balance the line between campy and non-campy comedy. Susan Sullivan would be good if they do a follow up because she was known in the 80s for being the long suffering heroine, but also went onto success in sitcoms in the 90s and thereafter with a more broad style of acting. She could play a character in the follow up where she was known for playing the warm and moral center on the soap, like Maggie on FC, but behind the scenes be more like her character from Dharma and Greg. I also second Ana Alicia being in one of these types of movies. Her dismissal from FC helped cause a huge ratings drop and it would be nice for new generations to be re-introduced to her.

Nice to see Alexis and Heather are cordial. I truly think Dubrow started to hate Alexis so much because she went after her IMDb 1st (Angelina Jolie is a real actress is what Alexis said lol). My view of Crystal went down a lot if her close friends are Larsa, Louie, and Teresa. Angie K and Mary hanging out..hmmm. Kim Richards will always be a bit quirky,eccentric, and be funny at times. Something Kyle will never be. RHOBH: Kyle is a bottomless pit of need. Mo checked out and I'm sure Morgan will as well eventually

Soaps have fallen so much that there isn't anyone willing to do the job as head-writer that could be decent.

The thing people forget is that soap opera writing is vastly different than writing a play. Harding Lemay had the benefit of learning the ins and outs of soap opera writing from Irna Phillips so he knew what he could change and what needed to be maintained in order to successfully write AW. It sounds as though Corrinne had some great ideas, she just needed to be mentored by an established soap opera that could have helped her adapt her ideas to the soap opera format. Perhaps she could have co-headwritten with L Virginia Browne (who had head-wrote the show for most of 1981 and helped to stabilize the show in some respects that year). Also, on OLTL.. Michael Malone struggled his first months as headwriter because he didn't understand the machanics of writing a soap until he was paired with Josh Griffiths.

A local coffee shop trying to resist being taken over by a larger coffee chain (i.e. Starbucks, Peets, etx). It would be a natural gathering place for the youth and older characters

I wish youtube had the promo that aired days before Generations premiered.. because the promo had fast paced music, snippets of the cast arguing, acting mysterious and seductive. It made the show look enticing, but when it premiered.. I remember my 19 year old aunt watching it when I was very little and she said it was too boring. A half hour soap should not be boring. I actually think Ryan's Hope had great openings since it was about the Ryan family living in NYC. You saw scenes of the Ryan's and friends in various sites throughout NYC with a catchy theme song.

One issue I could have seen in RH in late 90s and 2000s would have been gentrification and more diversity. The neighborhood the show took place in had higher crime that peaked in the 90s and started to decline in the late 90s/early 00s...and led to building and park improvements..which led to gentrification in the 00s. And the show would had to have become more diverse in the 90s and 2000s to reflect trends in the real life locale.

@Khan @DeliaIrisFan Upon giving it some thought, Delia would probably have been the only character that I think Marland could truly have written well since she was a more neurotic version of Nola Reardon. The only other character that I think he might have had a good grasp on was Faith.. that character was such a Marland character and with his obsession with writing about therapy.. Faith was the perfect character.