DramatistDreamer
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Posts posted by DramatistDreamer
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4 hours ago, Vee said:
I remember seeing a few instances of that. How long/often did they play Andy (DeFreitas or otherwise) with his grandparents before Chris died? I'm assuming Andy was not seen much at all before Wagner and McLaughlin first left pre-Marland/Horgan in '81, so was it only over the course of the prior year or two before McLaughlin's death?
Only a couple of years at most and the chess matches were sprinkled throughout the last year or so, which is enough to establish a bond between characters. It’s the reason why I think when soap fans make excuses for these writers who can’t even write a decent story that sees family members interact on a regular basis, I always see them as being full of sh*t. It doesn’t take a superbowl budget to write a handful of mini scenes and sprinkle them in on occasion. Yes, you have to plan them but it’s not rocket science.
4 hours ago, DRW50 said:Unfortunately, finding a lot of that time frame is spotty.
I've been impressed with what I have seen of how Hank was handled, especially given the era and P&G's conservative views and audience. We see explicit homophobia, but not done in a cartoonish manner, and they don't try to do what, say, AMC later did with Michael Delaney and make sure we know that he's a macho sports loving broski - through his run he remains closest to characters like Iva and Barbara, and on the outskirts of Oakdale.
I do think it might have been more interesting if Hal had been homophobic (initially, anyway) instead of having him as accepting mostly to generate conflict between Paul and Hal.
I do think Marland may have been trying to write against type, go against the expected route. Hal would have been the expected choice-beer loving, bowling and avid sports fan, a blue collar cop who openly was unrefined and often felt awkward about fitting into Barbara’s world. I think that’s why Paul was probably made the homophobic one in the piece. No one would really expect the son of a fashion designer, especially one so young (with the assumption that his youth and milieu would make him more socially progressive). I also think, Marland probably realized that because Paul was so callow, he could more easily reform Paul’s prejudices without permanent damage to the character, whereas with Hal, who knows? I think that the Kirk Anderson character was able to reform from his homophobia but he was a jerk at that time, he wasn’t supposed to be seen as the kind of guy that Hal was.
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4 minutes ago, Mitch64 said:
Agreed...Sheffer's cartoon Babs was pathetic compared to how Marland wrote her. I remember a scene after Chris died..Babs was on the outs with the family since she lied about screwing Tom, etc, but of course, she is included during the grieving and she quietly goes over to Andy, who was close to Chris and having a hard time and tells him, "Its okay to cry." Made things more real and you could really get into it when she pulled a bitch move, as opposed to her silly antics later on.
I remember that. I appreciated and liked that the storytelling made space for showing the multi-layered personality of Barbara, she could be more than one thing at a time, she could show different parts of herself. Still another side came out when she began to date Hal Munson. I also loved that the writing made space to develop a relationship between Andy and Bob’s parents by the time of Chris’ passing, Andy’s grief felt genuine. They used to show Andy on his way to play chess with Chris (and sometimes even Steve), so those characters bonded. I really miss when characters had that type of communal connection. In todays soaps, so many characters are siloed.
42 minutes ago, MarlandFan said:I clearly remember that scene when Hank confided to Barbara that he was gay. She was very loving and accepting and inferred that she had already guessed his sexuality, stating that being in the fashion industry she was no stranger to gay men. Doug Marland always kept his characters 3-dimensional: Barbara was capable of being a major b!tch but was also capable of great kindness and sensitivity. I've looked for that episode on YT but have never found it.
Did Hank come out to Barbara on one of their trips to NYC? It’s not clear in my mind but I feel like I saw some episode years ago. Unfortunately there are a number of episodes that got pulled over the years, for one reason or another.
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4 minutes ago, Mitch64 said:
He was all pissy as he had to work with HBS (nothing against her, she just wasn't Colin) which is another example of his self indulgence...
HBS said as much a few years ago, without explicitly saying so. She seemed to take it in stride with good humor but even through her diplomatic words, he seemed to act a bit like a petulant jerk to her in her earliest days in the role. It seemed like she was hazed too. They probably didn’t take hazing as seriously back then but what she described as a playful prank by Deas definitely comes off as hazing by today’s standards.
13 hours ago, Soapsuds said:At the 41:41 mark...how many times did I hear Dan Region say it...furs by the Christie Brothers.
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20 hours ago, Paul Raven said:
If you are a woman of a certain age and status in Oakdale you WILL wear a fur coat.
There was a YouTube channel (don’t know if it’s still active) that was filled with videos of women wearing fur coats. the ATWT ladies featured prominently on that channel.
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3 hours ago, Khan said:
What can I say? Everybody loves a trainwreck!
Although, it can be viewed differently— that ratings were so poor last year that this year was a marked improvement. Still pales in comparison to 2020 ratings.
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Never forget that at one time many of these shows were cash cows for the companies that produced them as well as the networks that broadcast them.
Something else that hasn’t really been mentioned but should be factored in is the fact that these shows were ostensibly created to sell product, so the intersection of commerce and entertainment was very strong, and unlike other shows of the period (variety shows etc), it seems like the people who produce these soaps never quite got past the mentality that nowadays the entertainment aspect should take a higher priority than the commercial aspect.0 -
1 hour ago, Khan said:
Which is a shame, because I think he would have been just as good with HBS as Margo as he was with Margaret Colin.
I don't know what it is, but I've always been more fond of the quirkier, more off-beat actors on soaps than I am of the ones who played heroes and ingenues.
It’s been years since I saw those scenes, I don’t know whether they are even still up on YouTube but from what I remember, it seemed as if Deas was halfway checked out by then. He likely knew he wasn’t going to reup his contract, maybe HBS wasn’t aware.
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Someone posted an early 1980s episode of As The World Turns over the weekend and I posted my appreciation for the detail contained in a sequence involving a veteran actress on the show. The intricate camera work highlighting the actress’ facial expressions, the subtle music. It was so subtle that, if you didn’t know what to look for, it might pass unnoticed but for me, the timing of it all…it was art! Do the people making these shows today believe that they are genuinely making art?
16 minutes ago, DramatistDreamer said:Good topic @Mona Kane Croft. Lots of food for thought.
If people haven’t read the book When Women Invented Television I would highly recommend it, it’s worth a read but the sections on Irna Phillips would be particularly relevant to this discussion. From what I read, it appeared that Phillips felt that the executives, P&G, et al, never had much faith in her and didn’t trust her instincts. There is that story of Phillips wanting to do away with the organ music that led to ad breaks for televised soaps, insisting that it was only really necessary for radio broadcasts and if it continued on television, she feared that it would only become something that would be made light of and mocked. Obviously, TPTB didn’t agree with her and felt it was a signature of sorts, for a soap and left it in. Who was right, who was not? I don’t know if the answer is that simple but think of all of those sketch comedy shows that parody soaps, what’s the first cue that they use? Organ music?
I think though that there was always something of a hierarchy within entertainment with television somehow being at the bottom, that has changed with the era of prestige prime time television that began around the end of the 20th century. Meanwhile, in daytime, it feels as though people making the dramas were determined to either be in on the joke or make a mockery of themselves lest they be mocked by others.
There are other elements that went into it as well, sexism, misogyny, chauvinism, arrogance, lack of vision, lack of foresight, too much of a willingness to go with the trend and toss out the fundamental tenets of good storytelling, seeking cheap thrills.The other part of it was that once the genre developed an inferiority complex (I would agree that it was likely industry wide some time in the 1990s) the companies that produced these shows started chasing screenwriters who couldn’t find work in films to write for these daytime dramas, whether these writers knew anything about the shows they were writing for or not.
Of course, there is no rule against genre hopping —Paddy Chayefsky was a writer that many writers wanted to emulate (minus the horrible health issues) because he was successful writing scripts for television, theater and film. But many of these writers didn’t know or seem to care about the history of the genre they were entering into.
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Good topic @Mona Kane Croft. Lots of food for thought.
If people haven’t read the book When Women Invented Television I would highly recommend it, it’s worth a read but the sections on Irna Phillips would be particularly relevant to this discussion. From what I read, it appeared that Phillips felt that the executives, P&G, et al, never had much faith in her and didn’t trust her instincts. There is that story of Phillips wanting to do away with the organ music that led to ad breaks for televised soaps, insisting that it was only really necessary for radio broadcasts and if it continued on television, she feared that it would only become something that would be made light of and mocked. Obviously, TPTB didn’t agree with her and felt it was a signature of sorts, for a soap and left it in. Who was right, who was not? I don’t know if the answer is that simple but think of all of those sketch comedy shows that parody soaps, what’s the first cue that they use? Organ music?
I think though that there was always something of a hierarchy within entertainment with television somehow being at the bottom, that has changed with the era of prestige prime time television that began around the end of the 20th century. Meanwhile, in daytime, it feels as though people making the dramas were determined to either be in on the joke or make a mockery of themselves lest they be mocked by others.
There are other elements that went into it as well, sexism, misogyny, chauvinism, arrogance, lack of vision, lack of foresight, too much of a willingness to go with the trend and toss out the fundamental tenets of good storytelling, seeking cheap thrills.The other part of it was that once the genre developed an inferiority complex (I would agree that it was likely industry wide some time in the 1990s) the companies that produced these shows started chasing screenwriters who couldn’t find work in films to write for these daytime dramas, whether these writers knew anything about the shows they were writing for or not.
Of course, there is no rule against genre hopping —Paddy Chayefsky was a writer that many writers wanted to emulate (minus the horrible health issues) because he was successful writing scripts for television, theater and film. But many of these writers didn’t know or seem to care about the history of the genre they were entering into.
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From what I have observed, it seems as though, after Margaret Colin’s departure from the show, Deas may have either developed some bad habits or became a bit lazy. Hillary Bailey Smith, in one of those reunion discussions done during the pandemic, was very diplomatic when describing what it was like to replace Colin in the character of Margo. She basically said that Deas wasn’t too happy working with someone else. Episodes of HBS’ “Margo” and Deas’ “Tom” are pretty rare on YouTube but you can definitely tell that Deas’ energies are somewhere else, definitely not with his onscreen partner.
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12 hours ago, All My Shadows said:
Someone must have gotten them completely in order, because it now clumsily mentions her winning two Daytime Emmys for OLTL.
Yeah, I noticed that someone in the comments section commented on her Daytime Emmy and Tony awards. I guess mentioning the Tony awards might have been a bridge too far, at least they specified that she won her maiden Primetime Emmy.
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I decided to skip it. To be honest, I can’t really remember when I last watched anything close to a full awards show.
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3 hours ago, Soapsuds said:
Yesterday was Scott Bryce birthday. Look who he celebrated his birthday with.
I
this!
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10 minutes ago, Soapsuds said:
I didn't watch because I thought Rune was going to beat him.
He's been playing some good ball as of late.
I missed the match too. I saw highlights on YouTube.
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That title was a long time coming for Grigor Dimitrov.
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25 minutes ago, SoapDope said:
Here is an audio recording of the original 1975 closing with the voice chant.
Definitely a wise choice to get rid of the vocal part.
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Lisa McColl vs. Lucinda Walsh.
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4 minutes ago, Errol said:
I just have to say that Amelia is looking GREAT in that outfit and shaking her head. I now want to watch Victoria getting down in the club one night with her girlfriends, which means she'd have to have friends.
Speaking of which, that's what's missing on the soaps. Girlfriends and the bros. No character seems to have any true friends on any soap.
When is the last time there was a story where we saw a close friendship at play? The last time I saw Lauren, she and Michael were discussing Phyllis as if she were their problem child. The last time Victoria had any friends, I think Heather Tom was in the role. The friendship between Dru and Sharon was so organic, they’ve never filled that void for Sharon.
After the breakup of one of Victoria’s many relationships, they could have had her have some time at the club. It needn’t be anything serious, but of course it would concern Victor who wonders if Victoria’s new activity will take energy away from Newman, to which Victoria replies that it’s no different than Victor and his boxing.
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Deadline, mentioning nothing about her daytime career, says this is Light’s first ever Emmy.
https://deadline.com/2024/01/peacock-wins-first-emmy-judith-light-poker-face-1235697024/
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It’s crazy to me that a film from the 1990s could be endangered this way.
I really enjoyed watching this film when I was able to see it on A&E (I think it aired on that network) before A&E and Bravo became a repository for reality television. It was the first time that I remember seeing Tracey Ullman in a mostly dramatic role and Lily Taylor was truly luminescent in this role. I am glad that Nancy Savoca was able to buy the rights to her film and rescue it from obsolescence.We fans of daytime drama often talk about how gems are seemingly cast off to the wayside but the industry but, I guess, this happens all around.
https://www.wbur.org/news/2024/01/03/nancy-savoca-1993-film-household-saints-brattle-theatre
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15 hours ago, Soapsuds said:
I really like the tight close up on Ellen’s face during those scenes where she is trying to piece together the events that led up to finding John’s body. That music and that single tear streaming down her face, just well done work all around.
Other than ATWT and GL, I have never seen Deas’ work. Those who have seen all his work, would you say that the work he did here with future wife Margaret Colin is his best work?
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These posts, I am here for! Seriously, I dropped Y&R from my viewing schedule when “Jordan” was hauled away but these posts are keeping informed and entertained. Although, I could have sworn that Morrow did an interview in the very recent past where he tried to clean up his past remarks about Case, acknowledging that Nick and Sharon were likely endgame but Y&R being a continuing drama, they had to be kept apart for the foreseeable future. Bonus points if someone could find that interview, I am thinking that it was done during the pandemic.
Also, maybe this is my writer’s brain thinking but since when do the actors determine story? This is where Y&R took its inexorable march down the cliff imo. To paraphrase Yoda “either do or not do”. And imo, to “not do” means letting the role go to someone who “can do” and will do. In the real world outside of soaps, 30 years is a great run and longevity is not guaranteed in any industry.
*Also, am I the only one curious about the origin of Morrow’s remarks? Sharon never said anything even remotely negative about Morrow (at least not publicly). Did Sharon break his heart or reject him in the early days? What’s up with that?!
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21 minutes ago, MarlandFan said:
Marland's scripts began airing in October of 1985, so while he was probably not responsible for the initial Craig/Lucinda tryst, he clearly saw their chemistry and kept a slow burn going over the next six months or so. Sometime in early 1986, the two began kissing passionately and Lily walked in on them. Craig, ever the "big brother", had to calm Lily down and explain the situation to her.
Yeah, that scene came on the heels of a married Sierra rejecting Craig’s advances before running out of the stables, shattering Craig. Lucinda was there to pick up the pieces, more than ready to be the receptacle to Craig’s pent up lust.
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43 minutes ago, Vee said:
Oh, so very early indeed. I didn't know that, I thought it was under Marland. She very clearly still is lusting after him late that year and well into 1986.
So it seems that, on the episode marking the exact anniversary date for the show, Craig and Lucinda had their ONS. It starts on the previous episode and there was lots of champagne involved as Craig, having just helped Betsy save Steve’s life, and Betsy forgot to thank him, leaving Craig feeling dejected and Lucinda was ready to land her seduction attempts. I think it was less than a full day later, Betsy invites Craig to the house, saying that she never got a chance to thank him. When Craig arrives at the cabin, Betsy reveals to him that Sierra survived and has been staying with her and Steve for her safety and they got the word that she is officially safe.
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The Tennis Thread
in Off Topic Lounge
Posted
^^Those are names that I had forgotten existed. And when did Christina McHale retire? I haven’t thought about these folks in years!