Mona Kane Croft

I was watching Steve pretty carefully during this period, just to see how and if he referenced his past. I'm certain he never mentioned John Randolph, and pretty certain he never referenced any of his siblings by name. It seemed especially odd he never mentioned Willis, since Steve had just returned from Australia, and that is where Willis and Gwen also lived at the time. It would have made more sense plot-wise, if Willis had been instrumental in finding Steve in Australia, and getting him back to Bay City. But that's not how Jacker rolled. Steve may have mentioned coming from a big family or something like that, but I don't remember him even doing that.

Interesting writing partners: Cenedella had followed Agnes Nixon as headwriter, and was in the position for a couple of years. He had been quite successful at continuing Nixon's vision for AW. Surprised he did not do a better job of advising Jacker. Peter Swet had been an assistant writer during Lemay's years at headwriter. So again, I'm surprised Swet wasn't able to keep Jacker on course. Also surprising that Jacker had been a fan since day-one, but decided to write off Pat, and had Steve drop Alice in favor of Rachel. She must not have been a fan of the Matthews family. LOL.

I completely agree. It's sad in many ways. Sad that we viewers are so desperate for an identifiable storyline, that we will gush at any bone they throw us. To be honest, it is not fundamentally a bad plot. But the execution is awkward and too fast, making the storyline unbelievable. Had Griffith taken it slowly and added more nuance and detail, the entire thing would seem much more plausible. Every step along the way, we needed more explanation and exposition.

Jada Roland (despite the dark hair)) or Bibi Besch as Alice Frame on Another World in 1975, when Jacquie Courtney was fired.

I was watching at the time, and I can't remember specifically anything Jacker did at AW, other than continue the return of Steve Frame, which Rauch had already decided to do, and the previous writer had laid the groundwork for that. In my opinion, she botched Steve Frame's return by making it too unbelievable (isn't a return from the dead already unbelievable enough??), by surrounding it with over the top details, secret rooms, Harry Shea as Steve's "best friend" even though the viewers had never seen him before, etc, etc. And for someone who supposedly watched AW from day-one, how did she happen to ignore so many details of Steve's previously established history? And his previous relationships with Alice, Rachel, and Jamie? Nearly everything seemed to be made up as she went along, rather than relying on established history, which many fans at the time still remembered very well. I realize casting was also a problem, but the writing was far worse than the casting. Believe me -- that much is true. Nobody will ever convince me that David Canary was not capable of playing Steve Frame. Canary was one of the best actors in daytime. All Canary needed was a lesson in Steve's history, and some direction (you know, by the director). But back to my original question -- aside from Steve's botched return, what else was happening in Bay City during Jacker's time as head writer? It must have been forgettable, because I have forgotten it. LOL. And how long did Jacker stay at AW?

Yes, you are right. And what is rather amazing is -- TPTB must have had a complete turn-around, because they hired Harding Lemay as head-writer in 1988 (just before the strike), and they HAD TO KNOW Lemay would never write anything over the top or similar to DOOL in any way. So somehow some attitudes at the top were changed, even if briefly.

It seemed to me during that era, TPTB were trying hard to make AW more similar to DOOL. Making MJ a former prostitute for instance, was similar to Kimberly Brady's past issues on DOOL. Even MJ's personality changed from a confident police officer to a damaged somewhat vulnerable damsel -- again more similar to the personality of Kimberly Brady. In fact, it seemed TPTB were transitioning the McKinnons into AW's version of the Bradys on DOOL. The mother being formerly involved with a wealthy bad-guy, Mary and Vince opening a pub/restaurant, etc. And some of the other storylines at this time seemed a better fit for DOOL than AW -- Reginald being a moustache-twirling super-villian (not unlike DOOL's Stefano) is one example.

They should have made Jordan a former nurse, that would explain the hospital access, caring for a sickly baby, and at least a little about administering the poison. They could have explained that over the years, she had been fired from multiple hospitals for doing inappropriate things. They should have also had a throw away line about the private jet and the crew. A few details similar to those thrown into the script here and there would make this plot much more believable.

How long had Cole been gone? What year did he leave the show?

Speaking of Nadine Stenovitch and John Littlefield, did anyone catch them on a couple of episodes of Escape to the Chateau about three years ago? They are close friends of the family that owns the chateau, so they came for a visit or two.

They could not have done it in real time (or anything close to real time), because they would have been taping too far ahead. And playing it out a month later would have probably come across as distasteful. So they might have waited until the first anniversary, and done a tribute then -- as if 9/11 happened and they experienced it, but the audience just didn't see it play out on camera. Some real life events are awkward and painful for the audience to re-live on a soap. And some, the audience simply would prefer not to re-live. So I think a tribute on the first anniversary would have been RH's mostly likely choice. Just speculation on my part.

As late as about a week ago, Zenk was saying in interviews that she was still in California taping on the show. That surprised me, even then. But now, I can't see how this plot can go on much longer -- at least Zenk's role in it. Characters like she's playing usually don't last long, after their true identity and intentions have been unveiled. Is she going to keep the whole Newman family tied-up in a basement for a month? That seems unlikely, so otherwise I can't imagine how Zenk was still taping new scenes as late as a week ago. But who knows? Yes, these scenes were awkward to watch to say the least. The idea that two grown-ass men would just stand there and calmly listen to Jordan's explanation and threats without beating the crap out of her is ridiculous. There should have been at least some reference to Nick and Victor threatening to become violent. For example, Nick grabs Jordan and starts to choke the truth out of her, but she retorts by saying something like, "Go ahead and kill me, but you will NEVER find Nikki, if I'm dead." Then Victor pulls Nick away, Jordan brushes herself off, and the scene goes on. Some how it should be acknowledged that Nick and Victor could beat the truth out of Jordan, even if they choose not to.

The audience has the patience, but TPTB don't believe we have the patience. TPTB are just incorrect.

The original version of Josie was definitely written as a traditional ingenue. But again, as popular as she may have been with the existing audience, Josie wasn't on the show very long. So she's just one of many tried and failed attempts on the various soaps to introduce that archetype post mid-80s. Thankfully, Josie's exit didn't involve her becoming a villain or going crazy. She was written off with most of the character's dignity in tact, allowing her return years later. But the later version of Josie was older, hardened by experience, and by no means naive. So the later Josie had out grown ingenue status.

True, but even she didn't last long enough to become what I would call a successful long-term ingenue. Sorry, I really didn't mean to side-rail the conversation. My major point was that one of the major reasons Marley became a secondary character to Vicky was that Marley was a traditional ingenue at a time when that type of character was becoming unappealing to the writers, pretty much across the board in the genre.

Re: Brett, Lisa, Kelsey, and Sofia -- Yes, but as you said, they didn't last long. So not long-term ingenues. The writers were so hip and trendy, they probably considered those four too boring to bother with. As I said (or maybe implied) there have been many attempts at traditional ingenues since the mid-80s on various soaps, but almost none of them have succeeded long-term. Belle -- Yes, but she had spent long long periods off the show. At least I believe that's the case. Robin -- I probably would agree she is/was a long term ingenue. She was on GH for many years and never permanently lost a man to a bad-girl (at least not that I recall). And she never turned bad or went crazy. So let's add Robin to the list.

We also need to remember that Marley was a traditional soap opera ingenue, at a time when the traditional ingenue had, for the most part, fallen out of fashion -- at least in the eyes of soap opera writers. By 1985-ish, the tables had turned between ingenues and bad-girls. Meaning that by 1985, in most cases, the bad-girl won and the ingenue was either written off or went crazy. In Marley's case, she was written off, and then years later went crazy. By the mid-1980s, even the queen of writing and/or creating successful ingenues, Agnes Nixon, could not get a new ingenue to succeed on AMC. Nixon had been highly successful writing long romances for Missy Matthews and Alice Matthews on Another World, and on AMC had created popular ingenues, Tara Martin, Nina Courtlandt, and Jenny Gardner. But Jenny was Nixon's final successful ingenue. Even though she tried several times during and after the mid-80s to introduce such characters, the new ingenues each lost the boy to her competition (bad-girl) and were written off. The era of the "good-girl" was over for good. Writers found the bad-girls more interesting and more exciting, I suppose. A couple of years ago I was involved in an online discussion trying to determine the last two or three successful long-term ingenues on daytime. And the only characters anyone could think of were Lily Walsh and Lily Winters. I tend to agree.

At the risk of being potentially offensive (and I apologize for that) -- Your statement reminds me of the people who counter any complaint against whacky writing with the reply, "It's just a soap." Implying that -- well, implying all kinds of things about a genre that many "old fashioned" fans tend to take seriously. I realize you did not use that phrase (...just a soap), but your comments simply reminded me of those who so. I've come to believe those who take soaps seriously will never understand those who enjoy whacky, supernatural, or sci-fi plots on an otherwise believable soap opera. And visa-versa. This is not to say one group is right and the other is wrong, but I do believe the soap audience is split into two different "tribes" who watch for different reasons and have very different expectations. I believe many long-term fans continue to watch poorly written soap operas because most of them watch for the characters, and not the plots. Over the last 50 years, I have tolerated many many terrible, unbelievable, even insulting plots, because I simply loved the characters too much to give up. For example, I believe Another World was the worst soap opera on the air for its final 20-years. But I kept watching -- always hoping it would improve and return to its former glory. Which it never did. But I loved the characters, so I continued to watch and to hope. I'm confident I'm not alone.

Dr Eric Jansen seemed like a Harding Lemay character to me. And his situation with Marley (including her fertility issues) also seemed like a Harding Lemay interaction, heading toward a romance (it was dry, talky, and percolating slowly). So I've always believed the Marley/Jansen thing was something Swakeski pulled from Lemay's storyline projection. And then when she realized it wasn't flashy and exciting (the superficial stuff Swakeski seemed to prefer), she decided to dump the whole thing, along with the Eric Jansen character.

Actually, I personally believe there is on screen evidence that Lemay was likely toying with the idea of Iris and Mac "consummating" their strangely inappropriate relationship. Not that it would have ever been an ongoing thing -- but I believe one night of (later regretted) passion was possibly on the horizon. Of course, P&G would never have allowed that to happen, but there were scenes between the two that are uncomfortable to watch (to put it lightly) both before and after the adoption revelation. I believe Lemay was testing the waters to see if it would fly. It's unlikely he informed anyone at NBC or P&G that he was doing this. Frankly, he probably didn't even tell Paul Rauch. It is my opinion that Lemay rather wanted to go there. You probably know this but, although Rachel and Erica were very similar characters -- especially in the early years of both; and Ada and Mona did have a few similarities, Gerald Davis and Eric Kane were really not similar in any way, other than the fact they had both abandoned their daughters when they were young children. Otherwise, Gerald and Eric really had nothing in common. I do understand, however, why people might try to compare them or even assume they may have been similar to one another. I believe of the six characters mentioned in this post, the only one NOT created by Agnes Nixon was Gerald Davis, who I believe was created by Robert Cenedela.

Okay, thanks for that information. I was not watching Y&R during Nikki's initial alcoholism storyline.

You are right about that, Donna. Rauch was the person who cut George loose. But my point is that Lemay was writing great stuff for many of the actors and characters he disliked (or found boring). Lemay was given too much power over hiring and firing. He was the head-writer, not the executive producer. Courtney didn't need an acting coach. The audience loved her. She was voted most popular female soap opera actress two years in a row -- including the year she was fired. Virginia Dwyer was the matriarch of the entire show, and she was also beloved by the audience. Mary Matthews was the Nancy Hughes of NBC. Dwyer's acting was fine. Again, the head-writer should not be in control of judging the acting ability of the cast. As always -- my opinions only.

Yes, you are correct. Interestingly, Lemay was very good at writing plots he said he didn't enjoy writing. He was also very good at writing for characters he didn't particularly enjoy. For example, he said he didn't enjoy writing for Jacquie Courtney's Alice, but he wrote amazing stuff for Alice -- Emmy worthy material, actually. Also Lemay implied in his book that he didn't know how to write for middle-class characters, but he wrote great material for nearly every member of the extended Matthews family, while they were on the show. That's one of the reasons I believe Lemay should have been forced, coerced, or strongly encouraged by Paul Rauch to keep Virginia Dwyer, Jacquie Courtney, Ariana Muenker, Michael Ryan, and George Reinholt on the canvas. To some degree, Lemay was not a good estimator of his own talent.

In one of her early scenes in 1989, Iris told Mac that Sylvie had told her that Sylvie and Mac had an affair years earlier, and that Mac was Iris's bio-father. Completely unnecessary to retcon the original story. Everything Iris did in 1989 could have gone forward with Mac as her adopted father. If I'm not mistaken, this conversation occured during one of Swajeski's first episodes credited as head-writer. So it's possible Swajeski chose to do the retcon herself, or it is equally possible Lemay had planned the retcon and it was in his storyline projection, which Swajeski used for months. She followed some of Lemay's plans, and ditched others in favor of her own ideas