j swift

I think it would have worked with Reena on her own returning to Texas after her marriage imploded. Also, I just re-read the 1980 synopsis and Blaine was already in Bay City and was on her own (between her pairings with Jamey and Sandy), so she could have crossed over easily, given her ranching experience. Meanwhile, Iris divorced Brian one week before visiting Houston, and Mac had just recovered from his trauma with Janice, so it was an especially odd time for her to pack up and leave town.

Speaking of retconning a soap family's history, can we talk about Kevin Anderson? On the one hand, it was nice to see James Goodwin get a second chance at soap fame after playing that drip of a character Johnny Bauer (another retcon of a historical soap family) on Guiding Light. I don't even recall the circumstances, but any male lead who wears a prince charming costume to his wedding, as Johnny did for Mindy, is not worthy of my fandom. However, Kevin Anderson as the long lost cousin, (half-brother?) who hated Jake lacked any logical reason. First of all, we had already met Jake's family when his Uncle Vince, and Vince's kids, lived in Bay City, so introducing a new branch in that family tree seemed the product of a writer who had not researched the history of the show. Second, to this day I could not figure out the source of Kevin's vendetta against Jake and his motives for subverting the law. There were vague hints of jealousy, but we knew that Jake did not grow up under ideal circumstances, and his successes as an adult were tenuous at best. So, what drove Kevin to not like Jake as an adult whom he had no contact with for over two decades (btw was the whole story repeated on GH between Sonny and Ric)? Third, Goodwin is a charming actor, so his pairing with Lorna was romantic to watch, but it was such a stark contrast to his other actions within his storyline. Eventually, Kevin was written out after trying to kill Carl. However, if anyone can recall or interpret why this character had so driven by a need for justice, I would still be interested in your take. Was the whole story just to serve as a redemption for Carl and create routing value for his pairing with Rachel? Also, am I alone in thinking that the Carl/Jake relationship was never as fully explored as it could have been? Jake benefited from Carl's interference a couple of times, but there were few memorable scenes between the two, and I am at a loss to recall how they felt about each other.

I recall being a fan of Nicole #1, the model/coke addict who was paired with Jamey. Her story reflected the times. She was also very pretty and wore great costumes, including one gold lame cocktail dress with huge shoulder pads that I still envision whenever I think of the character. However, I would hypothesize that as Vicky aged she made Nicole seem redundant. You didn't need two women from the same family who were both the "wild child". I suppose that Nicole's original purpose was to connect the Love's to the Cory's through Jamey, and to create drama for Donna that would interfere with her love life. However, once Vicky became a 20-something she began to fulfill those roles. Peter was always a superfluous character. He never drove story on his own and his motives changed according to the convenience of the plot. During his romance with Sally, he was the moral center of the family and wagged his finger at Donna for being such a snob. Later, he was the sniveling son trying to win his father's approval who then just disappeared and was never mentioned again. Donna was popular from day one, but we shouldn't forget Bridget. AW had an amazing history of household staff characters from Louise and Vivian to Alma and Buzz. Bridget was initially two-faced. She was kind to Donna's face and tolerated the loss of salary when Carl embezzled the money and Donna couldn't cover the payroll. But, she was also working with Jake and Vicky to get Marley's inheritance, so there was an interesting other side to the character. Later, Bridget was written as a loving and caring maternal figure, but I always remembered her intriguing introduction.

Thinking back, it was a show that was flawed from its initial conception. They tried to center the plot around the popularity of Iris, but it was an odd choice at the time given that she was known as a protagonist on AW, not a heroine. I know the show pre-dates Blaine, but a younger woman, on the come up, trying to find a partner, is more compelling than a woman "of a certain age" who had already learned her lessons from years of trails and tribulations. I was a big Iris fan, but just like the failure of the Kramer spinoff from Sienfield, there can be too much of a good thing in tv dramas. Obviously, there were other characters from the start, but Iris was undoubtedly the main draw, and removing her so quickly from Reena's orbit did not allow a smooth transition to a new person who we loved to hate. Also, the initial plot was a love story which was never her central motivating factor. Iris had been through many men during her time and Bay City and she refused to change for any of them, (including the totally dreamy Robert Delaney). In fact, she never seemed to bemoan a lost love or worry about being single. Then, you have Dennis, who should have been the male lead given his history on the show and his relationship to Iris, but he was SORASed and recast shortly before the show premiered so there was no connection between the audience and the actor. Finally, the casting of Alex Wheeler was obviously flawed, so much so that they killed him off twice in the first year. Re-watching the show, I couldn't pinpoint if Alex lacked charm due to poor acting or poor writing, but it was hard to believe that this sleazeball in a leisure suit could persuade Iris to leave Bay City, as well as promote such loyalty from Ginny, Ryan, and the rest his staff. In addition to frequent cast overhauls, and suddenly missing families, there was the problem of multiple writers as evidenced by the confounding "social issues" plot regarding Elliot Carrington and Barrett Marshall. The backstory was about war crimes that occurred in Vietnam. The production seemed unsure about whether to pin the crime on Elliot or Barrett. Barrett was the obvious choice because he was the third wheel in the popular Ryan/Ginny romance. But, it may have seemed distasteful to have a long lost war veteran be responsible for killing innocent families and the actor playing Ryan was eager to leave the show around the time of his wedding to Ginny, thus there may have been a future for the character of Barrett. So, then Elliot became a prime suspect and the story hinted that he may have planted the memory of committing the war crimes in Barrett's already troubled mind. He was also the spanner in the Iris/Alex love story, and even though there had been no prior evidence of mental illness when he was in Bay City, suddenly he was very unstable in Houston, and even went so far as to slap Iris when he found out that Alex was Dennis's biological father. However, Elliot had some story potential with both Dennis and Paige, and his pairing with Paige was a compelling redemption story after both of them had been rejected by everyone in town. But then, after another writer change, Barrett and Elliott had their final mental breakdowns and left the show. This kind of back and forth just ruined the pace of the storytelling and made both characters seem to change motivations randomly according to plot convenience. We were an NBC soap household and I was always excited for the premiere of a new show because there was always so much hype, and NBC started so many new soaps. After the total snoozefest of How to Survive a Marriage (this 6-year-old was predictably not engaged by a feminist take on the dynamics of 70's relationships), I was thrilled to see Iris have some new adventures. But those hopes were quickly dashed. If anyone has read any of my other posts then you know that I despise when "bitchy women" are tamed by the love of a "good man", and for me that was the central concept of Texas and its biggest shortcoming. Lastly, don't even get me started on the redundancies of both Wheeler brothers having conniving ex-wives who popped up in Houston just in time to spoil their new relationships.

I just finished listening to the full New Christy Minstrels Soap Theme playlist on Youtube and it was a hoot. Titles like One Life to Live or The Young and Restless are easy to makeup lyrics for their instrumental themes, but The Doctors was clearly a stretch ( ♫ we are all doctors ♪).

Not only was Jamie's age in suspended animation, but he also seemed to have forgotten any of the lessons he learned from being in a triangle with Blaine and Sandy. One would think that after his history with Blaine, Jamie would have learned to listen to his mother when some new vixen claims he fathered her baby. Also, in the creepy-but-never-mentioned file, he dated Vicky's aunt Nicole back in the day.

One last thought from Donna's introductory scene - I really liked Jennifer Runyon's Sally. I am more familiar with Mary Page Keller's performance because that was the period that I watched the most, but in re-watching this scene I admire Ms. Runyon's take on the character. Runyon's Sally is spunky and had the chutzpah to spare with Donna. Keller's Sally was a good heroine/damsel-in-distress but she lacked some of the spark that connected Sally with her history as a troubled teen. It is akin to DAYS Hope wherein later writers forgot her subversive nature as a teen and only wrote her as sometimes sleuth and misbegotten Mom. My interpretation was that Donna's disapproval of Sally was motivated by snobbery and protecting Peter, versus any real animosity toward her. Sally's time with Caitlin was written as he was a bad boy and she was this sweet and innocent girl. To me, Keller's Sally lacked the wit and self-assurance to battle Donna on her own. However, if I remember correctly, Sally had already been married, she went through a rebellion period, and she wasn't always nice to those Hobson boys. So, writing her as a wilting flower forced to choose between Peter and Caitlin was a bit of a character change for such a powerful young woman. In hindsight, I wish they had stuck with bratty Sally.

No wonder Peter was so screwed up. Reg is talking about the new beginning with his dead grandson from Donna and completely ignores any reference to Peter (or Peter's son with Britney (which maybe wasn't Peter's but Reg didn't know that for sure), or Scott, or even his great grandson Stephen). P.S. - From Kevin Thatcher to Britney's son, Caitlin Ewing was always game to raise some other guy's kid (unless Britney's son was his, but I recall that he was Peter's progeny). Also, I totally forgot that Reginald threw himself off of the roof, I guess to preserve Michael's innocence as a character.

I share your naiveté with regard to hair extension, but I clearly recall Linda wearing the extensions on her talk show Attitudes, and one day during a segment where she hung upside down one of them started falling out. Here's a clip from earlier in the episode when Mitch is gifting Felicia some lingerie and she has the shorter hairdo. It looks like she was growing out the sides to attach the clips, but there are clearly extensions because her hair was not that long all the way around. I also found it funny that Mac and Cass never remarked on Felicia's hair at the party. Perhaps they were too embarrassed to ask why she was wearing a wig? To me this clip also proves that Mitch was never meant to be Felicia's long term romance because they were not a good match: (1) Who gives a woman lingerie for her 40th birthday? (2) Felicia Gallant iconically wore peignoirs with marabou trim, not lacy teddies. I Googled the musical, odd that it was written by John Pielmeier of Agnes of God fame. Also, an odd choice of music because while it sets a mood, the lyrics don't fit with the scene very well.

Donna's mention of her 7th grade teacher Mrs Cavanaugh during Felicia's party also got me thinking about whether or not Donna ever graduated from high school. Given that she spent so much time in the secret room under The Love mansion during her pregnancy with the twins, I wonder if she ever achieved a diploma? Also, this episode features a flashback to Iris and Michael's affair (they crammed a lot of story into 40 minutes in those days). Was this the first time that viewers were told of their affair? I know Iris returned four months earlier and they set up a Donna/Iris/Michael triangle, but were there any prior flashbacks to the fact that they had actually been in flagrante delicto while living in Europe? Finally, did Lisa and Felicia have a goodbye scene in the prior episode? Because it seems odd that she's going on a midnight flight to London on the night of Felicia's party, Matt visits her, and yet she doesn't even call Felicia (or Jamie) to say goodbye.

I was watching old clips based on our discussion of the history of Donna Love and I had some thoughts: (1) This is Donna's first scene - talk about weird ages, were Peter and Donna's date meant to be the same age given their racquetball rivalry? because the guy looks at least a decade older? And who's Nancy Thompson? (2) taken from Anna Stuart's return to the role on the day of Jason's murder (2a) Why was Iris hosting the birthday party for Felicia? I don't remember them being friendly enough to be given such an honor (2b) Are we to believe that Felicia put in her own extensions? Because she starts the episode with her iconic hairdo, she then puts on some Carly Simon and emerges with a whole new look. (3) Had the writers of AW learned nothing about the use of crumpled photos as red herrings from the triplet fiasco?

Excellent point, Mary's growth is the one part of that story that I can appreciate . Apparently I had this same conversation two years ago

The story contains one of the anti-feminist themes that I hate the most. Mary opts for a quick divorce from Reginald in order to be with Vince. As an audience we are supposed to applaud Mary's humility at not asking for a settlement in order to be with the man she loves, as opposed to the reality that this guy essentially kidnapped her, took her away from her kids, and owed her some cash for pain and suffering. I mean at the very least, Mary could have gotten the house in Paraguay... Also, I agree that Ben makes more sense as a historical character to bring back as a protagonist in the Marley/Jake romance than Dennis. Finally, how far do you imagine Lassiter was from Bay City? I know metaphorically it was a world away. Yet, I wonder practically how much contact the Bay City McKinnons had with the Lassiter McKinnons, given their geographic proximity.

According to the AWP, they sold the restaurant and left to be with MJ in Minnesota. I watched the scene, it was soon after Mary had completed her training as a psychologist and there was dialogue about how she was going to start a practice in their new town. Ada, who co-owned the restaurant with the McKinnons, was there to say goodbye, but there was no mention if she profited from the sale. The Reg/Mary story had so much potential that was wasted. Mary could have been snobbier after living for 17 years in Paraguay with a full household staff (but never learning Spanish). However, the production staff seemed to pattern her after Denise's portrayal of Leslie on GH, rather than knowing her range from seeing her as Susan on Days. There could have been a legitimate triangle with Reg and Vince, given that Mary had only known the benevolent side of Reginald and she might not have liked Vince's controlling nature. Instead, Reginald instantly turned to mustache-twirling villain, Mary immediately accepted life above a restaurant (and never asked for a monetary settlement from the Love's), and most of her kids who were yearning for her return left town within a year. There wasn't even a stated motivation for Reginald to return to Bay City after living abroad. EDIT: I just recalled that John had been studying medicine with the OB-GYN who attended the birth of the twins. Which is how he helped solved the mystery of Donna being haunted by the number of hospital room where she gave birth (does anyone else remember that part of the story, or are there any synopsis from the end of that plot?) and why he was in the picture. However, if he was there, it seems cruel that he let Donna go through all of the strum and drum rather than just filling her in on what he knew.

It also highlights the plot hole of Reginald, Donna, and the baby pictures of her twins. Reginald shows a photo to Donna, she goes nuts, turns into Philece Sampler, that detail gets lost for a while, there's a rumor that Donna actually had triplets and Scott may have been one of them, then finally it is shown that John is in the picture which scared Donna because she feared that he could have fathered the twins. Spoiler alert: John didn't father the twins, it is all a red herring. However, if Michael left town after the twin's conception, but before their birth, why was John present when they were born? I get Reginald spiriting Michael out of town after finding out that Donna was infanticipating. That fit with the reason that Michael never knew that he shared the twins with Donna when he came back to Bay City. However, if Reginald was building secret rooms in the mansion, and hiring doctors to hide Donna in a special room at the hospital, why would he let John in to take a photo with the babies (see photo below from Another World Homepage)? Reg and Mary ran away in 1969, so if Scott was meant to be the third triplet it also didn't make sense, because where would he have been stashed for the prior two years? Also, how soon after Cheryl was born did Mary take off with Reg?

Between Elizabeth Love's disappearance, Ryan Harrison's conception, and John Hudson's Vietnam experience, I've tried to do the age math before and it is a total mess. We need a new soap term other than SORAS which indicates that post-collegiate soap characters are eternally thirtysomethings until they become grandparents. Perhaps we could call them E30s? Time just moves differently in soapland.

I apologize for repeating an earlier question but these first episodes reminded me of my quandary about Loving. I know Cabot and Isabelle came after the first year of the series, but does anyone recall the exposition about where they were when the soap debuted? Why were Ann and Roger living in their house with Curtis? And was there any mention of the Alden's company (AE?) before Cabot arrived? I seem to remember that Ava and Jack worked at Forbes construction when Jack was being a rebel and doing menial labor, but I don't remember if there was any references to Jack's maternal family's business. Also, does anyone recall the circumstances of Roger's death? My vague recollection was that he won a political appointment and left town (although I may be conflating him with Frank Ryan).

In retrospect, one of my main problems with Sunset Beach was the lack of integration of characters. When a soap is named after the town in which the characters live, that town should play a central role in the interactions of the characters. However, in Sunset Beach there were a wide swath of people who seemed to never meet each other. The soap became known for its large set devices like the earthquake and the sinking boat but, even within those plots there were characters that never shared dialogue. Some of the examples that come to mind are Cole and the other male characters his age. Cole seemed to exist on a island all of his own and mostly shared scenes with his wife and mother-in-law. Cole never spoke to Mark, Casey, or Michael. I have no memory of what his relationship was like with Ben and I barely recall any scenes between Cole and Annie. Similarly, Meg, (who was arguably the lead character), seemed to have no defined relationship with Caitlin, (the secondary lead). I think they were both on the boat that sank, but I don't remember if they liked each other or if Meg judged Caitlin for her baby switch. It seemed like a bad structure for a new soap that the writers never explored the various relationships around town, or even had people comment on the other plots going on around them. There were days when it felt as if you were tuning into a totally different show because nobody was mentioning what was happening in the news to the other people who lived in this small beach town. If you read about early Pine Valley or Bay City, there were always connections between the families in town. Even though there were strict socioeconomic divisions in Landview, you got the sense that Viki knew what going on around her. The characters in Sunset Beach might as well have lived in different countries because their actions rarely affected the lives of others in their community, and for me, that is heart and soul of a soap town.

So, here's my recollection of Donna Love and her reintroduction to Bay City. Peter Love had already been on the scene as an attorney at Cory Publishing. He has a introductory scene when he was smitten with Sally, and Mac notes that he knew his father (who was not named Reginald at that time). In early 1983, Donna flits into town, a few years after her divorce from Carl Hutchins. Someone had been siphoning funds from her trust account and she was low on money (it was later revealed that Carl was stealing from her). She took a job decorating one of the many refurbishments of the Cory Compound. She flirts with Mac, Rachel warns her to back off as she is recently engaged to Mac, and reminding her of their shared history as neighbors (this was a few months before the double wedding with Sandy & Blaine). The loss of funds is what motivates Marley's return to Bay City from boarding school, because Donna was having a hard time paying the tuition, and so Marley starts to attend public school where she meets Ben McKinnon and all of his friends. I mention all of this because Iris came to Bay City in 1972 and left in 1980 to move to Houston. So, it is possible that Donna was living in Europe with Carl during most of Iris's stay in Another World. We know Donna left Bay City soon after the birth of the twins to escape the gossip of her teenage pregnancy and raise Marley as her sister (given that her mother Elizabeth had disappeared years earlier it would have been suspicious that Donna suddenly had another sister - side note: I only have a vague recollection that Nicole and Peter knew that Marley was their niece not their sister). Neither Carl nor Donna referred to the marriage too often while in Bay City, (perhaps the loss of Perry made their time together too difficult to mention, or more likely, later writers forgot that they were ever wed). So, it is hard to say how long they were married because at some point after Carl's marriage to Barbara, (Perry's mother), but before his marriage to Donna, he had romantic entanglements with Justine Duvalier, (Ryan's mother), and Maria DeSilva, (Paulina's mother). Carl's affair with Felicia was a contributing factor to the end of his marriage to Donna. Perry was very close to Donna and it seems as if she had raised him as a son since he was a teenager. So, we can assume that they were together for much of the disco 1970's, as a result Donna would not have had the opportunity to attend society functions with Iris. Of course the irony of all of this was that Iris was so mortified by Rachel and Carl's romance that she shot him. However, Iris was never around to witness the animus between Carl and her father. So, her motivation to totally loose it over his romance with her step-mother that she never liked seems even more absurd in retrospect. She was never that mean toward Mitch Blake and he tried to kill Mac.

As much as I abhor the use of scabs during a strike because it destroys the purpose of a worker's union, I enjoy reading about those periods of plotlines because they were so wild and often out of character. It is like there is suddenly a substitute teacher in charge and everyone is acting nuts.

As I recall when Frankie Frame was introduced it was established that Emma (her mother) lived in Oklahoma. Which begs the question why she was known as Frankie Frame, when her parents were Ordways? Obviously, the writer's logic was that it helped viewers remember her familial relationship, but it made no actual sense that she would be known by her mother's maiden name. I think the problem with Iris's longevity was that she became an island onto herself. Her raison d'etre became preserving her father's wishes and that becomes repetitive as a character ages. Without a viable Dennis, or a long term husband, she lacked a family base for plotlines. Between Lucas and Michael, Iris was the eternal third wheel in every love triangle. As a result, she became an honorary Harrison, or an adjunct Cory, but she had no family to care for and no business to create story. As we saw with Felicia, if Iris had stayed in Bay City, it was only a matter of time before long lost children came out of the woodwork. There was also that mid-90's foray into soap realism that made bitchy divas seem obsolete. Personally, I hated that period of soapdom when money no longer motivated characters, everyone was only interested in finding eternal love, and the social issue of the moment was the focus of every plot. I prefer over the top villains and ladies who wore hats to the office. Going back to the retcon of Iris's adoption, (and the loss of Lemay's original story proposals), I wonder if the plan was for Iris to be red herring, or create reasonable doubt, for Amanda if she ever became a murder suspect because they shared the same genes and DNA evidence was a big news topic around that time.

One tends to think there are also economic issues at play for production. By that time there was less money for supporting characters like talk-to's and hit men, so the leading ladies were called upon to do things for themselves.

I always find it amusing in soaps when the snobbiest characters in town have a longer rap sheet than those they look down upon. That makes sense, although does that mean that Iris didn't buy Donna's condo? Also interesting to note that there was a Bayview Tower and a Bayview Court (Bay City's version of Peachtree Street/Road in Atlanta or Beverly Blvd/Drive in Los Angeles).

I recall Donna's condo, but it made me wonder if they lived in the same building as TOPS? Was that the Love Towers where Reginald met his untimely demise off of the roof top balcony? Also, is memory failing me or wasn't this all contemporaneous with the return of Jason Frame because Iris's suspected motive at the time of his murder was that Jason was blackmailing her with knowledge that she was The Chief? That being said, I have no memory what her motive was as a suspect in Jake McKinnon's shooting. It was a sign of times that Beverly/Iris was never arrested, but Carmen/Iris was a suspect in three different gun related crimes. Your point about Donna and Iris not knowing each other is valid given that Rachel was presumed to have known Donna for years because they were neighbors. However, I guess it could be argued that Mac bought the Cory mansion right before his marriage to Rachel, so Iris did not live in that house, and thus had no chance to run into Donna at the mailbox or local grocery store (can you imagine Iris collecting the mail?). On the other hand, it was later established the Dennis was a similar age to Marley & Vicky, so it stands to reason that Dennis and Jamie would have met Marley in school before she left for her European boarding school (but now I am veering into the realm of fan fiction). I also agree with your main hypothesis that the de-Sorasing of Donna, through the casting of Ms Sampler, did the character no favors, and Donna lost a lot of her agency in the process. It is amusing that Donna acquired a southern lilt at the same time that Iris got her Aussie accent without much of an explanation in either case.

Speaking of which, the parallels between Iris finding out that she wasn't Mac's daughter and Dennis finding out that he wasn't Elliot's son are interesting. I stopped watching Texas early in its run, but I wonder if there was any exposition regarding the connection between Dennis feeling betrayed in the same way that Iris had felt betrayed. Certainly, the infamous slap that Elliot gave Iris when the paternity was revealed should have shocked Dennis enough to be more supportive of Iris, but the character of Dennis was never a Momma's-boy. All things being equal, (in hindsight), I am happy that character changes that developed for Iris in Houston never became cannon when she returned in Bay City. She lost a lot of her bite when she became the grande dame of the Southwest. Although it is odd that a few years in Australia changed her accent, while after all that time in Houston she never even uttered the word "y'all". One question, upon her return was she always referred to as Iris Cory? I still think of her as Iris Carrington because Louise always called her Mrs. Carrington, and on Texas she was known as Iris Wheeler. Also, I believe when Dennis was reintroduced he was referred to as Dennis Wheeler, so it is odd that everybody else in Bay City referred to her by her maiden name, even though they had never used it in the past. I would argue that the origin of Iris's adoption made sense because of the birth of Amanda. It cemented the relationship between Rachel and Mac, because she was able to give him the biological child that he never had (except of course for Sandy and Paulina, but he didn't yet know about them).