j swift

I think Iris as the Chief is a great reveal without a great motivation. I get that Texas is non-canonical to the AW universe but Iris's return negates her time in Houston. She didn't need the cash, Dennis's inheritance was intact, and she had evolved from Mac's baby girl. Texas-Iris lacked the passion and the confidence for business to pull off that scheme. That's why she was never a threat to takeover World Oil; or Marshall Oil or whatever it was called. The other obvious flaw in the story was Evan. His connection to Janice was told so dubiously it seemed like the writers were trying to decide his actual origin after the character was introduced. Replacing the actor did not help the character. It was a classic soap problem, the exposition about the character is that he is a charming lout but then on screen he is depicted as a weasel.

Women being aroused by violence or grief is as fictional as evil twins or sudden teen aged infants.

Felicia changed a lot over the years. My least favorite was when she was with John Hudson, I hate any relationship that is predicated on "taming a wild spirit" and John certainly never learned to appreciate Felicia's energy. It is amusing in retrospect that she was brought on as an ex-lover of Carl Hutchins because (a) years later they acted like they never knew each other or only met while he was in town and (b) the whole-first-love-first-child story never fit the timeline from when she was introduced.

I wanted to recommend an amusing re-watch. I put together a playlist of the youtube videos of Irene Manning's explanation of the Todd/Victor Jr story with the original death of Irene Manning from the period when Tina was introduced. It creates some retrospectively amusing observations. (1), Vicky finds out that Karen is a suburban hooker when she collects Irene's things from the hotel and sees Karen in the lobby. Karen is there looking worse-for-wear in a green shawl, Marco introduces her to the "john" and the guy is really handsome. It is easy to see how Karen kept her secret because no one would guess that such an attractive guy was paying Karen for her time. (2) Irene looked healthy when she was dying. The doctor tells Vicky that Irene is in constant pain and has only days to live but honestly, except for some shortness of breath in discussing Tina, Irene seems fine. (3) Years later, Irene tells this whole story to Todd, Victor and Vicky but she never mentions Tina? She briefly mentions that she was reuniting Vicky with her sister. However, she never mentioned if she tracked Tina or Tina's kids. (4)That entire exposition was so rushed and contrived it would have been better if McBain was given the job of explaining the outcome. McBain's main duty is trying to tape Irene's confession (despite the fact that she is confessing in front of 3 witnesses; including 2 journalists and a former mayor). I would prefer if he had actually done some detective work and then explained the outcome. (5) The timeline from Tina's birth to the twins doesn't really make sense. Todd/VictorJr are the same age as Kevin who is easily 15-18 years younger than Tina So how long was the Victor/Irene affair?

The generational changes in head writers seems remarkable. You get the originators who are strict stalwarts of story, then you get their trainees who assert their individuality by ignoring history and trying to be socially relevant, and then you get the current generation who treat history like cannon to be mined either for camp or trivia.

I seem to recall during one her podcast interviews SG mentioned that she had left the show for pilot season in LA so they didn't kill her off. This is a perfect example why it is a whole team and not just a writer or producer. The run from Margo's murder to Draper's escape to the Puppet Murders to Emily & Sharky to Nancy & the Bryson clinic to Sky is a remarkable achievement in terms of intersecting mysteries and characters that lasted years. At the same time, actors were leaving, pressures from the networks existed and, technology was changing. So, to achieve that linear story is amazing in retrospect and makes the firing of the writer seem like a bad idea.

Question: Was there ever a connection made between the fact that Cathy Craig's baby with Joe Riley was named Megan and then Vicky's long-lost daughter was named Megan? Megan Gordon was probably named by Roger, (I guess he married later and had Sarah). She also would have been older than Megan Craig-Riley. The whole coincidence is also likely due to a change in writing and production. However, it was interesting that an oversite in naming Todd Manning created his whole relationship with Vicky but there was no mention of the two Megans. Two fanfic possibilities: (a) Somehow Cathy Craig knew about Eterna and named her daughter Megan just to torment Vicky about her secret child. (b) when the whole town gathered around Megan Gordon's deathbed to retell the history of Landview (because that's what nobody does when a loved one is dying) Vicky's memories of being present at the birth and death of Megan Craig-Riley were effected by time travel.

The Knots Landing"bottle episodes" are some of my favorites and they differentiate Knots from other prime time soaps. Bottle Episodes are when a few characters are stuck in a single set for most of an entire episode. I remember an early episode when the women go to a house owned by a family member of Abby and Karen (through her dead husband). There is the Abby/Olivia drug episode. There is also a bottle episode with Mack. These types of episodes were necessary for budget and writing when each season required more than 22 episodes. However, while the other soaps would depend on flashbacks or clip episodes I always appreciated Knots quirky single-episode stories.

It is hard to say whether I enjoyed Sheldon's writing at the end or if I enjoyed Raven and Sky so much that I didn't notice the change in writing. However, it seems to me that the Raven/Sky relationship shifted by 1984. When they were investigating Nora's murder Raven and Sky were a team. My favorite type of soap duo is a Thin Man/Nick & Nora type of couple who are written as equals. Later in the series, perhaps to facilitate the actresses real pregnancy or it was a reflection of the writing, Raven became a damsel in distress that needed to be saved by Sky (Sky-prime not fake-Sky). Contrast that with my favorite period of the show when Raven left town for the first time before Margo's murder and Raven does seem different; if not more mature. One of my all time best soap scenes is when Raven explains to April how she gave herself her nickname. I love when Logan tells her that she incapable of love and she believes it so she gives up parenting Jamie. I love her weird relationship with both Ansel and Draper that dripped of sexual undertones. I love that she and the Chief Mallory have no-strings-attached sex and there are no consequences. I also love that she is ambivalent about motherhood. I think what sums my appreciation of that era is that it is so contemporary. Unlike the Irma Phillips characters who were always shamed for their craven desires, Raven's punishment was much more internal. Of course she lost her kid and some money along the way but it wasn't until Sky-prime that Raven believed that she was capable of being loved. In both stories that writers needed to deal with Raven's temporary departure but the earlier one is done in a much more intriguing way; but I can't tell if that is writing or producing or just time.

Thanks and Happy New Year!!!!

It is disappointing to hear the reviews of Harding Lemay as a person. As someone with a family history of television production from the early 1960's through today, I really liked the book and it was so entertaining to hear his perspective on how soap writing worked when advertisers owned the shows and there were no writers union contracts. I particularly like the scene when Lemay meets Henry Slesar for the first time and he is so impressed that Slesar had his own mimeograph machine in his dining room. As for forming opinions after fact, I am afraid the only way to discuss TV events from 40 years ago is through personal reflection and it would be difficult to separate the immediate response from the responses made over time after reading about soap history both in books and now online. I don't think either way is any less virtuous and I am under no illusions that anyone would want to discuss what I thought about Alice and Steve when I was four years old.

The only Matthew family member I liked was Pat and her twins. I recall in 8 Years in Another World, how Harding Lemay was appalled when he was first asked to watch the show by P&G while Pat was being poisoned by her maid. He was bemused that a woman with a doctor for a brother would never ask his advice or consult with him about her symptoms. Lemay's charmingly written disdain for the actors playing Mary and Jim may have informed my own recollections of disliking the Matthews.

Earlier this month I saw Nancy Lee Grahn at the grocery store. Nobody seemed to notice her which is not unusual in Los Angeles. However, it made me ponder this fact: here is an actress who has worked steadily for almost 40 years and, has been watched by at least 3 million people a day yet, she can be so under radar of mass media. It must be an odd sort of fame.

I probably began watching in '74. I was four and would come home from school for lunch and it was always on in the kitchen on the small black and white tv. I also read the serialized paperbacks so I remember a lot about the triangle but I am hazy on the chronology. Eventually the paperbacks were banned from our reading list for book reports because my teacher was not a fan. 1970's AW lent itself to psychological exploration because so much of it was in the scripts. As I recall, Ada used to explain Steve's motivations to Rachel frequently during their talks in the kitchen, and John Randolph or Robert Delaney were in charge of explaining Steve to the Matthews family. Oddly, as a kid, I really liked Willis and Gwen because they were constantly analyzing each other. This is why the Todd/Lau's Jamie period is such a disappointment to me because there was no exposition for why he changed character and Rachel never seemed to notice. However, in retrospect I really liked the Jamie who was friends with Dennis as a kid. BTW - I hope that we are involved in a lighthearted discussion of soaps past, I really don't intend to ruffle feathers, it is just great to have a place to express opinions about this trivial stuff that I used to think about all the time as kid.

Yes I am referring to David Bailey's Russ and I know that he didn't play Russ when he was married to Rachel. In terms of Alice, I could rant about her character (regardless of portrayal) for days. Early in the Steve/Alice/Rachel triangle, Steve was often compelled by Alice because she was frail due to her hysterics and neuroses. Rachel was upfront with Steve, encouraged his wild business sense, and believed in his vision. Alice was always questioning "Steven" and trying to make him a better man. She wanted "Steven" to be more like her father and brother. She even manipulated him to sell his groovy penthouse and commission a Robert Delaney designed house for her in suburbs so she could be near her parents. If the gender roles were reversed and a male character insisted on calling his girlfriend by her full name even though she preferred to be known by her nickname, and then told her to be less motivated by sex and money, that character would be portrayed as a villain. Later Alice became a doctor and appeared more stable emotionally but she still went after Rachel's man! It's like the book Wicked, if you look at it from Rachel's perspective, Alice used her economic and social status to slut shamed her to the whole town, confined to her to a life as a single mother in the early 1970's, tried to interfere with her custody agreement and, she stole back the house when Steve died which left Rachel practically broke. Then, years later, she swoops in when Rachel has amnesia and tries to steal Mac?!? Alice was a wimpy mess and any attempt by Jamie to be more like the Matthews annoyed me. I'm so glad to get that off my chest after 40 years!

I am a big Stephen Yates fan; not only because of those short shorts he wore to Rachel,Mac, Sandy, and Blaine's wedding. Yates and Bekins had the sort of energy that VW herself used in er younger days as Rachel. It made sense that Jamie would be like Rachel because they were so close and she raised him for years on her own. So, when Jamie was a bit of schemer (like when he wrote his book) or a bit dark (like when started taking drugs) it fit with the character. Starting with Russel Todd and, continuing to Lau, Jamie started living in opposition to his mother. He became a doctor like Russ, Rachel's first dull husband. He was on the wrong side of the Vicky/Jake/Jamie triangle. The last time that Jamie felt correct for me when he vied for Mac's attention with Sandy. As viewers we knew it wasn't about the money, it was about this stranger usurping the only father Jamie knew. It was so parallel with Rachel's longing for Steve that the stories seemed to share DNA. Later, when Jamie became a hero and a drip he seemed more like Alice's son than Rachel's.

The thing I appreciate about Felicia, Donna, and Cecile in 1984 is that they valued sophistication. They were all characters in their late 30's but their armor was hats and gloves and multiple layers of scarves. They didn't want to look younger or trendy. They wanted to communicate their power through their wardrobe and I think that is far more cool than the ath-leisure-look of today. It is funny that Felicia, Donna, Cecile and, Rachel were all adolescents in the 60's but twenty years later they all embraced yuppie culture. I wonder if Felicia Gallant was ever a Grateful Dead fan or if Donna Love was more of a Beatles or a Stones fan?

I would offer an alternate hypothesis. I think Ellen Wheeler's period on the show had much more focus on Marley; possibly because Wheeler's Vicky always seemed a bit contrived. Then, from Anne Heche to Jensen Buchanan the focus was on Vicky because she became the more interesting twin.

Family crypts are inherently odd but the Lord crypt takes the cake. It was talked about for years but then it was featured prominently when Todd-prime died. It struck me that Todd was buried in the 90's when Pennsylvania must have had laws about burying relatives on your own property. If it wasn't a law it should have been considering that both Todd and Victor were falsely thought to be buried there. Finally, it always seemed odd that it was the above ground drawer-type of crypt because wouldn't they run out of space?

A soap critic once wrote that the one thing that connects all soap characters is that they never tell the truth to their loved ones. For example, I was just watching Maggie the Cop and Warren flirt. Maggie is undercover tracking a criminal who lives across the hall and she is wired for sound to Cruz. However, rather than just telling Warren that she's working, she lets him blow her cover and endanger herself! Now, I am not a detective (nor have I received any covert training) but I think there are more logical solutions. The same thing constantly happens to Eden and Cruz & Mason and Julia; they can't tell each other some police/company/investigation secret when there are no steaks involved in divulging the information to each other. The character's rigid adherence to confidentiality over their personal and familial relationships strains credulity.

Seeing a 1987 SOD on tumblr reminded me that Jill and her mother left before the end of the show. Does anyone recall the circumstances of her leaving and did Roger wind up with the whole Coleridge brownstone?

Doug also never gets credit for his very strong ugly christmas cardigan game. Mac's sweaters get louder as the 80's progress.

It is a shame that guys like Lane Davis and Terry Lester didn't have more fun during their time as soap actors. They complained about soap fans, writers and producers usually communicating that they felt disrespected. However, there has never been another time when soaps were as creative, profitable, or popular as they were during Terry or Lane's time and so their respective lack of support/respect for daytime seems such a silly choice in hindsight. It just proves that you never know when what will be the good old days are now.

I agree that it was often funny. I also contend that modern audiences would find most of the show to be anachronistic. However, Eden's sexual assault is such an interesting media study because the production was so earnest in trying to be socially responsible and yet was so tone deaf at the same time. One last aside, I find it amusing that once JAN's Warren decides to buy the newspaper he instantly starts dressing like a proper journalist with plaid shirts and a tweed jacket.

I apologize if all of my questions are real estate related but I was struggling to remember Geraldine's living situation. I remember that she lived in a hotel suite at The Monticello Arms with a reception area and double doors leading to her bedroom from when Raven reappeared for Draper's trial through when she shot Logan. However, Sky lived in the Whitney Mansion almost from the time he first got to town. So, was the Whitney Mansion where Geraldine lived with her husband and 2 sons? Did she move once her kids died? Did anyone else live in the mansion between Geraldine and Sky's time there? In the later years didn't she sometimes seem to live with Sky and Raven, like when she dated Preacher's dad?