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Vee

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Posts posted by Vee

    OLTL Tribute Thread

    in DTS: Cancelled Soaps

    Posted

    I wasn't the only one, but I think overall we all posted a bit too much, lol. It's def an essential buy. I only wish someone could do the same for the P&G soaps. Kim Zimmer's book is the closest we have, and it's candid but still a bit polite/cautious on certain details.

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    OLTL Tribute Thread

    in DTS: Cancelled Soaps

    Posted · Edited by Vee

    I don't remember that HBS comment at all! I'll have to go back and look.

     

    I think the approach to Niki was in part a product of the times and the evolving public understanding of mental illness. I understand Agnes' intent and I understand fans loved Niki in the '80s, etc. But the fact is Niki and DID as explained in 1995 is exactly how they would come to be. It's not a joke, it's not funny. There is no other plausible explanation for (theoretical) DID - I knew that even as a child. It always goes back to sexual abuse, and Victor had been well-established pre '90s as a philandering man of secrets.

     

    Do I think Niki could be sympathetic and somewhat dimensional - yes, I understand why fans liked that and I don't have a problem with that Niki as far as she went in the 1980s. I have a problem with her being presented as a semi-functional part of Viki that the rest of the cast of characters could all just roll with as a person in her own right. Do I think stories in the 2000s, etc. took Niki too far? Yes. They sometimes presented her sympathetically - a hallucination of Niki, the only 'mother' Tess knew, helping her give birth to her (miscarried) child in 2008 - but for the most part her stories were crass and ugly. Tess should never even have existed, and the Niki caper in 2002 may have been entertaining but should have been written for Tori. Though tbh I wanted Viki's DID completely retired after 1995. It should have ended there, period.

     

    ETA: I did find the HBS quote. I would quote it but I only found out years later Jeff Giles was not happy we (mostly me!) quoted liberally from the book on here back in the day. I should have known better. I never wanted to hurt his sales, it's just a fantastic book.

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    OLTL Tribute Thread

    in DTS: Cancelled Soaps

    Posted

    I believe Gottlieb was all in on the long-form DID storyline and helped craft it with the writers. It was in motion before she exited. She/they evidently had planned to do the reveal a year earlier in '94, but Clint Ritchie's accident delayed it.

     

    Anyway, here's Viki and Dorian having flashbacks to the night Victor died - enjoy Robin wearing a '70s wig and Viki looking, well, about the same in this low quality video. I know Robin and Ron Carlivati maintain Dorian killed him and he stayed dead, or at least they suggested it in 2007 without delving into it or proving it. I still believe Viki did it, but at least the show basically undid the 2003 story from then on by changing Victor's gravestone to the 1970s in the later years. I also think it gives Dorian more dimension, the truth that she protected Viki's secret for decades.

     

    Also a treat: Erika Slezak's Skeletor voice as the Satanic "Victor" alter which I still find terrifying, if also sometimes hilarious.

     

     

     

     

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    OLTL Tribute Thread

    in DTS: Cancelled Soaps

    Posted · Edited by Vee

    It was a Michael Fairman interview (naturally).

     

    IIRC Gottlieb did mastermind the DID arc but left in '94. I thought Horgan and co. did a fairly good job of maintaining the existing style and tone until '96, though others disagree. She's not Linda Gottlieb but she's never gotten enough credit for her work, which is part of the reason I was happy to have her back at OLTL 2.0 - instantly the show was, tonally, serious and adult again.

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    OLTL Tribute Thread

    in DTS: Cancelled Soaps

    Posted · Edited by Vee

    I think there was a certain swooning literary romantic angle with Viki and Sloan, but you're right that it was not quite so visceral.

     

    I thought Derwin and Erika had real chemistry and thought the younger man thing was a good idea, but couldn't stand the story. He wasn't a great actor, though a very sweet and funny guy offscreen. Around 2001-2003 my brilliant fanfic idea was to have Tina return, fall for comatose Ben, and when he awoke a changed man he'd have an affair with her and promptly exit the show solo.

     

    I remember this too:

     

     

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    OLTL Tribute Thread

    in DTS: Cancelled Soaps

    Posted

    This is an interesting tidbit from a Jeff Giles interview about OLTL oral history Llanview in the Afternoon, but I don't remember this anecdote from the book. It also gives a different angle on the Clint/Viki/Sloan triangle which suggests Sloan was always fated to be removed from the story somehow - which I figured, but I didn't know it was supposed to originally end with Clint the victor earlier on. Linda Gottlieb's public comments about the early story seemed fairly down on Clint at the time and IIRC she famously said she was going to give Viki the one thing she'd never had: "An orgasm." Which is a great quote tbh.

     

    Linda Gottlieb and Michael Malone lured Roy Thinnes back to play Sloan, after he played his other role on the show of Alex Crown.  He talks about how Alex was killed, and then they called and asked him to come back and he said, “My character’s dead!” Linda woo’d him back, because first he wanted to work with Erika Slezak and second, the story of the crusty old military guy who learns to accept his gay son, appealed to Roy. Unfortunately, it did not end very well.  They were playing him against Clint Ritchie, and Linda wanted to make a triangle on-screen.  Clint got hurt with a tractor accident and they had been meaning to get rid of Sloan.  But then when Clint got hurt they knew they needed to keep him around, and so they signed him to another deal.  And then when Clint got better, they decided to get rid of him.  And Peter Miner (Director, OLTL) said in the book, Roy was miserable because they would not tell him what Sloan was dying of, and he had no idea what was happening.

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    OLTL Tribute Thread

    in DTS: Cancelled Soaps

    Posted · Edited by Vee

    Does anyone remember when the Victor/Sloan psychological mirroring stuff aired? When in 1995?

    I seem to recall a dream Viki had of Sloan or Victor's face being superimposed on each other, but I don't remember when or many details of the plot point. If they're on YT, great.

     

    Ah - found some of it, from late '94 I think - Viki equates Sloan breaking up with her (secretly due to his illness) with Victor and Eugenia on the stairs. But I could swear there was more after the DID reveal.

     

     

    The end of the second sequence may be what I remembered; Victor and Viki kissing after she kisses Sloan. Shades of Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me. I am a little surprised they let that air. The bit with Victor and Dorian is great. All as disturbing as when I was a little kid.

     

    I started watching in the spring-summer of '93 and from the start I could tell something was very off with the legend of Victor Lord as they retold the past story in bits and pieces for a new viewer. I don't know when I consciously realized I thought he had molested her, but by this time (this was fall '94, I think?) I knew something very, very bad was coming. And I've told my story about the big reveal in 1995 many times - I didn't really know Viki had had multiple personalities before she threw Dorian down the stairs. Terrifying.

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    The Politics Thread

    in Off Topic Lounge

    Posted · Edited by Vee

    I actually don't think most of the media want that. I do think it would work for people like Haberman who still seem to only view a lot of this as an access game.

     

    It's cognitive dissonance: A lot of folks at the Times know and feel Trump is bad, but they also have intense ego issues over their reporting as the paper of record, and feel anyone who questions their closeness to their sources (including the Trump family and circle) is hysterical, too liberal and doesn't understand the game they need to play. It's also why none of the NYT folks ever admitted fault on Clinton - she had it coming and it was the game.

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    The Politics Thread

    in Off Topic Lounge

    Posted · Edited by Vee

    NYT printed this Rosenstein story, which is clearly dropped by Bill Shine and Trump to try to push a narrative to fire Rosenstein. Other outlets (including the Post, I believe) have since claimed Rosenstein's remarks were sarcasm.

     

     

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