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Thanks so much for sharing that!! Wow - that video takes me back! I couldn't watch it all as I'm currently watching 1989 and it was just too strange to skip ahead like that. If I remember correctly, at this point, the wonderful Sharlene/Sharly story had been used to death and this was just rehashing the same storyline in a very tired manner. I fast forwarded through the rest of it. It was so strange seeing Grayson as Cass' brother. I never liked him in that role although I floved him as Dusty on ATWT. The Matt/Donna pairing I never got - although seeing him in a towel is never a bad thing! This was the point of AW where I started to fade away. College was over and Swajeski was gone. From my perspective, only having started watching the show in 1987, this was when AW started going downhill. (I know that, for many others, the downhill spiral had started LONG before I even started watching!)

I think you may be right. One of my best friends, who is obsessed with Emmerdale, (we're both American) texted me this once: "It's so refreshing to see the UK soaps be about real people. None of these crazy rich types globe-trotting." And I replied to him: "I was just thinking today while watching Another World: I'm so glad they made Felicia a rich romance novelist. How else would she always be wearing such fabulous hats, scarves and gloves?!"

Gosh - whenever I see clips from this early in the show, Barbara always blows me away - she's just so young and my word, she looks like every model in the magazines at the time. Simply Stunning! I did not recognize many of these characters although I knew their names. It's fun to see Dee, Barbara, John, Craig so early. Those 70s/early 80s sets that look so dull and lifeless. I'm never able to get used to Deas' Tom - a little too shouty most of the time for my liking. Still....I'd pay good money to watch all of these episodes in full!

Have been enjoying re-watching the SoapNet run. When you have one of those not-so-great days, it's nice to come home at the end of it and forget about everything by watching Sharlene tell Russ that Josie is his daughter. Aunt Liz comes in and just rips Sharlene a new one! Plus Donna and Vicky are scheming to keep her and Jamie together now that the paternity test revealed him to be Steven's dad. I'm hoping I can continue to find the SoapNet run and many thanks to all of the collectors and owners of these classic soaps who share them.

I wish I could've really seen that part of the story. Most of it isn't on YouTube that I could find. There was a little bit of stuff late '86 around the holidays when they're tracking down some info and visiting with Penny. But then it skips to the reveal and then I think again it skips a bit. Even from there on out, most of the episodes I'm watching didn't have much of the Sabrina storyline. Until lately....which is why she's been bugging me so much.

@DramatistDreamer When I watch the two weeks of Bob & Kim's wedding, JM just seems so PERKY to me. (Editing this to say that perky is the wrong word....MANIC. That's the right word. Which at times, comes across as SUPER SUPER PERKY!!!) Her dourness in the scenes you mention come across as being forcefully pushed. Same in some of the early '86 stuff I've seen. She's overdoing it, imo. The overdoing it continues through the Douglas Cummings storyline and kidnapping to me. She screeches her way through the weeks in the cabin being OTT hysterical to the point where I seriously thought Kim was going to slap her. HAHA I never knew JM had a soap role before this! I think I've just always heard announcers or interviewers say (obviously incorrectly) her first acting role was ATWT.

Hey now! You lay off my Other Husband, Seth!! He's a tall drink of water who is sensitive and sweet and brooding and I would claw out that Sabrina's eyes to get at him!!! That's good to hear! I adore JM as an actress but this first acting job for her has been difficult for me to get through. Frannie was just SO PERKY the first year. The one thing I'm grateful for in regards to them bringing on Sabrina is that it taught JM had to ground herself as an actress. The transformation in her acting was quite interesting to watch. I found Frannie to be much easier to watch once Sabrina was a part of the Oakdale canvas. It's interesting, the little I've seen of Meg Ryan as Betsy, I've not really enjoyed her interpretation of the role whereas I find Lindsay Frost to be an absolute joy!

@DRW50 Thanks for the info! I didn't realize she would be leaving so soon. She must go during the writer's strike. Am at 4/4/88 right now. Frannie just returned home to let Kim and Bob know that Kathy told her Andy had a drinking problem. It was good to see her!

OMG - I hate Sabrina Hughes with the burning passion of 1,000 suns!!! I want to smack her face every time she opens her mouth. They sent Frannie away to Boston just so Sabrina could get more screen time? Was the character of Sabrina popular at the time? Or were TPTB just trying to force the audience into accepting her?

TPTB are just shooting themselves in the foot by forgoing the socially relevant storylines, imo. Soaps dealt with divorce when nighttime didn't. Soaps dealt with abortion when nighttime didn't. Soaps brought on HIV and gay storylines when nighttime didn't (or at least, didn't do it well - Jodie from Soap, Steven from Dynasty - although I always thought of him as bisexual, not gay, but I digress.) Losing that over the past few decades is exactly why they're fading away. So frustrating.....

@DramatistDreamer Great points. Soaps absolutely used to deal with so many topical issues. I'm writing a soap opera right now and am thinking of all of these things. I've already had a bit of social commentary in there and am about to start a major story that will touch on BLM. Am nervous about being able to do the story justice....we'll see. I must admit that I don't watch any current soaps (B&B, occasionally, but from '14 via the CBS app) but I still follow the news and I don't hear of any socially relevant issues being made into storylines. A) It's different times, I suppose and B - there very well could be and I haven't heard of them. If I did hear of one, it might actually cause me to check the soap out. I hear that the foreign soaps still do a fair amount of this though?

Great to hear!!! I'm pretty sure I've seen that episode, probably from when it was posted here. Agree with you - although I'd go further and say that a thoughtful examination of any topic wouldn't be done on soaps today.

@DramatistDreamer Good point! They couldn't even last 2 seasons!! To get the topic back on track to ATWT....I thought I'd ask people's opinions of Susan Stewart. I only watched in the aughts so she was certainly a shadow of her former self, but I always enjoyed both the character and the actress. Even though she got saddled with some silly storylines, I was always happy to see her front and center. I know I missed her heyday in the 70's and have read the Soaps & Serials books which have given me some insight into her. She's just recently returned to the Oakdale canvas in my watch of the 80s and I'm hoping there's still some juicy stuff to come from her. Right now, she's really only there as a sounding board for Emily.

Me too! So sad that we lost her so young.

It's a good one to have as your #1, that's for sure!

Oh no! Really?? Well, then I'm probably going to end up agreeing with the masses. I've FLOVED the machinations and scheming up to this point. And Rae most definitely did catch them on Monday. Fired Michael. On Friday, we were left with Senaca returning home from his business trip to find Rae and Kim screaming at each other. Was hoping that, since it's sweeps month, this storyline would end. Guess not! I'll continue to share my thoughts as I make my way through 1981. Edited to add: Thanks for the warning!

I did - totally forgot that Claire Foy was in it! I am a fan of Alex Kingston, and enjoyed the second series more than the first, I believe. But yes, I didn't enjoy it in any way as the original. I just go so involved in those original characters. It was unhealthy.

Yeah - I definitely enjoyed Downton because it was just a soap opera set in the past. Like Upstairs, Downstairs. Although I enjoyed the original Upstairs, Downstairs far more than Downton. And I loved Downton!! I've never cried so hard at a series ending as I did Upstairs, Downstairs though. My dog actually came over and pawed me out of concern. Edited to say: As The World Turns comes in second. That was a lot of crying I did when I sat down and watched the final week of the show on that Friday night. (I was in grad school at the time and had to wait and watch on the weekends.) Even though I didn't love the show in its final 3-4 years, I thought it came around a bit at the end. I bought the final 2 weeks from Soap Classics, and I believe that, when I watched it again, I cried just as hard the second time I viewed that ending. I'll never watch Upstairs, Downstairs' ending again - I won't put myself through that ever again.

@DramatistDreamer I completely agree with you on everything you said. It's fascinating to me for several reasons. One, just because I love the soap genre so much (although I have abandoned all the new ones to watch the older ones I never saw thanks to the tireless efforts of the fans) and also because I am creating my own soap opera (for reading only, not to produce - I have no money - HA!) and am wondering/toying with how long of a slow burn story I can tell in this day and age. The only current soap I've been watching is B&B - but I'm back in 2014, watching on the CBS app. It seems to move fairly slowly but I think that might be because I sometimes go months without watching the next episode. But I digress...for now, it's back to ATWT - Barbara is out of jail! Laura is snapping Paul's head off for saying bad things about Tom. (I'm assuming she's going to turn out to be just bat $h!t crazy.) And David is back from Zaire for a stint! Always love it when David Stewart comes for a visit!!

Didn't Downton Abbey stretch a storyline over several seasons? The turkish guy who died in Mary's bed? That didn't get resolved until at least Season 2 but maybe Season 3? (It's been awhile.) I think that shows that people today can handle a long and drawn out story, if it was presented to them. Of course, I think it helped that Downton was basically a soap.

Haha - that's so true!

@robbwolff To clarify, my main issue with today's soap storytelling isn't that the stories themselves are super fast but more the couples. (13 week stories - totally fine. That's acceptable. Last I watched, stories seemed to be 4-5 weeks though.) As said above, now you have Character A MADLY in love with Character B for 2 months. Then they break up and move on. Character A is now MADLY in love with Character C and Character B is MADLY in love with Character D - for 2 MONTHS!!! And then everyone switches partners again. They may put Characters A and B back together a year later when they've run out of beds for them to sleep in. Is it so hard to find story arcs for Character A and Character B where they stay together? Or, even if it's a Frank/Jill or Craig/Sierra type storyline where they keep the characters APART for several years, through several different story arcs but the main focus for the audience is these two characters wanting to be together but kept apart at every turn. I just can't become emotionally involved in a love story for 2 months. I can't become involved in any love story because I know it won't last the season. I watch soap operas to be swept up in grand romantic storylines that keep me watching day in and day out. Not little lust storylines that make me say "why am I watching this?"

I completely agree with Dramatist Dreamer - soaps could've gone back to 30 min. The casts had already been trimmed (at least in ATWT's case) and the sets pared down. I'm sure everyone involved wouldn't have liked having their salaries cut in half but that's better than being cut 100%? Also, yes, the reason I can't watch soap operas today is that the storylines move at such a frenetic pace. ATWT was the same for it's final 2 or so years. I tried to watch Y&R - the bed hopping made me crazy. Same thing with Neighbours - although I actually watched that for a year and a half until half the cast turned over. Still...the show would focus on a "MAJOR COUPLE" for 2 months and then those same characters, MADLY in love with one another, had changed their minds and both members of the couple were MADLY in love with someone else. RH has taken 5 years of back and forth with Frank/Jill. ATWT have had Tom and Margo together (yet having problems) for what? 8-9 years at the point I'm watching? Writers knew how to keep the audience invested in the same pairings over such long periods. When did that ability leave soap writers????

@Soaplovers That's crazy to hear - that the scabs went through all of his bible that quickly! The first few months of the strike must be super entertaining - a lot of stuff must go down!

Wow - I can't believe that's her! The quality is not so great on some of these episodes - I have difficulty recognizing characters I know sometimes. I only figure it out because of their voice! Not complaining though - I sit down and watch one every M-F! (Yes, I'm slightly insane.) I'm even more intrigued as to what happens with this character now. I'm relatively spoiler free throughout the ATWT 80s - it's been fun to try to piece it all together. Thank you so much for posting that playlist! I get so used to just going to the ATWT 1988 playlist from ATWST that I forget to check to see if other random episodes exist. (I've spoiled myself that way a few times though by accidentally watching something a few months ahead.) Will check out the March ones this week. Interesting to hear about the strike in regards to ATWT. I really have no idea what goes on in the 80s - have never heard of the Laura or Beau characters. Right now a fan of Beau recognized him from Indianapolis, which is also where Laura is from. Laura is just beginning work with Kim on her TV show (Is the station called WOAK at this point?) as opposed to being Chris' nanny.