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Vicky was pretty busy already at that time -- she got engaged to and married Grant, held prisoner in an ice cave, cheated on Grant with Ryan. And since Victoria had never talked about knowing anyone from the Carson family after her parents died and Bridget was the only one who cared for her, could there be any emotional reason for her to get to know the family or would it have to be financial or to deal with some kind of scandal that would cause a problem for Grant's political career? Christy and Douglas seemed to be specifically designed as a short-term speed bump for Cass and Frankie, but I suppose either Vicky could have been involved in the trial over Douglas' death or another Carson could have come to town because of the trial and whatever storyline with Victoria could have ensued. There have been quite a few minor surname reuses that were never intended to mean anything. Most just sound like very generic English surnames, although a few might have been meaningful to the writer for some reason as well. In fact in some cases the same names probably showed up all around P&G. For example: Victoria's adoptive parents Grace and Philip Carson and Frankie's friend's husband Douglas Carson. Felicia's secretary Miss Devon and her long-lost daughter Lorna Devon. Scott's girlfriend Patricia Kirkland and Grant and Ryan's mother Justine Kirkland. Donna and Michael's foster child Mikey Miller (parents Eve and Toby); and Victoria's Kirkland substitute Sean Patrick Miller (parents Laurie and Patrick); Courtney's abusive ex-boyfriend Andrew Miller. Thomasina's social worker Rita Kent and Iris' boyfriend Hank Kent (son Tommy and ex-wife Sheri). Sally Madison (who killed Lucas and her brother Rick); Chris Madison and his mother Rita. Sylvie Kosloff's sister Myrtle Benson, multiple murderer Nurse Emily Benson, obsessed Dr Taylor Benson. Michael Randolph's fiancee Karen Campbell, Nurse Joyce Campbell (who I believe had a deaf son so she bonded with Brittany), and Olivia's physical therapist David Campbell.

I think perhaps the Carsons may have unfortunately gone broke before they died.

Since we are discussing continuity -- I noted this while watching episodes from 1989 that had this exchange between Donna and Felicia, and I meant to come back to it because there was a later scene (maybe around Xmas when Vicky had kidnapped Steven and was hiding out?) where Vicky does mention the Carsons. I wonder whether the timing was such that there was a fan response to the first scene so they added the reference with Vicky to fill in the gap.

Absolutely. Did Sandy and Blaine live in the mansion or were they in a separate building? Speaking of continuity, the AWHP has some addresses and phone numbers. The address of the Cory estate appears to vary. I'm not sure whether the phone number for the "Cory studio" is intended to be a dedicated line for Rachel's studio or something else. (KBAY is listed separately.) Before VCRs I think the assumption was often that minor details didn't matter because viewers wouldn't retain fleeting references so it wouldn't be worth the effort to track minutiae. I haven't come across the Lesoleil visualization where I believe Kathleen saw images of her mother (at this time still deceased and not yet named Mary) in 1985, but I did notice that she had a photo of her mother in a locket in this pre-Christmas episode. It's only a quick glimpse. Obviously it doesn't look like Denise Alexander. Maybe it could be Julie Osburn made up to look older but I don't think so?

Thanks. I recall Pete Shea and Diana Frame meeting in stables as well, but those must have been on Steve Frame's property in 1981-82.

I am not sure when the Corys first had stables but in 1984 when Catlin as Josh Peterson needed work, both the Cory and Love estates had stables with horses. And in 1986 when Reginald came to town, the Cory stables and the Love stables were somehow conceived of as being close enough together that there was a secret tunnel between them and that Mitch would be able to gain access to the Love stables (which Michael owned at this point) by going through from the Cory side where he was doing some kind of construction work. The AWHP has some info regarding locations that seem to suggest that the Cory Estate had a lot of features. There is a picture of Rachel walking by the lakeshore in July 1979 which is described as being on the estate. And I believe the location where the Mac/Rachel & Sandy/Blaine double wedding took place was intended to represent the Cory estate -- it had a large swimming pool (the better to push Felicia into) and vast grounds. I remember when Chris Chapin arrived Nancy spotted him hang gliding. So the Chapin Estate (which had been bought by Lesoleil) was also in the area at that time and probably never mentioned again. During Lumina the Cory estate also had a secret walled garden that had never been entered in Amanda's lifetime. I'm sure there are many other features of the estates that may have been mentioned and dropped over time, but many writers definitely treated the Cory Estate as extremely large and unlikely to be in the middle of town.

Probably balanced out by the fact that she had a 57-year-old husband.

There was a weekly nighttime series in 1999-2000, made and set in Toronto, called The City and starring Torri Higginson that I thought of as a soap.

Thank you! Is Janine Turner in this episode or only discussed? I always blur together Janine as Scott's girlfriend Patricia Kirkland (probably no relation to Justine, 😜) and Rena Sofer as Sam's girlfriend Joyce Abernathy.

Also in the category of "small world": the reveal that Michael Hudson, who had also allegedly known Rachel when he was a child, had had a serious love affair with Iris when they knew each other in Europe.

Thin air is where a lot of characters appear from, especially love children but also nephews (Neal and Adam) or former boyfriends (Sid "Sharkey" Sugarman). I'm probably just mad because I disliked Brittany and early John so much and what they have in common is they were introduced as dead and then suddenly turned out to be alive. If I had liked those storylines better I probably wouldn't be acting as if there was a correlation that makes that plot device bad.

Was Jake's brother presumed dead? I thought he just didn't know that his father had another son until Kevin told him. I was categorizing him as a love child from the past, like Sandy, Paulina, or Nick. Maybe I should have included Lorna though, depending on how long Felicia talked about her dead baby before Lucas revealed she had survived. If it was all in one conversation though I would say she is definitely just a love child from the past.

You need a balance of core families and new characters and AW had periods with a lot of HW turnover where it erred on the side of too many new characters. In terms of inbreeding, Alli's family tree was more complicated than most. Hardly any of the babies born in Bay City were SORASed to adulthood, and most if not all (Nancy, Amanda, Matthew, Maggie, Alli?) were related to Mac and/or Rachel. The McKinnons bred no new children until post-cancellation rewarded Jake with twins with Vicky. And Victoria was the only Love to procreate although her children would also be related to Gregory Hudson who would be a first cousin once removed of Steven through both his Frame side and his Hudson side. The question of new characters reminded me of my least favourite mechanism for introducing new characters: the dead fakeout. A character who has never been seen alive in Bay City, and has either never been mentioned until recently or was discussed only as the long-dead parent of an existing character suddenly turns out to be alive. Reginald, Mary, and Justine were the parental variety. Brittany, Edward Gérard, and John were the out of thin air variety. All but Justine were created between 1985 and 1987. Half of them were during Margaret Depriest's tenure as HW. Only John lasted longer than a couple of years.

I believe you are mistaken about which Matt knew what when. Daniel Dale's Matt was a little bit SORASed (from a little kid to about 14/15) in 1986 and got to know ex-con Mitch even though both Mac and Rachel were a bit difficult about it, but I don't think this Matthew ever knew about the way he was conceived. Liz had been away (probably since Sally's death, disposing of Kevin Thatcher and never mentioning him again) since before Matthew was aged up to Daniel Dale and then suddenly returned for Thanksgiving 1987. She was the one who looked in Sam's personnel file and revealed to Mac that Mitch was Sam's emergency contact right before Amanda found out she was pregnant. Mac was upset that Sam was related to Mitch and that Rachel had known. Daniel Dale stayed on until New Year's but I don't think Liz told him any of the distressing details of St Croix etc etc. Matt Crane was a little bit older when he arrived in March 1988. The AWHP synopses for 1988 seem to have the startling revelations from Liz on October 6, 1988. Liz was spouting off about how terrible Jason was (causing trouble for both Mac and Nicole) and Frames in general in Matthew's presence, and just went too far listing all of the Frame crimes she could think of, including Janice. Matthew ran to Rachel and got her version of events, which he did not like at all even though she assured him that Mitch had ultimately helped prevent Janice from killing Mac.

The references to Emma's farm were too early to be scab writers. It seems to have come up at Christmas 1987 when Margaret Depriest was still headwriter. Jamie and Lisa report that they went for a drive and noticed that the farm where Emma used to live is up for sale (about 5 minutes in): Between Xmas and New Year's Rachel, Jamie and Lisa visit the farm and discuss Rachel's wish to bid on it so Jamie can have it. Jason has also come to town and announced his intention to bid on it.

I don't recall watching any of the dramatic miniseries, classy or trashy. But I did watch Fresno, the miniseries parody of nighttime soaps, starring Carol Burnett and Gregory Harrison.

I think we have to accept some level of difference in interpretation with recasts. What was that anecdote about Victoria Wyndham working with Constance Ford? "Rachel would never say it like that." "This Rachel does." or something along those lines. And I have some tolerance for retcons that mostly respect history and squeeze story into plausible gaps, while fuming over the kind that lay waste to facts we know and substitute completely incompatible stories in their place. [I'm looking at you, hooker MJ.] I haven't read the Sharlene novelization in years though and I don't remember the storyline from when it originally ran -- would you say the differences were in personality and attitude, or in the facts supplied in the storyline? I had the impression that although Sharlene presented herself as down-to-earth and practical, part of it was supposed to be because she was hiding from her shameful past as a prostitute and being too strict with Josie because of her fear of her sexuality. Maybe that wasn't how Anna Holbrook was introduced and those aspects came out later when Josie pursued a modeling career and Lucas came on the scene and of course Sharly emerged? I wasn't quite sure how the timeline was supposed to have worked for Lucas to have been one of Sharlene's clients. It seemed odd to assume that he had been a successful businessman before the point in time when Sharlene married Russ.

I am always interested in interrogating these claims and testing what they mean or don't mean. As mentioned in the article, Clarice was originally intended to be very short term (3 days) but they liked Gail Brown and created a longer-term story for her. It's not clear to me where the author of the article pulled the claim from -- did the show provide the description? Did Gail offer it as part of the interview? Was it a description with currency in the soap press? -- but could it be possible that Clarice was the first character created as comic relief who went on to have a dramatic story of her own (as opposed to being in a long-running supporting role)? [Disclaimer: In defining firsts, we can prove that X is not "the first" if we can prove that Y was earlier -- but that doesn't necessarily mean that Y is the actual first until we prove that nothing else was earlier than Y. So Bay City being in Michigan can prove that Ryan's Hope is not the first soap to be set in a real location, but does not prove that Another World was the first.]

There wasn't enough context in the bit I was quoting -- it was from the Corinne Jacker article so it specifically meant 1982. Gail Brown would have turned 45 in 1982 but I am not sure whether *Clarice* was intended to be as old as that. Was she young and foolish when she had Cory with Robert Delaney, or merely unmarried and foolish? And if I were Jacker I might not have been boasting of a contemporary geriatric pregnancy storyline in 1982 when it had already been done years before with Ada. Not sure if this article has been discussed before, but while I was pondering the problem of Clarice's age I came across it. It claims that Clarice was the first "continuing" comedic character in daytime soaps. https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-kane-republican-gail-brown/76993998/

Mary did do some social work. Off the top of my head I think that was how the McKinnons came to be caring for the little girl Becky. She also counselled John Hudson when his storyline started to dig into his Vietnam PTSD, and worked with Pilara, which was the introduction of Reuben. Of course both of the latter occurred after Mary was firmly back together with Vince and Reginald long dead. Who was the older mother? Was it Clarice? The only baby born onscreen in late 1982 was Jeanne Ewing. (Maggie had been born in April and Cecile seems even less likely. I suppose the baby might not have been carried to term though.)

In 1982 we seem to have the introductions of Bob, Henrietta, R.J., Roy, Ed, Thomasina, Louis St George, Alma Rudder, Julia Shearer, and Stacey Winthrop. Plus that was the year of Jamie's roman à clef being made into a movie. Cass was the longest-running character of these but his BFF Felicia wasn't added until 1983 under Robert Soderberg.

I wonder if a HW other than Lemay would have continued on with the character of Cheryl instead of introducing the new character of Josie. Bringing back Sharlene and connecting Josie to the Matthews family was a wonderful idea but I would not have minded well-handled McKinnons in town as well. I'm not sure Kevin Anderson did anything Ben could not have done either.

Brett and Kelsey might be too assertive to be true ingenues. Jenna was another good girl and I thought that both she and Sofia were more interesting than they were sometimes given credit for being. Cheryl was very innocent and prettier than the character was interesting. What about Josie? And logistically it took more effort to really have Marley and Vicky talk, and a fair amount of the time there were reasons why Vicky could not confide in Marley, so she was more likely to talk to Bridget. Maybe Marley was really more of a foil to Vicky -- it looks like she returned to Bay City briefly in early 1988 so that Vicky could impersonate her once or twice, and to add colour to Jake's availability for Vicky; then later in the year at basically the same time Vicky found out she was pregnant Marley returned and revealed that she was having fertility issues. Even Jake raping Marley seemed more driven by the need to give Vicky her reaction moment.

I don't remember Marley's haemosynthosis (according to the AWHP that was what it was called; as far as I can tell it is not a real disease) ever coming up again after the bone marrow transplant. When Vicky got pregnant with Steven I seem to recall that she didn't believe Jake could be his father because the theory was it was Jake who was sterile. Then late in her pregnancy she learned that Jake wasn't sterile after all, panicked, and begged her OBGYN for a prenatal paternity test that the OBGYN refused to do because it was too dangerous. I don't remember the order that everything shook out in. Vicky realized before Steven was born that Jake might be the father. I believe Marley offered to adopt Steven also before the baby was born. Jake didn't suspect he was Steven's father until after Steven was born and he discovered they shared the same blood type. IMO, Marley's attachment to Steven works regardless of who the father is and keeping Jamie as Steven's father is more effective because it continues to involve the Frames and Corys whereas making Jake the father seems to close the loop so that only Loves are involved. (Although I suppose that could have been mitigated if Vicky and Jamie had stayed together. And after Jamie left did Steven interact with the Corys much anyway?)

I will admit that I have a strong bias against bringing supernatural or magical plots that cannot be rationally explained into normally natural settings. I don't have a problem when the premise and setting of the work allow for or require supernatural events. (Love Pushing Daisies, season 1 of Heroes, A Christmas Carol, Thursday Next, etc etc.) But if a series starts out in the real world in I am going to look askance at storylines that require more suspension of disbelief than, say, the possibility that someone we thought was dead was only on the lam. Is it possible that if I had enjoyed the romance of Cameron and Amanda enough I could have liked Lumina? I probably would not go any further than to tolerate the Lumina aspect while begrudgingly enjoying the performances. But Sandra Ferguson would have had to have absolutely astonished me with her ability to become Amelie, so distinct from Amanda that you would believe it was another actress in the role. I thought the concept of Justine and the fact that her resemblance to Rachel had never before come up in any context since Carl started daydreaming about stealing Rachel from Mac in 1984 or thereabouts was utterly ridiculous, but I did slightly enjoy Victoria Wyndham's performance as Justine pretending to be Rachel, at least with Alli. I used to watch Days of Our Lives before Another World but hearing about Marlena's possession made me actively uncurious about Days.