chrisml

I have to put a word in for the Sonni/Solita. I adored it, and Michelle Forbes was robbed of a Best Actress emmy for her work. She was phenomenal. Like Cynthia Watros, she came in and took the focus away from Zimmer's Reva through her acting. 

I don't think it's interesting to have everyone in the town hate a villain if that villain is going to stick around. Maureen was definitely needed to humanise Roger. Roger and Maureen's friendship could also have come into play during the Ed/Lillian affair and created more story. When I watch the takedown of Roger scenes, it makes me angry how much potential was there for all of the characters and how JFP indeed squandered so much of that for the sake of easy/sweeps drama points. Leaving Maureen aside, Mindy became brain dead and desperate once JFP took over.  It's to Simms's credit that she made a lot of it work, but once Simms left, Mindy was never the same.

Going off what Kalbir wrote, I think the Maureen/Roger friendship was an important one and it should have been explored. That's something soap never understood. Viewers appreciate these odd friendships because they not only give depth to the characters, but it provides more avenues for drama. That's something so many producers don't understand. It's not about these big sweeps storylines or dramatic storylines; it's about the character interactions and the ramifications. 

51 minutes ago, Xanthe said:

I agree with a lot of these although I would not have brought Reginald back from the dead at all. They could have had Kathleen investigate the past without Reginald and Mary being alive and bring some upsetting facts to light that had repercussions in the present for the McKinnons and the Loves and the Hudsons and the Frames if they wanted to make Jason Nicole's father or whatever, etc etc.

I would have kept Nancy around (but I do agree with the Judi Evans recast suggestion) and done more to make sure she had boyfriends and friends who were linked to the rest of Bay City.

I would have handled the introduction of John completely differently and would not have given him the rape/romance backstory with Donna. 

I would have handled the John/Felicia affair completely differently if it had to happen at all. I can understand a circumstance where John was at a breaking point because of Sharlene's mental illness but he and Felicia should have felt guilty every second of every day.

I totally forgot about the way John was introduced. Ugh. I must have blanked it out as it was my least favorite soap trope. 

The whole Mary saga is so annoying because I so enjoy watching Denise Alexander on the episodes I've rewatched, but it's obvious they didn't have a game plan.  She has chemistry with everyone she interacts with on the show so why write off her family, Reginald, and Scott?  Along the same lines, I wish Sharon Gabet had gone to another soap or they had written for her talents. Her character makes no sense to me when I've watched episodes from her tenure. She seems to have a different personality every episode.

Losing Nancy was so odd to me. I have no idea why they didn't recast if Jane Cameron could not be lured back. I could see Judi Evans as Nancy. 

The John/Felicia affair was such a mess, and didn't even make sense within the writing. I'm glad it won Anna Holbrook an Emmy, but yeesh was it not well thought out. Speaking of Sharlene and John, I actually wish the Taylor portion of the Sharlene/John story had lasted longer. I found Andreas and the character so intriguing. 

Contessa, it's not letting me quote you. I think Timmins was the superior Paulina, and the Jake/Paulina story with Evans was so icky to me. As for the Red Swan, I thought it was an incredible waste of time when it could have been done so much better. That seems to be a common refrain of mine with these magic wand wishes. 

1 hour ago, Contessa Donatella said:

Okay, you've got your magic wand, between 1990 & April 1999, what is it that you will change?

 

 

There are a lot of "I would" statements here. Off the top of my head and I'm sure there are a lot more:

I would have had a definite end game for the Red Swan

I would not have fired Cali Timmins and recast Paulina.

I would not have let Iris Duncan languish in storylines beneath her talent and then write Iris into a corner. 

I would not have had Jake rape Marley. As far as I'm concerned, they could have killed off Jake.

I would not have hired Jensen Buchanan to play Marley/Vicky. 

I would not kill off Frankie.

I would not let JFP or Charlotte Savitz anywhere near the show.

Lumina would never have happened.

Lorna would not have been raped.

I would have made Cecile's return something longterm and interesting. 

Joy Bell and Allison Hossack would have been better integrated in the show and given something to do.

The Lawrences would have been a proper family storyline wise on the show.

1986-1990:

Mary/Reginald story would have been plotted and Reginald would not have been written off so weakly.

Quinn would not have been killed off.

Scott would have gotten the big storyline that was always on the edge of happening. 

Jane Cameron would not have left the show. 

The MJ prostitution story would not have happened. Sally Spencer would have been given something else to do.

Of all the things that happened to AW the last five to seven years of its existence, the gorilla doesn't bother me that much. In fact, it probably wouldn't even place in the top ten. I know it's a sticking point for some, and I understand why, but If I had a magic wand and could erase mistakes from let's say 1990 to 1999, the gorilla would remain there because I'm using my wand to change other things. And I went back as far as 1986 (pre-1986 is before my time), the gorilla would fall even further down the do-over list.

Thanks to everyone for answering my q. about Neal Cory. This was from a period I didn't know much about, and Neal Cory never came up in any of the summaries I read. Was his hiring considered a "get" since he had been nominated for his work on All My Children? I liked Ed Fry's Adam, but as others have noted, I wish he (and Sally Spencer) had not been saddled with the prostitution storyline. 

In watching some of the episodes from the above period, I wish Katie Rich had been better integrated into the show and I was reminded of how much I liked Jane Cameron. I'm not bored by this period (perhaps it's nostalgia kicking in) but I can see where they're just throwing stuff at the wall and hoping something will stick. 

What was the deal with Neal Cory? I had never heard of the character until recently. Was the character another missed opportunity?

I wonder how much time they had to craft the finale. Also, many of the people might not have wanted to come back. Since they had Frankie there as a ghost, it feels obvious they were working towards something but it got cut short by the cancellation. 

re: Petronia Paley and Amelia Marshall. It was so wonderful to see them both on The Locher Room, but it again reinforces what I've always said: actors are not reliable when it comes to their characters or what happened while they were on the shows. 

I think 1987-1991 AW was quite good, and I miss it. It wasn't not perfect as I wish the missed opportunities hadn't happened. We've talked about the sin stalker story ad nauseam (and my contention that Maisie and especially Quinn should not have been killed), but the character of Scott baffles me. In rewatching the show, it feels as if there were big plans for his character that just never got plotted (more than just the nature of his parentage). I wonder what kept the different stories from going forward. Ed Fry's Adam was another charming actor/character who didn't do much after they did the retcon on MJ. I think he had more chemistry with Anne Heche than Laurence Lau (who is one of the few actors who does not play well on rewatches).

I'm less annoyed with the gorilla than I am with how they brought back Alice Barrett-Mitchell. They should have just retconned Frankie's death instead of bringing her on as Anne. Maybe that was the plan and they didn't have time, but it would fit in with the whole Lumina nonsense. I get why they thought the gorilla would be a throwback but I don't think 1999 viewers cared enough.

I know there were times that AW was said to be going through rough patches storyline/quality wise, but are there regimes you think are underrated and some that are overrated? 

I was not a fan of the Lisa/stalker storyline, but when I watch episodes from 1986 to spring of 1988, I'm immediately drawn in. I don't know if it's nostalgic factor or what's on the screen. I can see it's not perfect but there's so much potential that I watch even though I know what happens. 

Count me in as one who thought the Rachel/Georgie storyline was extremely racist and offensive. IT went along with JFP's way of dumbing down and then brutalizing the female characters (the Cassie/LK of it all still bothers me). My memory is that the Rachel part of this story did not go down well with viewers or the press. 

The Todd stuff p*ssed me off when it was happening and it still does. There was no need to redeem him or continue his story. If you want to keep the actor, make Howarth another character. It's a soap; people would deal. Only on soaps can you turn a serial rapist/murderer into a romantic lead. I think redeeming Todd and keeping the character on the canvas really harmed OLTL going forward, but I may be in the minority on that.

What has always annoyed me is how little acclaim Gottlieb got for her tenure. Yes, she made mistakes (the less said about the opening visuals the better) but she brought intelligence and a sense of purpose back to the show for most of her run. How the show did not earn an Emmy nods for best show during Gottlieb's tenure is baffling. Yet Gottlieb got a lot of criticism in the soap press and Erika Slezak still thinks Gottlieb was bad for the show while praising JFP. Once JFP took over, the stories got darker, meaner, and the female characters lost brain cells. 

I had no idea that Ada was played by another actress for a time: Peg Murray. Was this a temporary recast or one that went for much longer?

I found out that Michael Zaslow had written for AW in 1988. Are there any other GL actors who wrote for the soaps? I know Jay Hammer did but I'm not sure of anyone else.

13 hours ago, BetterForgotten said:

Michael and his wife, Susan Hufford, wrote scripts together briefly for AW in 1988, a year or so before he returned to GL as Roger Thorpe. I think they just wrote a few episodes.

In an interesting turn of events, Roger’s return reveal on GL (swinging from the church ceiling at Philip and Blake’s wedding) was taped at the AW studios in Brooklyn - the GL studios wasn’t big enough to accommodate the staging of that scene. 

Thank you for the information. I had no either about the writing or the filming of Roger's return. I assumed they had written a few scripts so I was intrigued that they were around the time of the snowflake ball. I wonder what Zaslow and Hufford would have been like if they had kept up writing. That poor family had so much tragedy. I had forgotten what happened to the family until I googled Zaslow last night.

I was watching a video of the end credits to Another World and I noticed Michael Zaslow listed as one of the writers for the show during the Snowflake Ball period. I had no idea. Does anyone know if he was a staff writer or if he just wrote a couple episodes?

As someone whose knowledge of AW pre-1986 is from family members and online boards I'm always thankful for these discussions. I love reading about the history of the show and the firings/hirings that happened. I didn't witness a lot of these AW events at the time, and I have not watched my family's tapes in a very long time (my family was an early VHS adopter so they have tapes from the early 80's). As someone who does read a lot of soap history, I would not consider anyone's account to be the only valid or reliable one. In fact, it seems to me that some execs and performers are not the best when it comes to remembering specific details or accuracy in detailing events. It's been years since I read Lemay's book, but I felt that a lot of his remarks about the show and the performers were tinged with a degree of self-serving reflection. 

PaulRaven 

On 2/9/2024 at 5:47 PM, Paul Raven said:

Going into 87 AW had lost many characters from the canvas the previous year including Cass, Kathleen, Jake, Marley,Larry, Clarice, Zane, Sally etc with Catlin and Brittany soon to go.

Hardly the time to start killing off more characters. And the killer wasn't really anybody we knew or cared much about.

They should have put more effort into the core stories if they wanted viewers to be involved.

I agree with this 100%. AW had experienced such change and turmoil that it was ridiculous to start a serial killer storyline. Viewers want consistency; they don't want the rug pulled out from under them every year which is what AW did from 1987 on (I'm not as well versed on previous years). I believe thats why the ratings kept falling because every year AW would start from scratch and the previous year's story would be ignored or scrapped (Nicole driving story for a long while and then being written out when Swajeski came on for ex.). Its characters like Maisie and Quinn who give stability, and its those characters the execs always get rid off for not being exciting enough. This serial killer storyline had no lasting effects or longterm storyline possibilities. As much as I like Joanna Going, I don't think Lisa was the character to pin yet another murder storyline on. Margaret dePriest was also not the headwriter to create longterm story out of a murder plot.

3 hours ago, adrnyc said:

That's exactly what makes killing off Quinn such a great move in a serial killer storyline. It was shocking. It got people talking. It made people think that if they can kill off Quinn, they can kill off anyone, which gave the rest of the storyline harrowing stakes! Like killing Mark during the Sunset Beach serial killer. I'll say it again: there's nothing more boring than a serial killer storyline where only non-essential peripheral characters are the victims. See Santa Barbara's carnation killer. Snooze fest.

I think it's good to get people talking, but it shouldn't be at the expense at creating shock moments that don't support longterm engagement. When you kill off the main AA female character, you're killing off years of potential story. I don't necessarily think we need serial killer storylines. They inevitably devolve into foolishness as AW and SBeach did. The serial killer storyline wasting time with chasing around Crystal Gayle? I saw this storyline years after it happened, so I don't know what people felt like at the time, but I think it would have been more interesting if the reveal of the AW killer was someone important, and that the big part of the story was the fear. Nancy's role in the storyline was intriguing, but that also fizzled out since Cameron left the show. In hindsight, it would have more interesting to kill off Nancy or put MJ in the story and perhaps she could have died and that would have given storyline. Maybe others who watched at the time felt/feel differently, but I think killing off Maisie and Quinn was silly, and the longterm storyline possibilities out of the storylines were largely ignored. 

21 minutes ago, DRW50 said:

There was a letter in SOD after Quinn was murdered, from a very upset fan. The response was, basically, that AW had no idea the character had any fans. This is something that popped up again and again with P&G soaps.

Exactly. Until my grandmother died two years ago, she always brought up Quinn's death when talking about AW. It bothered her that much. Execs always think that viewers want to see the next new things, but that's not usually the case. It's why Tracy Chapman and Joni Mitchell stole the Grammys because of the connection and history viewers have to those women. 

Killing off Quinn was a huge mistake. AW producers and writers loved killing off the wrong characters. If AW could make a good decision or a bad decision, they would usually make the bad one. When a major history of all the soaps is written, it'll be the tale of exec, writers, and producers who hated soaps or hated women. They used focus groups to rationalize their choices, but they can get focus groups to say and do anything. Many of us watched with our parents and grandparents, and we wanted to see the older characters. They used to publish Q ratings until it showed that younger viewers favored the older characters. I remember an article that showed that teenage girls loved Jeanne Cooper's Kay on Y&R and Linda Dano's Felicia. Execs never understood how connected audiences to characters; they were too busy trying to please people who were never going to watch the shows. 

I was a teen when Passions started, and I had no loyalty to it at all. My grandmother liked the show, but it didn't appeal to me in the slightest. I didn't know any friends who watched Passions. I can't remember a teen storyline on AW that I cared for. 

Hadn't Swajeski been at NBC for years before she took over at AW? She had to have known some of the history. Swajeski's writing always felt made up on the spot as if she came up with a great scene or plot point and then wrote everything to lead up to that scene/plot point. There was rarely follow through. 

I don't think McKinsey would ever have come back to AW in its last days regardless if P&G or Goutman wanted it.

In Vincent Irizarry's defense, I don't think any actor would have been able to breathe life and interest into a lot of what he was given on his return to GL. The stories were rarely about him. It was about the women. When Simms and McKinsey departed, the character had been given so little inner life that he was not able to do much when JFP and the writers put him with actresses he didn't have chemistry with. On SB, the writers never knew how to write for most characters outside of the Capwells and they never showed much interest in his character or his romantic life. It was another example of hiring a popular actor without having a game plan for the character (a typical JFP move). They wrote off his character (Scott) in such a perfunctory way that it was obvious the show never thought him important.