chrisml

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.

I'm also surprised they never changed the opening but I suppose it saved them money since they never had to update cast photos like other soaps. 

MY grandparents were still talking about Lahoma and Sam long after they had left. Being born in the eighties, I had no idea who they were but the name always stuck with me since Lahoma had such an impact on my grandparents. I actually had a teacher whose first name was Lahoma after the character. 

With some of the recent AW uploads, it made me think of the missed opportunities with the character of Caroline Stafford. I never understood why she was not given much to do. She had chemistry with everyone. Swajeski did not have much luck with longterm luck with so many of the characters/actors she brought on. 

54 minutes ago, Khan said:

I still say GL needed two years and minimal interference from CBSD and P&G in order to become watchable again.  Not great, but not bad enough to make you want to vomit either.

I agree. It always felt that the show would start to right itself and head in the right direction, and then changes would be inexplicably made to make the show even worse so all progress was lost. With AW after a certain point, it felt that they were making choices for the sole purpose of alienating viewers. Was this happening at GL too?

I am wondering if MADD weren't the biggest problem GL had. From her press comments and what people said about her input, she seemed to cause so much turmoil and damage with the show. If she can say the "Wizened old man" comment in print, what was she saying and doing behind the scenes? That's the history of soaps I suppose: execs who never get out of the writers and producers' way so that it's show by committee. I was trying to remember the last time I cared enough about GL to watch the show and it was the end of Conboy's tenure and a little bit into Wheeler's. It all just collapsed for me as I didn't care anything about Jonathan or Tom Pelphrey (still don't get his appeal). Obviously, Maureen's death kept me away from the show for a long while but it was really the Jonathan era that severed any remaining fondness I had for the show. It was so easy with AW to pinpoint my break (Frankie's death) with that show, but with GL, I always hoped the show would right itself even if I stopped watching for months or years. There would be a story of performance that piqued my interest (Nicole Forrester's underrated performance for ex.) but I didn't even care enough to watch its last episodes. I still haven't even though I've seen Tina Sloan's monologue about Maureen.

I'm not going to dispute that Conboy and Weston were a menace, but on an episode by episode basis, I found them somewhat compelling. I didn't stop watching the show as I did with other regimes. I also appreciated the Maryanne Carruthers (sp?) story was meant to bring the actors into one umbrella story. While I appreciated it and it had its moments, it was still one big illogical and tortured mess. The obsession with Marty West and the baseball set made no sense either. However, I'll take that regime over the show during the post-Maureen's death, Amish Reva, and San Cristobel periods (I'm assuming those three periods had different producers, but I could be wrong]. I have a vague recollection of Reva being obsessed with a painting, but I might be misremembering as I came and went as a viewer.

As it's been discussed in this forum, Marcy Walker felt she had been used by JFP so that JFP could keep her job. That was a disaster for Walker and for the show as Marcy Walker never fit into the show from what I've seen (and perhaps she did and I missed those moments). The Joe Lando thing was ridiculous. The audience knows not to invest in his character because he will be gone by the time he has to film Dr. Quinn. Why waste the audience's time? She had the money to pay him, not not keep or hire an actor the audience cared about?  I understand McKinsey and Simms leaving ruined any momentum for the storyline, but I always felt the problem was that JFP had resorted to her usual "strong women become desperate harpies to keep a man" trope for Alex and Mindy. She even used the same blood test switch story on OLTL with the character of Nora. It was obvious JFP had no interest in Gilly. Did JFP ever produce a show where African American characters had front burner storylines?  I had forgotten Laibson was a producer on GL. I'm surprised he didn't work out as I liked his work on AW.

I'm sure I watched some of GL during the 1994 to 1996 period (or at least kept up through summaries) but I have no memory of most of it beyond a few details here and there.  I came back around the time of Cynthia Watros and Amy Ecklund and would come and go depending on how bad I found the show. My mother in particular loathed the character of Buzz and how much airtime he chewed up.  I don't understand how a show could be so good in 1991 and 1992 and fall to pieces in 1993 and especially in 94 and 95 (from what little I've seen). What happened? Was it that JFP had no real storyline plans post-Maureen 's death? Or was it a combo of that and all the departures/casting mistakes?

I'd be curious what the demographics were for LOVING. It never struck me as a show for the younger viewers so it always seemed odd to me they would try to facelift it into a "hip" show. I am curious if Linda Gottlieb would have been a better producer for the City. She tried to modernize OLTL, and I thought she did a first rate job in most instances. For most of her reign on OLTL, I thought it was must watch television which is something THE CITY was not. She might have done a better job at getting the writers to work on the plots. I also wonder if not having Lisa Peluso on the show was another negative because I remember a lot of people were upset she was not making the leap to the new show. 

2 hours ago, Khan said:

And if you didn't watch LOVING, but you knew TC was spun off from it, you weren't going to tune into the new show, no matter what. 

IMO, the only things TC had going for it going in were Morgan Fairchild, Debbi Morgan and Darnell Williams.  Otherwise, as amiable as the LOVING actors might have been on-screen, the start of TC was a big "So what?".

Maybe.  For one thing, TC could have pulled in younger viewers who didn't know the connection with LOVING and therefore could love or hate it on its' own terms.  Again, though, you gotta have story and incredible characters to draw viewers of any age in, and I just don't think TC really had that (at least, not at the start).

I think she is an underrated actress, but I think they miscalculated in thinking Morgan Fairchild was a big draw for soap viewers (new or old). If she had been integrated into the last months of LOVING, it might have been ok, but the writers didn't seem to know what to do with her. And they resorted to the old sexist chestnut of rape to give a strong female character a storyline. IT feels like they got excited about hiring her and penned her entrance into the show, but didn't have any longterm plans for her after the big entrance. That's the biggest problem with the CITY. It felt like a collection of scenes that rarely came together into a cohesive unit. The sets and the direction were wonderful, but if the story isn't there, what difference does it make? Except for the one murder plot, I have no memory of any longterm story on the show.

I'm surprised this show has not been sold to a streaming service as it has a finite number of episodes.

I think a lot of The City's problems go back to what a lot of people pointed out. There was no compelling reason to tune in if you were a viewer of LOVING. I don't know why they didn't carry the murders story over to The City. That way viewers have the ability to get invested in the new characters at the same the writers are finishing the Loving murders. When the new storylines didn't work, they resorted to another murder storyline anyway. 

4 hours ago, Khan said:

I know PASSIONS was the first time I'd heard anyone who worked in soaps talk about the 12-17 demos, but that might not be when that particular demo became so highly coveted.  (Maybe it was during JER's DAYS 1.0?)

I remember there was some discussion (I believe in Soap Opera Digest) about demographics, and how the 12-17 demo loved Jeanne Cooper's character Kay on YR. There was surprise that that demo didn't just want to see teenagers. Yet that never translated to a shift in focus. Instead, all the shows just ignored the data. 

2 hours ago, Khan said:

What happened to Pamela is indicative of what happened to most everything on that show: a great idea that is ruined (and quickly!) by horrendous creative choices.  NBC would have been better off just dumping Bailey and Pratt when the Dobsons wanted them to.

That seems to be the history of Santa Barbara in a nutshell. 

I found this youtube interview Shirley Ann Field gave about her brief time on Santa Barbara. IS she talking about Judith McConnell in the clip? SAF interview  

58 minutes ago, vetsoapfan said:

Locking out the Dobsons and retaining Anne Howard Bailey was just incomprehensible to me.

I can imagine the Dobsons were not the easier people to deal with and networks want malleable people at the helm. 

In rereading the portion of Jeff Giles's book, I'm curious about Arthur Burghardt. Was he really as awful as Holly and Slezak claim?

I got my kindle version of the book, and it's interesting revisiting the book because Slezak says that Ellen Holly had a right to be mad as they were using her Holly's story/story notes but they were ruining it with the casting. Holly loathed Arthur Burghardt and didn't want to work with him. Slezak agrees with Holly's assessment. Burghardt contends Holly was a nightmare to work with. Holly claims Slezak said the "black B**ches" comment in July 1983 and that overnight Arley was replaced by Rauch. Slezak refutes this accusation. Burghardt says that Holly's racism claims were ridiculous. He says Hayman and Freeman would back him up if they were alive. There is the suggestion that it was less about racism and more about Rauch being an a--hole. They mention Lillian being upset about the firing and then other actors cosign that Rauch was a sadist who liked toying with actors. 

MY takeaway: I think it was racism mixed with Rauch's sadism. I would not be surprised if someone at the network made the comment attributed to Slezak or something similar was said by someone else and Holly blamed it on Slezak. Holly seems particularly angry at Slezak's airtime on the show. 

I have never found soap actors to be accurate when it comes to their storylines or the chronology of events. They do so much within a year that I imagine it would be almost impossible to keep the timelines and stories straight. They often have a skewed view of how the show played to the audience. As much as I adore Erika Slezak, her opinions of the various producers did not always match what I thought about the show. Example: She's extremely critical and dismissive of Linda Gottlieb while praising JFP. As a viewer, I found most of Gottlieb's work to be first rate while I think JFP hurt the show except for giving the underrated Catherine Hickland more to do.

re: Ellen Holly. She was treated so abominably that I think she expected the worst out of everyone because it would protect her. And I'm also sure that she might have heard similar sentiments from other people and I think it's possible that someone on production told Holly that Slezak said that to cause friction and to upset Holly.  Rauch seemed to love playing mind games with certain cast members on each of the shows he was on. Also, I can see where Slezak's Emmy win and her status on the show would be galling to someone who made such a huge contribution to the show but was now treated as dispensable. 

On 12/3/2023 at 4:48 PM, TEdgeofNight said:

Sally Sussman was a disaster as a soap writer. Her Generations failed big time and her other headwriting stints lowered the ratings (Days, Y&R). Sally should just go away and stop talking about soaps. She failed in the soap world. 

I still remember my mother complaining that the show was spending so much time on a "crazy woman making a fruitcake!" She remembers little else about the show except the fruitcake.

I've been revisiting 87 and 88 and I still think it's so much better than its rep indicates. The casting decisions are what let it down. Getting rid of Petronia Paley was a huge mistake. It still baffles me that was allowed to happen and then Jane Cameron decides to leave which is another huge mistake. They turn MJ into a prostitute which belies belief and is so shortsighted.  I wish the writers (and the strike writers) had not written off Cheryl and Scott. Two characters with so much potential, and they saddled Scott with the Dawn storyline that was never going anywhere. Poor Cheryl just seemed like an afterthought after a certain point. I wish the writers had done more to keep the McKinnons more connected to other storylines. It really does feel that there was no plan for Mary or the McKinnons so they had Reginald turn into a one-note villain. It would have been more interesting if Mary realizes who she was, and still felt more connected to Reginald. All of the mistakes just seem idiotic decisions that don't take long-term story into consideration--something that would be a major problem with Swajeski's tenure as well. 

I often felt that AW regimes and writers treated longtime viewers with contempt. I often felt like decisions were purposely made to push viewers away, and I definitely did not stay a faithful viewer the last few years of AW as a result. In regards to the Justine character, it was idiotic, but it at least gave Victoria Wyndham something to do. Was it something I could have done without? Yes, but seeing Victoria Wyndham get screen time was a relief.

If Lumina had been written properly, and one of the results was that Alice Barrett returned as Frankie I think a lot of people would have forgiven it. Wasn't that the original intention?

One of the dumbest things execs did was not capitalize on Carmen Duncan's talent. She was emmy worthy with the chief takeover/Mac's death. They let the character and character languish and then wrote her off in such an idiotic way. They would do the same thing to Anna Holbrook a few years later. Holbrook won the Emmy and still didn't matter. 

I think the problem with the City is that the Loving murders were so compelling, and then the City started, and there was hardly anything there to keep people watching. The long-established characters had been murdered, and no one was turning in for Morgan Fairchild (and I like her so it's not a dig at her). They needed to grab attention right away and I think they should have just had Gwen revealed as the murderer on Loving and then have her continue on The City until she was caught so that Loving fans would want to watch The City. Once Fairchild didn't go over well with Loving audiences, they did the tired and sexist "let's rape a strong female character" trope. The City had a lot to offer, but if you don't pull viewers in from the beginning, you're toast.

It's sad sometimes how much criticism AW got, and when I look back at episodes, I find myself responding to the material. JFP era/post-JFP era was rough, but before that, there's so much good. It's so odd to me that AW just seemed to be pretty much forgotten when it came to the Emmys after a certain point. 

I always side eye recollections from cast and crew when they talk about storylines because a lot of time they get it wrong. Often, they even get bts stuff wrong because they're holding grudges, or they feel slighted. Or they praise a producer or headwriter who harmed the show.