Broderick

You'd imagine that he and Case are paid about the same, since they've been on the show relatively the same length of time and in the same positions. But it wouldn't surprise me if she makes a little more, since she arrived (in 1994?) a bit more experienced/seasoned and she's a little bit older than he is. Plus, he's a Newman on the show, and she's an ex-Newman. If one of the two gets curtailed faster than the other for budgetary reasons, you can guess which one it'll be.

Pay attention to Sharon Case, too. Sharon's lack of airtime and lack of storyline has been so evident in 2022 that Soap Opera Digest named her "Biggest Waste of Talent". All she does is appear sporadically, pour coffee, and offer advice like a glorified extra. It seems possible she's become too expensive to use as frequently as before, resulting in a declining number of appearance and an unwillingness to showcase her in a story of her own. Sharon Case and Joshua Morrow, having been on the show 25+ years, are now "senior cast members", in a tier somewhere below Eric Braeden, Melody Thomas Scott, Peter Bergman, Kate Linder, and Christian LeBlanc. The next group, seniority-wise, are Bryton and Amelia Heinle, both of whom were hired in the early 2000s, when the "big budget days" were over.

Doug Davidson, Kristoff St. John , Christian LeBlanc, and Kate Linder were all still listed as contract players in September 2018. In September 2018, Doug Davidson publicly revealed in several interviews (and on Twitter) that he'd been working without a contract since January 2018, although he was listed as a contract actor. He implied (but didn't state outright) that he wasn't alone in the "fake contract group". Our poster, French Fan, was doing the episode counts during that time. French Fan was consistently listing Doug as a contract actor. Other posters would alert French Fan, 'You should remove Doug from the contract list, as he's recurring. He's admitted that he's recurring." French Fan said, "Nope, can't do it. He's still listed as contract." (And he was still listed that way.) Finally, in November 2018, two months after his public announcement that he'd been recurring since January 2018, Doug Davidson was removed from the credits as a contract actor. It appeared that Doug was only removed because he'd publicly spilled the beans about having no contract. Kristoff St. John died in February 2019. He was immediately removed from the contract players list at the point of his death. Bryton gave a "post-death interview" and revealed that Kristoff (in addition to agonizing over his son Julian's death, was "very depressed" about his "status with the show" and whether he still truly "had a job". Bryton said he'd been trying to cheer Kristoff up about his job situation. (The implication was that Kristoff had ALSO been bumped to recurring but was still quietly masquerading as a contract performer, as Kristoff, unlike Doug Davidson, hadn't opened up publicly about his contract status.) [The last time that Bryton James saw St. John was a day he’ll never forget as he and another close friend, Daniel Goddard (Cane), spent an entire day with their distraught pal in a show of moral support. “He had been drinking pretty heavily for days straight and was talking about the possibility of hurting himself,” James explained. “He was convinced he had lost his job, just so many things. It was all wrapped into grief about Julian… I’d never seen somebody suffer, in person, like that. It was the hardest thing to watch, it was the hardest thing to see because you can’t do anything.”] During all this, not a peep from Kate Linder or Christian LeBlanc, who'd seen their own appearances drastically reduced in a corresponding time period with Doug Davidson & Kristoff St. John's noticeable absence. Kate and Christian kept on posting positive things about the show on social media and attending show events and acting as though they were happy as clams with appearing five or six times a year (in Kate's case) or once or twice a month (in Christian's case). If I had to guess, I'd say that all 4 of them (Doug, Kristoff, Christian and Kate) were bumped during Mal Young's 2018 tenure but were allowed to continue being credited as contract players because of their seniority. Don't know it for a fact, just guessing it. But if they really DO still have contracts, Kate's contract must guarantee her about 6 shows annually, and Christian's contract must guarantee him about 2 shows per month.

Yes, in the case of newbies, I suspect they have a lower rate per episode PLUS a lower guaranteed number of appearances, so there's a certain financial flexibility in using them more often as the budget allows. You can sometimes afford to work them in excess of their "required minimum". But in order to free-up the revenue to expand their appearances, you need to reduce the number of required appearances of say a Hans Gudegast or a Melody Thomas or a Peter Bergman, who have the higher dollar amount per appearance. These monthly recaps are a great tool for looking at the trends that are developing. We've talked a lot about the senior cast members and their required minimums. It appears to me that Kate Linder and Christian LeBlanc have been downgraded to shockingly low required minimum appearances, or they're possibly even "glorified recurring", though they're still listed as contract cast members.

I've always suspected that in the first big round of pay-cuts, certain senior actors (Hans, Melody Thomas, Peter Bergman) probably kept their existing guarantee of episodes (2.5 per week, 3 per week, whatever they had in place) but were given a reduced salary per episode. Other senior actors (Doug Davidson) probably kept the higher salary per episode, but had the guaranteed number of episodes chopped down substantially or even eliminated entirely. Now, with viewership still eroding and even more cutbacks necessary, we'll see both components come into play for the senior cast members -- those who were given a smaller per-episode-salary in 2009 or 2010 will now see their guaranteed number of appearances reduced as well. (Just my suspicion.)

It's the ever-tightening budget, I expect. In 2009, we famously learned Hans has a contract cycle that begins in October & ends in September. "In October 2009, Braeden and The Young and the Restless came to an impasse regarding contract negotiations, and press reports indicated he might leave the show. However, CBS later announced that Braeden had inked a new three-year deal and would remain with the show, agreeing to a reduction in salary, which was the original issue." Look at a recent 36-week period: December 2021 13 shows January 2022 9 shows March 2022 16 shows April 2022 14 shows May 2022 9 shows June 2022 15 shows July 2022 10 shows August 2022 13 shows September 2022 9 shows TOTALS 108 SHOWS IN A 36-WEEK PERIOD, EXACTLY 3 SHOWS PER WEEK AVERAGE Now, look at his latest contract cycle, beginning in October of 2022 October 2022 4 shows November 2022 4 shows TOTALS 8 SHOWS IN AN 8-WEEK PERIOD, EXACTLY 1 SHOW PER WEEK AVERAGE I'm guessing that Hans signed a new contract in October 2022 that dropped him from a 3-show per week guarantee to a 1-show per week guarantee. I could be dead wrong, of course.

And of course it was pretty strange when Brenda Epperson was playing the older sister and Beth Maitland was playing the younger sister, with Epperson being about 7 years younger than Maitland.

Those "separate orbits" were REALLY noticeable back in early 1980s to mid 1980s. Although Beth Maitland is actually a year or so older than Eileen Davidson, Bill Bell really made an effort to keep Eileen's Ashley segregated from those "youth storylines" involving Traci, Lauren, Danny, Amy, Cricket, Brad, etal. We would frequently see Ashley counseling Traci at home, or we'd see Ashley applauding Cricket's incredibly superb modeling skills as Miss Junior Jabot, or we'd see Ashley telling Jack to be nicer to Brad at work, but socially -- just no. Ashley and Jack were in the "grown folks" storylines, and Traci existed in a whole different little world.

Here's a home for sale in the Lake Geneva/Lyons/Genoa City area. If you look closely, the Emmy Awards behind the desk in the office, the Rocking Horse in the living room, the Merry-Go-Round horse next to the pub table, the Pool Table, and much of the artwork were featured about 10 years ago in the sale pictures of 247 East Chestnut #2500 in Chicago, where a certain former Y&R writer resided. Looks like she's had enough of both Chicago AND Lake Geneva. https://www.jamesedition.com/real_estate/lake-geneva-wi-usa/2842-moelter-dr-11835818

[I dug around until I found an article in which Eric Freiwald admits publicly that there's no such person as "Eric L. Roberts". I'd never seen any of the "Eric L. Roberts" writers admit this in print. Here's a portion of the article, from an Arizona newspaper. Freiwald was living in Arizona in the late 1980s.] Plot Thickens in Prescott Arizona Daily Star May 28, 1989 Eric Freiwald had never watched a soap opera in his life. But that drastically changed nine years ago when he joined the writing team of "The Young and the Restless". Now he tunes in daily. Or tapes shows for later viewing. Working from his Prescott home, Freiwald is one of several writers for the top-rated CBS daytime drama, which was created in 1973 by William J. Bell and Lee Phillip Bell. Unlike many daytime serials whose creators are concentrated on the East or West Coasts, the "Restless" writers are scattered across the country, linked by conference calls and Federal Express. "This is probably one of the neatest jobs I've ever had because I was able to leave California, which I wanted to do, and get away to a small town," Freiwald, 61, says by phone from Prescott, where he has lived for almost three years. Freiwald was semiretired when he joined "Restless" in 1980. The screenwriter started his career in 1951, when he and Robert Schaefer sold their first script to Columbia Pictures for the "Durango Kid" series. From there, they wrote for such television westerns as "The Lone Ranger", "Annie Oakley", "Buffalo Bill Jr", "Wild Bill Hickok" and "Hopalong Cassidy". He and his partner were head writers for "Lassie" for ten years. They also wrote for "The Beverly Hillbillies", "Maverick", "77 Sunset Strip", and "Whirlybirds". After Lassie ended in the mid-1970s, they decided to try other pursuits. When Freiwald learned through a friend that "Restless" was expanding to an hour format and was looking for new writers, he decided to give daytime a try. He began watching the show and getting background from his daughter, Linda Schreiber, who had religiously watched "Restless" since its premiere in 1973. In the beginning, Freiwald, Schaefer, and Schreiber teamed up, choosing the pen name "Eric L. Roberts". That's "Eric" for Freiwald, "L." for Linda Schreiber, and "Roberts" for Robert Schaefer. Within two or three shows, Schaefer bowed out. Schreiber continued working as an apprentice to her father. She later joined the Writers Guild and started writing scripts on her own, about 12 to 20 a year. Freiwald writes two shows a week on his electric typewriter, transforming prodigiously detailed 30- to 40-page outlines into finished scripts. Each one-hour show has a prologue and seven acts, separated by commercials. Freiwald has written more scripts, about 800 to 900, during the past nine years for "Restless" than he wrote during the first 25 years of his career. "When I was writing all these other shows, we would start completely from the very beginning with a blank piece of paper and no plot, and know that we would have to do something for Lassie or the Lone Ranger or whatever it happened to be. As corny as some of those early shows might have been, the thrill was creating the thing from zero," he says. "In soap opera writing, the plotting and long-term progression of the story is done by the head writers. I put the scenes into script form, working from an outline. In some cases it's very strictly outlined and you follow a certain way that they want it done. In other cases, it's just a suggestion of a scene and you are allowed to go with it." "I get caught up in the story lines, and I get very excited to see what's coming next myself. Most of my contact is with Kay Alden. After we get the outlines, I talk to her if I have questions. I will sometimes tell her not to tell me what's coming because I would rather not know. I'm always amazed at some of the directions the stories take that I never in my wildest dreams would have thought of. I really admire Bill Bell and Kay Alden, who create these stories and characters." [From here, he goes on to discuss that he especially likes writing sarcastic dialogue for Terry Lester's Jack Abbott character, for Jeanne Cooper's Kay Chancellor, and for Jess Walton's Jill Abbott.]

There was the 1st episode with the truck. I believe some of Leslie's nervous breakdown was done remotely. I vividly remember the one you described here, with Kay stumbling back from Fairview Sanitarium in the summer of 1979. Later that year, there was one where Rose Deville and Vince Holliday dumped Walter Addison's corpse in an alley. In the summer of 1980, there was the duel where Derek was shot in the butt by Douglas Austin. (Seems like that one was done at the "fake Chancellor house" where we later saw, about 2003, Jill running through the grass to the house to stop Billy & Mac's wedding.) There was another one circa 1980 or 1981 with Paul & Nikki nekkid in a gym, when a nekkid basketball team came in during their showers. I'm sure there were a bunch more. Here's Robert Schaefer's obituary: https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/sdut-television-writer-lived-his-life-as-wholesome-as-2006dec31-story.html Robert Schaefer attended creative writing class with Eric Freiwald, and they became best friends and writing buddies. They had an office together in Hollywood. Linda Schreiber was Eric Freiwald's daughter. During the 1980s, the most prolific dialogue writer for Y&R was "Eric L. Roberts" -- an individual who never existed and who vanished into thin air. After "Eric L. Roberts" "retired from Y&R", Eric Freiwald and Linda Schreiber began individually submitting scripts. It became pretty clear the "Eric" was Eric Freiwald, the "L." was Linda Schreiber, and the "Roberts" was Robert Schaefer. Most of the 1980s episodes were attributed to William J. Bell, Kay Alden, John F. Smith, occasionally Elizabeth Harrower, occasionally Randy Holland, often Sally Sussman, and invariably "Eric L. Roberts".

I couldn't figure out exactly where that small, cramped room was supposed to be. There appeared to be a set of open french doors in the hallway just outside it. And no evidence of an exterior exit.

Chance was WAY too nice to Abby. Can't say the same for Amanda, lol. She really let Devon have it with both barrels. That was a good "swan song" for Amanda, if she's planning to bow out for good. Closing credits today indicated Rory Gibson and Miss Wang have bitten the dust.

Seems like Waxman & Inman were (extremely) short-term dialogue writers when the show first expanded to an hour, and it was too much for Kay Alden & Jack Smith. If I remember right, Waxman and Inman were replaced in the early 1980s by that trio of writers who masqueraded as "Eric L. Roberts". (Eric Freiwald, Linda Schreiber, and Robert Schaefer)

According to the "Episode Count Archives" posted on SON, Doug Davidson was finally removed from the contract cast list in November 2018, after he revealed on Twitter in September 2018 that he'd been working "without a contract since January". Until he complained publicly, he was treated by the show as being a contract performer, although he had no contract. According to the "Episode Count Archives" posted on SON, Kristoff St. John was removed from the contract cast in February 2019 (the week of his death). [That's what makes me wonder if Kate Linder and Christian LeBlanc actually have contracts, or if perhaps they're merely being treated as though they do because of their seniority with the show. I don't understand how having a contract with an extremely low guarantee is beneficial to a performer, unless it's for health insurance purposes. It seems such a contract merely prevents the actor from taking another, more lucrative, job.]

Although Christian LeBlanc is listed in the credits with the contract actors, I believe he's recurring. Ditto for Kate Linder. (When Doug Davidson admitted to being recurring, he was also listed as a contract cast member.) My own belief -- just mine -- is that LeBlanc, St. John, Doug Davidson, and Kate Linder were all four dropped to recurring, but out of respect for the longevity of the actors, they were given the "courtesy" of a contract credit, even though they're merely recurring. Linder and LeBlanc haven't publicly complained, Kristoff is unfortunately gone now, and Doug Davidson won't hush about being "fired". That's why I don't think they use him any longer. He's probably not seen as a "team player".

It was strictly my own speculation that Eliot Dorn had been salvaged from Children of the Earth, in order to get more mileage out of the character prior to killing him off (since the cult storyline was truncated). Slesar indicated that "changes were made to the storyline", and we'll never know exactly what those changes were. All of us who love Slesar know that his trademark was an ironic twist at the conclusion of a story, stunning the viewer with "nothing here is the way it originally appeared". Very possibly, he had always intended the "twist" to be that Cody was the brains behind the cult, and Eliot was merely the front man. Doesn't sound likely. For the storyline to work, Timmy Faraday would've needed to spend his adolescence in Europe with an upper-middle-class family, where he encountered the deceptive girl that led to the knife attack in Rome. (Kelly's whole backstory was predicated on that event, which led him to become a suspect in the Eliot Dorn and Cliff Nelson knife attacks.) It would've taken a lot of fancy footwork to explain how Serena Faraday's kid wandered into that environment. With Kelly, it worked fine. Slesar seemed to have a laissez-faire approach to the sex lives of his characters; he didn't offer much judgement, or make them pay a price for a "sexual sin". That was probably because his stories were principally about mystery and crime, rather than sex. When April learned that Eliot Dorn was sleeping with Margo's maid, Eliot's (sheepish) response was, "Margo and I have an open marriage." He was exaggerating, of course, but that's a subject most soaps wouldn't have touched in the late 1970s (or even today!) with a 10-foot pole. April was a bit horrified and asked Miles if she should mention Eliot's tryst to her mother. Miles seemed to offer Henry Slesar's own advice, "It's none of your business, so just forget about it. They're both adults." Miles was able to test his own advice at the tennis club vacation a short time later, when he accidentally discovered that Eliot was sleeping with Raven Swift, as well as with Sarah the maid.

Yep, there's Diana/Diane Selkirk/Solaris/Celery! I always got a kick out of the boy who played Cody. Looking at the picture, I really get the feeling that if the story had been allowed to play to its fruition, Eliot Dorn would've been the "Jim Jones", rather than Cody. I'm glad we got a couple more years of Eliot Dorn as the sleazy Unicorn owner. Star Wilson was beautiful.

Thank you, Robbwolff! Diana Selkirk! I was coming up with "Diane Solaris", "Dina Celery", and so many other things that weren't even close, I didn't even try guessing. lol. I remember Miss Selkirk's "parting gift" for Mike -- the acid for his eyes. Seems like Deborah Saxon ran across her at the bus stop or in a café and wondered why she was leaving town with a suitcase and a bottle of acid, then intercepted her before she could do any damage. In this episode, we get a new RECORD STORE set, for Gavin & Kelly to have a brief conversation in. Looks like the set designer used a wall of windows, 10 posters, a dozen record albums, two record bins, and a cash register. Total cost $3. Too bad today's soaps aren't this clever with their sets.

Seems like on Y&R, the Asian lady (Sumiko?) who ran the New World commune was escaping with suitcases full of money, while Paul Williams was running around trying to save Peggy Brooks (who'd taken the "Deborah Saxon role" as the "fake member") from the rat-infested storage shed. Peggy was representing the Y&R newspaper, while Deborah Saxon on Edge was working for the Monticello Police Department.

Could be right, Vee. Slesar could've certainly heard of him! There were several situations developing during that time frame -- movie and TV stars were revealing they were Scientologists (which was a "suspect organization" among some people), there was an outfit called "Heaven's Gate" in San Diego that was getting some attention, and multiple others. I recall that after the events of November 1978, there were a number of novels published about cults, and Y&R even tried its hand at a fairly "benign" cult in the summer of 1980. Slesar's timing, though -- yikes! I don't want to turn this into a "cult thread", but I hope you've seen the video footage of Leo Ryan's visit to Jonestown. It's chilling to realize all of the people in this NBC News clip would literally die within 24 hours of the filming:

Yes, soaps were very topical and fresh in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Today, they're like lumbering dinosaurs from another era, with very little similarity to real-life. Slesar claims he'd never heard of Jim Jones when he outlined the storyline. And I tend to believe him. The Peoples Temple, to the general public, was simply a group of socialist-leaning individuals who'd left California about 1974 for the "verdant rain forest" of Guyana, and for all anyone knew, they were happy as clams down there. Congressman Leo Ryan and his staff knew there was some dissention in Guyana, but I doubt they were calling Henry Slesar and discussing it with him. Slesar simply used his layman's knowledge of cults, along with his expertise in mystery storytelling, to craft a tale about a similar group. If his storyline had aired a year earlier, it would've been seen as "outlandish". (Nothing like that could ever happen in real life!) If his storyline had aired a year later, it would've served as a public service warning of relying too heavily on a charismatic leader. But unfortunately for Slesar, it aired at a time when the wounds of loss were shocking and deep, and it appeared to those who didn't understand serialized drama, that ABC was trying to capitalize on one of the most tragic events of the 1970s. I'm sure some of the actors involved in the storyline have tapes of their performance. To my knowledge, none have yet appeared in circulation. (This was at the very tail-end of P&G's practice of "wiping" tapes for future use, so the readily available episodes of Edge in circulation commence shortly after the conclusion of Children of the Earth.)

I'm not pretending to be an authority on any of this. I was just a schoolboy. But If I remember right, Mike Karr was blind during the Children of the Earth storyline, and there was a dying man who was willing to give Mike his corneas, provided Mike would rescue the dying man's daughter (Diane or Diana) from Children of the Earth. Mike ended up with the dying man's eyes, as the girl (Diane or Diana) was ready to get the hell out of Children of the Earth. There was much discussion surrounding what was going with the money generated from the Children of the Earth farm. I suspect it was Henry Slesar's intent to have Eliot and Cody subvert the money into illegal arms. But that's not what happened on TV. As the show actually aired, we found out Eliot and Cody were drawing big salaries, and that's where the money was. The illegal arms aspect was postponed till 1979, when it could be done by the "Tobias Gang" that Paige Madison was running with. (If Slesar had planned to use the illegal arms in conjunction with Children of the Earth, he would've drawn even MORE ire, as Jim Jones was sending suitcases full of cash to the Communist party during the height of the Cold War, and this similarity would've really upset viewers.) Yes. Henry Slesar had outlined the Children of the Earth storyline in very early 1978 (according to Slesar). He spent months getting all of his storyline pieces in place. Then there was the process of casting, writing the actual scripts, and taping. The first body -- the one initially believed to be April Scott -- was found in early October(?) of 1978. The story took-off from there, and was in full swing by November of 1978. In November of 1978, Congressman Leo Ryan of California started getting multiple letters and calls from Californians, concerned about their family members who were living on the farm in Guyana. Congressman Ryan made a "fact-finding trip" to Guyana in mid-November. Congressman Ryan was murdered by the Peoples Temple on 11/18/1978, and 900 other Americans died in Guyana that night. On the morning of November 19, 1978, people all over the world woke up to newspaper and TV accounts of the carnage. "Edge" aired after school. Kids (like me) were coming home from school and watching the exact same scenario occurring on an afternoon crime show. Obviously the Edge storyline had been taped weeks earlier, written weeks earlier than that, and outlined months earlier than that. But there it was, playing on TV, while the families of the deceased were grieving over their loss. Outraged viewers were calling ABC and P&G demanding that the show be pulled. (They seemed to be under the foolish impression the scripts were being written in real-time, rather than months earlier.) Slesar had no choice but to close it down as quickly as possible and move on. It was probably the most unfortunate timing of any storyline ever on TV, up to that point. Visualize, if you will, a daily crime show writer plotting a storyline, in early 2001, about fictional terrorists crashing airplanes into towers. He writes the scripts, casts the actors, tapes the episodes, and then it begins airing on television or about 9/11/2001. That's what happened with Children of the Earth.

Yes, she was all up in the middle of it. My recollection is Joanie was the on-again/off-again girlfriend of Cody Patrick. During 99% of the story, I was under the impression Eliot Dorn was the "leader" of the group, while Cody Patrick, Joanie Collier, and Star Wilson comprised Eliot's "inner circle" of underlings. But when the storyline abruptly wrapped-up, we discovered the opposite was actually true -- Cody was the real leader, Eliot Dorn was merely an itinerant showman working as a recruiter in exchange for money and celebrity, and Eliot, Joanie & Star were blissfully ignorant of the murders being committed. The premise of the story was that if you joined the Children of the Earth and subsequently defected, the other members would recite "the killing prayer" and expel you. Anyone who'd had "the killing prayer" recited over them would ultimately "commit suicide", feeling cut-off from the other Children of the Earth. Except it wasn't really suicide. Cody had convinced the big dimwitted boy (Albert) that Eliot Dorn wanted all the defectors drowned. Eliot Dorn was completely ignorant of all this. Cody was tricking Albert into drowning the defectors, as Albert was extremely loyal to Eliot Dorn and was willing to do whatever he believed Eliot had instructed. Some of the defectors were drowned in Monticello (where the recruiting occurred), and others were drowned up in Graham County (or wherever the Children of the Earth farm was located). Deborah Saxon appeared to join the group after Tony Saxon's death. She resigned from the police force, befriended Star and Joanie, and seemed to be hypnotized by the charms of Eliot Dorn. But it turned out Deborah was merely gathering information for Chief Marceau, and Deborah's resignation from the police force was a hoax planned by Deborah in conjunction with Bill Marceau. Joannie Collier discovered that Deborah wasn't a "real" member, and Joannie blabbed the revelation to Cody. Cody then instructed Joanie to give Deborah a sedative, which knocked Deborah out. Cody had "the killing prayer" recited, and then sent for big dumb Albert. Cody lied to Albert that Eliot Dorn wanted Deborah drowned. That was the event that concluded the hastily truncated story. With help from Eliot Dorn and Joanie, Steve Guthrie and Calvin were able to save Deborah from the drowning. [Anyone who was alive in November of 1978 realizes this story had to be stopped immediately. Henry Slesar was writing this story for an American audience, and overnight 900 Americans died in a situation exactly like this storyline. The California-based Peoples Temple in Guyana was a farming commune; the Children of the Earth was a farming commune. Peoples Temple was headed by a charismatic leader; Children of the Earth was headed by a charismatic leader. Defectors from Peoples Temple were cut-off by the remaining members; defectors from Children of the Earth were cut-off by the remaining members. The method of death at Peoples Temple was suicide; the method of death at Children of the Earth was suicide. It was the worst possible time for this storyline to be airing. I believe Eliot Dorn was likely intended to be the "real leader" of Children of the Earth, but Henry Slesar abruptly shifted the power to Cody, to downplay the similarities of Eliot Dorn and Jim Jones. Eliot, meanwhile, had arranged to do a television interview with Margo Huntington at WMON, which conveniently shifted Eliot Dorn into a different sphere, shaking the dust off this doomed and untimely storyline.]

I thought the Melinda Gray/Ariane Munker character was the highlight of the show back then. Whenever I hear "Feels So Good" by Chuck Mangione, I always think of her.