Broderick

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.

Poppy was Eddie Lorimar's secretary (seems like). Eddie was a film noir gangster-type, and she was his film noir ditsy secretary. When that section of the story concluded, it became evident Poppy was merely putting on a "ditz act" and was really a lot smarter than we'd previously believed. But suddenly she was buying Sid's Tavern with Mitzi (who really WAS a ditz, and it was just kind of a ditz overload.) Eliot Dorn wasn't the "bad guy", in the re-written version of the storyline that aired on TV. Eliot was merely the charismatic "front man" for the group. The villain was a character named "Cody", who'd been instructing the mentally-challenged big guy (Albert) to drown the kids who defected from the group. Ultimately, Albert (who was as dumb as a rock) realized Cody had been tricking him into killing people without Eliot's permission, and Albert drowned Cody in revenge. That was the end of both Albert and Cody, and it was the abrupt ending of the story. The only characters salvaged from the hastily rewritten scripts were Eliot Dorn himself and Star Wilson, who ultimately married Calvin Stoner. I thought the story was interesting from Day One. If I remember right, it initially surrounded April and Draper (which was the case with most of the stories between 1978 and 1981). April was about to go to trial for killing her sister-in-law, Denise Cavanaugh (whom April hadn't killed, of course). April was worried half to death about the upcoming trial. Meanwhile, Raven Jamison got pregnant, and her husband Kevin couldn't possibly be the father, as Kevin was sterile. The real father was Logan Swift. But as she always did, Raven decided to lie about the paternity of the baby. She told April that Draper was the father of her baby. Since April was aware that Draper and Raven had previously been in a relationship, April believed Raven's lies. April was worried sick about the upcoming trial and about Draper's "impending fatherhood", so she just ran away. Vanished. A body was pulled from the Monticello River. The body had been in the water for several days and was decomposing. It was the body of a young blonde girl, who was about April's size. For several days, it appeared the dead body might be April. Calvin Stoner and Steve Guthrie thought it was. Miles Cavanaugh went to the morgue to identify the body, as he didn't want Draper to know that April might be dead. Turned out the body wasn't April's -- it had a weird tattoo on the shoulder, a cross with a circle around it. The police were familiar with the tattoo, because some other young people had been fished from bodies of water with the same tattoo on their shoulders. The police suspected everyone with the tattoo had something in common, which of course ultimately turned out to be that they were members of Children of the Earth, and they'd defected, leading to their drowning.

The abrupt ending of Edge's "Children of the Earth" storyline: The Coincidence of "Edge's" Cult by John-Michael Reed Memphis Commercial Appeal December 1978 If the tragedy of the People's Temple in Guyana hadn't occurred, a storyline on ABC's "The Edge of Night" involving a group of people called the Children of the Earth would undoubtedly have been ignored by the non-serial public. Instead, "Edge" finds itself in the center of a sensitive controversy. The fictional Children of the Earth is a pseudo-religious cult devoted to the greening of the land. The sect is led by the messianic Rev. Eliot Dorn. In the "Edge of Night" storyline, there have been intimations of fraudulent activities within the cult, scenes of initiation rites, and a half dozen drowned bodies surfaced and have been assumed to be suicidal former Children members. There have been clues hinting at a process termed "a killing prayer ritual" when avowed Children leave the fold. And naturally there have been outraged accusations to ABC that Edge is capitalizing on the headlines about the late Rev. Jim Jones and his cult. Edge's headwriter Henry Slesar explains: "We conceived our serialized story more than eight months ago. I'm naturally curious about contemporary phenomena. Admittedly, I have a vague uneasiness about cults that influence people. But my reasons for writing a story involving a group called Children of the Earth weren't derived from any specific organization. Like most people, I'd never heard of Jim Jones. Since Edge is a crime-based serial, I was interested in exploring what would happen if there was a crime involved in such a group. We were all shocked by the events in Guyana, but in fact we began airing our story six or seven weeks before the tragedy transpired there. We're not trying to expose anybody or anything, but unfortunately it may appear to some that we're treading on toes because of current real-life revelations. Because of the suddenly sensitive nature of the subject, it's no secret we've had to expedite the story, and yes, there are ramifications that I originally intended to tell which we won't be able to explore now." There was a press conference at the Edge set to introduce David Prowse (who appeared as Darth Vader in the film "Star Wars) as a special guest who will portray a mentally-deficient giant who comes in contact with the Children. While revealing that he auditioned for the lead role in the film "Superman", but ended up as star Chris Reeve's bodybuilder trainer, Prowse acknowledged that the serial is "toning down" the similarities to Guyana. "There are bound to be certain resemblances among groups like the Children," says Slesar, "but we're not trading in on anything except telling a story that originated many months ago." Edge won't be able to unravel its original story given the current events, and that's unfortunate. It's an example that soaps don't always imitate life; the reverse is sometimes true.

Very well articulated. And I believe that's why Henry Slesar created that scene in which Raven whined and complained ("No one would've even missed me, if that Molly Sherwood had shot me dead!") as the motivation for Geraldine to invite Raven to become her roommate. Raven could have EASILY run into Schuyler/Jeff somewhere else in town, but Slesar wanted Raven to be Geraldine's "daughter", so that was an essential roommate situation. And it was very clever of Slesar to create that little gathering in Geraldine's hotel suite, where Raven thought it would just be herself, Geraldine, and Schuyler -- but instead Deborah Saxon, whom she hated, was also invited. lol.

No question -- Eliot Dorn ended-up in exactly the role he was best-suited for. (But again, it was Henry Slesar who realized it and made it happen. He could've easily dumped Eliot Dorn at the abrupt conclusion of Children of the Earth.)

Yes, and there was a certain redundancy in Mitzie and Poppy (one was enough), and too much inane foolishness in Cliff Nelson's dialogue with Mitzie. There were too many loose ends with the Maskers, and the whole Sid's Tavern meeting ground wasn't the best idea. Smiley was kind of a bust, and the "reinvented" Gunther, who'd become a playful buffoon instead of a henchman, didn't work (especially with the Cliff/Mitzie antics). About the only extremely positive thing to emerge from that period was Nora Fulton's Reign of Terror. (And yes, Larkin Malloy was an appealing leading man, but was far better suited to play Jeff Brown, the evil guy, than Schuyler Whitney, the lovesick fool.)

I think the "flashback episodes" were a literary necessity. Without them, a good bit of suspense in earlier episodes would've been lost. Ever since Gavin Wylie arrived in Monticello, we'd been wondering why he didn't dance, and why his relationship with Martine Duval was so strained and awkward. Revealing via flashback that Gavin's leg had been broken in NYC by guys dressed in Halloween costumes solved that mystery, which had been running throughout the entire Gavin/Jody/Kelly storyline. As for the "Nancy Flashbacks", I don't believe the information contained in those flashbacks had been relayed to us until the flashback sequences aired in March of 1981. All we knew is that Nancy had vanished in San Francisco (presumably), but was now somehow languishing in the Rexford Clinic near Monticello. I don't believe any of that information had been fed to us sequentially. We didn't understand the chain of events until the flashbacks of Ira Gideon and the month-versus-10-day-building-of-the-electric-fence aired in March. (And I never DID know it, because I missed the flashbacks in 1981 when I watched!) If we'd known earlier on (sequentially) how Nancy ended up in the Rexford Clinic, there wouldn't have been any suspense when Mike Karr and Calvin Stoner were visiting those morgues in San Francisco and when the San Francisco Bay was being dredged for a dead body. I do agree that the show went off the rails during the writers strike of 1981 and never fully recovered. I believe Henry Slesar lost a LOT of his motivation when Draper and April left the show. He'd pretty carefully cultivated them as the Young Mike and the Young Nancy, with their own unique personalities. It was through Draper and April that most of the other characters on the show were connected. Once those two left, Slesar was really left with a rather disjointed canvas, and his central hero and heroine were gone. He was required to quickly re-tool the show into a format that I don't believe he honestly cared for as much. I've always thought the "mistake" in the Schuyler and Raven storyline was its continuation with the Real Schuyler. Henry Slesar admitted that he'd always planned for that character to be dead. In his original projection, it would be revealed during the Switzerland sequences that Jefferson Brown had murdered Schuyler Whitney years ago, then stole his wallet and hauled ass to the Rexford Clinic. The popularity of Larkin Malloy necessitated deleting the murder of Schuyler Whitney, so that Larkin could reappear later as the Real Schuyler. I've always felt Slesar was wise in his original plan to have the character gone after Jefferson Brown's death, despite the actor's popularity. Right now in the storyline, THREE big pieces of Henry Slesar's heart are missing --- Deborah, Logan, and Nicole. Calvin Stoner doesn't have a Steve Guthrie to play opposite, and he doesn't have a Deborah Saxon. Slesar works his way through this time period excellently, but when Draper and April vamoose, you can tell he's pretty heartbroken with what's left. (Hence, the overreliance on Raven Swift and Schuyler Whitney, which is a storyline he clearly wanted to tell, but not necessarily in the context in which it occurred on-screen). Also, we're about to enter that bizarre period where everyone has an alias. Nora Fulton is also Roxanne Walker. Collier Welles is also Carlo Crowne. Jim Dedrickson is really Jim Dedrickson, but Valerie Bryson thinks he's Jefferson Brown, because Jefferson Brown masqueraded as Jim Dedrickson in the Rexford Clinic. It gets to be WAY too many aliases all at one time. Sorry for long post. I didn't think the cult story was "bad". It was actually fairly interesting (from the tattoo aspect), and the uncertainty of who was taking orders from whom. But we obviously never saw Henry Slesar's "master plan" for the storyline realized, as unfortunate real-life events involving Americans in Guyana brought the entire storyline to a grinding halt, and Eliot Dorn was pulled-out and moved into an entirely different sphere.

Gosh it's hard to remember. Brittany, Rhianna, and JT were all such MINOR characters at first, and they really didn't come into their own until that party when Billy got locked outside in the snow and nearly croaked. I just remember John and Jill Abbott were fretting about whether to tell JT's parents (Tom & Martha Hellstrom, who were friends of the Abbotts) and Brittany's parents (Fred & June Hodges, who were also acquaintances).