Broderick

Yes, she was. And when she left, it was about finished for me. Despite the widespread perception that it was "JR's show", for some of us who'd watched from the beginning, it was the story of Bobby & Pam. When she left and made it clear she wouldn't be back, what a fizzle for the rest of the series.

There's probably nothing "nefarious" about the break. It's a new show, ain't performing too spectacularly in the ratings as far as I can tell, and the network likely feels there are thousands of viewers out there who'd be willing to sample it, if they could watch the initial "set-up" of the show. I can only speak for myself, but I watched the first episode in February, saw a lot of potential in the show but was very disappointed in the actual execution (too much clumsy, cringe-worthy dialogue, not enough music to "smooth" out the clunky speeches, too much lavish "Du Praise" heaped on the core family, and such a plethora of characters fired at the viewer at such a rapid pace). I skipped the rest of the initial week, but have half-ass followed it ever since. For viewers like me (and those who missed the first week entirely), this is probably a good opportunity to get reacclimated with who's who, which kids are Nichole's and which kids are Dani's, and who that 30-year-old lady is living with Smitty and Martin. lol

When Colby Chester had a mustache, he looked SHOCKINGLY similar to Tyrone Jackson's whitewashed alter ego Robert Tyrone.

After Jacob Young finished his last stint on B&B as Rick Forrester, I felt sure Y&R would ask him to come play a slightly de-SORASed Phillip Chancellor III, especially since they'd finally found themselves a decent Chance in Conner Floyd. But Y&R always does the opposite of what I think might work.

So Cane is now a decade YOUNGER than Billy Abbott. But a few years ago, Jill was fooled into believing Cane was the same age as her son who grew up, had a baby, and "died" long before Billy was ever conceived. Wow.

Yep, when Kim was bonked over the head during the harrowing tornado, she was in love with that grinning, happy, big-haired Dan who looked as though he belonged on The Brady Bunch. (Reilly) By the time she finally regained her memory fully and shook herself free of John Dixon (didn't she get pregnant with Andy during all of this?), she was stuck with that sad-eyed, grouchier Dan who'd been Dan several years earlier (Colenback). The Bolivia trip was probably the switchover.

Gracias!

I'm not familiar with Irna's timeline of comings/goings, but I got the impression Neil Wade was written off circa 1967-1968. (And I might be jumping to conclusions, but I also felt maybe the character was jettisoned because Rosemary Prinz was leaving?) I know who Doug Cassen is, I think. Wasn't he one of Claire Lowell's husbands? They didn't mention Neil was his son. But clearly there was a LOT unmentioned in the short synopsis that I was reading.

I hope so! Despite allegedly being on the show for several years, Neil Wade got a total of ONE paragraph in the Laguardia book. Paraphrasing, it said, Neil Wade (Michael Lipton) "helped Penny put her life back together after Jeff's death", "was a physician who didn't practice medicine for personal reasons" (didn't know that), "opened a bookstore with Penny" (sounds right), "planned to adopt a baby with Penny who couldn't have children" (sounds right), "began losing his vision and was struck and killed" (who knows?), and then Penny ultimately moved to Europe and married the racecar driver and adopted an Asian baby named Amy (sounds right). And that was it.

@Reverend Ruthledge I sure won't argue one way or the other. The first time I ever laid eyes on Penny was when Douglas Marland brought her back for periodic episodes in the 1980s. My parents (who'd watched World Turns since Day One) would always get excited when Penny reappeared, and Penny was always the subject of much discussion around our house, lol. I wish someone who remembered Neil Wade was around to ask, but I don't know of anyone. I just flipped through that old book Robert Laguardia wrote, and he opined that Jeff Baker had been killed in a car wreck (probably true) and Neil Wade was losing his vision and was struck and killed (which could go right back to the embolism you referred to).

Robert Laguardia's old book from the early 1970s says Neil Wade was going blind and was struck by a car and killed. Can't vouch for the accuracy of that.

I don't know what killed Penny's husbands, but that sentence about "losing two husbands in automobile accidents & is now married to a racing-car driver" made me laugh out loud.

7/13/1973 --- Big jump for Y&R from 15th place to 12th place, and from 4.7 to 6.1.

Thanks for letting us know about that. All this time, I've been thinking they were just too lazy to create a simple, temporary set for an office. That clearly ain't the case; it's the never-ending budget crisis. The "business stories" about all these zillion different companies can't be told effectively in a restaurant, so they probably need to re-think the type of stories they're telling.

Y'all could be right that it wasn't Henry Slesar. But I think it's mighty strange that Russell Kubeck popped in as head writer with seemingly no previous writing credits or experience, then vanished into thin air once Somerset bit the dust. And when you look at the subject matter of those last 6 months of Somerset combined with Slesar's previous tenure there under his own name --- I dunno.

😂 I've always been convinced "Russel Kubeck" is Henry Slesar. There are 3 different mystery/suspense/crime writers whom I instantly identified as Henry Slesar after reading their works. Those three are "Sley Harson", "Eli Jerome", and "Russel Kubeck". Slesar's estate has subsequently verified that "Sley Harson" and "Eli Jerome" were indeed pen names used by Henry Slesar. No word yet on "Russel Kubeck". I wish Slesar's kids, his agent, or P&G would ultimately acknowledge whether or not "Kubeck" was one of Slesar's pen names. Here's what I think happened: I believe P&G approached Slesar and said, "We're pulling the plug on Somerset in December unless you can get the ratings up to a 6.0 for a 13-week period". [Or some other target they had in mind.] Slesar took the job but knew the chances of failure were far greater than the chances of success, so he used a pseudonym for it. Look at it this way. A few years later, in 1983, P&G dismissed Henry Slesar from The Edge of Night and went out soliciting a new mystery writer to take his place. They settled on Lee Sheldon. If "Russel Kubeck" were a real person (other than a pen name of Slesar's), don't you think P&G would've hired Kubeck instead, since they'd already worked with him on Somerset. I believe P&G was fully aware that the paychecks written in 1976 to Russel Kubeck had gone directly into Slesar's account, and there was no sense in interviewing Mr. Kubeck to take Slesar's place on EON in 1983.

I caught most of the episodes during that time period. Subsequently Bell or Alden (I forget which) revealed that Peggy's rape story was done for strategic ratings purposes. Chris's rape had occurred earlier, before the show really caught on & was near the middle or the lower end of the ratings. Bell had been pleased with the concept and wanted the rape story to play-out for a much larger audience. By the 1975-1976 season, the show was near the top of the ratings and was extremely popular among high school & college kids. He felt the time was right to re-tell the story. When I was watching in 1976, I didn't find it especially "cruel" that lightning had struck twice in the Brooks family. I felt it was more of a continuation of Chris's storyline, giving her a chance to continue dealing with the trauma of her own rape.

What Dan Curtis never seemed to understand -- and what Art Wallace knew from the get-go -- is that a slow, suspenseful build-up creates a far more satisfying episode than the constant "cliffhangers" that never amounted to much. ("I'm going to kiillll you, Julia!" before every commercial break, lol.)

I find the black & white episodes FAR more atmospheric and spooky than the color episodes. The first few months of Dark Shadows move ploddingly slow when you're binge-watching, with entirely too much repetition and exposition. But as someone noted above, it's the only time in the show when you get much character development. After the 1795 sequence, it's pretty much like "just make something up; nobody cares." The series essentially became self-parody with the overload of monsters & ghoulies. I was watching a scene one time in which the Witch was attempting to stop the Phoenix from staking the Vampire, and I got tickled at the absurdity of three "monsters" in one scene.

Thanks for the walk down Memory Lane! (Can you imagine what the synopsis for 2024/2025 will look like 50 years from now? It'll basically just be a flowchart of who was the CEO of which unseen corporation, lol.)

Mansion of the Damned sure is a "talkative" horror movie. In the past when I've watched those episodes, I was paying attention to The Edge of Night characters and not really zeroing in on the rehearsals/blocking/filming of the actual movie. This time I've been following the plot of Mansion of the Damned pretty closely, and all I can say is Hester Atherton and Nicholas Harriman are about the most chit-chatty Witch and Devil I've ever heard in my life!

I've often thought that as well. I stuck with EON until the bitter end, but my viewing dropped off DRASTICALLY after the Rexford Clinic storyline concluded in 1981. The show had always "re-grouped" fairly well after a mass exodus of cast members --- but I never felt it never made a full recovery after the loss of Albee, Frances Fisher, Joe Lambie, Tony Craig, and Terry Davis. Slesar seemed to have a decent storyline in mind for Raven and Jefferson Brown, but once that arc ended (and he was stuck trying to sandwich Larkin Malloy back onto the canvas), the storylines got sillier (Smiley & the Maskers), and there was too much emphasis on the trials & tribulations of Jody Travis and on the Raven & Schuyler characters. The new writer (Sheldon) took Slesar's weaknesses to an even greater extreme, making the characters unrelatable and often cartoonish. A return of "three musketeers" police-type storytelling would've been more than welcome, in my opinion.

Aristotle Dumas. Just thought I'd throw that out there!

All I'll say is that she returns at just the right time, and she's even more entertaining when she returns than before she went away. lol.

I didn't wanna "ruin" it for you if Raven hadn't left on her midnight trip to London yet. But based on where she's going -- and who she'll be staying with -- you can assume there will be some drama when she returns! I believe she even says to Logan or Eliot Dorn before she leaves, "My stepfather, Ansel Scott, always had a 'thing' for me!" lol.