Chris 2

I liked Back to the Cul De Sac. It was better than the Dallas reunion movie from the same era. It wasn’t perfect, but they had storylines for everyone. I didn’t much care for the Meg recast, though. And i thought the storyline with Anne was a bit odd. I can’t remember many other specifics. I did a rewatch of the entire series a few years ago but the 1997 reunion wasn’t easily available. I’d like to see it again.

There was no KL special that aired in the US prior to either of the two episodes, though. Maybe the above poster is thinking of the Block Party that aired immediately prior to the two hour final episode in 1993.

I’ll be surprised if even the proposed Pine Valley comes to fruition. The demographics simply don’t make  sense. TV is all about 18-49 year olds, at least as far as advertisers go, and you’re not going to get a younger demographic with a revivals of shows that only people 50 and over remember. The P&G soaps have been out of production and out of sight for a long time.

Yes, it was originally developed with Linda in mind - Barbara Curran reported on this in her book.

KIng’s Crossing was not a bad concept - shades of Falcon Crest with the father bringing his family back to his hometown. It was just ultimately dull. I remember the pilot had this lightly classical-sounding theme song, and then from episode 2 on, it was replaced with a bombastic sounding theme from Jerrold Immel (of “Dallas” fame). ABC probably thought the show was dull, too, and wanted a more excited theme.

I always thought there was an opportunity for a revival with an adult David returning to the family home with his wife and kids to get a fresh start in life. And you could use some of the surviving cast like Kathryn Leigh Scott. But Perry’s idea could work too.

I don’t remember it being high end - it was made for fans of the show, who loved watching a show about rich people, but weren’t necessarily rich themselves.

I have to be honest: I’m shocked. I can’t imagine that the ratings for the second cycle of the early shows on Retro are that different than the first cycle. And I thought they’d just continue to monetize the shows that have already been digitized. This goes beyond just a business decision, I suspect. Some with budget - whether its at Retro or at SFM - really loves these old shows.

Mark Perry is a pretty reputable writer. He was a staff writer on the early, superior seasons of “Party of Five.”

If you’re going to focus your soap on perfume or models, then you’re limiting your audience from the outset. A show about perfume following the A-Team? Who came up with that brilliant scheduling?

Susan Howard sang Victoria’s praises because she said Victoria went out of her way to help a child with a cleft lip that Howard knew get plastic surgery. Charlene Tilton said Victoria was like a big sister to her when they were filming on location during those early years. But no one has said she’s a barrel of laughs.

The actress who played Teresa, the maid, said that Barbara Bel Geddes could be irritable with her. But she loved Bel Geddes anyway.

Dack Rambo and Larry Hagman didn’t get along. From an interview with Washington Post: 

But Larry Hagman -- with whom he had already worked on "Sword of Justice" -- turned out to be "not a particularly nice person," Rambo recalls. "I didn't like him very much. And I think the feeling was probably very mutual. I didn't really fit into the mold of what he considered male or macho. It was just very clear to me I wasn't going to be part of the family."

I know Morgan Brittany implied that they did not get along. Same thing with Morgan Fairchild, who only appeared in a single episode!

Victoria participated in the 2004 retrospective that was filmed at Southfork and something apparently happened there between her and her cast mates that really strained the relationship. Exactly what, I don’t know. 

She had nothing to do with TNT Dallas. She originally wasn’t asked, but then the writers started hinting that Pam might still be alive, and Victoria released a statement about how she was not interested in making a “desperate reappearance” in the new series. I’m sure that went over big with her former costars.

That said, she phoned into the gathering they did for the 40th anniversary that appeared on the most recent DVDs. And she seemed to enjoy reminiscing and Patrick was joking with her and she was laughing with him. So who knows.

She was a favorite of Aaron Spelling’s, guest starring on his shows like TJ Hooker and Fantasy Island. She appeared a couple of times on Fantasy Island as a mermaid and Spelling proposed a spinoff for her. She was also a recurring guest star on Hotel during its fourth season, playing the concierge.

Ada on AW had a middle class kitchen that looked like what my parents had.

Audrey still looks great, as she did when she appeared on TNT Dallas a few years back (too bad they completely misused her, but that’s a topic for another day).

Dallas, post-Pamela, is a dud. She wasn’t killed off in the original series because they were afraid of doing that after the fiasco surrounding Bobby’s death and resurrection. So they kept the door open by having her severely burned in an accident and leaving town. It was actually the worst way to get rid of her because it made her character seem extremely callous for abandoning her child, and the other characters looked just as bad for not visiting her at the hospital and not really giving a fig about her departure (“Oh, too bad about Pam. Teresa, what’s for dinner?”)

Both Bobby and Pam’s departures were a chance to reinvent a show that was running out of storylines. In both cases, the showrunners failed to find a compelling new direction for the show. Bobby’s departure should have resulted in a JR vs Pam dynamic, but they got sidetracked with silly stories about emerald mines, and tonally-wrong stories about special needs kids. And Pamela’s departure could have set off a mystery around her disappearance, or they could have had her presumed dead and gone the Dark Shadows route of introducing a young nanny for Christopher who gets caught up in the intrigue of the family. Instead, they just tried to keep doing the same show with a giant Pam-sized hole in it. Boring!

Well, they shouldn’t be, since AW fired them both!

LOL. Nice.

I love how they only put “Another World” for past credits for the actors, especially when they were on AW for about 30 seconds. Lee Patterson was a mainstay of the early years of “One Life to Live”. But we mustn’t mention the competition!

I’ve always seen Rosemary playing icy blondes, and Judith McConnell had a warmth to her that I’ve not seen in Rosemary. So the dynamic would have been different, for sure.

7 hours ago, j swift said:

Monte Markham is a one note actor, with very little charisma or sexual appeal, so it was hard to imagine him as a match for any character played by the remarkable Christine Jones.

Thank you! I could never stand Monte Markham and the way he spoke out of one side of his mouth.

Wow - is it me, or is the acting really bad? Even the singing Ford dealer at the end is preferable to some of these actors.

Lots of experienced soap vets behind the scenes, looking at the closing credits. The Corringtons, Gene Palumbo, Virginia Browne, Ken Corday. 

I wonder if they really needed to base this on a book. And the name, Rituals, is just horrible.

Pat was originally supposed to be the quiet, introspective Ryan brother, in contrast to his charismatic politician brother Frank. The problem was: the original Frank was a block of wood. And Malcolm Groome, as Pat, was more happy-go-lucky. So they wrote the roles to Groome’s strengths.

By the time Groome left, they actually had the charismatic Frank they always wanted, so they went back to the original concept of a more introspective Pat when they hired John Blazo. But it was too jarring, to go from Groome’s version to Blazo’s.

I think they had more misses (Andrew Robinson, Carrell Myers, Ann Gillespie, John Blazo, Robert Finnocolli. Patrick James Clarke, Kathleen Tolan, Nicolette Goulet) than hits (Daniel Hugh Kelly, Geoff Pierson, John Sanderford, Marg Helgenberger) when it came to recasting the Ryan children. There were several successful Franks and a couple of Siobhans, while Pat and Mary were never successfully recast. I did think that Barbara Blackburn, the final Siobhan, had a lot of potential but the show ended before she could realize that potential.

20 hours ago, DRW50 said:

I know it shouldn't have been funny, but the show returning to flashbacks of her very, very soon after Mary was killed - even though she had left the role 2 years earlier - said it all.

Clearly done to wash the bad taste of the awful Mary recasts out of our mouths.

On 7/31/2021 at 6:27 PM, Wendy said:

The renovation apparently occurred under EP John Conboy.

Senior Executive Producer John Conboy. He had that silly vanity credit in large font at the end of the last scene of the day, like it was a primetime show.

I remember watching Berenger’s in first run and I recall liking it, but you’re right. Way to many characters. And the “help” characters weren’t really connected to the family, so that also made it complicated.

The initial setup of Dallas was straightforward - the Ewings and two Barneses. Same for Knots - four couples. Falcon Crest, too - just the Giobertis and the Channings.

11 hours ago, Paul Raven said:

"If I had my druthers I'd go with two people or four people, and develop from there," Jacobs says. "But I'm not sure the audience would buy it. You're expected to have a complicated mosaic right away." But television always is risky business at best. As he says, "You try for something different, but what everybody wants is what they're used to, which we have a lot of already. I mean, I'm sure there's not room for another 'Dynasty' or 'Dallas.' For all I know, there's not room for 'Berrenger's' either."

And there wasn’t!

Good article - thanks for posting.

I thought Nicolette Goulet was a striking-looking woman, just ultimately dull on RH. Certainly better than Kathleen Tolan but not nearly as good as Kate Mulgrew or even Mary Carney. She had no spark. And Mary Ryan was supposed to be a spark plug.

On 6/27/2020 at 2:22 PM, Chris B said:

Two underrated recasts for me come from Ryan’s Hope, which was Recast Central. The first is Mary Carney as Mary Ryan. Of course Claire Labine  wanted To kill off Mary when Kate Mulgrew left, which is completely understandable. Ultimately the show forced a recast and Mary Carney was perfect. A good actress and similar but she made the role her own. They quickly fired her and the only justifiable reason is that they were still upset about Mulgrew leaving. We had to suffer through two more recasts before they finally killed her off. 
 

The other is Ann Gillespie as Siobhan Ryan. I liked most of the Siobhan’s so I didn’t mind her leaving, but I also don’t understand why she left. I thought she was great in the role. 

I don’t get why Ann Gillespie left but I really loved Sarah Felder, so it was hard for me to see someone else in the role.

ABC wanted Mary Carney to go. RH actually handled her recast as well as possible. Carney was physically right for the role, and after she showed up, Mary went on the back burner for six months. Smart. The new Mary wasn’t shoved down our throats and viewers were given some time to adjust. But when Claire Labine was ready to bring Mary back to the front burner, ABC got nervous that Carney wasn’t “glamorous” enough and ordered the recast. Too bad, because I think she could have really grown into that role. Her immediate successor, Kathleen Tolan, is one of the worst recasts of all time. She wasn’t particularly attractive or charismatic, and worse, she could barely get her lines out without stumbling over them.