Chris 2

If it winds up going to series, it will be a new show that shares a setting with the old show, with a few cameos from old cast members sprinkled in. There will be an entirely new story; they’re not going to try to tie it back to old stories, because that will be off-putting to the new, younger viewers they hope to attract.

They should have just kept doing movies until they got Allison’s death right.

Keep in mind that if this does come to fruition (and it’s only “in development” now), it will focus on new characters. Some of the announcements mention a “sprinkling” of appearances by some original cast members. These will be nothing more than cameos. ABC isn’t going to build this show around a bunch of 50 or 60 year olds. They’re also going to likely ignore a lot of continuity in order to service a new story and make the show accessible to more desirable (i.e. younger) viewers.

Sorry to be a wet blanket but those who view this as an AMC revival are going to be disappointed.

10 hours ago, Sean said:

My one qualm with MC is that it's hard to imagine her Mary as a lead, though that may simply be a side effect of how the character was backburnered in those first months post-Mulgrew.

 

Agreed. I would have been interested to see how she would have been once they actually gave Mary a story.

My other issue was whether she would have had decent romantic chemistry with the much-older Jack, as Kate Mulgrew did.

My issue with the Dakota character (and admittedly I was not watching the show much at the time) was that Johnny would never have a son with a foolish soap opera name like “Dakota.”

Sony is notoriously bad in terms of leveraging the old Columbia/Screen Gems assets (“Days of Our Lives” was originally from Screen Gems) because they don’t want to pay for new prints. There are a couple of seasons of “The Donna Reed Show,” which have never been syndicated or released on DVD because Sony doesn’t want to be bothered with transferring the old elements. Same thing with “The Farmer’s Daughter”, a sitcom from the 60s that Antenna TV licensed a few years ago. But when they found that the syndication prints from the 80s weren’t usable, they weren’t willing to pay to strike new prints.

That doesn’t speak well for Sony ever doing anything with the old DOOL or Y&R episodes, other than an occasional one-off special.

5 hours ago, John said:

If Mary Carney had lasted a few Years, do you think Mary would have lived?

Yep. The only reason they killed her off was because they thought the recasts didn’t work and there was no way Kate Mulgrew was returning full time.

Seems silly for P&G to sit on assets like that and not use them, but I’m sure they have their reasons.

Retro should go get Ryan’s Hope or Santa Barbara. Or how about the early years of “Days of Our Lives” (the entire run of that show exists, in color, in the Sony vaults).

I also think that Mary Carney was the best Mary recast. The reason she didn’t have much to do is because the writers put Mary on the back burner when she was recast, so as not to shove her down people’s throats. This went on for six months, and just when they were ready to move Mary back to a front burner story, ABC got cold feet about Carney and insisted on a recast.

In reality, immediately following Mulgrew was an impossible feat. They should have taken Mary off the canvas for a few years before a recast. But that also would have meant breaking up the Fenellis or writing out Michael Levin.

I remember it took place shortly after John Blazo took over as Pat, and it was so jarring because his quiet introspective portrayal of the character was so different from Malcolm Groome’s.

I watched a few min of the episode. RH was a show in transition at that point - new Pat, new Faith, new Mary (again), the introduction of Siobhan. Even Pat’s girlfriend at the time, Nancy, had three different actresses playing her in a short period of time.

And wow - was Kathleen Tolan horrible as Mary! Even in the scenes where she’s not botching her lines, she’s so wooden and unnatural. How she ever got the job is beyond me.

Forgive me for being pedantic, but there’s a bit of a difference between what is now called Dallas’ first (short) season and Family’s first season. The set of Dallas episodes from spring 1978 was essentially a five-part pilot. There was no initial pilot that CBS considered before ordering the rest of the season, which is unusual. That’s why the fans refer that five-part pilot as a miniseries. And that’s why CBS and Lorimar at the time didn’t consider those episodes as the first season. Warner Bros, which now owns Dallas, relabeled the miniseries as season one when they sold it on DVD.

Family, OTOH, had a traditional, single-episode pilot that was filmed in 1975. You can easily identify it because both Kate and Nancy have longer hair than they did in the rest of the first season. ABC then ordered five more episodes that were filmed months later, and that made up the first season in the spring of 1976. That’s why I pushed back on calling the first season a miniseries. Tomato, tomahto, I guess.

I agree about Brianne Leary. She was a very appealing performer IMO - I wonder why she didn’t have a more prominent acting career.

I would have done the reunion without Meredith Baxter. Nancy was never as prominent as the other children, and only appeared in about 2/3 of the episodes. They could have had Nancy show up from out of town in the last scene for the wedding, played by Elayne Heilveil

A few comments:

There was no “miniseries.” It was a weekly series from the get-go. The first season was short - 6 episodes. That happened sometimes with midseason replacements at the time; the first season of “Three’s Company” was six episodes, too. “Eight is Enough” also had a short first season.

Nigel and Carol McKeand were the showrunners for the first four seasons. Ed Zwick and Marshall Herskovitz were the showrunners for the final season.

Playwright Jay Presson Allen, who wrote the pilot (and therefore got a Created By credit) had nothing to do the with series after the  pilot.

Elaine Heilveil, the original Nancy, was let go after the first season. Presumably the producers and/or network were looking for something different. You’ll notice that Heilveil was used very little towards the end of season one. Her initial replacement, Jane Actman, was also fired, after filming a few episodes for season 2. Meredith Baxter Birney had to refilm all of Actman’s scenes when she was hired.

The show is not a soap, IMHO. Each episode is self contained, for the most part (though there’s a lot of soapiness within each self-contained episode).

The producers wanted to do a two-hour reunion movie in 1987, when TV movie reunions were in vogue. The storyline would have centered around the kids coming home for Kate’s remarriage. It was delayed due to a writers’ strike. After that, Meredith Baxter Birney declined to sign on because she didn’t like the script. They did a rewrite to accommodate her and she still didn’t like it. So it never happened.

Noon was a death slot for RH. While ABC’s owned and operated stations in NY, Chicago, and LA (among others) continued to air the show “in pattern” at noon, so many other stations didn’t carry it due to noon newscasts, or tape delayed it.

Our affiliate in Boston actually got a pre-feed of the show and broadcast it at 11:30 am (instead of tape delaying), after the show moved to noon on the network. It had always been popular in Boston, and even though that affiliate had never previously shown ABC programming in the 11:00 am - noon timeslot, they made an exception for RH.

”Edge of Night” had died a few years earlier for the same reason that RH did. ABC broadcast EON at 4:00 pm, when many stations preempted it or tape delayed it.

When I started watching RH reruns, I heard that most people considered DHK the quintessential Frank. I watched from the beginning. Michael Hawkins was a limited actor. And Andrew Robinson, while a talented actor, is not the leading man type and was miscast. When DHK first appeared, I was surprised, because he was green and a bit wooden. But he grew into the role and I do agree now that he was the quintessential Frank. Geoff Pierson’s Frank was too harsh and openly arrogant. John Sanderford was the best Frank after DHK, but was a few years too young for the role (Frank suddenly seemed younger than Jill).

On 11/11/2020 at 6:25 PM, allmc2008 said:

I  have been watching this playlist. I'm enjoying the show! I do have a question, what was Ada's last name known to be? Rachael was Rachael CORY. Felicia was Felicia Galant. On AMC, Erica was always Erica KANE and on OLTL Vicki was always Vicki LORD.

Viki on OLTL was known by her married names. In the 1980s, it was Viki Buchanan. After her divorce from Clint and subsequent remarriages, we’d hear her full name plus maiden plus married name (Victoria Lord Carpenter, Victoria Lord Davidson, etc). By the end of the series, it was back to Viki Buchanan.

I’ve heard multiple actors complain about Ellen Barrett, who took over after the much-respected Robert Costello left the show. But I don’t blame her for the departure of Sarah Felder - I believe ABC wanted her gone because she wasn’t glamorous enough. What an absolute shame, because Felder was a true original with great screen presence. She was the perfect younger leading lady to carry RH into the future after Kate Mulgrew left.

BTW, I COULD NOT STAND Kelli Maloney on this show.

PSM had a breeziness as Fallon that Samms at her best - in season 9 - was never able to replicate.

I remember that Bargain Hunter commercial, and wanted the game for the credit card machine! Now, looking at it through adult eyes - no thanks. I play games to escape the mundanities of everyday life.

I remember it was shot on videotape like a daytime soap and looked cheap as sh*t.

On 8/20/2020 at 9:27 PM, rlj said:

I am currently listening to Anne Heche on SiriusXm and she sounds like she's either drugged up or drunk af, stuttering, moaning, its pitiful to listen to!

Anne Heche acting weird is about as uncommon as the sun coming up in the morning. Remember her other personality, Celestia?

Meg’s Liza was more the romantic heroine, so they wren’t pushing the strong-willed angle.

Yep - Sony distributes the show and it airs on CBS, the same way that Fremantle distributes Price is Right and it airs on CBS. CBS’s deal with Fremantle is exclusive - they are the only destination for current version of TPIR in the US, whether new shows or reruns. CBS built that into their deal so the new shows wouldn’t have to “compete” with reruns elsewhere. I wouldn’t be surprised if CBS has the same type of agreement with Sony for Y&R. Years ago, CBS’s TPIR deal was not exclusive and reruns were airing on Game Show Network. CBS didn’t like that and at renewal time had the exclusivity built in. Only reruns from the previous version from the 60s are rerun.

1 hour ago, alphanguy74 said:

With modern technology, there is no reason at ALL they can't stream some of these episodes. 

I think Sony could monetize those old episodes, but my guess is that CBS is a blocker. They may not want Sony to stream older episodes because it would pull some people away from watching newer episodes. Very possible they have exclusive rights built into their deal with Sony. The Bob Barker-era “Price is Right” isn’t rerun for the same reason.

I always found Jess Walton a bit difficult to take as Jill - there’s just nothing lighthearted about her, even when she’s playing a scene that’s supposed to be funny. She had no chemistry with Jerry Douglas (John). And can someone explain to me how Jill and John wound up remarrying after a super-bitter divorce that involved blackmail?

I never got to see Ilene’s 1982 return, though I wanted to - SoapNet always cycled back to the beginning of RH shortly before she would have returned.

Anyone mention Brenda Dickson as Jill on Y&R? She left in 1980, was succeeded briefly by Bond Gideon, and then for three years by Deborah Adair. When Adair left in 1983 for primetime, Dickson returned. And then later on, Adair filled in for a week while there was some behind-the-scenes drama with Dickson.

And then there’s the quick return of Robin Strasser as Rachel on “Another World”. She left at the end of 1971, but was back in a matter of months when her replacement, Margie Impert, bombed. But she only returned for three or four months, until a permanent replacement could be found, and was gone again halfway through 1972.

The facelift scenes were really shocking to me. Jeanne Cooper was brave to do this. And yes - she always looked older than her years, even back in the 1960s when she was guest starring on TV westerns.

Terry Lester was terrific. He should have gone on to a primetime career. His sexuality had a lot to do with the fact that he didn’t.

I loved Meg Bennett (Julia) as Liza on SFT. But she looked so much older on Y&R, just five years or so after she left SFT. Maybe it was her haircut or maybe she was too thin.