Chris 2

Prior to season 5, most of those additions, with a few exceptions, were just short term guest stars. I would have been gradually adding new residents as recurring characters earlier than they did. Then the focus could have turned to those characters when the originals started leaving.

Every good soap need its heroine, the relatively normal person whose eyes we see the action through. Peyton Place had Mia Farrow. Dallas had Pam. Dark Shadows had Victoria. And Melrose Place had Alison. All of those shows suffered when their heroines left. Alison and Billy were the heart of the show. They kept them apart far too long. By the time they threw Jake and Alison together, it just seemed designed to piss us off. And why tear them apart at the end of season 5 when they were both leaving anyway? The show was about a locale, rather than a family. So the producers should have been gradually bringing in new residents each year, and those new characters could take center stage when others left.. Instead, with seasons 5-7, it was constant turnover. The replacement characters left a lot to be desired. The other mistake they made was gradually focusing on older characters. Melrose was best when it was a soap that was populated by characters just starting out in their adult lives. Later on, everyone was older and more successful - Peter the doctor; Kyle the restauranteur; Coop the surgeon; etc.

I like the idea of an old-school DOOL chat. Heather North passed away a few years ago. But there are still plenty of others: the Hayeses, Suzanne Rogers, Susan Flannery, Denise Alexander, Robert Clary, Wesley Eure, Patty Weaver, Rosemary Forsyth, etc.

Interviewing is an art form and as you all have pointed out - you have to do your homework and be interested in what your guest has to say (or at least fake it). This is why Johnny Carson and David Letterman were so good on their shows - they had mastered this art. And why Jay Leno never measured up to them; he was less interested in drawing out his guests, and more interested in delivering the next punchline.

Maybe Angela could have done a duet with Babylonia.

Good clip - thanks for posting. Too bad Angela never broke out into a song & dance number.

Like Victor Newman? Unattractive, overbearing, and played by a one-note actor. And yet everyone on the show is always falling all over him.

I don’t remember King’s Crossing being a totally serialized show. It was more like the first season or two of the other Lorimar soaps, where the episodes were self-contained, with some continuing story threads from episode to episode. And this one was more family oriented, since it aired at 8:00 pm. Overall, it was just kinda dull.

I think Catherine Hicks’ version of Faith was the best. I think the writers wrote to her strengths, and then adjusted again when Karen Morris Gowdy, who didn’t have CH’s natural warmth, assumed the role. The KMG version of Faith was an interesting character, because she was so different than the usual soap ingenue. But she was a total downer - a little of her went a long way. Her worst period was after the end of Frankenfaith. She was intolerable then.

Retro didn’t do anything but license “The Doctors.” SFM, a syndicator that has been around for years, distributes the show and did all the heavy lifting in terms of digitizing and clearing those episodes. This is SFM’s business model; they distribute a lot of older TV shows, and they have a staff in place to do all of this. P&G, on the other hand, doesn’t have a distribution arm for its back library and likely doesn’t have an in-house staff to prep and clear the shows. They are focused on their higher-margin consumer goods business. On top of all of that, most if not all episodes of “The Doctors” were made before residuals were built into the actors’ contracts. The available episodes of EON were mostly made after residuals became standard, so that further decreases the potential upside. Different situation.

Frank had just returned (recast with Geoff Pierson) after 18 months in St. Louis. Delia decided she wanted him back, and that the best way to spend time with him would be to convince him that little John was troubled by his absentee father (which, in fairness, was a legitimate argument). So she started pushing that narrative, and then framed him for the missing money so that Frank would start spending more time with both of them.

Eh - it’s likely not “easy money.” Those shows may have issues with residuals. They haven’t been rerun in over 30 years and the original tapes likely need to be reformatted/digitized, and someone needs to review the episodes to make sure all the elements are cleared for broadcast. And P&G doesn’t produce much/any TV right now, so they’d have to hire people to do this. Retro is a small outfit and they’re not going to pay a lot. It may not be worth P&G’s time, from a business standpoint.

The cul-de-sac used for Seaview Circle, in reality, backs up onto a freeway (as opposed to the ocean that was depicted in the KL opening credits). I’m sure that helps keep the prices down.

Ilene is such a talented actress. They could have rehabbed Delia even more after Randall’s stint, with Dee and her schemes serving as comic relief, and making her less desperate. Instead, they had storylines like the one where Delia frames little John for stealing money from Jill’s purse. Ugh. They could have made her into someone who had issues, but whom the audience could root for. Give her some victories. Maybe all the attention Maeve gave to her could have started to pay off. Something uplifting.

Fans of RH who watched on Soapnet know that the reruns always ended in late 1981 and always cycled back to the beginning. So we never got a chance to see Ilene Kristen return as Delia, as well as new actors taking on the roles of Frank and Pat. I found some episodes on YouTube that start in 1982. They have what must be one of Randall Edwards’ last episodes as Delia, plus one of Ilene’s first episodes back. https://youtu.be/bQUAavJiFDA

The Dallas revival was so frustrating because the concept was excellent, but the execution was terrible. The actors playing the younger generation were pretty much eye candy and their characterizations were shallow. And the storylines veered far from what made the original series so great - the family dynamics. Instead, there were stories about drug cartels and politics and it was awful. It’s a shame, because the older actors, as a previous poster said, did a fine job. And the series, for the first time, was filmed entirely on location in Dallas and looked fantastic.

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.

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.

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.