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Was it Charlotte Savitz's decision to put SS on recurring?

That poor kid lol. He experienced so much loss in such a short amount of time. Whatever happened to him anyway? Did Liz say where he was when she came back in 1987? It was like she was completely changed with every writer. Tomlin wrote her as a traumatized deaf girl, Hall and Spencer wrote her as a scheming vixen and DePriest wrote as an abused wife.

He was probably fired too. The show was really anal about featuring younger characters at that time.

I have no idea. I never heard that from anyone or anywhere. Killing off Bill was another mistake. Him and Missy and Ricky could've driven story for years. If Joe Gallison was locked into OLTL contract and couldn't get out of it to appear in Somerset, they should've just recasted the role.

I think the writers just might've forgotten that Vicky unintentionally caused Perry's death. When I was watching the Swajeski era, I noticed there were a lot of mistakes/continuity errors (where Janice was buried, Iris and Cecile's friendship, etc.) And when Carl came back in 1991, they didn't even include Aunt Liz in that story, and he was indirectly responsible for Julia's murder.

If it was me, I never would've gotten rid of Alice, Sally, Catlin or Aunt Liz. I would've made Sally fight Brittany for Catlin and would never have turned Brittany into the victim that she became after she married Peter. I would've pushed a Larry/Clarice/MJ/Jamie quadrangle. And I would've aged Cory at the same time that they aged Nancy, and given him the storylines that they gave Ben McKinnon, who was ultimately an unnecessary character that was gone in less than a year. I wonder why they never aged Cory. And I would never have gotten rid of the Harding/Mason/Todd family, who were much stronger characters than the Edwards family (with the exception of Zack) and the Lawrence family.

I always wonder who was behind all these misfires/missed opportunities. Was it the writers and producers or was it Nbc/P&G?

Something tells me that the people who thought this was a good idea were also the same people who thought expanding AW to 90 minutes was a good idea.

That would've been perfect for Pat, whose departure was, in my opinion one of the stupidest ways to ever write out a character on any soap. Instead of running out of town with her tail between her legs, she should've stayed and fought for her reputation (which in itself was a ridiculous reason. She was tried for murder twice and got off twice; I'm sure people were already talking about her behind her back and no book would've changed that), and could've fallen in love with one of her supporters who had grown children, which could've provided some good conflict for not only the Matthews family, but other characters as well. Oh, what might've been.

You're right, what happened to the Matthews family wasn't any one person's fault. Maybe the writers and producers in the 70's and 80's thought they were boring or played out, but I still think they got a raw deal though. Is it possible that there might have been too many "good" characters in the Matthews family as opposed to "bad" ones?

Thanks!

Wow, these are amazing! Thank you, Vetsoapfan.

Definitely. I actually preferred Felicia with Zane, then Felicia with Mitch and I’ve seen twice as many episodes with Mitch then with Zane.

Lol and what good it did. DePriest and Swajeski were the ones who wrote the McKinnons out just a few years later. I'm glad Liz was brought back, but in my opinion a lot of characters, particularly Sally, Catlin and Zane should never have been written out.

86-87 was a massacre. I don't think you would ever see something like that on a soap nowadays. What was the reason for it? Were DePriest and Whitesell trying to revamp and revitalize the show?

Jamie could've been involved with the three of them as well, and made it a quadrangle. The storyline could've played out well into 1985. I guess I just would've liked to seen Clarice have a really strong story. From the little bit I've seen on YT, it seemed to me that by 1985, the writers didn't know what to do with her. It also really sucked that Clarice and Larry weren't given an exit story either, they just disappeared. True, but the thing about AW was that, no matter how bad it got, you still would love to see more of it. I feel the same way about 1982. And yeah, the poison dust story was absolutely ridiculous. How did Grant even come to contact with it if Mac had it anyway?

Well, it does make sense when you put it like that. I wish the writers hadn’t nixed their Larry and M.J affair story. It would’ve provided Kathleen Layman, Rick Porter and Gail Brown with some good material and it would’ve been a lot better than that Miami Vice rip-off drug storyline that they saddled Larry with.

Thanks for the info! That's still kind of weird though lol

Did they ever give a reason why M.J (a woman) was named Michael Joseph?

RIP Sally Spencer

You're right. It was also the same day Karen Wolek admitted on the witness stand that she was a hooker and that Marco was her pimp on OLTL. There had to have been a little competition between the shows.

Me neither. As great as AW was, that March 6, 1979 episode speaks for itself. Seriously, how long did it take Marianne to break that $10 lol? Nbc management was pretty clueless in the late 70's and early 80's.

According to Lemay's book, (I know that you have to take everything he said with a grain of salt) it appeared there were multiple factors as to why AW declined so much around that time. He, personally, was getting tired of it, his pet project (Lovers and Friends/For Richer or Poorer) was a flop, NBC/P&G kept making more demands for plot and younger characters, which wasn't Lemay's style, and that was also when GH just exploded. On top of all that, his daughter got sick at the same time too. Some idiot at NBC or P&G thought expanding the show to 90 minutes was a good idea. But even if all of these elements weren't in play, that still would've been a bad idea. And the ratings for AW clearly showed that. I'm pretty sure that he wasn't supposed to write for Texas though.

Gwen looking pathetic as always, holding onto Ethan like he’s a toy.

Can't believe it's been 20 years since Another World went off the air. It was actually one of the first soap operas I watched with my Mom and Grandma. My mom had watched from the early 70's and she got practically everybody in my family hooked on it. I was only 4 years old when I started watching, but I have so many clear memories from 1996-1999, (which I now know was not one of the best times in the show's history). When SoapNet started airing reruns in 2003, I watched again and was introduced to Mac, Ada, the Mckinnons and so many other awesome characters that I had missed out on. Thanks to YouTube, the Another World Home Page, and various other websites, I've seen and learned so much about the show, and feel it was definitely one of the best soaps that ever existed.