Kane

I'm not sure if it's true or just a rumor, but I remember hearing that leaving wasn't her choice, but a punishment for her speaking out about Michael Zaslow's firing.

Yes, near New Year's 1993, Alan-Michael asked her what her resolution was and she told him that her resolution was to marry him. This freaked him out a little and led to him sort of ghosting her on NYE, but by the time it hit midnight they had made up and rang in the new year by making out. @alwaysAMC Like you, I got drawn into the show in 1995 (except in real time). I enjoyed the Lucy/AM story and when it was over I stumbled across someone who was selling edits focused on their storyline from 1993 through to Rick Heart's departure (back in the days when you'd get the edits on VHS). I think you'll enjoy the first go-round of their relationship in 93-94. There's some cute, romantic comedy type stuff in there.

You weren't lying; it's like Ann is coming to visit her at summer camp. Not often that prison takes the edges off a person. Thanks for the tag!

Cheers to you and everyone else at SON!

She was a gem when it came to promoting soaps. Out of curiosity I looked up the guests from her first season and in addition to Susan Lucci (3 times!), she also interviewed Erika Slezak, Deidre Hall, Genie Francis, Robin Mattson, Darnell Williams & Debbi Morgan (who were on The City at the time), Anthony Geary, Linda Dano, Peter Bergman, Robert S. Woods, Vanessa Marcil, Ruth Warrick, Michael Knight (twice), James Mitchell, Peter Reckell, and Maxwell Caulfield.

As I recall, Susan Lucci was also one of the guests in the show's premiere episode. I have no idea what season it aired in, but I remember an episode where Peter Bergman was a guest and he told a story about going to the theater in New York sometime after he had transitioned over to Y&R. People in the audience kept recognizing him and calling him "Jack" and Rosie, who was a few rows back, stood up and irately announced, "His name is Dr. Cliff Warner."

I think his last scene was him meeting up with Trina at Kelly's and then after she left, he took a flask out of his pocket and took a swig.

Some Loving material in the latest round of mixtape uploads: At around the 51 minute mark of the above there's some footage from Jim & Shana's second wedding, following which there's a short scene with Michael Maguire's short-lived Jeff. This one features clips from early in Lisa Peluso's run as Ava:

Their FAQ says it's because ABC owns the viewing rights in the US. I gather this means that ABC doesn't own the international rights.

I feel like they brought her back just long enough to establish/re-establish who the character was for viewers so that afterwards anytime Ross and Blake or Holly and Fletcher were busy doing things on screen they could have a throw away line of dialogue explaining that she was looking after the twins or Meg off screen.

Parts of that set also turn up in the remodeled version of The Tides.

Shana miscarries this baby after a patented soap opera fall down a flight of stairs, which leads to her and Jim divorcing (pointlessly, IMO, since they end up getting remarried less than a year later). Jimmy is born off screen, between Shana's two runs on the show. This really struck me as well. I thought that the conversation she and Jack have when she's considering whether to pursue the modeling contract was particularly strong, with her articulating that her trauma (both her abuse by her father and the more recent incident where a date beats her up) makes her afraid of being objectified or doing anything that could invite attention to herself. I wonder if Jack ever expresses any insight regarding how he's pushing her into this in order to give her a consolation prize to make himself feel less guilty about cutting her loose.

Absolutely, lots of interesting stuff in these videos. I recall that a few years ago that channel had some similar videos with mixes of different shows that included footage from the short story where Trisha and Trucker are taken hostage by an escaped convict. That story is from the summer of '91, so they potentially have a treasure trove of years' worth of material that hasn't been seen in decades.

Thanks! I live in optimism that more episodes will find their way online, but until then I'm happy cataloguing various other aspects of the show. I think Cecelia had more mileage left as a character, particularly considering her relationship with Rick, who was on the verge of being revealed to be an Alden. Instead of breaking them up, the show could have built them up as a couple and then when the Aldens find out about Rick, he could have felt pressure to break it off, partially because of Cecelia's past with Trisha, and partially because his desire to "fit in" with the family drives him to seek out a woman from an upper class family. The conflict between them could have also created conflict between Alex and Ava (not that they necessarily needed extra conflict since Egypt was on her way to Corinth).

My first soap memory is from Y&R, when Victoria was hiding in a closet and saw Ryan having sex with Nina. I was waaaaay too young to be seeing that, but Grandma wasn't about to turn off the TV just because she was babysitting.

I think Laura Wright had a baby at the end of 1998, so that's probably why she isn't on much in early '99. I'm in January/98 in my own viewing and as much as I like Wright on Loving/The City, I'm finding Cassie kind of annoying and tending to side with Dinah in the Dinah/Hart/Cassie triangle, even though I've never been much of a Dinah fan and she's done some pretty offside things. Of course, I'm also finding myself rooting for Annie because Cynthia Watros is so entertaining now that Annie has gone completely off the rails. Can't wait to see her grand finale.

She and Alec Baldwin were on The Doctors together. I hope you post your thoughts on the book as you have been on the show. I've thought about giving Zimmer's book a read for a while, but I've never gotten around to it.

It wasn't that altruistic. He made Tangie a substitute for Blake and was apparently so creepy about it that Tangie spent the years in between getting away from him and running into him in Springfield believing that he had purchased her to be his child bride. It was only when she got to know Blake that she realized that she realized his feelings for her were paternal and suddenly she and Roger became friends.

It turns out to be much dumber than that. The purpose of this little side adventure was to introduce the mystery man, though I believe the original plan for the character may have been different from what ultimately ends up happening.

I'm pretty sure Lucy and Bridget never even have another scene together for the rest of the time they're both on the show. Bridget isn't even invited to the wedding! The lack of community feeling and continuity of non-romantic relationships during this period is very jarring. Characters suddenly only seem to interact with a handful of other characters, rather than characters across the canvas. I'm deep into 1997 in my watch right now and find that it's even stranger because the show goes back and forth between ignoring history in order to manufacture some kind of separation between characters (for example, at one point Amanda refers to the Coopers as a family that the Spauldings "barely know," despite her and Alan spending the better part of 1996 going to war with Buzz over 5th street, and Alan has absolutely no reaction when he finds out about something bad that's happened to Abby, which seems pretty out of character given how close they were in 95/96) and ignoring history in order to create a sense of community that doesn't quite fit (characters who couldn't stand Amanda are suddenly acting all buddy buddy with her). The wheels really feel like they're coming off in 1997 (although I know some would argue that the wheels started to come off years earlier). Watching the Marcus/Dahlia romance again from a 2025 perspective is so weird. Marcus is a full grown man who must be at least in his mid-20s and he's dating a teenager who is not only still in high school, but is still fully a year away from graduation, and no one says anything about how creepy that is. I feel like the buzz around Marcus gave the illusion that the show was more invested in him than it ever actually was. Even during his "big" story where he's arrested for Cutter's murder, he actually doesn't appear on screen very often. He's imprisoned, Griffin is brought on, other characters make a fuss about trying to get him out, but there's a long stretch of time where he doesn't appear at all. I've been keeping episode counts while I watch and between Cutter's death in mid-November of 1995 and the end of the year Marcus/Mambo only appears 7 times (and of that only twice in December).

Abby becomes a speaking character and stays on the show until about 2000. She's one of my favorite characters of this era and I find her evolution over her first couple of years very compelling. Quite a bit of that will happen in 1996. I'm currently in July '97 and can report that Holly/Fletcher will remain MIA, that Nola will be criminally underused (although I know that she has a story coming up), and that Bridget gets quite a bit of story in 1996 but it's terrible and leaves you wondering who had it out for Melissa Hayden behind the scenes because of how insultingly Bridget is treated.

She and Ava were friends. Cecelia lived in the Rescott house for a while after her father died and before she and Steve got married, and Ava was her confidante when she was scheming to hold on to Steve, which put Ava in an awkward position since she knew Clay (Alex) would be angry if he knew she was helping Trisha's rival.

Love it! Hope people keep 'em coming. This sounds about right. DTJB only ended up appearing in 3 episodes from January-March, 1993, so they must have decided a replacement wasn't necessary. Realistically, even Maggie herself became less necessary once Hannah came to the show and Dinah Lee's friendship with Ava was established. Dinah Lee didn't really need a recurring character as a talk to at that point. Albers is my second favorite Curtis, as I felt like he came the closest to Marcantel's version and I thought he had really good sibling chemistry with Noelle Beck. I think that the Curtis/Rocky/Todd triangle was okay (although I'm mostly basing that on reading it through SOD recaps and the clips that Albers posted ages ago), as it seems like it was at least a little bit balanced, but following it up with Curtis/Rocky/Rio, where there doesn't seem to have been a sense that Rocky was in any way torn, was a mistake. If they had to move Curtis and Rocky into another triangle together, it should have been with Jeff. The show had the set up for him being redeemed during his time in Dunellen and establishing a bond with Rocky while she worked there, which could have transitioned to her trying to help him reestablish himself outside the institution and developing feelings for him, but feeling guilty about it because of everything he did to Trucker and Trisha and sticking with Curtis (for a while) as a result.

That's Hamp, played by Vince Williams. He was introduced as an old friend of Billy's and was married to Gilly for a while. I believe he was still contract at this point, though he didn't appear often after he and Gilly divorced and his daughter, Kat, left town. Williams passed away in 1997.

It's funny that there's all this talk of Ceara's demise, as I actually just wrote the recap for that episode of Loving. I totally agree with this. I'm 42, started watching soaps in '93 (although I have some memories of seeing soaps before that, thanks to my mom watching Days and GH and grandma watching Y&R) and watched pretty religiously through the rest of my teens and the '90s is always what I gravitate to first when I'm looking to pick up a new soap playlist. I know that it's because Collins and Kiberd had chemistry, but I've always found it kind of strange that after building the Jeremy & Natalie pairing for years, on and off, they finally made it official and then split them up with no question of ever returning to it.