Jdee43

Lemay came on in 1971, Rauch in 1972. From 1971-1974, they pretty much continued the show as it had been under Agnes Nixon, with its escapist star-crossed love triangles. But then in 1975, with the expansion to an hour, it seemed they were given permission by NBC or Lin Bolen, to do more of their own thing. They did and transformed the show into a high-brow theater hour, focusing on their favorites and on psychological conflicts. It was good from 1975-1979, but it was a bit overhyped and wasn't sustainable. Lin Bolen was into psychological, realistic drama, as seen from the failed soap opera she developed and pushed from 1974-1975, How to Survive a Marriage. I wonder how much of the new one hour AW in 1975 was Bolen encouraging/ordering Lemay and Rauch to incorporate some elements of her How to Survive a Marriage. Or perhaps Lemay and Rauch were fans of How to Succeed, and incorporated elements of it on their own?

The Eva / Tomas scenes at the end -- to see a good actress having to play a scene with someone giving her less than nothing -- that was painful.

Sonny, a week or two after having open heart surgery, walking around with his shirt unbuttoned to a V neck, showing no signs of stitches or even a scar..

Lois's return has been a bust. So disappointing that the writers have never written for her. As with Tracy, the pool of GH vets is so thin, there's no one to pair her with. Doubtful they would go to the trouble of properly recasting a legacy character and then sticking him with Lois; they're obviously not that invested. If she wants to be on this show, it'll be as a noisy grandma who stays in the background.

I don't think Lois the character was there. The Lois we knew from the 90s has pretty much died with this Gio story crap.

Looking at the big picture, in what sense did Another World influence this show? Many of the same people, from writers, actors, and executive producers, worked on both shows, usually working first on AW. What impact did that have on OLTL? Did they try to make OLTL a little like AW, consciously or unconsciously? Could OLTL have been seen at some points as just AW but on ABC?

The Sonny stuff has been crap. No stakes, no emotion, no pay off, just filling up airtime. I never liked the rewriting of the history between Mike and Sonny, of how the Sonny of the last few years is now supposed to give a damn about Mike; please. Sonny should just leave already. Give Maurice another character if he wants to, maybe the hospital chaplin, so he can still be mushy and hug it out with people. Also I don't understand why the show chose an attractive young female to be the assassin; a little misogynistic touch there perhaps?

I think Margaret DePriest's first head writing stint was a very low point for the show, especially late 1986 to mid 1987. Trying to inject life into AW with a serial killer story never worked; AW wasn't that kind of show. There were also some poor casting choices during this time, with Vicky & Nicole miscast, letting go of Nancy, and long time characters like Larry & Clarice disappearing or, like Quinn, getting killed off. For me, the final nail in the coffin was 1988, with letting Lemay go after the strike. That told you all you needed to know about how P&G felt about the show. Bringing in scab Donna Swajeski, presumably at less pay, was a terrible choice. Swajeski is a mediocre writer at best. She might have been boringly competent, but she was never going to make a show special. AW might have had a renaissance in 1989 had P&G kept Lemay.

Would you say that Search from around 1975 to its end had the handsomest cast on daytime? It seemed like you had to be really handsome or pretty to be on this show. Acting talent was a nice bonus, but not necessary; it seemed to be all about looks.

This show has a lot of interesting elements, but a lot of boring filler material too. Perhaps if it was 30 minutes, we'd get more of the interesting and less of the boring. 60 minutes, especially for a brand new soap, is hard.

What they did to the Capwells they'd later do to the Quartermaines on GH, claim the family was super toxic when the family really was not.

1975, with the expansion to an hour, was the year the show was totally transformed. The previous 11 years, with its emphasis on couples fighting to be together against all odds, and on the Matthews clan, were basically thrown out. Now we got an attempt at a high brow theater hour, focusing on Rachel and Mac and whomever Lemay and Raunch wanted to feature. This version of the show was good for 4 years, but by 1979 it had crumbled. Unfortunately, it was this ruin of a show, with its flimsy foundations, forgetful of what happened before 1975, that we got for the next 20 years. Victoria Wyndham was completely on board with the changes that happened in 1975. Little doubt as to why, as Rauch and Lemay did make her the star of the show. But again, the changes weren't sustainable. They led to 20 years of mediocrity from 1979-1999.

Why do you think Victoria Wyndham lasted so long on the show? The last link to the glory days of the 70s? It's a bit ironic, as from her interviews it sounds like she disliked the history of the show and the show itself.

I'm watching the episodes where Peter kidnaps Kelly after her wedding to Joe, from mid-February 1985, 139 on. Their scenes are well acted. I'm struck by all the outdoor location work. Kelly's menaced by a snake and a cougar while trying to get away from Peter. She even blows up a car. The show seemed to have money to burn doing all this stuff! I'm not enjoying the other main story as much, with Sophia. Her disguises and accents are just so lame, it's hard to believe no one would recognize her. I'm not sure if Judith McConnell is quite the right actress for this current storyline. She can't do creditable accents for the life of her. Lionel has been kept in jail for too long. Back in December 84, he almost seemed to be the new star of the show. Having him in jail for two months has really diminished his role.

Just when it seemed like they were turning Vernon and Anita into Tom and Alice from Days of our Lives, they have scenes like those at the end of Thursday's episode! I'd love to see more of that 😈

Hobo Lucky going down memory lane with Liz hasn't been cutting it. It works only if you pretend that the characters haven't seen each other since the late 1990s and ignore 26 years of stories. Lucky's been back for over 7 months, and it still feels like he's only a guest star. He hasn't been integrated into the canvas at all.

I'm happy they didn't just kill Ric off.. such pettiness has been known to happen with this show..

This show really needs to up the crazy. What are they waiting for?

The anniversary show was unwatchable. So many wrong characters featured; so many shallow stories with no connection to the heart of the show. The constant fawning of Laura over Sonny lately has been ridiculous. Who wants to see any of that? It doesn't do any one any favors. That this is what they're now devoting most of Laura's screen time to is sad. The show continues to use her poorly. The writing for her the last few years has been terrible.

It still seems like it's mostly actresses who leave this show.

Sad. She's just bad news.

TJ has gone to hang with Taggert.

Just a reshuffling of chairs on the Titanic. Nothing is going to fundamentally change; they have their formula down.

This show is channeling early Santa Barbara's Sophia, with Leslie and her lame attempts at disguising herself. Also Naomi being mad at Jacob for arresting her mom echoes Eden being mad at Cruz for arresting Sophia.

It gets better in January 1985 with the start of the serial killer storyline. It starts out of nowhere with episode 114. If you go back a week though, to 109, you can see the start of Cruz and Eden as an official couple, with Cruz manhandling Eden, tackling her to the floor, treating her like crap -- that time period's way of showing how much chemistry they would have.. The storyline from 109 that Cruz and Eden are in about a sunken ship gets dropped as Cruz eventually becomes the chief cop investigating the serial killer. From the start, Cruz is laughably terrible at his job, letting the killer easily escape, inadvertently giving the killer the heads up as to where his victim will be, etc.