Jdee43

It's a shame the Dobsons weren't hired by any soaps after Santa Barbara. They definitely could have elevated the mid to late 90s and 2000s. 1984 Santa Barbara isn't that wretched; just fast forward all the scenes with the younger characters and it almost becomes watchable. The most quirky part of 1984 are the Lockridges, which might have been the characters who were also the most autobiographical for the Dobsons.

It's too bad that Sam and Lahoma were forgotten after 1974. With Sam being Ada's brother, they gave Ada and Rachel family ties and people to talk to. Sam was also friends with Steve. I guess Ann Wedgeworth was hitting the big time by 1973 and wasn't coming back. They had Sam as a stand alone character for a year in 1974, but I guess that didn't work out and he was gone. The actor Jordan Charney did play other soaps in the mid 70s, including OLTL. I guess the writers tried to create new characters that echoed Sam and Lahoma, Sam and Lahoma types, but the new characters didn't have the family ties or the history of the originals. A Sam and Lahoma return, with original Sam and a recast Lahoma, with their kids, could have been interesting, especially in the early or mid 80s, but I guess the show had gone through so many writers by then, perhaps the writers weren't aware those characters even existed. I believe neither was mentioned for the 25th anniversary?

Lois has been written like a cartoon. You'd think on Thursday's show, they'd finally let her get real and say that yeah, she did have a problem with her best friend marrying her ex-husband. Then maybe her and Olivia could have had a deep conversation for once, but nope. Very disappointing.

I don't understand why they killed off Luke in the first place. For him to say goodbye to his sister, he has to come back from the dead. It's ridiculous. Was part of the show's delay in dealing with Bobbie's passing giving Geary the opportunity to get in shape and look presentable when he appears?

I was wondering, what was the point of killing off Luke back in January 2022? Did Geary piss off people behind the scenes? Or did Geary sign off on how they ended his character? The guy was the star of the show for 30 years, and that's how they end his character? I hope he makes a cameo as Luke alive, watching from afar, whenever they do Bobbie's funeral. He always wanted his character to be a bastard. That would be a bastard thing to do, to let everyone think he's dead, and he just walks away from it all. Maybe that would be enough character assassination for him to come back, since he really should be there for Bobbie's funeral.

I thought Tristian Rogers was always a fan of Gloria Monty's? She brought him on, kept him on, and made him the star of the show when Tony Geary left. Wasn't Rogers going to leave at the end of 1990, and her coming back convinced him to stay one more year? Was that year so bad, that at the end of it, he not only left, but bad mouthed Gloria to ABC and helped get her fired too? I find that hard to believe. I thought Rogers was always going to leave at the end of 1991/ beginning of 1992 no matter what, that there was no way to get him to stay.

In the summer of 1990, weren't they repeating the same general stories from 10 years before? Alan and Monica were having affairs, and there was also a young couple on the run, falsely accused, with the latter story set in a strange place, the circus? And then in the winter ABC brings back the EP who did those stories originally back in 1980? ABC must really have wanted to recapture GH's heyday. It's surprising they didn't give Monty more time to work magic, only a year. I guess ultimately she wasn't well liked by those in charge. The whole thing smacks of hubris; Monty thought she could do anything, but then found out quite different.

It's just funny, in the late 80s, Days of our Lives gets General Hospital's Laura, while Anotner World gets Laura's parents. Another sign of Another World's second class status by then.

For the 86-89 period, I never understood why they would bring on Denise Alexander and Chris Robinson. Were they trying to recapture the magic of Rick and Lesley on General Hospital? Were Rick and Lesley even that magical that they deserved to be reunited on another show? Would people really tune in for that? If they were going to take stars and couples from other shows, how about taking younger ones? Or better yet, how about mining Another World's own history and the history of its spin-offs for people to bring on?

Instead of everyone pretending like she looks the same as she did in 2008, it would be really interesting if they dealt on-screen with how she looks now, especially from her point of view. The show and those involved probably couldn't handle something that real though.

I think I'm going to say the first 4 months of Texas were worse than the first 4 months of Santa Barbara! There were so many uncharismatic actors on Texas, either very green or full of ticks (Jerry Lanning being one of the worst offenders). The writing was very boring too. What they did to Iris, turning her into some sort of tame romantic heroine, felt very wrong. Her story, and the casting of her beau, weren't very inspired. Also, the show had a strange feel to it; it was set in Texas but shot in Brooklyn? It never really felt like Texas to me. At least with Santa Barbara, it felt like Southern California; in that small way, perhaps NBC learned a little something from one of their earlier failures.

The episodes are still free to watch on the itsrealgoodtv website, but there are now commercials, 30 second ones spaced throughout the episodes. Presumably they'll make more money this way than the $2.99 a month memberships? On the 1968 episodes, the video for me is still jagged. The motion is not continuous. I'm watching their website on a Samsung smart TV, which never seemed to go well with their technology. Hopefully they'll fix things some day..

I always got a William Shatner vibe from him, in a good way. In his best scenes, he always had a Shatner type of energy, connection, sincerity.

Which is considered worst, the first four months of Texas in 1980 or the first four months of Santa Barbara in 1984?

If Bing Crosby Productions was involved, any chance this show might still exist? They found Game 7 of the 1960 World Series in Bing Crosby's cellar. Maybe if they looked, they'd find some Bright Promise too? Maybe someone should contact Retro TV..

Does anyone know the story behind Dana Andrew's participation in Bright Promise? He was the star of a lot of great movies from the 1940s. I always thought it odd for him to be picked to star in a soap opera, and for him to accept. From the late 50s to early 60s, he was doing TV, but then in the mid to late 60s, he went back to doing only movies. On Bright Promise, was he actually playing a lead character, on every day, or was he more of a background character, showing up here and there? In the beginning, Bright Promise also had Coleen Gray, another star of movies from the late 40s and 1950s. I don't think she ever played a starring role in a movie with Andrews, but she may have been in one with him. By the 60s, she was mainly doing TV. I would imagine the producers pairing Andrews and Gray, for old time movie sake. Is that what happened? It looks like Gray only lasted about a year on the show though.

I'm up to episode 100. At the moment, it seems like Nicholas Coster is now the star of the show. He's in every storyline, appearing everyday. Joe is an afterthought; he hasn't been on in 14 shows, almost 3 weeks. Episode 100 features another pretty blonde in a skimpy bikini. It also features location footage with Lionel on his boat and then in the water, diving with the blonde. The episode gives Nicholas Coster an additional credit as "underwater consultant." Was that one of his hobbys?

The end of episode 98 and the beginning of episode 99 have a classic soap opera production/continuity error. 98 ends with Peter in a hospital bed. 99 begins with Peter in the same bed, repeating the same scene, only this time sporting a new haircut and a shave.

It doesn't. Is this the worst mistake ABC ever made?

I never knew Paul Rauch got his start in daytime by working at CBS Daytime for a couple of years, until late 1971. To go from playing a role in running the daytime division of a broadcast network to running a P&G show on another network is an interesting career change.

Thanks! It would have been interesting to see a soap with a western format! TV westerns were so popular in the late 50s, and the networks were always eager to bring what worked in primetime to daytime. A soap opera version of Gunsmoke would have been interesting!

Wasn't ABC considered something of a joke through the 50s and 60s, for their lack of stations and programming? In 1955-56, their only daytime show was The Mickey Mouse Club. Then 1957, they brought in American Bandstand. What was ABC's first attempt at a soap opera? Was it General Hospital in 1963? I think they had scripted daytime shows earlier, but that they were in the anthology format. Can we say that GH was their first continuing, serialized daytime drama?

Watching through episode 96 (12/11/84), the show is so over Joe. He hasn't appeared since episode 86 and is barely being mentioned. In the beginning, with Dane playing him, Joe was on every day. Mason is definitely more interesting now that everyone hates him. He has a good scene with CC in the beginning of episode 96, where he threatens CC with a broken bottle. Mason quotes Shakespeare in episode 96 too, for the first time I think. I was surprised that the writers went so far as to have Mason leave Peter to die back in episode 87. I never knew he was an attempted murderer. Since Peter later becomes a serial killer, this becomes no big deal or is dropped? Episode 96 features Andrea Howard as Veronica. Like others in the cast, she's beautiful, but just can't act. She's supposed to be playing Mason at Lionel's behest, but you can hardly tell with her performance; she talks to Mason and Lionel in the same way; subtly and nuance was a little beyond her.

Really sad. Nancy was great.

Hugh Marlowe was awful in the 1980/81 episodes uploaded to AOL, obviously reading off cue cards and probably not in good health. I recently saw him in the 1951 western Rawhide, and he was good. Seeing him in 1981, time was not kind to him.