vetsoapfan

Forget degenerate mobsters and brain-dead serial killers. These were the REAL stars of GH.

I miss our valley.

Gil Gerard was a hunk and a half.

Agreed.

And God knows, CBS might have provided dictates to the show that were as bad or worse than P&G's. Exhibit A: the Secret Storm.

Ahhh, the good old days.

Oh yes, with competent and talented PTB, who understand what had made the show special to begin with and who used and respected its history, TGL might still have been with us today. By 1984, the show had been dealt a series of death blow, and staggered through the next several years aimlessly without a rudder. It was hard going for longtime fans, as we watched it slip deeper and deeper into the quagmire. Then capable individuals like Robert Calhoun, Pamela Long, and Nancy Curlee worked some serious magic on the show and it revived dramatically. By 1988/9, "our" TGL was back. We went from enduring a dreadful hot mess on-screen to enjoying a much-appreciated renaissance. Unfortunately, it did not lasted forever. Nancy Curlee left in 1994, I believe, and after her departure, the show generally suffered from weak-to-atrocious writing until its cancellation in 2009. (Apart from the all-too-brief tenure of Millie Taggart and Carolyn Culliton in 2003, but they only last 10 months and did not have the time to repair all the damage.) We also had incompetence producers who did not understand the show, its history, and the audience (killing off Maureen Bauer, the matriarch, was unreal), and we had twits like MADD at P&G, who had no clue what she was doing and trumpeted that awful mob and San Cristocrap dreck. A shoot-out in the Bauer kitchen, OMFG!!! So if TGL had been blessed to keep folks like Robert Calhoun and Nancy Curlee around, I think the show could have been saved. But once incompetence ran from top to bottom, from MADD to the producers to the writers, AND THIS INCOMPETENCE WAS NEVER ADDRESSED AND RECTIFIED, I knew our soap was doomed. I was always amazed that it lasted for those final 15 years. And Peapack was the ultimate slap in the face to the show and the audience. Yes, I loved that too. When trying to choose my one, single favorite, it was a toss-up between Ritournelle and My Guiding Light.

My favorite theme music was My Guiding Light, and my favorite writers were Irna Phillips and Agnes Nixon, but I was also quite happy with the work of the Robert Soderberg and Edith Sommer, the Dobsons, Douglas Marland, Pat Falken Smith, and Nancy Curlee's team. As far as I know, this is the earliest episode of TGL known to exist.

To her credit, Long admitted (after her first stint as headwriter) that the fantasy stuff she and producer Gail Kobe foisted on the show wasn't necessarily right for TGL, and she had learned that between telling outlandish stories or intimate human drama, it was better to "get real". Soap editorialist Mimi Torchin interviewed Gail Kobe, however, and reported that Kobe was convinced attention-getting plots were more important than character. GK clearly did not understand TGL or the audience.

The soap really dragged in the beginning, and the writing was so lethargic. However, in the last several months, with vastly improved writing and some charismatic new characters, the show took off and the ratings spiked. I was sorry to see RTPP end, but it was sweet that the final scene was with Rodney and Allison reunited. When her dyed-blonde hair fell out, Glass sued the network, which is never a good idea if you want to stay employed. Susan Brown also had major issues with her dyed hair; she said it burned and ached to the point of being unbearable.

Collection three of the ABC-TV nighttime soap Peyton Place is being released next month, not Return to Peyton Place, which was an NBC daytime soap.

I could post hot pictures all day, but I don't want to drive anyone crazy with 9 million shots, LOL.

Hold back my hair, I'm going to hurl. There are sooooooo many reasons to loathe the atrocious writing during that era of DAYS.

When Don Chastain was finished writing SFT, he admitted that all the suits cared about was copying GH and what that show was during. They did not care if it was good for SFT or not, if it was true to SEARCH's history and characters or not, they just wanted SFT to mimic GH in hopes of achieving better ratings. The endless incompetence of TPTB knows no bounds.

I wish I could remember who the final writers of this show were. RTPP was dreadfully written throughout most of its run, but suddenly took off and became very good during its final few months. The ratings rose dramatically too. It's a shame NBC didn't give it another year with those fine, final writers. I believe the show would have become a success.

That's another interesting story. I'm really in the mood to watch this entire series again. It petered out in the last season after Dorothy malone was fired, but the first few years in particular were quite well done.

I can tolerate subtle tinges of the supernatural too, as long as they are presented as characters' perceptions and beliefs, rather than actual "facts" that the audience is supposed to accept as real. Someone believing she is sensing a spirit is a far cry from flying through paintings and back in time. UGH. I did not care for Shannon either, and was happy when she was off the show, but it would not surprise me if the network or P&G forced their stupidity onto Marland. They did it on most shows and writers throughout the decades, particularly when the ratings were not as high as they wanted. Offensive, brain-dead camp certainly dealt soaps a death blow; I've always said that. Unfortunately, the suits always beat a dead horse into the ground and never learned their lessons.

I was very unhappy with Pam Long during her first reign on TGL, when 2/3 of the cast was purged and stupid sci-fi/fantasy plots were inflicted on us, but she did become a much better writer the more she "got real" and focused on interpersonal relationships, romance, and family drama. Her handling of the Rick and Phillip relationship was wonderful, and she handled Bert Bauer very well. TGL, to me, ended up representing Pam Long's best work in daytime TV.

Robert Cenedella replaced Lipton as head writer. He was better, but not by much.

Danson played Tom Conway on SOMERSET in 1975 and 76, replacing Michael Nouri in the role. He then went on to play Mitch Pierson on TD in 1977.

Yes, the show took a shot of the late Macdonald Carey and had the deceased Tom Horton's ghost chasing Marlena around the Horton living room. UGH. It might have been the worst, most tasteless moment in the show's history...until Marlena rammed doughnuts down Alice's throat. I'll take Lilith and the shrunken head over the garbage that we had had to endure on DAYS, any day!

If the show had given the audience a plausible, or at least POSSIBLE, reason for Marlena's demented behavior, perhaps. Was she being drugged with mind-altering chemicals? Did she have a brain tumor? Had she become schizophrenic? But as the story played out on-screen, it just became dumber and dumber (again, IMO) and impossible. I found the scenes of Tom Horton's head floating around to be offensive to boot. I've never been able to take Marlena seriously as a character again.

It takes careful writing to pull off stories that touch on supernatural themes. The writers have to reign events in so they do not get absurd. Most soaps have been unable to do this. Characters believing in the afterlife, or being convinced that they can feel the presence or spirit of a dead loved one, is fine. I daresay that happens to most of us one time or another. Characters like April Cavanaugh on TEON experiencing extrasensory flashes is still within the realm of reality, because even police departments have been known to use psychics. But the shows should not (IMHO) get into ludicrous material that simply do not happen: mad scientists freezing the world, heroines jumping into paintings and travelling through time, anyone flying to heaven on a space ship or discovering secret underground cities, people getting cloned, possessed by Satan and "murdering" (but not really) half the town, etc. To me, there's a big difference between a show presenting us with a character who believes in the supernatural, and the show PRESENTING THE SUPERNATURAL AS FACT that we are all supposed to accept.