vetsoapfan

Lillian Raines and Alexandra Spaulding.

Janice Lynde did not know how good she had it on Y&R, and all the great material William J. Bell gave her to play, if dreck like Escapade was the alternative. Yikes!

YES! It would be great if you assembled all of your on-line material into a single blog. Imagine a webpage filled with nothing but vintage articles, the best of the best, culled from wonderful magazines of yesteryear. Woohoo! I have often thought that we in the SON community, should start our own video-archive page, with extensive collections of soap opera episodes from around the web. We could have individualized sections for each show, like "THE GUIDING LIGHT: 1950s," "GENERAL HOSPITAL: 1970s," "AS THE WORLD TURNS: 1980s," etc. It would be an ever greater asset if we could also edit these archives in order to put each new video addition into chronological order. TGL: 05/11/52, followed by TGL: 05/17/52, and so forth. The task would be herculean task , but in the end, it (like your potential magazine-article blog) would be worth the effort.

Some time after Hoylrod's firing, Goutman or Sheffer gave an interview implying SH couldn't play the "dark Paul" they wanted to write. What a joke. Inability to convincingly play emotion never stopped them from writing it for Hunt Block for five friggin' years. LONG, LONG years. Hoylrod fit in so well with all his tv family---ugh, it still pisses me off TIIC chose to chase the ABC fanbase and hire Howarth. If Rose had stayed the six-month character she was originally written as---I could have dealt with MB's little vanity project. (I mean, one of ATWT's top ten funniest moments is Holden incredulously asking "that's your REAL voice?" when he finally figured out he wasn't sleeping with his wife of umpteen years) But three years of bad red wig and horrid accent? *rolleyes* Who went from smarmy little showgirl grifter to Oakdale's newly anointed Saint? NO thanks. And, IMO, it permanently damaged the character of Lily. I mean, I get that you can only be kidnapped so many times. But it's like the writers forgot who Lily was. Because Rose was so over-the-top loud and colorful, Lily became this meek little, dirt-brown wearing frump. Lily didn't wear colors again (I swear) until Noelle Beck took over the role. The problem is, hammy Howarth was like a bull in a china shop, and lacked the ability to bring nuance, depth, and charm to the role. He portrayed Paul as a loud-mouthed, nose-flaring, simple-minded slug. Grayson McC's version of Dusty was also one-dimensional, boorish, greasy, and had no chemistry with anyone on-screen. Craig Montgomery, who had been so complex in Scott Bryce's hands, turned into a campy caricature under Hunt Block, and all three of these once-vibrant, wonderful characters were destroyed by atrocious writing and inexplicable casting mistakes. At the time, the team of Stern and Black, who were hired to headwrite ATWT in 1996, were roundly condemned as being perhaps the worst writers ever to disgrace the show. Disgruntled viewers should have waited before making any definitive judgment on that, LOL. Our poor ATWT was later taken over by the likes of Hogan Sheffer, Jean Passanante, Leah Laiman, David Kreizman, and Lloyd Gold. As dreadful as Stern and Black were, they were (IMHO) marginally better than the scribes who followed them.

On the far left is Larry Gates, best known to soap fans as HB Lewis on THE GUIDING LIGHT. Next to him is Darryl Welles.

P.J., I agree 100%, and was just about to write the exact same thing. The dreadful miscasting of Paul and Dusty was EGREGIOUS. Paul Hoylrod had been so charming as Paul, and Brian Broom's sweet, noble Dusty had nothing whatsoever in common with Grayson McC's smug, smarmy version. Add to that, the awful choice to replace Scott Bryce as Craig Montgomery with Hunt Block made me cringe every time I watched any scenes featuring the "fake" Paul, Dusty, or Craig.

TPTB knew from way back in the mid-1980s that viewers were clamoring for the return of certain characters like Mike and Hope Bauer on TGL, or Pat Randolph and other core characters on AW. Sadly, they not only failed to bring such beloved characters back, but over the next few decades TPTB continued to eliminate other viable, popular, beloved characters as well. It boggles the mind how little P&G and the producers and writers they hired knew (or cared) about either the shows or their audience.

Seeing Andrew in these just reminds me again of how rare it is on soaps in the last 20 years to have strong characters who are also decent, caring people - people who represent humanity...especially male characters. That soaps became so contemptuous of this type of character is one of the reasons for the genre's fade into irrelevance. WORD! I have long bemoaned the soap genre's insistence on marginalizing (or eliminating altogether) characters with a moral conscience, and celebrating instead degenerate thugs, hit men and rapists. Give me Larry Wolek over Todd Manning, or Steve Hardy over Luke Spencer, any day.

As tepid as the character of Noah was at times, and as stagnant as the character of Luke could be, I do give kudos to ATWT for telling this story on a once EXTREMELY conservative series. Thanks to the baby steps taken by shows like ATWT, the acceptance of gay characters has broadened across the board on television, and that is a good thing. It reminds me of how the soaps gingerly introduced black characters into the mix way back when. Some viewers rebelled against the very idea, but the audience eventually came around. Was the writing for the Luke and Noah saga good? Not particularly. But it helped open the flood gates of diversity, and I appreciate that at least.

After Jane Elliot's dismissal, it was reported that Allen Potter felt the ratings during the initial part of the Carrie Todd story did not justify the saga continuing. This angered Douglas Marland, who had had additional plans for the character. While ratings do matter, I am a firm believer in allowing writers like Marland the freedom to write as they see fit. In any case, during the 1981/82 season, in which Elliot appeared, TGL had a rating of 8.0. This was quite healthy, considering the show was pitted against GH, which was a cultural phenomenon and the center of so much hype and media attention at that time. After Marland left the show, I had high hopes for Springfield when the great Pat Falken Smith took over the writing reigns. Upon her abrupt dismissal, however, the bottom simply fell out and the show went into free fall. The annihilation of the Bauer family, the gutting of numerous vets, and the noticeable changes in the series' style and tone were harmful to TGL, and made all the worse by a revolving door of writers, and by unfamiliar faces parading across the screen. By the 1989/90 season, TGL's ratings had plunged to a precarious 5.4. The 1980s were not the best of times for TGL. As a decades-long viewer, I would have eagerly accepted more Carrie Todd over a screaming Reva any day.

Ahh, the original Chris Brooks and Snapper Foster, as played by Trish Stewart and William Gray Espy. They had great chemistry and burned up the screen.

Yes, although it would be a lot of work to track them down, and I couldn't find many of them it would frustrate me...which is why I have been putting it off so so long. At least when I started EMMERDALE FARM, there were many episodes readily available, dating back to the premiere, on youtube.

Actually, yes, that's something I've always meant to do. Trouble is, I would want to start from the very first episode, and not come in decades after the fact.

As someone who grew up listening to radio broadcasts, I have no problem listening to audio-only soap episodes. I can close my eyes and visualize the characters, just like I did when listening to TGL eps from the early 1950s.

During its final, painful years, ATWT's disrespect to many of its vets was egregious. I remember when they just dropped Patricia Bruder from the cast, without mentioning for a very long time what had happened to Ellen Stewart; where she had gone. I actually preferred the character of Vicky over Kate, because Velekka Gray really sparkled in the role and had wonderful charisma on-screen. I think this was her best soap opera character. Kate ended up being carted off to a mental hospital, but in an interview at the time, Tina Sloan said the character had not been killed off, and would be returning later on, although she never did. I probably would have kept both characters around. Audrey Landers was an interesting case. As an actress, she was quite limited and did not have a great deal of range, yet she was very LIKABLE and sweet. I would have kept her character on the show too, just because of her immense likability factor. (I'm trying to think of another actor to compare her to; another actor who was not talented by any means, but who projected an endearing sweetness, which was oddly endearing to watch. The only name that comes to mind is Marty West.) Sigourney Weaver was quite good on the show. She projected a sense of humor into the character which was fresh and fun to watch. Say what you will about the weak structure of the show, and its poor track record among head writers, but its casting was often excellent.

No, I don't think the last year was the best, not in terms of overall writing. TPTB organized a better structure to the show, making the newspaper a core hub of the action, which was a smart idea. Several great characters were front and center, like Julian, Victoria Paisley, Carrie Wheeler and Steve Slade (the wonderful Gene Bua, who could have emerged as a major leading man had SOMERSET continued) who had good chemistry with their romantic partners. I just think that the writing was not as strong in 1976 as it had been under Slesar and Winsor. Had either of these men been writing the show when the likes of Julian, Vicky, Carrie, and Steve been on-screen, sparks would have flown. As for Ellen Grant, she disappeared several months before the show's cancellation (the actress was on medical leave, as I recall), and not even mentioned for stretches at a time. It was finally revealed that Ellen was out of town with her sister India, and we never saw her again before SOMERSET ended. I liked her relationship with the younger Dale Cooper, and felt that could have worked, but nothing the show gave Ellen to do after that romance was cut short worked particularly well. It almost felt TPTB were keeping her around just because she was the last original cast member on the show. If Georgann Johnson had returned, maybe the final writers could have thought of something interesting and important to do with her.

The writing for Deborah Saxon was better and more versatile than a lot of what we see on primetime TV. DARN! I have got to stop reading all these threads about cancelled soaps. It's making me so nostalgic for material we will never have the opportunity to see again; material that will live on in our memories, but SHOULD live on via DVD!

Daily TV Serials was MY FAVORITE soap opera magazine back in the day, although we were lucky to have several great ones like Afternoon TV, Rona Barrett's Daytimers, and Daytime TV. TV Dawn to Dusk was probably the weakest, but I bought them all, anyway, and would happily sit down and read them all again. The daytime press today simply sucks in comparison. Thank you so much for posting all this great material. Even though I probably miss some of it, not opening every thread in every forum, I absolutely adore stumbling across everything like this you present us with.

Kudos to Frances Fisher for being respectful about her time on the soaps, when so many other actors (I'm talking about YOU, Meg Ryan) make a point of denigrating the medium. Fisher did great work on EDGE, and she should be proud of it.

I also think AW missed a big opportunity in its last episode. When Grant turned up alive in Tanquir, think what a treat it would have been if Grant was plotting against the citizens of Bay City with McKinsey's Iris and Nancy Frangione's Cecile as they toast to "revenge." AW did not have a lot of time to wrap up, but that would have been a treat to long time fans of the show if three of AW's greatest villains appeared in the last episode plotting their revenge. Chris Goutman and P&G were simply stupid and incompetent, and no one in charge had any clue abouthow to handle AW or even ATWT. Watching the final episodes of both serials was painful. Goutman brought back fan favorite Sam Groom (ex-Russ Matthews) for AW's finale, but to what conceivable purpose? Just to play an anonymous, irrelevant nobody and not the patriarch of the Matthews family, the show's original core family? So were were treated to a gorilla, but not any returning Matthews or other longtime fan favorites? So frustrating!

I have always felt that the slaughtering of multiple members of Meta's family over the years doomed the character to oblivion, which she eventually fell into during the early 1970s. Chuckie, Kathy, Joey, and Robin represented the next generation of Meta's branch of the family, and eliminating them all from the story was a curious choice that I did not appreciate then, and which annoys me again, even today. Of all her men, Meta had the best chemistry with Joe Roberts. The show never seemed particularly dedicated to the character of Bruce Banning, and I do wish Irna Phillips had not killed off Joe in such a pointless fashion. With Bill Bauer being such a screw up, and with Papa Bauer's death, a solidly-married Meta and Joe could have become Springfield's answer to Chris and Nancy Hughes. Virtually the ONLY right decision TPTB made in the mid-1990s was to bring Meta Bauer back home.

It is so important for a soap opera to be well conceived and written right from the start. If potential viewers decide to give a new series a chance, and get turned off by lackluster writing, chances are those viewers will not come back again. When I saw that Robert Cenedella would be the headwriter for SOMERSET, I was apprehensive from the start, seeing as how his work on AW had been so tepid. SOMERSET, when it premiered, was not atrocious by any means. It just wasn't very interesting either. The show didn't really improve until the great Henry Slesar took over the writing reigns. Slesar and soap vet Roy Winsor turned out great material during their separate reigns as this show's headwriters, but I think by the time these gentlemen took over, viewers had already felt burned by SOMERSET's weak writing and revolving-door syndrome, and were not apt to give it another look. The same thing happened to RETURN TO PEYTON PLACE, HOW TO SURVIVE A MARRIAGE, WHERE THE HEART IS, TEXAS, CAPITOL, and several other daytime dramas which opened with mediocre (or downright atrocious) writing, and never soared in the ratings, even when the quality of their writing improved dramatically. As a viewer from the beginning to the end, I found SOMERSET to be wonderful entertainment at times, and almost impossible to sit through at others. If it has opened with either Slesar or Winsor as its headwriter, and if it had been consistent with its themes and characters, I believe it would have enjoyed stronger ratings and a much longer-lasting life. (Still, even considering its weaker stretches, SOMERSET was better than the dreck daytime dramas viewers are being force-fed today!)

Exactly. Channel praised William J. Bell for his work on DAYS, even though the storylines under his reign were filled with the usual soap staples or cliches. It's not the storylines per se that matter most, because by now, every story possible has already been told in one medium or another. The most important thing is how the plots are carried out and delivered on a daily basis, and how the stories affect the characters involved. I think Channel's assessment of AMC was gratuitously harsh. That being said, as a longtime viewer who has had the privilege of watching much of Nixon's work, I do believe that the highlights of her career were penning THE GUIDING LIGHT and (particularly) ANOTHER WORLD, two shows which saw her at the pinnacle of her talents. The first few years of OLTL were also outstanding. I would personally put her writing on those three shows above her work on AMC, but that is not to say the citizens of Pine Valley ever suffered under guidance, either.

So for example, the golden cradle arc on GL (like I mentioned before) was fine because it was somewhat rooted in reality? I gotta go re-watch the Dreaming Death story on GL and reform my opinion again b/c couldn't that story be rooted in realism? Or was it so absurd you just couldn't accept it? Nola Reardon was a character who, herself, lived in a world of fantasy. Old movies and daydreams about a Hollywoodized existence were what kept her going during the rough times. Involving a person like her in a somewhat fantastical plot would work for me more than, for example, having Bert Bauer in a safari hat, searching for extraterrestrial treasure in the jungles of Peru, LOL. I can enjoy science fiction or fantasy very much when it's presented well in an appropriate setting. I loved the first season of ROSWELL, the first V miniseries from 1983, etc., but trying to suddenly graft one medium into another (sci-fi into soaps, ballet into sci-fi, whatever) usually does not work for me because the results more often than not are awkward failures. For me personally, outside of DARK SHADOWS, which was intended to be a non-traditional series which dealt with the supernatural and fantasy), I cannot think of a single example of a sci-fi or fantasy storyline that has worked well on daytime TV. Indeed, the inclusion of these painfully-awful plots is what made me finally drop several of my once-favorite soaps.

@@vetsoapfan, so you don't care for any sensationalized story? Like the wonderful arc of Quint and Nola searching for the Golden cradle? If they are rooted in realism could you like them? If the story at least remains within the realm of possibility, I can accept it. If the material becomes so ridiculous, so absurd, that it falls completely into the fantasy/science-fiction camp, I do not believe it's suitable for the soap medium. Having a main character kidnapped by an extraterrestrial would be perfectly reasonable and acceptable within the STAR TREK franchise, but I don't want to see Laura Ingalls Wilder beaming aboard a space ship, you know?