vetsoapfan

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?

I absolutely loathed this story, as well as the asinine Mr. Big nonsense. Low-brow science fiction did NOT belong on our once-adult, once erudite ATWT. For the record, I also hated the Ice Princess saga (GH), the Dreaming Death story (TGL), the Eterna drivel (OLTL), the devil possession garbage (DAYS), and all the other ridiculous, campy, usually stupid attempts at melding sci-fi onto the soaps. Along with axing the vets and dismantling the shows' cores and themes, I firmly believe that the drive to this sort of material killed the soaps.

Thanks a lot teplin. From reading her bio she's seems like an interesting character. She was yet another character Days got rid of during their reboot in 1980. I was wondering was Days any good during their big reboot in 1980? That would be a big, fat NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO. It was quite painful to watch at that time.

I adore these classic photographs and reviews. Thanks, Paul Raven and DW50. The current version of DAYS is a turn-off, but I would kill to re-watch the first 11 years of this show again!

Great reviews! Thanks for posting them!

Another insightful, eloquent post, DeliaIrisFan. From what I recall, RH had a surge in ratings when Jill's baby perished, and for a while there, the ratings were quite respectable. Had the show maintained its quality in writing and acting, I believe the ratings would have remained solid enough to keep the show on the air, although that was never good enough for the suits at the network, who have always had to justify their existence by tinkering with the soaps, even when the shows' writers and producers already knew much, much more about how to please the daytime audience than any of the suits ever would. With folks like Claire Labine, William J. Bell, Agnes Nixon, and a few select other master writers, the best thing TPTB could ever do is...leave them alone to do their work. The network's tinkering, on RH and virtually every other soap ever produced, kept hurting the finished product more than helping it. I believe that the alterations imposed on RH over the years, to improve its so-so ratings, were not as drastic as the slaughtering...excuse me, the alterations...we witnessed on some other series, and this was fortunate, because it allowed Claire Labine to weave her magic once more when she returned as headwriter, particularly the last time before the show's cancellation. The core of RH was never completely destroyed, which cannot be said about AW, TGL, SFT, TEON, ATWT, and so many other once-fine dramas whose essence was gutted by incompetent PTB along the way. Although I was never as emotionally invested in RH as I was in TGL, ATWT, AW, OLTL, and some other series, even "mediocre" RH was far, far superior to anything the audience is being served today.

If they do go that route with the Aaron abuse storyline, it will be so irresponsible and repulsive. Are TPTB really that stupid?

DeliaIrisfan, your assessment of the series was perfectly expressed and quite perceptive. I agree 100% with virtually everything you wrote. I was going to try putting the exact same sentiments into words, but you did so quite eloquently, thereby saving me the trouble. Good job. Now I want to go a rewatch a few dozen RH eps on youtube.

I LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOATHED Kelli Maroney and her character, and could NOT stomach watching her on-screen. There are characters whom you love to hate, but still enjoy watching, and then there are characters like Kimberly, whom you simply loathe and do not want to see or hear AT ALL. EVER . UGH. I think that, under Claire Labine, the show was beautifully written and showcased characters who were multi-dimensional, flawed, realistic human beings. I don't think that having characters behave in unlikable ways is necessarily going to alienate an audience from the show itself. In fact, the daytime audiences seems to relish interpersonal relationships among complicated characters. I still watched RH, even though several of the principle characters annoyed me; I just did not form as deep an emotional attachment to this soap as I did for, say, THE GUIDING LIGHT, whose tentpole family, the Bauers, were characters whom I generally adored, and whose flaws I found less grating. I could appreciate the integrity in Labine's writing, and the often excellent acting showcased by the leads, but I never grew as attached to the Ryans as I was to the Bauers, the Hugheses and the Stewarts, the Matthewses, the Hortons, the Brooks and the Fosters, etc. Of course, that being said, I suppose I did care more for the RH characters, at least on a subconscious basis, than I realized, because watching the final episodes of RH, when we essentially had to say goodbye to all these people, I kept getting choked up. Even if they vexed me, I did not want them to disappear from my TV screen...forever! I think RH's ratings woes were more tied into the declining quality of writing and storylines over the years. Certainly by the time we had to endure Delia and the gorilla, the writing had become a handicap.

I always felt Maeve was a cold shrew, but Johnny was an outright bully, and when Jack was injured and unable to walk, Johnny's belligerent bad nature was out of control. There's a reason I never felt this was one of my favorite series. I found several key characters to be a major turn-off.

Yes, I adore Mary but she can be sanctimonious from what I've went back and watched as of late. I like Siobhan and Pat, as they seem to not be the golden kids likes Frank & Mary, and they typically marched to the beats of their own drums until recasts came in and it seem they started to become preachy like the rest of the Ryans. I like Delia even though she can be childish at time and I never understood the need for her to wanna be apart of the Ryans so desperately. Did she eventually move out of the Ryan's orbit and find solace elsewhere? Jill seems compelling but yeah.... I do find her waiting for Frank to be pathetic. Much like Faith waited for Pat. During the first few years of the series, I was surprised at how gratuitously insensitive or downright mean some of those sanctimonious Ryans were towards Delia. Objectively, I knew that Delia had been an irritant to the family for years, but we in the audience had not witnessed a lot of that back-story first-hand, as so much of it had played out before the show debuted in 1975. There was a scene in the hospital where Mary was particularly cutting towards Delia, and I thought, "Are we supposed to like Mary? She's such a bitch!" And in another scene, an impatient, frustrated Pat cracked jokes (to Bucky, I think) about finding Delia curled up on her mother's grave. It made me think Pat was repulsive; it did not help me understand why the Ryan family was fed up with Dee. Once, Jack Fenelli bought a book about Irish history for Maeve, and read aloud a section about the Irish people. The description was not to Maeve's liking, and she (along with Bob Reid, who was there at the time) bitterly lambasted Jack...for comments that had not even originated from him, were not his own, and which he was only reading . Like when Pat was so insensitive to Delia, this made me dislike Maeve intensely.

Just for clarification purposes, in her autobiography, Ruth Warrick does discuss TPTB's disappointment in her initial interpretation of Phoebe Tyler on AMC. Warrick initially infused a silly ditziness into the character, until a director confronted her with the fact that Agnes Nixon was not happy with that interpretation. Nixon wanted Phoebe Tyler to be more of a serious, formidable presence in Pine Valley. Warrick had been unaware of Nixon's displeasure, and when she asked why no one had ever mentioned it before, the director replied that he had given her "skippy little hints" on how to alter her performances. Her response was, "You're the director...DIRECT!" From then on, she imbued stronger qualities into her portrayal of Phoebe, and made everyone happy enough to keep her around for 35 years.

I never understood Marland's comment on Hulswit, either. Hulswit must have really upset Marland in some way for Marland to comment like that. As you said, Marland never said a bad word about Allen Potter, and they really never got along well at all from what I recall. I do know that Hulswit was criticizing the writing. Maybe that had something to do with it. I read that in a book or article that was talking about production of soap operas. There was a discussion of why GL made Alan Spaulding less villain-ish after a couple of years. In the same piece, they discussed how the executive producer let go of Hulswit because the actor was constantly criticizing the writing. I wish I could find that book or article again. With the fast pace at which material must be churned out, I'm many most soaps would not relish the idea of any actor constantly kvetching about the quality of the scripts. Criticizing the writing did not do George Reinholt's career any favors, either. I suppose if TPTB wanted to go with a "younger, sexier" Ed, anyway, Hulswit's vocal displeasure with the material would have given them easy justification to let him go. Still, it was a short-sighted and stupid decision that robbed TGL of a familiar, comforting patriarch; the kind of character they sorely needed as time went on.

That was a wish shared by many viewers, but for whatever reason, TPTB seemed determined to keep Fulton marginalized and the character of Lisa barely used over the last several years of the show. It became increasingly obvious as time went on, and one has to wonder who among the higher ups held Fulton in such contempt, and why they did not simply fire her outright instead of degrading her by treating her like an irrelevant under-fiver.

That's a shame. I enjoyed his work on PP, AW, and ATWT very much.

Would you also be able to tell me who the woman is between Rosemary Prinz and Millette Alexander? I'm drawing a complete blank. As Paul Raven pointed out, that is Joan Anderson, who appeared on ATWT from 1963 to 65. I'd say this photo is probably from 1964 or 65, not 62, judging from the actresses pictured.

I know viewers usually do prefer familiar faces in long-running roles, but if rehiring Stewart did not work out for any reason, including ego or personality conflict, I really do think the audience would have accepted Jed Allan in the role. Attractive, personable, age-appropriate; he would have made a fine choice. And pairing Mike Bauer with Alexandra Spaulding could have provided TGL with years of explosive family drama. This show wasted so many opportunities in its last few decades of existence. As a veteran viewer, it was disheartening and infuriating to see the continued failure by TPTB.

Hulswit would have been perfect as the new patriarch of the Bauers. He exuded warmth, which reminded me of both Papa Bauer and Bert, but could also be strong and fierce when in righteous or protective mode. I appreciated Peter Simon on SFT, but his morose, often too internal interpretation did not fit the character of Ed. Don Stewart would have been my first choice to bring Mike Bauer back to Springfield, of course, but after his passing, I could have accepted someone like Jed Allan in the role. After Michael O'Leary bloated out, I was afraid TPTB would sideline his character for not fitting into the romantic-lead hunk mold, and I'd have been okay with them recasting the role of Rick (whom I still want to call "Freddie," even today) with an actor like Tuc Watkins, who could play the comedic aspects Rick was known for, but who was also so attractive. Elvera Roussel was by far the best of the adult Hopes, and I would have asked her to return to the show. If that did not work out, I would have offered the part to Robin Mattson. Mary Stuart was a great choice to play at Meta, and the show was lucky to have her. Mart Hulswit as Ed. Don Stewart or Jed Allan as Mike. Elvera Roussel as Hope. Tuc Watkins as Rick. Mary Stuart as Aunt Meta. Woohoo! Bauer Power could have been in full force!