vetsoapfan

I think it depends on the couple and how well they are working. Slesar always brought "star couples", with great chemistry, back together, like Adam and Nicole Drake on EDGE. I was surprised that he broke up Laurie and Vic Lamont completely on that same show, however; a move which, if done often enough with couples the audience roots for, can indeed be frustrating for the audience,.

Yes, Cenedella was very lucky, both to have had Nixon as his boss originally, and then to have her longterm storyline to work with after she left. Who would not benefit from learning and working with one of the masters of the genre? Sadly, as time went on, Cenedella's own material, like Pat's being poisoned by her housekeeper and the tiresome winding down of the Wayne Addison murder mystery, were not as effective as Nixon's great stories. Cenedella may have impressed Nixon as a script writer, working off her ideas, however. Pat Falken Smith praised Margaret DePriest, upon turning over the reigns of DAYS to her, claiming DePriest was a fine writer with a solid background who would "do a very good job". She was proven wrong, too, alas.

Nobody could fry something to the wall like our Kim. When she called someone "Pal", for example, you KNEW they were in trouble.

There are various episodes of many soaps floating around in the hands of private collectors. The studios and networks may not have cared about preserving the episodes, but die-hard fans sure did. Actors too. Jacquie Courtney said in one interview that she had had kinescope copies made of many of her most significant episodes as Alice Matthews Frame on AW. Now that she has passed away, I imagine her family has inherited them, but of course, that doesn't mean the public will ever have the chance to see or archive them. A private seller contacted me a few years ago, telling me that he had videotaped on Betamax, an entire year of TGL from 1976. The tapes had been for his mother, and after she died, he was willing to sell them. He wanted $2000.00 for (he said) about 260 episodes. There was no way I was going to pay that kind of money for unseen material, with no assurance of its quality, but he did swear up and down that the episodes existed. Whatever happened to them in the end, I have no idea. I'd love to get eps of the show from the mid 1970s, but not at that price!

It's a tape, actually, not any sort of kinescope, and the quality is fine. Better than I thought it would be.

To be fair, what long-running soap opera writer does NOT break up popular couples on a regular basis, if only to get the audience agitated enough to tune in regularly, hoping to see the characters reconcile? I think most times, fan know in their hearts that the star-crossed lovers will eventually find their way back together, so they accept and watch the storylines with anticipation of that happening. I do agree that viewers get peeved when incompetent decisions by the powers that be screw up characters' histories. On the soap opera General Hospital, do viewers appreciate how Guza and company destroyed the Luke and Laura legacy? I doubt it. Sadly, in the last decade or more, writing for all the soaps has taken a serious turn for the worse. There are only four soaps still being produced, all in California (how tragic that all the NY soaps are dead), and none of their writers are producing quality material.

Of course, different critics can view the same material and come away with different opinions on its merit. Asserting that another critic's assessment is "ill informed", simply because it contradicts one's own, is akin to proclaiming that no one else can judge a piece of art negatively, because you had once read something, somewhere, praising the art to the sky. Ten different viewers could have judged a show's writing during its first few seasons and all expressed varying opinions on it. Rationally, since personal opinions cannot be wrong, they should not precipitate any sort of ire among fans. I find it curious, surfing the net, how viewers of such diverse series as STAR TREK to I LOVE LUCY can become livid with rage when other viewers "dare" to have opinions of their own. Was Cenedella the single worst writer in the history of soaps? No. Was he the best? No. The shows he was involved with benefited from his leaving; AW with Harding Lemay taking over and Somerset with the gifted Henry Slesar assuming the writing reigns. Cenedella was also very fortunate to have Agnes Nixon's long term storyline in place, and to have the wonderful characters and situations she which had evolved, to work with during his tenure on the show. It was Nixon and Lemay, bookending Cenedella's work, who really benefited AW the most.

Hi, Matt. Those comments about Harriman on Charlie's Angels are hilarious! I thought she was okay on Somerset, but paled in comparison to Renne Jarrett, who was much more charming. I agree about 1970s TV; all sorts of soap stars turn up, which is fun to see!

Oh, no, this suit is MUCH LESS HIDEOUS than her 1976 purple polyester disaster.

I believe Groom was there at the beginning of it.

Yes, that's right. The Russ/Cindy story was quite touching, although Robert Hover, the second Russ, was rather pallid.

Well, it was the 1970s, so many actors on many soaps wore wild fashions, LOL, but I don't recall Harriman's on-screen wardrobe being too far out. One wardrobe choice that I hated, on another soap, was Marlena Evan's ugly, purple polyester suit which she wore throughout 1976. It seemed every time I tuned into DAYS, there was Marlena wearing that monstrosity. I loathed it.

I'd say Russ' most popular romance was with the fragile Cindy Clark. Years later, he was paired with Iris, but to be honest, David Bailey (Russ) was not in the same league as Beverlee McKinsey (Iris), and their storyline never resulted in marriage. If only Sam Groom had remained in the role; his Russ was strong, soulful, noble and altruistic all at the same time. Of all the actors in the role, Groom was definitely the best Russ. He worked so well with Robin Strasser. I believe so.

In general, her work was dreadful. When she was the headwriter for SANTA BARBARA, its creators wanted to fire her, leading to a brouhaha with the network. Patrick Mulcahey, a respected scriptwriter, once commented that during Bailey's tenure, they always had to work to "hide things" because the overall writing was so poor. She was the original headwriter on the 1975 CBS drama BEACON HILL, which was a "rip off", as it were, of UPSTAIRS, DOWNSTAIRS. The audience for the initial telecast was huge, but after witnessing the atrocious writing, viewers abandoned the series in droves, and the ratings plummeted. This was annoying, because as soon as Bailey was replaced, the series improved dramatically. (The same thing happened with HTSAM.) Bailey was better at one-shot material, like The Trial of Mary Lincoln, but ongoing, everyday soaps were not her forte. That she won an Emmy for SB just shows again how messed up the Daytime Emmy system really is!

Good grief, he does sort of resemble a young Glen Campbell, although I think Thompson is better looking. Somerset had the bad habit of writing out slews of characters, rather than replacing them multiple times, as some soaps are wont to do. There were three Tony Coopers. Douglas Chapin, who was okay in the role, followed by Thompson, whom I thought was the best, and then finally Barry Jenner, who was a decent actor, but whom I felt was miscast. There were three Ginger Kurtz Coopers: Meg Wittner, Renne Jarrett (my personal favorite), and Fawne Harriman. Another character who was recast multiple times was David Grant, with actors Ron Martin (the best, IMHO), Tom Callaway, and finally Phillip McHale (who would later be the third actor to play Tony Lord on OLTL).

Along with HTSAM, Bright Promise, and WTHI, as Paul Raven mentions, Edelstein also worked on some primetime series like the soap EXECUTIVE SUITE with Mitchell Ryan, and STARSKY & HUTCH (!!!), which seemed rather off his beaten path, but for which he wrote excellent scripts. Never achieving the acclaim from soap audiences that some of his peers did, Edelstein remains an unsung hero of the genre, having produced better material than many of his colleagues in the industry who became better known (James Lipton, Robert Cenedella, Margaret DePriest, etc).

Not very long. The character never really went anywhere, and the romance with Russ fizzled. The only reason I even remember her is because she's in this one episode I have; otherwise, she would have faded into the oblivion of soap opera history.

Of course, your personal opinion of writers like Cenedella, Lipton, Shaw and Russell is your own, and you are free to voice it, although soap historians, who are well versed in the supposed quality of their work can, and will, contest the notion that their material was among the best in the business. You are correct, however, that soaps can take a while to find an audience. AMC and Y and R both did, despite being well-written from the start. Somerset never really soared to the top of the pack, even though after an initial bout of poor writing, it improved a lot under Slesar. If the theme, writing and concept had stabilized and remained consistently good, a wider audience very well may have found the show. That happened with OLTL in the late 1970s. Despite acknowledging the flaws with a few of its directors and some of its cast (and what soap has never had weak performers in key roles?) AMC was never "widely considered one of the worst soaps on TV for many years", not ever. Individual viewers may have seen it that way, but to announce it was the general consensus is undeniably inaccurate. RTPP was cancelled just as it was finally hitting its stride, and it's a shame the network was so quick to axe it for another experimental series, HTSAM, which they also decided to axe after its quality improved dramatically. The lesson here surely is that the networks should not be so quick on the draw, and must learn to be patient, waiting for ratings to come. Sadly, the usual suspects never learn.

At the Matthews house, Jim compliments Mary on being able to pull off organizing Christmas so well, and she reminds him that she's had many years of practice. Steve and Alice are happy (!!!) and discuss their future together. Russ brings along his date, Paula McCray, who tells the Matthews about her own family history. As I say, it's just as sweet, everyday slice-of-life drama which we just don't get much of anymore.

During the middle of its short run, this show was amazing. It was first penned by Anne Howard Bailey, who was simply not good, and who had characters pontificating about social issues, like women's lib, rather than actually TALKING to each other. The people we saw on screen were more caricatures than characters. Then Rick Edelstein took over, and the series was more like a stage play every day, with multi dimensions given to the characters, poignant family drama and sexy romances in the mix. The saga of David Bachman's death was gripping. Against ATWT, however, the audience didn't find the show, and when Edelstein was replaced (by the dread Margaret DePriest, I believe), the writing collapsed again, and the show's cancellation was almost like mercy killing.

RTPP was like Somerset in the sense that it had all the factors needed to become a hit, except consistently good writing. Many of its cast members were very likeable. Ben Andrews, who played Benny Tate, was beautiful and charismatic, if not the best actor in the world. It's a shame he died so young. At the end, the writing improved dramatically and the rating spiked, precipitating some minor speculation about the series going into syndication after ending its run on NBC. Alas, it was not to be. At least the show ended with Rodney and Allisn facing a potentially happy future together.

LOL! Well, if I could stay in the kitchen and time travel back to the inception of the series and see all the episodes from day one, I'd agree. Other than that, no thanks. I agree that the only tolerable part of the wretched Mr. Big nonsense was the performances from the actors, who gave it their all. But I really think the majority of ATWT's audience did not want to see sci-fi on their show. Trying to force the show to be something it wasn't seriously damaged it.

I've also got this wedding article in my Somerset archives. Thanks for posting it, Carl. It brings back lots of memories. Ernest Thompson was a great Tony, and Renne Jarrett was my favorite Ginger, although Fawn Harriman was good too. I imagine you know that Thompson went on the write ON GOLDEN POND. Who says pretty people can't also be talented?

TEON was on fire at that period, I'm surprised it wasn't rated higher, but then again, all the soaps at the top of the ratings were good, and deserved their success. Wouldn't we all love to see more vintage eps from ANY of the soaps from 1971? I have a Christmas episode of AW from that year, and it was just so natural, so realistic, so...homey. It made you feel like you were spending the holiday with old friends. Soaps lost their when when they insisted on serving gimmicks over substance.

Oh good Lord, that dreadful, embarrassing Mr. Big garbage. Low-brow camp and farcical "adventure" stories were NOT part of ATWT's DNA. The networks were desperate to lure in a teenage audience, and foisted all sorts of painful idiocy onto the audience over the years. GH had the Ice Princess. ATWT had Mr. Big. DAYS had Marlena's possession. TGL had Reva The Clone. So many putrid stories that ruined the integrity of once-great soaps, and never did pull in massive audiences like the networks had hoped. If I had had the choice to spend time in Nancy Hughes' or Bert Bauer's kitchen, or go time traveling with Reva (barf), I'd cling to those kitchen sets for dear life!