vetsoapfan

The idea of what constitutes quality writing is a personal interpretation. Even writers who are generally considered giants of the genre, like William J. Bell, Douglas Marland, or Harding Lemay have had their detractors. Even comments like "most critics will agree that the show was well written" is subjective; certainly the ones I read during the show's run did not approve of the weaker writers. Ratings alone do not prove or disprove the quality of the writing either. Henry Slesar was very good at both TEON and SOMERSET. Contrary to your erroneous comments about my previous posts, I never labeled him a "bad headwriter". Rick Edelestein's tenure on HOW TO SURVIVE A MARRIAGE was brilliant, but the ratings tanked. Pamela Long's work on TEXAS was actually quite good, but the ratings never went up enough to keep the show alive. Winsor, an old master at creating successful soap stories, knew what he was doing, and if he had been given a longer time to lure an audience in, he probably would have succeeded. Regardless of great writing, it took Bill Bell a few years to pull in viewers at Y&R, or Claire Labine to attract an audience at RYAN'S HOPE.

Of course, careful reading on the thread would allow you to know that Carl had asked me about Roy Winsor's reign, and that's the point in the show's history to which I was referring. Lahoma was gone by then, and as were most of the other characters you referred to. In general, Winsor allowed "normal", everyday characters to have fun and express humor, which not all soap writers do or did. It worked very well.

P&G was notorious for being conservative, long after other soaps started pushing the envelope. Very possibly certain executives wanted the story dropped for other reasons, and used this "explicit" scene as an excuse. Of course you are free to believe or disbelief any reference to the incident you like, but personally, I'll take Jameson Parker's take on it.

Yes, light-hearted character moments, with folks having a good time, were also seen on ATWT and TGL. Somerset--and, indeed all soaps--work best when characters can be human, and experience the same ups and downs that we all do in life. Humor is part of the human experience.

According to Jameson Parker, the foot kissing was a spontaneous gesture; a decision made on the spur of the moment, which probably would have been vetoed early on if it had actually been in the script. But it's curious that the executives reacted so strongly against it. On the same network, in 1976, DAYS had young Mike Horton sleep with the older Linda Anderson, after decrying the fact that he had been impotent with Trish Clayton during an earlier attempt at love-making. Mike appeared with no shirt, bulging away in some very revealing pajama bottoms, but no firestorm from the network caused the actors to be fired. I guess the executives' ire was arbitrary. The show didn't have specific "comical characters", but rather, ordinary, regular characters were allowed to joke around with each other, be amusing, have fun. Just like in real life. It was great.

Winsor was great, because he mixed suspense stories with family drama, romance, and lots of warmth and humor. I think that by the time he took over the reigns, the general audience had been burned by Somerset's bad years and tepid writing, and weren't interested in giving it another chance, which is a shame, because if they had tuned in, they would have been treated to the work of (IMHO) the best writer the show ever had. I thought Winsor was even better suited for Somerset than the great Henry Slesar, because of the romance and humor angles he added.

In the episode dealing with Mary Matthews' death, everyone found out about her passing after Steven had left Bay City. He was already out of the country, which is why Alice had to make a long-distance phone call to him from her sister's house. She postponed her own plans to join him in Australia because of her mom's death.

No, Ellen Grant was not there at the end of the series. The last we heard about her, several characters were having dinner at a restaurant, and Jerry kane asked if anyone had heard from Ellen Grant lately. He was told that she had been away, on a cruise with her sister India, As for why network executive are so abusive...only God knows, Their attitude and behavior has certainly decimated more than one soap over the years.</p>

Vicki Paisley was a great character; very fun, charming, charismatic, and a little bit naughty. Think Lorie Brooks on Y&R. Or 1970s Julie on DOOL. Veleka Gray was perfect in the role. She could make you vexed at her character's machinations, yet understand and feel sympathy for her at the same time. The Ellen/Dale romance was considered quite daring for its time. It might have lasted longer if they hadn't pushed the envelope in certain ways. Molly Picon's character made the comment once about his pants always being "good and tight, let me tell you!" which I thought would surely raise the ire of conservative viewers if not the censors. At one point later, they had Ellen and Dale in the Grant living room, with Ellen sitting barefoot on the sofa. Dale took one of her feet to his mouth and kissed it playfully, which DID end up causing trouble behind the scenes. Jameson Parker admitted that TPTB found the gesture too provocative, too sexual, and ruled that Dale be written out of the show. They decreed that Ellen should have a more mature, discreet (i.e. non-hot, non sexual) romantic partner from then on. It was a mistake, I think, because at that time, viewers were more sophisticated than the reactionary executives gave them credit for.

As someone who watched the show religiously from beginning to end, it's always struck me that some of the actors whom I thought were destined for bigger and better things never found the fame they deserved. Both Gary Swanson and (particularly) Gene Bua were extraordinarily attractive, personable and charismatic; perfect romantic leading men material, but neither one of them had much mainstream success. Jobeth Williams was quite appealing on the show; very likeable, right from the start. Ted Danson and Sigourney Weaver were good, but no better or no worse (IMHO) than many other competent soap actors have been. Audrey Landers was a curious case. She was not a good actress, and had limited range, but she still exuded an indefinable "star appeal" that made you want to watch her, and have her on the show.

In an on-line audio interview with Rioux, she explained that she had left the show after difficulty with executives who bullied her and told her they were going to fire her. She never mentioned any problems with homosexuals making her flee. I'd love to see a link to the "homosexual" quote. As you say, Carl, that would have been an extraordinarily absurd reason to quit any job.

When there was an exciting event at the end of one episode (for example, a Friday cliffhanger), Winsor generally started the next episode with characters discussing what had happened "yesterday". One time he had two episodes dealing with the same, one storyline day was when a murder took place at a carnival. But that was rare. Most of the time, as I said, he followed the one episode/one soap day rule. There was a lot of story, a lot of humor, a lot of romance, and the show was great. But he was an expensive writer and when the ratings didn't pick up immediately, he was replaced. It's too bad, because really, in all its run,m the only two truly excellent writers the show had were Winsor and Slesar.

Hi, Zanereed, Actually, George Reinholt had already been fired, and his character was gone to Australia, when the characters found out about Mary Matthews passing away. In the story, Steven Frame had gone to Sydney, Australia, to oversee business for his company, Frame Enterprises. On the day of Mary's death, we saw Alice alone in her sister's living room, placing a phone call to Steven. Unable to reach him personally, she just left a message for him to call her back as soon as possible. Then she curled up in an armchair, sobbing, &quot;Oh, Mama....&quot; as the scene faded to black, closing the episode. It was quite touching. I'm not sure exactly what they'll find in the P&amp;G archives. From all accounts, what little they did keep from pre-1979 was not well preserved or documented. I have a tape of the 1974 wedding/tenth anniversary episode, and it's been confirmed that the Mary Matthews death episode is also floating around in the hands of dedicated soap opera collectors. But apparently, P&amp;G never even kept a copy of many historically-significant episodes, like the premiere of SEARCH FOR TOMORROW from 1951, which I also have a videotape of, but P&amp;G doesn't. I guess we'll just have to wait and see what they unearth from the archives, and hope for the best. (I realized I had worded the first paragraph of this post poorly, which has caused some confusion about the timeline of events, so I have tried to clarify it better.)

The longest, single day in s soap opera history must have been the Masquerade Ball on OLTL, when Olympia Buchanan was skulking around. It went on for two months!Laura Horton's pregnancy (with Jennifer Rose)surely holds a record, too. It lasted through two Christmases, LOL!

The Alice/Steven/Rachel saga is so famous and well-regarded (justifiably so), that I'm sure many folks would line up to buy copies of its classic episodes.We know to exist: --Steve and Alice meet for the first time at Lenore's and Walter's wedding --The 10th Anniversary show (featuring Steve and Alive remarrying) --Mary Matthews' death episode (Good Friday, 1975) --Various clips of the triangle from 1973/4, from Jacquie Courtney's Emmy reel These, along with any other unearthed treasures, would be a collector's dream come true.

The Dreaming Death. UGH. It's my firm belief that these idiotic, low-brow stories lead to the destruction of the soaps (along with gutting core characters and dumbing down the writing in general). Plots like TDD temporarily attracted the fly-by-night teen audience who wanted to see campy stories, but never really became longterm, dedicated fans, but ended up driving away much of the older, veteran audience who had kept the ratings healthy for decades.

Somerset had a lot of ups and downs, mainly thanks to whoever was writing it at the time. I watched it faithfully, from beginning to end, even when it was a CHORE to do so, LOL. The best periods were definitely when Henry Slesar held the reigns, and later, for several months when Roy Winsor did the writing. Winsor kept things moving very fast, with lots of humor and fun dialogue, and made the choice to have every episode represent an entire day in the lives of the characters (i.e., he didn't have one storyline day run over ten episodes).

In the Sexiest Somerset man, I'd vote for Ernest Thompson!

That never bothered me. I would have been messing up his hair, myself, all day and all night, anyway, if I had had half the chance.ROTF!

I've always wanted to know what happened to Trish Stewart, who was the original Chris Brooks Foster on Y&R. I adored her; she was gorgeous, very personable, and a great actress. After a few appearances on primetime TV, post Y&R, she simply vanished. http://www.iann.net/movies/time_travellers/cast/trish_stewart_std.jpg

Gorgeous photos of a young Kin Shriner (Scotty). I had such a big-time crush on him! How Laura could abandon such a sweet, sexy Scotty for that repulsive degenerate Luke, I'll never know.

During its heyday, AW was la creme de la creme of daytime drama. The years written by Agnes Nixon and Harding Lemay were superb. They should do a DVD release on all the existing material of the original Alice/Steven/Rachel saga: the best triangle in soap opera history.

1974 episode

Ahh, the halcyon years of AW!

The Jonah Lockwood story was probably the single best, most effective (and terrifying) mystery storyline ever presented on TEON, or any soap for that matter. Henry Slesar at his best! All the twists and turns, all the surprises, all the terror; no wonder EDGE was atop the ratings at the time.He also told me that he was selected to play a role on NBC-TV's 'Somerset,' following his stint on 'Edge,' but, sadly, it fell through, because he would AGAIN be playing the son of Lois Kibbee. The role eventually was played by Christopher Pennock.