vetsoapfan

I have a feeling that the backstage dramas of the soaps are a heck of a lot more enthralling than anything we see on screen.

I've seen writers producing poor scripts for primetime TV and movies before, but not to the same overwhelming degree as in daytime TV. They generally don't get hired by everyone else under the sun once their initial work bombs big-time. On soaps, even the worst of the worst stay in the same positions for YEARS.

What absolutely boggles my mind about daytime TV is that no matter how many times weak/incompetent producers and writers fail in the soap world, they keep getting hired by other serial to wreak the exact same type of damage. (Or worse.) It's freaking unreal.😡

That's a good point: if a show's state is not mentioned for many years, it's easier for the revolving door of never-ending newbies in charge to miss out on or get confused about previously-established facts.

I don't believe Lemay was the one who negated the fact that the show was originally set in Michigan. Aside from a few curious character mutations, he did seem to care about the past. I think AW switched the local to Illinois in the 1980s or later. I don't think TPTB always knew or remembered the past well enough to give new headwriters full accurate information, anyway. Lemay wrote a story about Pat Randolph killing a predator named Greg Bernard who was targeting her daughter. The writer referred to a teenaged Pat killing her boyfriend (Tom Baxter) by stabbing him, as she later killed Greg. But in reality, Pat had shot Tom with a gun, so TPTB were lax in knowing or correctly relating established facts to the current scribe. Is the specific murder weapon of a long-gone character a vital component 15 years after the fact? Probably not to most viewers, but for those who had been watching way back when, little mistakes like this can be grating. I'm not devastated that AW changed Bay City's home state along the way, but I see this as another grating point that a little research could have prevented. Soap viewers have loooooong memories, LOL!

To me, there were some weaker writers on ATWT in the 1980s pre-Marland, but starting in 2000, the advent of the show's associated with Hogan Sheffer and Jean Passanante, the quality plummeted and remained in the toilet for the show's remaining years. It's amazing that so many actors were still able to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear. I just don't think KMS was one of them.

What was most frustrating, is that RTPP was weakly written at the beginning and remained tedious for what seemed months on end. Then, in its last stretch, it suddenly perked right up and turned itself around significantly. Unfortunately, by that time NBC was fully committed to How to Survive a Marriage, and went ahead and cancelled the flourishing RTPP in favor of HTSAM. Ironically, history repeated itself. HTSAM was dreadfully written in its opening months. NBC fairly quickly gave up on it and changed its time slot to compete with the ratings powerhouse ATWT. Wouldn't you know it, NBC hired Rick Edelstein to take over the writing reigns and the quality soared. It turned into a rich, layered, deep psychological drama along the lines of Harding Lemay's Another World. Alas, NBC axed this newly-shining soap too.

I have a long-time friend with whom I used to watch soaps religiously when we were kids. When I told him about SON recently, I suggested that he jump into the forums so he could join the discussions about vintage daytime TV. He was incredulous that this TGL thread alone was up to a whopping 1183 pages. He asked, "How can anyone even talk about a long-cancelled soap that much?!?" Then I reminded him that he has brought up the topic of The Guiding Light EVERY SINGLE TIME he has phoned me in the last 50 years!🫢 So, he became sheepish and embarrassed, but relieved to know he's not alone in is undying love for his favorite show. TGL community rocks!

For novelizations that were promoted as being "based on the actual scripts," the Soaps & Serials books were weakly written, missing major details, and didn't really adhere to the source material. I bought them all when the company lunched, but was quickly disappointed by what I was reading. I wasn't surprised when S&S folded. I sold all my copies on eBay.

In the early years, both Bay City and Somerset were said to be located in Michigan, about an hour's drive from each other. In a long-ago news report about the backstage goings-on of the show, the host opened the segment by giving historical facts about AW, including Bay City, Michigan, as its locale. The clip is, or at least was at one point, available on Youtube. I watched it twice. Somerset, the spin-off sister soap, was also acknowledged to be in that same state. When Heather Lawrence was told by her mother, Eve, that they were moving there permanently, Heather complained about not wanting to go to that, "dreary little town in Michigan." On a talk show once (it might have been Merv Griffin; I forget), Audra Lindley spoke about her career pre-Three's Company. She said, "I was on a soap opera for years called Another World. It was set in Bay City, Michigan...." And then she elaborated on her antagonistic character of Liz Matthews. Finally, even Google has its say: "Yes, Somerset, a township in Huron County, Michigan, is relatively close to Bay City. It's located to the north-east of Bay City, and the drive is generally less than an hour. The two towns are linked by the Saginaw River and Lake Huron, according to a local information source." The two towns, whose names at least exist in real life, were always said on-air to be close to each other and separated by water. The opening logo of Somerset even had a visual depiction of this. Why TPTB at P&G later changed AW from Michigan to Illinois, who knows? Maybe they just made the arbitrary/pointless decision to set AW, TGL and ATWT in the same state. Maybe those in charge were just ignorant of the facts and didn't care about consistency and continuity. Remember this is a company which mandated dropping the article THE from The Guiding Light and The Edge of Night in order to "modernize" the shows and "attract a younger audience." (If anyone can explain the irrational logic of that loopy decision, let me know, LOL.) So, yes, Bay City was originally set in Michigan. There is a real Bay City in that state, just like there's a Genoa City, Wisconsin on Y&R and a real Genoa City in the real Wisconsin. Retcons and historical inaccuracies are not uncommon on soaps, alas. Out of curiosity, were you watching in the late 1960s and early 1970s? Michigan was mentioned, on-air, more than once back then. I kept extensive scrapbooks of all my favorite soaps at the time (yes, I had no life, LOL), and I made notes of trivia like this, characters' addresses and telephone numbers, birthdates of babies, etc.

Personally, I felt that the deletion of the original music from the girls' slumber party episode, and the axing of REM's Losing My Religion from the ep featuring Brenda and Dylan breaking up, were the most painful. The changes really damaged those episodes. I dropped the DVDs after season two, but I've been told by other viewers who kept going that tunes from all the seasons continued being replaced, and the situation only got worse as the DVD releases progressed. Yes, penny-pinching from those in charge was the principle issue, but I wonder how much better the DVDs would have sold if such poor choices had not been made in the name of cost cutting. On the other hand, when Time-Life put out the Vietnam-war era classic China Beach, they dug deep into their pockets and ended up clearing the rights to a whopping 268 (!!!) of the original tracks. This represented 96% of the total. TPTB said that when they were not given permission to use a few of the remaining pieces, they substituted different singers' versions of the exact same songs, in order to preserve the show's integrity as much as possible. The CB set was expensive as heck, to be sure, but to me it was worth it.

@DRW50, as always, the tag is much appreciated.👍

@Gatecrashers, No, that's not GA, although there is a resemblance...particularly with that hair.

That was interesting; thanks. Courtney looks tired and/or bored AF, LOL!

YES! While I objectively found the writing on RH (particularly during its first few years and then again in its final days) to be excellent, so many of the principle characters were unpleasant, and totally turned me off. I could never settle down and become emotionally involved with a group of people who grated on my nerves.

This is tragic news. Another one of our legendary icons, gone. I was just talking about her yesterday, with one of my friends, and remembering all the wonderful performances Denise Alexander gave us on DAYS and GH. Modern audiences will know her best as Lesley Webber on GH, of course, but she was a force to be reckoned with on DAYS and gifted us with years of mesmerizing work there. RIP.

Many thanks to @skylark and @DRW50!

Yes, I know JK is getting on in years, but perhaps he and his family (wife and/or son) could work with him as co-headwriters on the new TEON! I would also be available as a story consultant!🙃

Once Johnny Dallas' cut himself off from Laurie Ann Karr and their son, and once Laurie successfully recovered from her mental problems, she wanted a new, fresh, and healthy start for the next chapter of her life. She legally reverted her name and changed John Victor's surname to Karr. After moving to the country (when Teri Keane was dropped from the show), Bill and Martha Marceau legally adopted Jennifer, the baby girl whom they had earlier taken in when the child's biological mother, Taffy Simms (and other bio family members) proved to be unfit to raise her. Jennifer legally and emotionally became a Marceau, and gave that name to her own daughter, whom Jennifer birthed through a sperm donor as a single parent. Et...voila! The Karr and Marceau legacies live on. 🙂

I truly believe Kellerman is a writer who could make a reboot of TEON a success! I'd anchor the show on Mike & Nancy Karr's great-grandson (now a DA), Bill & Martha Marceau's granddaughter (a police detective), Jim & Liz Fields' grandson (a psychiatrist), and Adam & Nicole Drake's great-granddaughter (a PI).

Jonathan Kellerman has written 40 novels centered on the character of Alex Delaware, with the first being When the Bough Breaks from 1985. One of the aspects of the series which I find so appealing is that characters grow, evolve and change as time goes on. They act and react in a believable, human fashion. While each book tells one complete story, certain relationship threads can continue as the series evolves. Occasional references to the past (from previous novels) also make the readers feel like we know the characters intimately; that we are "living" with them through the years. Actor John Rubenstein (of the 1970s' TV series Family) narrates the audiobooks, and he is perfectly cast. I've never read or listened to an Alex Delaware story which I did not enjoy.

I've been championing the idea of TEON being rebooted for years. One author I'd like to see helming the project is Jonathan Kellerman, who has authored a plethora of mystery novels about a psychiatrist named Alex Deleware. Like TEON's Henry Slesar, Kellerman is a master at weaving intricate and surprising suspense/mystery stories, but is also adept at characterization and interpersonal relationships. I think he'd be fabulous at writing for a new version of TEON.

As always, thanks for heads up. That is indeed Virginia Dwyer with Jacquie Courtney, but the actor (as other posters are mentioning) is Hugh Marlowe. The clip was misidentified on YT as being from 1967, but it's from two years after that. Hugh Marlowe debuted as Jim Matthews in 1969.

Gracias! I will check it out!😉

Oh, that's great to know. I figured it was saved, but thanks for the confirmation.🙂