vetsoapfan

TEON was always good, anyway, but when Henry Slesar assumed the reigns of head writer in 1966, the quality of the material rose noticeably. Very few soap writers have proven to be masters of murder-mystery-crime tales, but Slesar wove intricate and layered suspense sagas beautifully. There were always red herrings, plenty of twists and turns, surprises you never saw coming, and terrifying jolts that could stop your heart. Best of all, the characters were INTELLIGENT, and not dumbed down to keep them clueless and in the dark so the mysteries could be artificially extended. The fact that Slesar could also develop multi-dimensional characters and weave poignant romance into the mix was icing on the cake.

They did seem to leave rather suddenly, almost as an after thought. I remember the family discussing Phil being out of town on business, after RM departed the role of Phil, but I don't recall him having a goodbye scene on camera. There definitely was an episode with Nancy and Louise standing inside the Karrs' house, beside the front door, in which Mary K. Wells appeared. Louise was there to say her goodbyes, since she was heading out of town. It was very brief. I remember thinking, "That's...it? A branch of an original family tree is just being written out with so little fanfare? We don't even get one final scene with Louise, Winston and Mattie?" At least we got an explanation as to where the Capices went. I hate when major characters on soaps simply cease to exist, and go unmentioned for years without explanation (Tommy Horton, Carl Williams, Jessie Brewer, Jim Craig, Ellen Stewart, etc.) RM left TEON for AMC in 1969, as the actor later acknowledged in interviews. His contract was up and AMC made him a good offer. Yes, characters adopted children and took in foster kids, but there were fewer pregnancies than on many other shows. I've often speculated that the lack of regular pregnancy-related stories was due to TEON's crime format.

Yes! I have seen that so much of the "real" Emmerdale Farm is available on YT. What a treat. Imagine! The Sugden family actually mattered to the show, once upon a time!

Much appreciated, @DRW50 . I was hoping that nothing would get in the way of this episode being uploaded again. With all new people running the show, it did surprise me that they mined TEON's history. I figured TPTB would just ignore it. Hearing the names Mattie, Winston , Sarah-Louise and Capice made me feel nostalgic and verklempt. Laurie Ann was just a young child when I became acquainted with this soap, so these scenes made me feel like I was being reunited with old friends; friends I would soon never see again. Mattie's death was referred to on-screen in the early 1970s, and we saw Winston and Mike at the wake. Winston's passing went unobserved completely (as I recall) a few years later. Phil, Louise and Sarah-Louise all left town, alive and well. Louise was the last to go. Her final scene was saying farewell to Nancy in the Karr living room. TEON is not one of the soaps I talk about a lot of this board, but I really did love it for about 20 years. I have now saved this episode. It was such a treat. I don't want to lose it again. I think the writers probably referred to Sarah-Louise, since she was related to the other characters Nancy and Laurie were discussing, and since Laurie and S-L had relatives in common. Sarah-Louise remained among the living and was last seen in 1970 as a young adult. (IIRC, her nefarious boyfriend had been drugging S-L's dad). She left town around the same time as Louise Grimsley Capice, circa 1970, maybe a bit earlier. Her father, Phil Capice, had left in 1969. When the show began, Winston Grimsley had had a daughter (Louise Grimsley) with his first, deceased wife. He then married a widow named Mattie Lane, who had had a daughter named Sarah Lane from a previous marriage of her own. So Louise Grimsley and Sarah Lane became step-sisters. Sarah-Louise Capice (through her adoptive mother Louise Grimsley Capice) and Laurie Ann Karr (thanks to her biological mother being the late Sarah Lane Karr) both considered Mattie and Winston to be grandparents.

ITA. I used to love Emmerdale Farm, when it was available for me to watch. I would lament its disappearance from my TV screen, if it were still the show it used to be. As it stands now, "As the Dingles Defecate Over Emmerdale" is not a program I could stomach watching.

They have INFECTED this show completely!

The leads, Hudson Williams and Connor Storrie, have inked deals for two more seasons. That is awesome, but I need Francois Arnaud and Robbie Graham-Kuntz (Scott and Kip) to continue appearing too.

I truly believe that most of us experience this: we meet something new, who may not technically be our "type," but as time goes on and we unpeel the layers and see under the surface...things do, indeed, happen. Minds, hearts and souls are much more attractive and nourishing than pretty body parts. ☺️ Yep. Feelings don't always make rational sense, but we can't will them in or out of existence, so we should at least acknowledge them and work on controlling them. And never knowing what lay down the path not travelled leaves niggling questions and doubts in our minds that linger for a long time. I think it resonated with many viewers who have been restricted because of fear from opening up and reaching out. The genius of Heated Rivalry is that the emotions and struggles which the characters deal with are universal. Labine was excellent during Ryan's Hope first few years, and we were so lucky to have her return to pen the show's final months. She was the only one to truly understand the show's heart and soul, which made its farewell so satisfying. While R'sH was not among my most-beloved soaps, I believe its conclusion was one of the best in daytime history. It was miles above The Edge of Night, Another World, One Life to Live, The Guiding Light and many other once-beloved dramas. When I reflect on the history of soaps, and what the genre has become, it staggers me to think about how many brilliant, truly gifted, master writers we were fortunate enough to have shepherding daytime drama during its halcyon decades. We took those scribes for granted, alas.

All this praise is making me giddy. I appreciate the kind words, @ranger1rg .🙂 When I was a kid, long before the advent of the internet and streaming services, our viewing choices were much more limited than they are today. I used to re-watch favorite shows and movies regularly. Except for a few vintage, beloved staples, I haven't done that in decades; one viewing of modern material is enough for me. My gut-level feeling about Heated Rivalry, however, is that I will want to watch and experience it again. Probably not every week, LOL, but it may very well become a stand-by, feel-good favorite like The Mary Tyler Moore Show, The Wizard of Oz, and a few other gems which I am always happy to revisit throughout the years.

I'm humbled that people appreciate my thoughts and commentary. Thank you, @OzFrog So many folks are expressing that very same sentiment to me. It's interesting; we've only "known" Shane and Ilya for a total of six hours, yet viewers are already more emotionally attached to them than they are to tepid soap opera pairings who have been rammed down our throats for years. Probably because so many soap characters today lack real depth and humanity, and their on-screen shenanigans come across primarily as contrived plot mechanics, rather than being borne out of genuine chemistry and human feelings. So true: finding out that other people hold the same attributes that you do, attributes which you value and admire, goes a long way into making you warm up to those folks and feel close to them. That sort of intellectual/emotional attraction tends to go further and last longer than just surface, physical appeal. I, too, became immersed in soaps because of their reliance on interpersonal-relationship dynamics and the exploration of the human condition. When those components were largely discarded in favor of glitz and glam, flash and trash, soaps lost their appeal for me.

Awww, shucks.😌 Thank you for the kind words.😊

Preview of the upcoming book Unrivaled, due out later this year, which will continue the saga of Shane and Ilya. Since season 2 of the TV show is not expected out before 2027, this will help tide stans over.

I truly believe that our attraction to people grows in direct proportion to the appealing interior qualities we see in them. We can initially assess someone physically and not be swept away, but if proximity allows us to see numerous, positive attributes in him (kindness, empathy, loyalty, morality, a sense of humor, honesty, protectiveness, a deep capacity for love, etc.), our attraction starts to skyrocket. As Scott Hunter, Francois Arnaud exhibits so many endearing qualities, it makes perfect sense to me that this is the role which is drawing viewers in more than other parts he has played. (I hope this makes sense; I'm having problems describing exactly what I mean, LOL.) IMHO, the last time any daytime soap was well-written and engrossing was when Claire Labine was writing General Hospital in the 1990s. Daytime TV has been in a moribund state since then. But William J. Bell and his ilk were masters, who knew how to create captivating characters, make us care for them, and then kept these people yearning for lasting love for YEARS. Steve and Alice, Doug and Julie, Bill and Laura, Phil and Tara, Brad and Leslie, Scotty and Laura: these are the romantic/star-crossed lovers who kept us on the edge of our seats with baited breath, hoping against hope they would finally get together. We haven't had that experience on daytime soaps for eons, alas. But now? We have Shane and Ilya and Scott and Kip. It's wonderful to revel in romance again!🥰

I've always said that clothes make the man, and Francois Arnaud is devastatingly attractive in that Under Armour compression shirt.😍 I would kill to have the likes of Agnes Nixon (or Irna Phillips or William J. Bell or Henry Slesar or Harding Lemay) guiding the soaps these days. We are extraordinary lucky to have Jacob Tierney in charge of Heated Rivalry. This show is out-soaping the soaps by a mile. I was pleased to read that Rachel Reid is reportedly coming out with a new, seventh book in the Heated Rivalry universe in September, entitled Unrivaled, continuing the Shane and Ilya saga. https://www.out.com/books/heated-rivalry-unrivaled-rachel-reid

Forgive me. I couldn't resist.😊

"Make them laugh, make them cry, make them wait." During the long-gone halcyon years of daytime television, the legendary Agnes Nixon offered up this edict on how to write a successful soap. In addition, master writer Henry Slesar opined that plots were secondary to character delineation; that without well-developed characters in whom the viewers were emotionally invested, soap stories would lack resonance and power, and fail to provoke deep and heartfelt responses from the audience. For decades I have lamented the flat and shallow blandness of the modern soaps. Tepid writing centering on hackneyed plots and one-dimensional characters leaves daytime dramas devoid of passion and bereft of poignancy and power. I was pleasantly surprised (actually, astounded) when I started watching Heated Rivalry. Here was a series predicated on recognizable human emotions and experiences. Here was a drama focusing on character development, with nuanced writing and textured scenes, which demanded viewers watch, observe and analyze characters' feelings and motivations. Imagine: we didn't need end-of-the-world plagues, cannibal zombies, superheroes battling uber villains, mad scientists freezing the world, clones, going to heaven on a space ship, serial killers or devil possessions. All we needed was...multi-dimensional human beings dealing with relationships, family drama and yearning for love. Viewers everywhere swiftly became passionate about and entranced by these "new friends" whose destinies came to matter to us. A sweet and ultimately wholesome drama captured viewers' hearts without all the violence, ugliness and gore we are usually inundated with. Who woulda thunk it?🤔 Can we clone Jacob Tierney and hire him for Y&R, please?

Cool. We should be coming up to the episode where Nancy and Laurie sit in the Karr living room and chat about the past. Like TGL in the 1980s, TEON basically cut ties with its rich past and ignored most of it, so it was nice seeing the references to beloved characters like Winston Grimsley before the show's cancellation. Thanks for the heads up (as always!), @DRW50 .

Thank you so much, @NothinButAttitude ! What an unexpected little treat!

I have seen it in the past, but I couldn't find that episode again when I looked for it recently. Someone seems to be reuploading eps from December, 1984, again, so I'm hoping this one turns back up (or that I can find it again, somewhere).

And in its dwindling days, TEON could have used a potential ratings boost/attention-grabbing "big name" return.

I hope not. I would hope that TEON would realize what a blunder they had made by replacing Maeve McGuire in the first place, and rehired to to play Nicole's look-alike. Lisa Sloan was fine, but she just was not Nicole, and the less said about Jayne Bentzen (the Kathleen Toland of EDGE), the better.

Thank you. I've hunted around for the episode in which Nancy and Laurie Ann sit in the Karr living room and talk about Sarah Capice and Winston Grimsley, but to no available. As the December, 1984 eps are being uploaded, I hope it pops up. If you catch it before I do, please let me know. Gracias!

Oh, cool. That's sounds interesting. I'll check it out. Thanks.

Happy Holidays to everyone here at SON! May 2026 bring you and your loved ones peace, health, joy, and love! 😊😉👍

@DRW50 , thanks for the tag. Happy new year to you and yours!