Everything posted by RavenWhitney
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‘Days of our Lives’ Wins 2021 Writers Guild Award for Daytime Drama
LOL. Ron wins the award just as his worst 2021 storyline (Sarah/Kristin) aired.
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DAYS/DOOL: Another Horton Exits Salem
Preach!
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Guiding Light Discussion Thread
How dare Pam compare herself to Doug! She ripped off Dallas, Gone with the Wind, General Hospital and other movies and shows for her initial GL stories. Her OLTL and SFT stints were utter failures. Doug had his issues but he made a huge and positive impact on The Doctors, GH, GL and ATWT; his one pock mark is Loving but that was Aggie's failure too.
- Ryan's Hope Discussion Thread
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Edge of Night (EON) (No spoilers please)
Because head writer, Lee Sheldon, was incompetent.
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DAYS/DOOL: Another Horton Exits Salem
Poor lady. As someone who's trained in psych, I can tell you that as her performances became more manic (and her hair styles changed weekly), I kept saying to myself: something's up with this actress. I wasn't surprised to hear (sadly) about her mental health challenges. I think the producers made the right decision.
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Edge of Night (EON) (No spoilers please)
Tony Scott was in contract negotiations and quit. Terry Davis became pregnant. The writer's strike also happened at the same time. Slesar may not have been the one making the Emily decision. Lois Kibbee and Lori Durbrow were writing the strike episodes using Henry's bible with Erwin Nicholson supervising. This info came to me when I met Ernie Townsend in NY years later and I asked him who wrote the show during the strike. He told me. He was so hot in person. And loved gossiping. He said Henry had full power over most stories, that ABC didn't really interfere. It was P&G who tinkered with plot and casting but that Henry/Erwin had a lot more control than P&G gave other shows.
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Search For Tomorrow Discussion Thread
Oh, that's right. It was Gabrielle Upton for a while, then Don Chastain took over during the writer's strike and was hired after the strike for a while. He played Max I think. Didn't Ellis/Hunt take over in early 82 and stay a year to transition the show to NBC? What a mess. Too many writers and producers. P&G execs were nuts. Who's the actor who played Zach in this episode?
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Search For Tomorrow Discussion Thread
Joyce and John Corrington were head writers and they had for most of the run, three script writers. Mary Ellis Bunim was exec producer.
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2021: The Directors and Writers Thread
Y&R can't be saved until Steve Kent is gone. Period. He's the Brian Frons of Sony.
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Search For Tomorrow Discussion Thread
Whitesell lasted 6 months before they moved him to AW as EP (and fired Gary Tomlin as HW a second time), and David Lawrence took over as EP for the final months the show aired (with Pam Long/Addie Walsh further ruining the show with the non-sensical Judge Henderson/McCleary saga). The flood was a waste of money and they killed off Ryder, a young viable character and actor.
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2021: The Directors and Writers Thread
Susan Banks updated her profile on linkedin to show she's been a staff writer since November. https://www.linkedin.com/in/susan-a-banks-65735a2/
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2021: The Directors and Writers Thread
Amanda Beall and the script writers were not listed today.
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227 meet Days!
One only needs to watch Paternity Court on a regular basis to understand all the creative names in fashion these days...But getting back to Jackee. She's a big girl now, much bigger than I recall. And it looks like she's going to play her standard character....which will be fun until Ron ruins it.
- All My Children Tribute Thread
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Edge of Night (EON) (No spoilers please)
Alan's lack of knowledge of EON was on full display with this reunion. Luckily, the three ladies are so endearing and such class acts. Sharon is steeped in EON stories and has told more detailed accounts in other interviews and reunions; but some of the tidbits in this one were nice. This reunion is more about getting to know the actresses. I enjoyed it.
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Realism on Soap Operas
Days of Our Lives is the most realistic soap on the air right now........for MAGA and conspiracy theorists!🤣
- Guiding Light Discussion Thread
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The Doctors Discussion Thread
Which head writer created the character? Which one brought her back?
- All My Children Tribute Thread
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Edge of Night (EON) (No spoilers please)
Sheldon was a disaster. Casting of Beth and Chris were huge misses. Totally wasted opportunity with Shelly and Alicia who should have been related and connected to a big Sky/Raven story. The final episode was an insult to the show's long history with that mad hatter B.S. Finally, whomever decided and green lighted the revised opening and closing credits and music changes should have been fired immediately.
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Love Is a Many Splendored Thing
amazing woman, great scoops from her tenures on the different shows.
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Edge of Night (EON) (No spoilers please)
Henry and Erwin never played Monticello like a nameless midwest city; while the opening credits for years was a Cincinnati skyline, the show was so New York feeling. That darker noir, street wise, set of characters with stark humor and NYC accents. Loved it. Great atmosphere for so many years that the basic sets never mattered. Until Lee Sheldon train wreck came in and they changed the opening and closing credits (and hired a series of bad actors for precious few contract roles i.e. Sany Faison and Jennifer Taylor).
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Edge of Night (EON) (No spoilers please)
Wrong. Those towns were deliberately named because it was a nod to sister P&G shows. EON and ATWT started on CBS back to back in April way back. Draper and April''s house was supposed to be outside of Monticello. And Jody was to have come from Springfield in the same state. I thought it was cool that they named those towns in a nod to sister soaps. Especially since EON was on ABC at that point and the other two on CBS but all three owned by P&G.
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Another World Discussion Thread
King left AW a few months before the show went off the air. When I was in college in NYC I met Joe LeSeur who lived in the East Village. He was at that time an embittered gay man who drank a lot but he gave me several hot off the presses scripts he wrote. He wrote the same day each week. I had several scripts at the time that hadn't yet aired. I'd record them on my VCR! and follow the dialog. The scripts were seriously altered. Joe's dialog was not played as written. A few years later I took a soap writing course taught by Barbara Seiger who had been a script writer during the Tom King / Soderberg years along with Joe. She taught the first class around an excerpt of a breakdown Tom King had written which was the day Rachel was convicted while on trial. Barbara trashed Tom and said the breakdowns were full of errors and un researched ideas. In the breakdown she handed out, there's a hand written note for her to look up what kind of crime Rachel should be convicted of and how many years she would get. I still have the breakdown in the attic I think (along with Joe's scripts). Barbara said that NBC and P&G regularly dictated story turns to Tom and Robert. I don't believe they did the same with Harding. Tom was well liked by the execs because he was more compliant even if not a brilliant writer. When I look back on Tom's 1980 he maintained a lot of Harding stories but improved on some things. To me the last truly watchable period that also had lasting impact was the brief Soderberg/Purser years 82-83. Their creations and stories resonated till the end. The casting was first rate, the show looked gorgeous. But NBC had to install nobodies Culliton and Tomlin from Texas because why? Because they had also installed Long at GL. I think all of these writers probably got their start during the 81 writers' strike and the execs always swung between new/untested blood and veterans and tried and true hacks.