RavenWhitney

1 hour ago, bboy875 said:

Curlee/Demorest/Reilly served as a headwriting trio until Curlee went on maternity leave in 92, and was replaced by Lorraine Broderick. Curlee returned later that year around the time Reilly left to headwrite DOOL. Broderick left to write for AW sometime in 93, leaving Curlee and Demorest as a duo with Patrick Mulcahey and Nancy Williams Watts writing under them. Curlee and Demorest left in early 94. Although she didn't go there in her youtube interview, she did an interview after the show's cancelation was announced and she said she left because of interference from TPTB and because she was burnt out.

Mulcahey and Williams Watt became headwriters and Demorest returned some weeks or months later. Mulcahey left and at some point Millie Taggart, Leah Laiman and possibly Peggy Sloane wrote in some of the HW tandems which is confusing because all this happened in 94 alone. I know at the end of the year SOD said that Demorest and Taggart were let go, and Douglass Anderson and Williams Watt were named interim HW's but then became official until Anderson was fired and replaced with Megan McTavish in 95. I so wish the actors/ actresses and staff writers were interviewed about this period and the constant writing upheavals in the mid to late 80's. Curlee and Demorest were there in the 80's, 1 of them brought it up in their youtube interview and of course Alan interrupted and that was the end of that. And as a viewer of both these periods, yes it showed on screen 

 

The above timeline is how I remember it all also.  Reilly's name was added as HW a few weeks before Long's disappeared. Long always had a co-head or two but she was the boss.  I think Reilly was getting offered equal power and she didn't want that. Of course, in hindsight I think she realized what a hack he was and how he'd ruin soaps.  When Long left, Curlee/Demorest were immediately added as co-heads and their three names rotated in the credits.  Curlee left for a year and she was quoted ion an interview when she returned that she had suggested Broderick to Phelps.  Broderick did leave to join AW as a breakdown writer on AW.  It was never confirmed that Broderick contributed to the head writing duties at AW under Sloane then C. Culliton. Curlee talks nice about Phelps now but I always felt it was Phelps whose interference drove Curlee away. They never worked together again even though Curlee was a consultant for ABC and was offered head writing duties later in the 90s under Riche (confirmed to me by Curlee in a letter she responded to when I wrote her on FB after GL cancellation).  She turned that gig down when she learned she was pregnant again. Demorest remained in soaps for another 10 or more years (mostly as a breakdown writer and short committee co-head on ATWT).  Curlee/Demorest were the best HW ever but Curlee admitted that she needed a lot of control.  She only could work with two breakdown writers and she and Demorest wrote more than 1 break down a week. She couldn't sustain the pace once she had kids.  (And regarding Phelps: all who followed soaps through her tenure know that she dumped Long on OLTL and was the de facto head writer with a committee. She did the same on GL with at one point supervising Demorest/Taggart/Laiman/Mulcahey/Watt as co-heads).

On 10/20/2022 at 8:22 PM, NothinButAttitude said:

 

Oh boy! This was a good episode. 

 

Holly/Roger/Mindy/Alex/Fletcher/Chelsea--boy that is some love sexagon. 

 

I did not know that they were teasing Fletcher/Chelsea. Did it go any further? If it did, I am interested to see how Maureen reacts as Fletcher carried a torch for her for the longest. 

 

Roger and Holly... my forbidden fruit. My favorite soap couple that didn't get the ending they deserved. So chaotic and self-destructive individually and together. When Roger uttered the breakdown of their relationship, "She loved me once and it's a thin line (between love and hate)..." it sent chills down my spine. I watch these 2 go on and on. 

 

Poor Billy. I do love that Ed was used to provide counsel with his alcoholism. 

This episode was the end of the line for Pamela Long and Robert Calhoun. They would soon add James E Reilly to the staff to co-head write which is why, I think, Pam quit, and Calhoun (one of the best P&G exec producers IMO) finally retired from soaps after his 2 year stint as GL EP.  

The show will probably be cancelled before Zack's last episode airs 7 months from now.  

Why are Griffith and Beall still employed?

Ann's son, Brian, posted a nice tribute and there are some public recent pics of gorgeous and classy Ann!

https://www.facebook.com/brian.granath

7 hours ago, ranger1rg said:

So much of this is spot on. It IS a well-worn straight male fantasy, and as written it is NOT interesting, and it is NOT organic to these characters/plot.

It makes NO SENSE that a couple married 3 months ago ALREADY needs someone else to spice up their sex lives. It's just ridiculous. RSW was chosen because...well, you all know why. Still, I can't blame him for any of this. In my eyes, it's wrong to blame any one actor for plotting that's a disaster.

And no, it's not enough that this threesome is in some ways "groundbreaking." I care more about good soap that watching scenes that make me say "Never before in daytime!!!" And look at those morning-after scenes -- the dialogue among the three of them was just terrible and unrealistic.

You're right, too, about a threesome with 2 or 3 men, except I don't believe "it ain't going to happen for a long time." I don't think it's ever going to happen, period. It's more likely we'll get a farce with Sonny having sex with goofy and annoying as hell Leo.

Script by straight male Richard Culliton and directed by straight male Scott McKinsey.  

This threesome plot point is so tired. While it's a first for a daytime soap, it's not interesting. This grouping is a well worn straight male fantasy and I'm sure the white straight men who run streaming and Days (Ken) easily signed off. Let's see if Ron gets approval to have three men threesome or two bi men/one woman threesome.  My guess is it ain't going to happen for a long time.  This particular plot is also hamstrung by RSW playing Alex which is beyond dumb as reformed Ben was shoved down our throats for years and the minimal acting skills of both females in the plot.  Not to mention that Ally's character is so ill defined and uninteresting.

On 9/26/2022 at 11:56 AM, Errol said:

You got it! Glad to help.

So did Simone replace long time YR writer, Teresa Zimmerman who hasn't written a breakdown since 9/6?

Thanks

So Jennifer killed Abigail?

In early December 2021 Chris Dunn (writer) announced he had rejoined the DOOL writing team. His name has yet to appear. I wonder if this is the week and if Lorraine Broderick is retiring since Days typically keeps five outline writers (and Quan writes an outline too). She just hit her ten year mark on the writing team.  I noticed there's day player this week, Judge Broderick, played by Gina Gallego.  Perhaps the character was named to pay tribute to Lorraine?  

As long as Morina/Griffith in charge, I won't be tuning in.

Peacock is an experiment in a saturated field of streaming services.  With inflation and competition, there will be a shakedown of these many services.  Just this week, there were major announcements of job cuts and streaming mergers as well as show cancellations. Days benefits from daytime brand recognition and the idea that 1 to 2 million viewers will buy pay the Peacock subscription. But IMHO, Peacock will get very few new subscriptions from Days NBC audience. I wouldn't pay to watch Ron's ScoobyDoo hour; I might not even pay to watch if Nancy Curlee were writing the show like GL circa 1992.   The show needed an overhaul well before the switch to entice viewers.  I think the execs are going to find out just how uninterested viewers are in paying for Ron/Ken/Albert's version of Days.

Never and even if it's free I can't stomach the scooby doo hour with Ron, Ken and Albert in charge. 

12 hours ago, DRW50 said:

Is this Gillian Spencer? 

 

I don't believe so

13 hours ago, beebs said:

Far as I was aware, she left DAYS in 1971 to headwrite WTHI, and came back to DAYS in 1972. Granted, there were people writing two shows at once at that time, but I'd expect since DAYS and WTHI were on competing networks and not owned by the same company, it wouldn't be a situation like Henry Slesar writing both Somerset and EON simultaneously.

Pat Falken Smith was a script writer at days on the following dates (according to Jason47 website). So she was only gone for six months in 71. In 1975 she became Days head writer.
Pat Falken Smith           5/66-7/66, 1/68-7/71, 1/72-5/75

Has anyone posted  clip of Nichelle Nichol's Miranda death scene on youtube?

RIP Nichelle!

ATWT was so unfocused and uneven in 90-92. I found it hard to watch.  Too many groups of characters coming in and out of scenes.  Of course, compared to what followed, those years were gold but Marland had lost something with the bigger cast and budget.  

4 hours ago, Mitch64 said:

I think there were several factors..Pam did indeed need to be pulled in..and she balked at the net control which we all know does not come with the best choices. I think she was still hurting from having her Johnny Bauer is a miracle healer storyline shot down (good on the net) and then the Matt Weiss thing (bad on the net) and finally, Reva returning as a ghost to cheer up Marah that Christmas (good on the net also, as they wanted to leave the door open to Reva being alive, but as we saw, that didn't stop her..) She was most likely tired of fighting the net, her ratings weren't taking advantage of the ATWT lead in, so that along with her sauciness I am sure made the net say, "See ya!" 

Pam's best stories were her heart, friends and community ones (though oddly the dark as hell Sonni/Solita was damn well her best work, but that was essentially about two sisters bond, and family abuse, not Annie Dutton is EVIL camp..) and as you see here with the clunky Roger as special agent saving AM, so that big "healer" storyline always confused me. 

Pam didn't want Jim Reilly as a co-heat and P&G insisted on it.  Remember: Pam always had a co-head (Jeff Ryder then Nancy Curlee/Trent Jones).  Ironically, Jim's best years were the two he was GL co-head. His Days stints ruined Days and helped ruin soaps. Pam was also never successful on another show. Her final six month story on SFT was bad, not horrid, but bad.  OLTL was a mess and SB was unwatchable before she took over and nothing changed.  She needed to go.

This is around the time P&G was gearing up to bring in Jim Reilly (by Xmas) and Pam quit to take maternity leave; she was out of steam.

59 minutes ago, Joseph said:

 

These episodes are first rate examples of how brilliant a writer Henry Slesar was in his day.  So many plot points were being sewn during these episodes that took the show into the next 12 months and beyond with this group of characters.  No soap could ever touch Henry's planning, plotting, breakdown ands scripts.  Casting was superb. Everyone had an identity. These were the days when the terrible sets (what was Erwin thinking!) had no bearing because the scripts and actors were so compelling.  The only downer was that Henry had to scrap Paige's character. Margaret Colin was a revelation.  I think P&G forced her and the brother out after the incest plot (amazing that Henry did this plot way before Kreizman on GL with Cassie and Reva's kids).  The writing for Calvin and his friendships with Steve and Deborah....classy and also unusual for P&G soaps that struggled with black characters for many years.  Superb!

4 hours ago, TEdgeofNight said:

Couldn't agree more! It's boring, gimmicky, bad production values. Just bad. I'm very disappointed in this. Season 1 was so much better and held your interest. These episodes are just plain BAD. 

The Ron/Ryan pairing was super cringy but I can't believe how low the stories have gone since Jamey joined. This season has Jamey's putrid soap "storytelling" pitches all over it.

Beyond Salem 2; Beyond Bad.  Beyond Cringy. The Ron/Ken Scooby Doo series.

16 minutes ago, DRW50 said:

Was the show that built around Rachel?

No. It was an ensemble.  No more built around Rachel than OLTL was built around Vickie or AMC built around Erica.

On 6/13/2022 at 7:43 PM, Broderick said:

The 1981 episodes will be fun to watch again after all these years.  But yeah, they're kinda sad -- no more real stories for Nancy after that, and NONE for Draper and April.  Draper leaves in an abrupt hurry as soon as the Bryson story is finished.

And things get sort of weird.  The person we believe is Schuyler is really Jefferson Brown  (a good story), and the person we believe is Gunther is really Bruno (utterly stupid), and then Valerie Bryson pops up and says she knew Jeff Brown when he was transforming into Schuyler Whitney but he told her his name is Jim Dedrickson, and there's a guy in the cast named Jim Diedrickson, but he's neither Jeff Brown NOR Schuyler Whitney but someone else entirely.  And there's a guy running around who says he's Carlo Crown, but he's really Collier Wells.  It all sorta became too many false names & identities. 

I'd like to see Henry Slesar's ORIGINAL plan for this time period, before Tony Craig left and before Larkin Malloy's popularity necessitated creating a "real" Schuyler Whitney.  (I believe in the original story projection Schuyler was dead as a hammer.)   

Also, Henry was on strike for 5 months in 1981 and the show was written (with his long term projection) by Laurie Durbrow and Lois Kibbee (as confirmed to me years later by Ernie Townsend who played Cliff).  While Laurie and Lois followed Henry's outline, Henry wasn't writing the show and execs were making changes and decisions; some stories were changed, some delayed or scrapped.  Henry's stories from 1981 to his 1983 firing definitely had their low points because (a) he was passed his prime even though at his worst he never stooped to the crap that Sheldon wrote or what followed in daytime on all the shows; and (b) we know ABC was involved in casting, story etc., and there was a ton of pressure to mirror GH because of Monty's success with that show during 80-82 (she ruined the soap industry in my opinion during the strike starting with the rape then producing Tom Racina's freeze the world book as a GH storyline during the writer strike).  There are many brilliant moments in the final Henry years. Buffy's character, the actress who played Nora, Raven and Sky, anything with Geraldine, Jody/Gavin, Ian/Camilla... Worth watching until the moment Lee Sheldon's stories aired. It was quickly downhill from there. And sad and painful to watch.

Ingo who? Jax who?

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