EricMontreal22

Mitch, they really are incredible, and have sparked a lot of talk on here!

Admittedly what hooked me at 12 on AMC and on soaps in general was the Natalie in the Well, saga of Wildwind storyline, and you don't get much more Gothic than that (I may have my timeline wrong but I believe that was when Nixon had returned as HW with Broderick and Washam as associates, just before she handed things over to McTavish which carried over some of that but kicked into high gear with Who Shot Will?) It's interesting because when people (and I guess I mostly mean the soap press) talk about Nixon and her achievements and style they *never* to my knowledge bring up her love for dipping into the Gothic, as if saying that would tarnish her well won reputation for social realism, drawing room comedy, etc. (And this wasn't a faux Gothic like JER wrote, but truly the stuff of 1860s sensation serials, etc--) I fully believe she was overseeing in some capacity the 2013 AMC. We do know on pretty good authority that she wrote herself the funny scene between Joe and Billy Clyde (where he thought he was soliciting) at the request of Ray to actually get to do a funny scene. When I saw Francesca James on the Y panel talk, all I kept thinking was "please, please tell us where the Celia mystery was going!" And ugh, Vee, you've made me sad and annoyed all over again about what coulda been with AMC2013...

Ha thanks for the welcome, Contessa. Funny to see that old post of mine (there are a lot of them if you dig far enough back...) I think that really was the issue with Fairchild--she largely seemed to be there to be there. That's why I took so much more to Tracy taking over--as soon as her character came on she had drive and moved up the momentum of all of the other stories. I am sure I said this in one of my old posts, but for its last year or maybe 8 months, my ABC affiliate (I was living in Vancouver so watched on the Seattle one) was airing The City at 11:35 at night, and I felt like it played SOO much better as a late night soap (certainly it never worked as a *morning* soap which is where Loving/The City aired earlier.) That was around the time that Fox still had plans for their Malone/Griffith/Gottlieb 13 Bourbon St late night soap, so I had high hopes for that project (before it was briefly retooled as a primetime series--which never happened anyway, but I digress.) I was a high school junior at the time, and really looked forward to checking in with The City before going to bed.

I understood this as the fact that it IS by committee--they all weigh in--but from what I've read, Francesca is also right in that the *final* decision is the network execs. As to one of the other comments, at its peak anyway, AMC was known to be one of the soaps (if not THE soap) with the highest percentage of male viewers but there's no way it was 60%. I think what I've heard was more vague and closer to "a bit over 1/3 of the audience is male." TVGuide in 1986 DID say it was the most video taped program in the US, though--maybe Susan Lucci could put that bit of info in her wheelhouse to use instead I really enjoyed the special--it flew by, but man, oh, man Andy is a terrible host. Not only with some lame questions, and a habit of not letting people answer (I get it, they had under an hour--I think they should have had 90 mins...) but you could also see him going through his question cards, etc, while they were answering which is something I'd expect an interviewer with his experience to not have to do.

And it's fascinating. It really does show exactly what the show set out to do--and why some felt it was slow to catch on (I mean the 10 minute sequence might as well be a therapy session.)

I admit for a while there I was so down on the state of soaps (what else is new? ) and just sorta needed a break from even thinking about my old faves. But I have a feeling I'll be sticking around for a while now. And thank you! Nice to see you and other fave posters still here! Yeah, I think ultimately Joe Stuart was good for the show--not just rating wise but also creatively. Although in Llanview in the Afternoon Sam Hall certainly has nothing good to say about him (as expected.) But I think he did push story and more often than not in the right direction, at least during the 70s. It's funny, again in that book, he's quoted as realizing that what soaps should focus on is character and character based stories, but admits it took him a bit to realize that at OLTL. And some of the early moves sure are baffling. Did he not see what the show was doing and see that Nancy Pinkerton's Dorian was one of the most fascinating characters on screen? Instead it seems he decided he needed to sex her up (I admit, I think that episode from May 1977 is the only one I've seen featuring Mallis' Dorian, so maybe they toned down her horniness later, though I get the impression, divorced from Pinkerton, the character became less distinctive and wasn't given much to do until Strasser. Who of course unequivocally loved Stuart and he loved her.) Side note--when I watch the Pinkerton episodes, she reminds me SOOO much of Carrie Coon's acting and characterization in The Gilded Age. Everything about the performance--maybe I'm crazy. I agree with you about the P&G soaps although from what I can tell this was especially true of ATWT and GL, or maybe the CBS ones in general. The Another World stuff I've seen feels... well not like the ABC soaps but not quite as "classic/old fashioned soap opera" as this stuff (of course that includes things like the two 60s episodes from Agnes Nixon we have--so not a big surprise there--and of course, as well, Irna created AW with the desire to make it full out melodrama and less low key in style.) I hope I don't sound like I'm insulting the shows we see in those episodes by saying what I said--I just meant it really was striking how different they were. And that's to their strength--it was smart for ABC to counterprogram the way they did--the problem is that even by the 80s (let alone the 90s,) as you say, as the P&G soaps tried to capture what ABC was having, it just made all of the soap operas more homogenized in style and feel (if not necessarily in actual quality.) So something was lost there. And obviously ATWT was still holding on to its audience... (Those voice overs though... I guess we know where JER got it from.)

Oh wow! I've been so out of the soap opera loop, I totally missed a full Eden episode 😮 😮 And yeah, I think it would be impossible to suggest that Nixon didn't create Kate and Ava (unless whoever did, did so as a homage to her AW and AMC creations of similar characters ) I know it's largely believed when Marland left after two years, that Nixon became the defacto uncredited HW for at least a couple of years (I believe Ralph Ellis got credit but his credit wasn't separate from the rest of the writing team the way a HW credit usually is, but, again, my soap opera knowledge is rusty.) As you know, I also have a lot of affection for Loving even if I acknowledge what a mess it was, and how frustrating it was too that often when they seemed to be on the right track (like in the early 90s--when I started watching due to the AMC Carter Jones cross over "event," up to which point I wasn't even aware of Loving's existence--when they briefly refocused on the campus) we'd get a regime change and it would be back to square one. I think I'm in the minority but I really enjoy Nixon's year long stint as credited HW again around 93-94 (I even have some scripts from that time,) even if it included Nixon at her most full on Gothic (Dante and his "pet" who turned out to be Curtis in a cage, etc.) I know Gothic Nixon is something even a lot of Nixon fans don't really like, but obviously it was a side of her writing she seemed to enjoy indulging in every so often. (I guess I should post in the Loving thread ) My pleasure--this is the type of stuff I could talk about, try to work out from the little we know, etc, endlessly. (Nixon's memoir was a mess when it comes to facts--and a lot of the reason for that was stuff that I guess couldn't be helped, including how during writing it she had another stroke, that her well-meaning son was basically her fact checker even though, despite how important the project was for him, he never was much of a soap watcher, etc. But I was still so disappointed that I don't think Loving even is *mentioned* in it. And then there's her role as a consultant/co-creator of The City, a soap whose final six months I really loved... In the long Museum of Television video interview with Agnes I think she's asked about her role in The City and she completely blanks like she'd never even heard of the show ) I actually have an old OLTL and two AMC scripts with her notes on them as I befriended a wonderful woman who worked as a freelancer on those shows, as well as Somerset, for a brief time back when they'd actually freelance scripts out when they were overworked (I think she did her work between 190-73?). She was terminally ill and wanted to unload some of her stuff on people who would really appreciate them. Anyway, it's *wonderful* to read Nixon's corrections and comments--and like any good teacher she also is sure to give full out praise to stuff she likes. But I can understand why writers like Mulcahey felt condescended to and stifled working in that way.

I'm back! Of course I had to come here and see what the talk about these videos was, and chime in. Full disclosure, I'm friends with Mike Poirier (we've traded various soap opera stuff for years--in my case mostly Agnes Nixon show related--scripts, bibles, story treatments, etc.) I was glad he decided to finally release these public! I have a lot of thoughts, of course, but it's great to see (I didn't realize 45 minute episodes actually ran a full 33 minutes without commercials.) This is pretty much smack dab in the middle of my favourite era for the Agnes Nixon soaps and we have so little of it. It's interesting to watch these, ending in March 1977 and then watch the previously uploaded April and May 1977 episodes... So much upheaval between April (the wedding of Larry and Karen) and May. I have an article from a TV mag from that time about the "mini massacre" as they call it (I would upload it here but until I get my account back I can't.) They mention how EP Doris Quinlan was fired with about a weekend's notice (as we know from the OLTL oral history book,) how the cast was complaining about slow and repetitive writing, and how major cast firings happened as soon as Joseph Stuart came in as EP (he had been one of the heads of ABC Daytime who hired him based on how highly regarded his run at The Doctors had been.) It seems funny to me that the writing was criticized though I know ratings weren't great at all despite the 45 minute gimmick (it probably didn't help that GH I think was still even lower rated and the whole gimmick was that people would watch both rather than switching networks.) I just find it so... solid, but I'm prone to like anything Russell writes with Sam Hall (Hall's run after Russell's death in hindsight still had a lot of good stuff but that was when things were the show was already changing with the Buchanens who I *think* actually were all Hall's concept judging from his interview even though Russell was there.) Quinlan says in the piece that the network also complained about the writing--she wondered why they then fired her but kept the writing team (the only change was Peggy O'Shea was added to the writing team but that might have had nothing to do with anything.) BUT my point is watching that May episode is such a culture shock from the April one. Nancy Pinkerton (the article confirms she was fired, presumably by Stuart who wanted to sex things up) being replaced by Claire Malis is such a change--and suddenly Dorian is HORNY and seems preoccupied with sex (trying to seduce her accountant.) Farley Granger was fired as well, and the new Will Vernon is HORNY and suddenly is sexually fixated on Jenny, and just in the space of a month the show feels in many ways quite different despite the same writers. Ultimately, these changes were probably a good thing (well, Pinkerton should have never been replaced) as it led to some great stuff in the next 2-3 years and a big rating bump (helped by AMC and the GH phenomenon) but it is a big change that's not talked about much (probably because the Rauch turnover 7 years later was a much bigger change) As people have noticed Mitch has also uploaded 1973-74 clips of How to Survive a Marriage (which is fascinating and totally confirms the criticism of the episodes when Rosemary Pinz was on it, before they desperately tried to be more traditional soap, where it feels like a LOT of talk therapy. Not a bad idea for a soap, but obviously not going to quickly get an audience) and the 1973 episodes of ATWT and GL which are fascinating to me. Those are discussed in their own thread but still in the organ music era, it's fascinating how, for all their soapy goodness, at this stage they were *completely* in the style of how people (still) mock soaps. Lots of coffee, lots of makeup, LOOOOONG internal monologues, and organ music. Watching them back to back with the OLTL from a few years later (granted, the Dobsons had come to P&G soaps by the mid 70s to shake things up) or even comparing these episodes to the 1970 AMC episodes and that one 1969 OLTL, you REALLY see why people found the Agnes Nixon soaps to be so revolutionary (remember that some soap press refused to CALL them soap operas as they didn't think they fit.) I remember when I was researching my soap MA article there were several articles with the new college fanbase for these two shows (especially AMC) where they just said when they discovered them on tv they didn't even recognize them as soap operas. The gap in style really is so noticeable (and wouldn't be ten years later.)

I don't know about Mulcahey's involvement, though obviously he was a major part of the small writing team at the start. However, Loving had a more complicated creation, one I had confirmed 10 or so years back when I had a brief email correspondence with Dan Wakefield while I was researching my Nixon/AMC related MA thesis. Dan Wakefield, who passed away just last year, was a well regarded novelist most known for Going All the Way and Starting Over. He actually also wrote the screenplay decades later for 1997's film of Going All the Way with an amazing cast--that was a big mess but the director's cut released a couple of years back is worth watching. But I digress. Wakefield also wrote the 1976 book All Her Children, one of the first books to take soap operas seriously, and as anyone who remembers me on here, a book I champion all the time, which talks about how surprised he was to fall in love and become obsessed with AMC, and then examines soap operas and its fans in general as well as profiling Agnes Nixon. Around that time Wakefield actually created the show James at 16 (though I think network interference meant he didn't stay with it for its brief run.) But he remained close with Nixon, and they hatched a plan to create a soap opera together, and he would be the headwriter. It was his idea to set it on a college campus. In my emails, Wakefield, who was flattered anyone was interested in this aspect of his career, said he'd look for the outline and mail (!) a copy to me, but our emails petered out and he never seemed to find it. This was when it was still called Love Without End (which doesn't flow off the tongue but I still think is a better title.) Anyway, Dan realized just how much work and what a commitment being headwriter would be, and he amiably left the project, and it was, from his understanding, around this point when Nixon contacted Marland (at that stage in her career, Nixon didn't want to actually be a headwriter for a new show, but she did want to oversee it.) I believe Marland at the time only had cable soap New Day in Eden occupying him and it probably quickly became apparent that it was a non-starter (how I wish I could see more than the 5 minutes of an episode I've seen of that!) Knowing what we know of Marland I think the basic character/family setup of Loving was his work. But we now know that the combo never really worked--apparently Nixon insisted on giving plenty of notes on all the early scripts, which wasn't what was expected. etc.

As a teen I loved the return of Janet (and all her mirror talks) but that's a good point--I don't think they did ever explain why she was given the experimental surgery (and it's not like people would follow her later to see how the surgery worked out...) But Jane Cox was great, and Harold figuring it out lol

Thanks for that!

Yeah this would probably been just before 1995? Right when the station premiered. Oh I have a lot of respect for Marcus (I don't really know about her DAYS except what she says in her interview--I'll investigate ). For the msot part she seemed to understand how shows worked, and I think also it's impressive that she could handle "legit" soap as well as parodies like Mary Hartman Mary Hartman (it must have been kinda annoying that Norman Lear always got all the credit for that...)

Too bad these have no credits--but it should still be Agnes Nixon

Those shirts!! I mean and that seems to be a coffee place? LOL Love the end credit music Also--interesting they credit Art Wallace--the creator and first HW of Dark Shadows--as a creative consultant. I know his wife wrote scripts around this time... Still, kinda random. Agnes Nixon seems to have had admiration for DS. She never has said so specifically but she picked Gordon Russell for One Life to Live based on his only previous daytime work DS (and he came with Sam Hall). And a few times she has said how Dan Curtis had the right Idea to save the tapes of his soap from the start.

(By Bravo I mean the Canadian Bravo which isn't connected to Bravo US). I remember really liking it--I think at that age anyway it connected to me more than Mary Hartman. It was outrageous but more grounded in a discernible reality (as I think Ann says in that clip). I swear I taped some episodes but would have to go through my storage.

Well they were given a year and five months--not two years . Sure, you could say two years if you count their time on Loving--yes, with the same EP, but writing for that show was such a completely different *thing* (and of course was focused around one major storyline--I will say ABC's "suggestion" that they open The City with a similar serial killer storyline was bad on every level) I dunno, maybe I am being too generous, but with all the growing pains of the show (the camera work for the first few months was hard to take) etc, I think they deserved at least two full years. And again, I do think that from the point Tracy came on, it's compelling, good, stuff. At the time I thought it was the best thing ABC had on the air (granted 97 was when their other soaps were having troubles...) I do know that B/E said the Cassandra storyline was one they felt they had to finish before the show ended and so drastically rewrote to bring it to a quick conclusion. Not sure about any other storylines...

Did anyone watch creator Ann Marcus' followup to Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman, the late night soap parody from 1980, The Life and Times of Eddie Roberts (L.A.T.E.R.)? Bravo briefly reran it as part of their TV Too Good for TV block in the early 90s (which also, if I recall, is where I first got to see Mary Hartman--they also showed Soap and Twin Peaks and... Cop Rock LOL). I'd love to see full episodes again but can only find this:

Watch this space... Aww thanks--that does make sense. You're right (although Sydney did own the building and had the penthouse, but...) It made more sense with Tracy given her life situation. But, while I defend the last half of the City, I completely agree that it might have worked better to pull from a small neighbourhood (maybe fictional) in NY instead of one building As FrenchBug says that's always a problem when you set a soap in an actual big city (and even small town soaps suffer from this when they started to have every conceivable thing in their town including several massive businesses). The UK soaps do make it work by creating fictional communities within a big city, although even there you do start to wonder why they all seem to live, work and have fun on the same four streets...

Within two weeks--hang on to your hats--I should be able to upload and post some of the Jonathan sells his soul to the devil/turns into a snake storyline 😮

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Was that me? I told someone that they could read the AMC bible at the NorthWestern archives. I was able to go there as research for my MA essay and actually have scanned a lot of stuff I can share. However, I have to warn you, there is remarkably little about OLTL compared to AMC and even Loving and her pre OLTL soap work. But no--nothing is scanned in. I had to scan what I did myself, and that was a bit of an iffy thing in and of itself (I went twice, one time the person was fine with me scanning all I wanted, the other time I was being watched VERY closely)

I was glad Erika was able to make an appearance as some of her comments were the most interesting (and wow, someone involved in the show actually mentioned Gordon Russell and has some sense of when Nixon was actually still writing for the show--I'm impressed). Everyone seems to remember Agnes whole heartedly approving of the 90s Vicki DID storyline except for that one interview with Agnes herself which she seemed aghast that she would have ever approved of that (in hindsight I think she was confused by the way the question was asked of her, actually).

The recast happened before then, but yeah, one of Broderick's misfires was new Taylor and the whole Jamaica storyline with her hunting them all over the island (and voodoo). I have it on authority from one of the writers I interviewed that that outlandish storyline was partly pushed on the show by ABC who wee concerned about the sudden rise of DAYS with its crazy stories--and that they were "allowed" to tell stories like the over a year long Michael Delaney/Kevin Sheffield "gay" stuff as a deal if they balanced it out with increasingly over the top storylines. (The other Broderick story I hated was Tanner--everything about Tanner including drunk Hayley thinking she slept with him). Exactly how I feel. I really appreciate that Locher does these, but they're always frustrating (partly because, as he has admitted, he never even watched any of the Nixon soaps so he often gets details wrong, or repeats stories that all of the fans know already but he acts like it's new info ). I didn't expect any depth, though I did repeatedly ask him to ask Debbi (and Darnell) about Nixon persuading her to join Loving and her time there. So we didn't really get anything new, but I wasn't expecting much (and it was nice to hear Burnett tell her story herself, though of course I had heard that story 100x lol)

I had the same reaction to Anton (the actor of course later played Dracula opposite SMG's Buffy on an episode of Buffy). I dunno--I think people like looking at McTavish's run as the start of the slow decline of AMC. Perhaps, but her first two years were mostly great . It was only at the end that you understand why FMB wanted her out. Yes her show was quite dark (though still had classic AMC comedy) but I'll stand by it.

Was Another World trying the same thing? I... don't see that but I'd love to hear what you mean. Your description of The City isn't wrong, but it makes me think you've only watched the first six months or a bit more. As I've said before, I think it really came into its own in its final six months or so and (rather quickly all things considered) understood and improved from a lot of its early problems (including short term "shock" stories like how they handled the racial and trans storylines). There was a much stronger sense of a found family and genuine affection. And of course having Tracy on the show helped immeasurably (I don't think I've ever liked her character more).