EricMontreal22

Thanks for reading them! An update, tomorrow we will get three new episodes added to the cycle (and three earlier ones removed)--which is odd as this last cycle we got 4 added... So it's all just a bizarre mess (but I will be able to catch one of the showings of the three episodes tomorrow so...) I swear keeping up with this crazy schedule will be the death of me. Also--when BeondTV started the deal was you'd pay for 20 episodes dropping each month. I read when they started streaming on Plex the press release said there would be 6 episodes that would cycle four times until the next cycle (dunno if this is how it ended up being done or not.) And now Pluto just seems to be, so far, doing whatever they want. But in the first BeondTV press piece they also basically seemed to say so far they only have "season 25" lined up, "to episode #6772 (March 1996)" If these past few days this is indicative of Pluto's schedule, we'll go through about a month of episodes in a week which will get is to March 1996 in, what 3-4 months? (I'm no good at math.) I'm just confused... (But the last cliffhanger was good--Erica, who just got an injection from Dr Kinder, is about to make her appearance late at Valley Inn party to celebrate Tad's work on her show The Cutting Edge--and everyone is mad with her because of some footage that leaked to a Current Affair type tv show of her and Maria fighting, all tied to Maria's attempts at invitro fertilization and Erica acting out because Maria seems to be the only one knowing she's growing dependent on her pain killers... And I specifically remember this was the first time I heard about the concept of in vitro fertilization lol Meanwhile Taylor convinced Noah to model for some pics--he almost wouldn't when he found out he'd have to wear "fancy man" makeup whatever that is, and we've seen a ridiculous photoshoot in the "alley behind McKay's") Yep, Liza is maybe November sweeps? That was my introduction to her, and I was immediately taken and I DO remember her first storyline which was I think her getting with newly cast "Jake" in a country B&B or something--not knowing who he was... Maybe I have that completely wrong, we'll see. The funny thing is Marian just had an appearance with Enid Nelson at Tad's party, gossiping about the footage they saw about Erica and Maria and how Maria should no longer practice at the hospital (Edmund reamed them out.) I have read that Marian only returned, after 6 or so years being off the show, right around this time and though it's a tiny appearance I'm guessing it's to plant the seeds for Liza returning. Again, when I first saw this I would have had no idea who she was, as no one even says her name... I need to get a photo of the samurai suit of armour as it was all over this last batch of episodes--I mean it would make more sense of Dimi or Edmund had some ties or interest in, I dunno... Japanese history or martial arts And thanks for the well wishes :D

Amen--it's such a black hole (of course we have even less of OLTL from this period, so...) Is the next full leaked episode the Tom/Erica wedding?? I know, as I said, they stopped making kinescopes by late 1971 but...

Yep we have either 5 (or is it 6? I've watched them so many times before and should know this stuff off the top of my head.) AMC just snuck by--in 1971 networks stopped making any kinescopes of their shows (and of course were still destroying video tapes.)

Yes that's one of the B&W kinescopes I saved from Agnes Nixon's shortlived website--one of the kinescopes her son found in a closet while moving her out of her house (it's been uploaded many times on YT) It was AMC and it was Eileen--she wanted to see Kate I think, though the scene is with Joe (and Tara briefly.) That was who I was trying to think of when I said Anna Wolek... (If I had been smarter I would have saved all the great videos Agnes' website hosted, not just the two AMC kinescopes--including the full Museum of TV and Radio anniversary presentations for OLTL and AMC--separately, I think there were inb fact two for AMC--they had... Sigh, they seem completely lost now. They were mostly Nixon--and others--talking but with a lot of clips)

I know this is going back some weeks, but just playing catch up. That William Mooney interview is new to me and had two interesting points: "Crossing-over: There were no major changes when Agnes [Nixon, Creator of All My Children] sold the show to ABC. It was more work for all of us (particularly the technicians and crew) when we moved to an hour. After we had been an hour show for some time, ABC became fearful that NBC's Another World was going to expand to a ninety-minute show per day. So they decided to tie One Life to Live and All My Children more closely together--after all, Pine Valley and Llanview were only twenty or so miles apart. So I was chosen as the crossover actor that would tie the two shows together. I was sent to Llanview to defend Vicky [Buchanan, played by Erika Slezak] in a big trial. But, as will happen, the schedules of the two shows got awry, and I ended up shooting three shows in one day. I was half-crazy with fatigue. " I'd never heard before that THIS was part of the reason for the cross over and it fascinates me--so I wonder if they had promos about Paul being on OLTL (it also shows that they felt he was enough of a character of consequence.) Of course ABC had tied their shows together before--I think in the first year of OLTL, Steve Hardy from GH came over to consult, and we have a 1970 AMC episode where... was it Anna Wolek? One of the OLTL characters comes to visit Joe. The Steve cameo on OLTL seems a bigger deal as they'd have had to fly him from LA to NYC to tape (unless he was there anyway,) but I do wonder if the press or anyone was aware of these cross overs (I sort of think not, but then how would they bring over viewers?)

Well as of episode 6626, Lorraine Broderick is in the credits as HW, so we must be into September episodes... edit Or maybe this is Aug 28 which is listed on Wiki (I know, not too dependable) as her first day.

Wow @Vee thanks for that--and I went back and read several of your earlier recaps I missed. You know I was NOT watching OLTL until pretty close to the beginning of Billy Douglas (I would often see the OLTL pre-credits sequence as I was finishing my lunches (which at the time I went home for) and getting ready to go back to school and obviously it made me realize I needed to start watching.) BUT I really remember some of these details including the Casablanca sequence with Tina as Hoagy... I wonder if I just saw clips later or if I happened to be home sick and was watching it or something...

Wow what a waste! Even though maybe being in her 40s by soap standards at the time she was seen as old, she was still very hot (besides being a great actress...) I was hoping she had been brought on as a hot nightclub singer or something. Thanks! Wow it looks like he even sent to the archives his massive collection of musical theatre playbills?? I mean I fully approve, but...

I expect it would be. I looked into BeondTV when it was announced (as I THINK they were allowing Canadians) but it seemed a bit pricey and complicated. So how do you schedule your Pluto TV viewing?

I've only seen some of this storyline, and it was smart to make it about pairing Erica and Brooke, but I agree with you. It just did not fit the show. Mythical jungle kingdoms and all the other stuff on the other soaps is something MOSTLY AMC managed to stay away from in the 1980s (I think the fact that they had such good ratings meant there was less pressure to go there--ironically when this story happened is when they first started to have a bit of a dip.)

Brooke was my favourite character as a young teen watching the soap. I suspect that wasn't typical of most young gay teen viewers but... And really even in her worst stories, I dunno why, I just loved her (and Julia Barr of course) so much. When she quit rather than accepting Frons' offer of being recurring I honestly would have dreams years later about being excited to find out she was returning to the show...

Since I just watched the first two episodes with Kinder on Pluto TV he definitely was always a villain. We didn't know about him having a drugged up Skye/wife though. But he's shown as a villain from the start--initially it seems with the goal of hooking his celeb patients so that he will have more control (interesting detail I didn't remember though, the always around Olga is the one who recommended him to Erica, saying he had done miracles for some of her friends, and had recently gotten tired of the big city and relocated just outside of Pine Valley lol.)

YES to all of this. It drives me nuts how dismissed it is by some hardcore AMC fans to this day, and almost always you find out that they never bothered to even check it out. As to Brooke reuniting with Adam, in the final episodes it looked like they were going for Brooke/Dimitri which was an idea I liked (and of course neither actor no longer is with us...)

I dated a guy for a few years who was working here from Australia, and he loved the soap genre but mostly just knew his homegrown soaps. However, my love for AMC (this was before it was cancelled) caused him to get somewhat hooked and look up older scenes and he loved Erica's speech so much (which we now know was penned entirely by Lorraine Broderick herself) he could quote it, and if you gave him enough wine, would. And @alwaysAMC ""Saint Maria of Wildwind. Tending to the sick in her pushup bra." was his FAVOURITE line.

You are absolutely correct, though that info is gathered from several sources. Washam's Welovesoaps interview, McTavish's unpublished memoir itself (gotta give her some credit for at least be honest when people didn't like her or her work though she seems to see it as a source of pride,) and various things I'd heard from those interviews... And it makes a lot of sense. (I also know that when McTavish first took over for Nixon's shortlived full time return, in 1992, Nixon still had more control but when Nixon did her 1 year stint as Loving HW in 93-94 she was much more absent from any story meetings or involvement for AMC, which again makes sense with what we saw on screen.)

Thanks so much! I just downloaded it. I watch Pluto on my TV which is one thing I like about it (for some reason I always find that easier than watching things on my comp--I guess it helps that it's a big plasma VS my rinky laptop plus I often will have the TV on something while I'm doing something on the laptop. But this looks great and easy to use!

I completely know what you mean.

Right--Dante's stuff may not play as well as it did when I was 13 I admit. He was introduced mysteriously with his "pet" in a cage... Who turned out to be a captured Curtis (one of Nixon's weirder storylines but of course for Loving she had done the "is Jonathan the Devil" story...) I did find him much more scary/evil than I found Carlos (again, at the time) who felt always to me more like a comic villain, especially when they then brought on Mortimer. When Gilbert first came on he was involved in what at the time I found some of the more psychologically spooky/scary stuff--before you found out he was the twin, etc, etc. Again, not sure how well it's aged :P I did like how she did the more typically Agnes stuff--a lot of her character work and dynamics seemed to largely be for naught and simplified when Addie Walsh returned to take over, this time co-HW with Laurie McCarthy (which was yet another short Loving stint as I think within a year Esensten/Brown took over...)

I wish more of Agnes Nixon's rather Gothic 1993/94 run as Loving HW was on (per the Gothic element she introduced Dante as well as Jeremy's twin Gilbert.) As a watching from 92 through to the end of The City, that probably was my fave era I saw "live".

ADDED Well now the Pluto TV listings are updated and it looks like they've added, starting at midnight tonight, 6623, 6624, 6625 and then cycle back to 6619, 6620... So I have no idea what that means for the future. But I do hope that they only add 3 to even 6 every few days and the initial batch of 12 was just to start things off because I probably would never be able to keep up with that without suffering burnout...

So here are my typically disorganized thoughts about watching All My Children on Pluto Canada. The first half will be talking about the mechanics and frustration of watching on Pluto for so those who know this, or are just bored by it (I know I am,) can skip to my thoughts on revisiting 1995 AMC (mostly for the first time in 30 years) in the second half. As I’ve mentioned, this weekend due to health issues (that are on the mend) I have been mostly stuck at home. And so this was the ideal time for Pluto Canada to launch the All My Children channel for me. Yesterday, I watched all 12 episodes available basically straight through—these were episodes 6611-6622 judging from the listings, Season 25 (so 1995…) I bet someone else could find the proper original air dates but I think this is early August of that year, but it’s definitely Summer (which they mention many times—which makes it odd that we intermittently get high school scenes with new teacher Michael Delaney, but maybe they were set up as being a special Summer class as he just announced he’s been hired full time.) First, the Pluto viewing experience is far from ideal. These are not being offered for on demand viewing like some of their programming, but rather streaming, so you have to catch them when they show them on their, not your, time. You also can not pause for anything (I did find I had to go to the store, but realized I can get Pluto on my iPhone so I just loaded it up, and listened to the parts of the episode I was missing, while shopping which worked fine.) However, keeping up with new episodes I think will be more of a challenge come Summer term when, you know, I’ll actually be teaching several courses, etc (as well as, ideally, having some sort of social life.) The 12 episodes cycle back and repeat— Because the commercial interruptions are brief (2 minutes at most, sometimes shorter,) all twelve episodes cycle through in under 10 hours, but I can see how I’ll have to look at the schedule in advance to work out when I can try to catch the right new episode and still maintain a life… So I think since Friday they’ve cycled through 6 times, and I just turned Plkuto TV on and checked and they JUST started a new cycle back at 6611. HOWEVER, I looked at the upcoming schedule and I see that now after episode 6622 airs they are moving forward to episode 6623 (at midnight.) But, because Pluto TV is the least easy to navigate system ever, they don’t show if that means they’re going into a new 12 episode cycle, or maybe a shorter one after launch (I believe the streaming system on Plex in Europe adds 6 new episodes after 4 cycles from what I can tell from their press release.) You can only see the schedule for episodes for the next 12 or so hours. Does that make sense? Probably not. Lord knows how this will help with any older, or just brand new to Pluto TV, AMC fans. Because really this streaming system is great for those who want to watch their fave sitcom or even un-serialized drama and just are happy to catch a random episode here or there, or maybe have it on in the background as comfort food (no judgement from me.) It is NOT a good way to re-air a soap opera. And none of the press info is telling us at all what Pluto TV is planning to do (or even a warning of just how many “cycles” we do have to catch each episode.) I’m sure there’s some much more knowledgeable fan than I am who has found a way to stream these episodes and just capture them to video to maybe eventually upload, but that’s all beyond me. Are any members here using BeondTV (Jonathan?) Can you still buy episodes and then watch on demand or have they all gone the streaming model as well? From the start I thought it was odd for BeondTV to choose to start airing AMC at the 1995 season when we know that in theory they have full libraries of episodes going back to just before the start of the 1980s. But I get some of the thinking behind it. For viewers who watched more of the later years, the show would be more recognizable, and they point out that the 25th anniversary season seemed a fitting start. The idiocy there though was then why not start with the first week of January, 1995, when there were all those flashback episodes with past and present characters reuniting in Ruth and Joes’ new home, which helped show or remind fans of stories from the past (as a then 14 year old viewer who started in late 1991 but was obsessed with the history—and at that time there were few chances to see any older episodes—I was in Heaven.) No matter, they decided to start in March 1995, right near the end of when headwriter Megan McTavish was seen to be becoming more and more over the top and repetitive and it was no secret that exec producer Felicia Minei Behr was going to replace her. #6513 (March 1995) was the start for BeondTV pay per view members back in September I think (with 20 episodes a month.) So I’m not sure why we started with #6611 but maybe this is what is streaming currently on Plex in Europe. But, it’s not a bad place to start for me, since as I mentioned this is in the interim period where Hal Corley head the writing team before Lorraine Broderick would join as HW in September. Even in the dialogue, you can tell that they quite quickly wrapped up some of McTavish’s nuttier storylines (there was a hysterically random bit of dialogue from Daisy to Palmer about why he even cared about Seabone Hunkle coming back to town, and thanking God that that was all over—talk about meta writing.) I definitely remember this Summer well when I was a teen, even though it’s funny because I remember most of the large story beats, but had, of course, forgotten so many of the details (and some of the minor storylines—man I wish the Charlie and Cecily “cyber” storyline was better than I remembered, but it’s not…) Watching 12 episodes back to back, a few things really stand out to me that I’m less aware of when I just dip into watching one or two episodes on Youtube. This isn’t always a good thing (and I get that these shows were not meant to be binged,) but more on that at the end. I remember that by this time I was starting to read the soap opera Usenet groups—and as we know, people love to complain about what they aren’t liking more than what they do like. So poor naïve me, was always shocked to read that people were getting frustrated with his favourite soap opera even though I was a bit relieved to see others point out what I had noticed about AMC’s writing under McTavish becoming more unhinged. By now, though, I was also firmly hooked on One Life to Live which had been almost the ideal soap under Malone/Griffith/Gottlieb but by this time, mid 1995, the bloom was off the rose from what I recall… Susan Bedsow Horgan was perfectly fine as an EP but not particularly strong, it seemed, and of course Griffith was on his way out (I think to help set up Sunset Beach?) and Malone was never as good without his support, and maybe was wearing himself out anyway. The other soap I watched, was Loving which I was especially into during the 93-94 Agnes Nixon-Gothic era, and that summer was deep into the “must watch” Loving Murders. But still AMC was MY show and what I looked forward to watching the most each day. Watching the episodes now, you really see how by the mid 2000s the scope and storytelling of soaps was vastly diminished. I guess a big part of this was that budgets started to be cut, and the number of cast members you could have each episode was similarly cut (not to mention things like actually having a suitable number of extras in classrooms and restaurants.) By 1995 I think soaps were still operating at their peak budgets. Where this really shows in AMC is just how many storylines they have going. Jonathan Kinder, the quack doctor who exploits Erica’s accident and burgeoning pill addiction, is introduced here, but while that’s a front burner storyline, it’s only focused on in maybe 3 or 4 of the 12 episodes, just because there are so many other stories going on at the time. One that started is Janet (after McTavish had her “killed” by being struck by lightning—HA!) is found by runaway Laura and they start living with Pierce in his cabin (I liked how one person described where he lived as “you know, just past the quicksand area by Willow Lake”—oh yes, I remember the quicksand…) Pierce fits so squarely into the romance novel mode—mysterious, tormented, moody stranger who is a complete hunk, loves poetry, solitude, and nature and maybe is a bit dangerous. I think even at 14 I realized what a trope this was, and yet this storyline always really appealed to me, and still works for me (and I remember that the people on the Internet at the time HATED it.) I do have memories of the mess that the Pierce stuff would become, partly due to letting go of the actor due to some inappropriate behaviour and the character never working in recasts (even when my first movie crush, Maxwell Caulfield took over.) Other things I hadn’t thought about in a long time are that I never liked the Taylor stuff—trying to keep Noah and Julia apart—but part of my bias is I just hated the Taylor recast. So I didn’t mind it as much now, not remembering the original Taylor so clearly. Since, as I’ve mentioned (over and over) I focused part of my MA academic work on the gay storyline of AMC at this time (which was a true umbrella storyline that, in various permutations lasted over two years) it’s interesting to see Michael Delaney introduced here. At the time, his character never registered with me until he came out (which I think we are still a few months away from,) but you see in hindsight that they were really trying to establish him as a masculine, man’s man type who Jack, Trevor, etc, all instantly see as wanting around. (And talking to Hal Corley about this, of course it was all very intentional.) And man, no wonder at that age I was so fascinated by Arlene who in the Alec/Hayley/Matteo/Arlene storyline playing out here, and particularly as played by Olivia Birkelund, comes off as a sort of coked up Tennessee Williams protagonist. I love it—her genuine love for her daughter, her psychosexual obsession with Alec, breaking into his apartment to destroy it and then spending more time rubbing his cologne and bathrobe all over her body… It shouldn’t work but it sure does. Anyway, I could go on about each storyline, but like I said, there are a lot of stories going on. And yet, somehow, it doesn’t feel too chopped up the way sometimes soap operas will when there are too many stories without much interconnection (maybe because there still IS a lot of interconnection—no storyline feels “islanded.”) You also still have a sense that Pine Valley is not a place where only wealthy people live—even with the prominence of the Chandlers, Wildwind and the Cortlands, which we learn from how these soaps would become is not as easy to do as it should be. (OK I do wonder why Noah’s apartment looks just so dirty--c’mon and wash those walls!—but I also realize that this is how AMC’s sets for the poor characters were going at least to the early 30s—the walls look the same as the apartment in New York where Jesse and Jenny had run away to, for example…) I’m sure as I watch more this week, I’ll have more to say. I will say, while I think Felicia Minei Behr is an amazing Exec Producer and should have never been let go from AMC, from my modern perspective there are things to her vision of the show that I don’t like as much. One thing is the show is VERY dark during this time, something that didn’t register to me as a fan who started watched in 1991 but feels at odds with AMC in the 70s and 80s and even by the late 90s when Francesca James stepped in as EP (and should have been given more of a chance…) Like I mean physically dark. So many of the scenes take place at night, or even when they aren’t night time I have to check if it’s meant to be daytime or not. This is something I associate with, for example, Conboy’s Y&R and Days of Our Lives but not so much with AMC. But I wonder if this also just speaks to the soap aesthetic in the early and mid 90s because certainly Gottlieb’s OLTL was pretty dark too (a big change from Rauch’s) and Days, whose ratings were suddenly starting to become a prob for AMC, really had this style. It just feels a bit at odds with the tone I associate with AMC, even at its most Gothic (and in the early 90s and still this era it had a lot of that.) Again, in hindsight, while major story points are being created and made, there is some feeling of the fact that the writing team knew they were just waiting until Broderick’s contract could be finalized and she would come in as HW, but there certainly isn’t the feel of “running in place” that sometimes happens during interim soap writing regimes. The other thing is the music. Man, I wish I could change at least half of the music (and again, I think this would have to be something to blame Behr for.) It’s WAY too constant (although there have been a few dramatic scenes without underscore which stand out dramatically for that reason—whether on purpose or not.) It’s ALL played by a synth, of course, and there were parts where it sounded like the music I was used to from playing computer adventure games at the time with their tinkly synth constant underscore—there’s a scene where Tad takes JR and Jamie camping (cue another reason to be hanging around Willow Lake!) and the synth underscore is obnoxious kiddie marching music. Argh. At the time, I don’t think I noticed this before, but it is interesting to go back and see how music was used differently in different AMC eras. In the peak early 80s, for example, it was primarily only used for transition and scene ending “stings” with so much of the show with no underscore. But here it reminds me of something I hate about Days of Our Lives but also has become over the decades a DAYS trademark, that constant doodling synth underscore throughout (I always thought with DAYS this was unavoidable because Ken Corday, going back to before he was EP in 1979, has been the show’s music head and seems to see himself as a great composer :P ) Like with the dark lights, this constant music I think was also a thing of its era (the synth sax for sexy scenes of course is emblematic of Melrose Place of the time.) So yeah, it’s interesting to go back and see that FMB definitely made style choices with her vision for AMC that I wouldn’t have. So I look forward to sticking with it on Pluto, I just hope I find a way to not miss an episode while not having to re-arrange my schedule too much to try to catch them… OH one note I made while watching because it was SOO strange. In the main Wildwind living room set that anyone who watched in the 90s knows by heart, there’s the oddest bit of set decoration in the corner of the room. A propped up Japanese samurai suit of armour on display. I really want to know the thinking behind this piece of set decoration (I mean it’s interesting, it just seems so weirdly specific.)

Wow. I hadn't heard that--is there a Ginger Smith interview I've missed about future storylines? That would have played out so well (at least in my mind.) We KNOW she was actively still involved in the reboot (which was from all reports still while her Parkinson's was pretty manageable.) I mean Ray MacDonnell himself said that Agnes knew he wanted to do comedy and personally wrote (or at least came up with the idea) for him to have a comic moment with Billy Clyde (I think it was a scene where Billy Clyde misunderstands Joe and thinks he wants to hire a hooker--and maybe a male one or Billy himself? My memory is gone, I used to know all this stuff :P ) So she was consulting at the least. And yeah, Wisner Washam didn't speak much about the Donna Pescow gay storylines on AMC from around 1983 but did say the initial idea was Agnes' (and that she wanted a gay male character but ABC had various requirements--like it being a less connected character and that it must be a woman because they wanted their Dynasty to be groundbreaking for having a regular gay male character in the cast... God ABC had some weird requirements--similar to the incest abuse storyline for Lily on Loving that Marland has said was Nixon's idea and then was somewhat ruined in the end because ABC wanted their TV movie of the week on the subject to be a "TV first" which just seems... insane. Would someone have actually said, if they advertised their movie that way, that "well, aren't you doing a similar storyline already on Loving, you liars!") And then of course when she returned to AMC in 1999-2001, ultimately more as a co-HW, really besides trying to return a sense of Pine Valley to the show after McTavish's second run, her main reason to be there was the Bianca storyline...

This is AMAZING thank you. And now I'm just gonna sound like a whiner, but is the sound sync completely off for anyone else (it seems progressive but gets worse so that you notice in the back half)? It wasn't for the half episode clip lol

HAHAH I'm an idiot but will leave what I wrote. I see that you meant for the 1980 episode!! SIGH. Well Wiki says this, which of course doesn't mean it's true: She joined All My Children as scriptwriter and breakdown writer in 1979, under the guidance of then-head writer Agnes Nixon. In 1982, Broderick was promoted to Associate Head Writer alongside fellow Nixon protégée Wisner Washam. Washam was promoted to Head Writer the following year. In 1986, Broderick was appointed co-Head Writer, sharing duties with Washam, who would exit the show himself in 1987, leaving Broderick as the sole head writer." I assume Script supervisor would mean making sure episodes were consistent with each other etc?

Hal spoke a bit about this. But now I won't remember the details (I did transcribe and save the interview... somewhere.) But for some reason Broderick was too busy to take over immediately after McTavish was gone--she certainly couldn't be a part of story meetings (maybe now it would be easier with Zoom :P though I guess they could have had her on a conference call) but she knew she'd be coming in in the Fall as so was already reading the scripts that he and the team were in charge with an was aware of story seeds being planted. Was Broderick maybe still contracted to GL? (I don't really know off hand when her work as one of the HW there started and ended just that it seemed to start around 91 when Nixon was back as official AMC HW.) (Agnes Nixon WAS still constantly at story meetings too--apparently she was very excited by the whole gay stuff, which of course was a story theme she had been trying for years.) I THINK she may have still had the "executive head writer" credit she took when McTavish took over from her in 1992 too, but from what I heard when she wasn't HW she knew to not so much suggest story ideas but to try to massage the stories being told with suggestions about different perspectives to take with them, etc (he said he often would get 2am calls from her with a story detail she thought of.) I mean as OTT as McTavish's work was starting to get, and no longer being the stuff FMB as EP wanted to produce (and ratings starting to slip) I think there's a reason that still the transition in Spring/Summer/Fall 1995 of AMC between McT, then just HC as interim HW and finally Broderick still for a day to day viewer comes off as pretty seamless (compared to other soaps and times when there's a HW change, especially when there's a period with no official HW--look at Loving in the early 90s, well Loving any time really) speaks to all of this.