EricMontreal22

Completely agreed about a consultant. Higley doesn't seem like she has the forethought to plan long term stories, so that doesn't shock me. I just assume if Malone had stuck around he might have actually put some effort into making the Killing Club story as seen on the show have *some* relation to the novel. Out of some masochistic urge I googled the Love Project and found some fansite that has praise for the story and a few pics (though this seems to be written just as the story started) http://frostbitten4.tripod.com/id41.html

I completely forgot about this character and story, but now I distinctly remember Beetem speaking out about his unhappiness with the writing.

I will say I woulda taken years more of Malone/Griffith crazy (and awful)-ness over the bulk of Higley--at the least I had fun trying to figure out exactly WHAT they were trying to do, and on some level appreciate the ambition (though I have to wonder if some of the Gothic-ness was cribbed from their bible for 13 Bourbon Street like reportedly some of Malone's AW was). Ha I forgot about the Love Crew specifics and yes Shannon! Wow. And then of course Mark returned because I guess they needed to reuse their token gay for the Colson story (?) and not a new one--cuz, y'know, that shows Higley knows how to write soap. However, I will argue one of your points. I actually thought The Killing Club wasn't... half bad (yes, I read it--to my credit I picked it up in the remainder bin on a whim). It's credited in the small print as being written by Michael Malone based on an idea by Josh Griffith--and Malone obviously knows how to write mystery novels, so that probably explains it. The irony is the OLTL show's story with the murders based on Marcie's story (I can't even remember who the killer on the show was) has virtually NO relation to the novel. Like even the way that the victims are murdered is different. I assume Higley just decided to do her own mystery and in the show claim it was connected to this book viewers could buy?

Ha yes! Living pictures--I suppose though it may have been the first opening with cast "photos". Thanks for bumping the Proposed soaps thread--I had forgotten about it. And I do remember Vendig getting that credit--

Ha did you see my post (page two) with the 1950s Heart of Juliet Jones soap pilot? I didn't make the connection (it's been a long day) but it was written by Gussman and I posted that exact same obituary there

Yep Jay Wilkison was kinda wasted--I thought Riley was one of the more compelling characters of that time (though the detail that he was named after Joe Riley struck me as bizarre and just a random pointless connection to the past) but he basically got stuck in his father, Daniel Colson's horrible plot which led to him (I think) going back on drugs, being arrested and leaving for rehab. Wilison did go on to do some Broadway--he was in Rent for the final years and is on the filmed final performance that was released and I remember him on Nashville for a while... Flash was just one of those characters that probably looked good on paper from that bizarre Malone/Griffith era, but never worked (partly due to the actor and all the reasons Vee gives). Was she originally part of the LOVE Center crew? Bright Eyes I loved Student Bodies! lol

Ah that's too bad--I've seen him on stage (in the off-Broadway gay musical Yank!--good show, bad title) and of course being a Sondheim freak I've seen him do a few of his songs in various concerts, and have always been impressed. He was kinda wasted and dropped on AMC but he was very good there too (one of those young actors I'm always surprised can actually act...) Poor Matt as Mark and what Higley did to his character on OLTL... So much for progressive gay plots! As a teen I admit I was guilty of giving credit to anything I liked on AMC to Nixon and anything I disliked to interference or other writers... I'd like to think I know better now and have accepted her faults (or at least less successful story foibles...)

I think it is an Agnes quirk you do just have to go with.

I think they--at least Wildwind, were meant to be right outside Pine Valley but umm yeah... (To be fair didn't they claim WIldwind had been shuttered down and only now Dimitri was returning to it?)

Fascinating that Charles Gussman (who?) would get both a title card credit and an announcer credit. Did anyone else in that era, aside from Phillips, get one?

One of Nixon's last umbrella stories, really. Of course it also led to so much other story (the whole Wildwind stuff including Edmund's parentage, etc, as well as the who killed Will murder, etc). Wildwind itself in some ways was similar to what Nixon and Washam had done when Cortland Manor was introduced (same Gothic/Victorian story tropes, the mysterious housekeeper, etc--although Wildwind went into the whole Jane Eyre thing with the wife in the attic...)

Someone was talking on FB about anniversary episodes starting with the 25th. But was there a 30th anniversary episode? Also--has this been posted? Probably but it's new to me. Is this actually a few seconds of Gillian Spencer's Vicki? (Obviously filmed badly on a camera phone at the Paley Center)

Thanks for those--that's exactly what I want! Isn't it odd that Hinsey doesn't mention Agnes Nixon returning as part of that new creative team she mentions? That looks about right to me, though I think Agnes Nixon might have actually been there a bit longer after Marland in the first run. I noticed that a lot of 1991-92, as you say, has recently suddenly picked up (I guess I didn't become a fulltime viewer until sometime in 92 with the Carter Jones/AMC crossover). How dare you insult the Dante/caged "pet" story But that's pretty much how I feel--Nixon did as good a job as possible I think trying to make the show truly cohesive, etc (interestingly the review from Hinsey posted below seems to have been done just at the start of her run).

I mean complaints like that MUST be based on *something*--I guess I'll check a few more random episodes later tonight, but definitely the first 6 episodes are all a bit over 25 minutes (this information is 100% proven and accurate ). There could be something fishy like they were given syndicated versions of later episodes (I'm not sure how heavily PP was syndicated but I know it was--though it's strange that Romance would show the originals in that case--stations like MeTV I've noticed tend to show the syndicated versions of shows. I HATE that they show the extremely butchered syndicated version of Night Gallery, for example) It is frustrating. I'm a huge fan of the UK Queer as Folk and even the Deluxe DVD released in the US used the US edits which are based on the US cable airings and don't actually censor anything but join combine the first season's episodes so that each 35 minute original episode (weird episode length, I know) is doubled (ie episodes 1 and 2 become a long episode one)--but worse of all is so much of the music, which is integral to the series, has been replaced with generic techno. Which is kinda odd because the UK release mostly used little known dance bands, etc--hardly anything high profile that would seem hard to license for N America.

I just checked disc one, every episode runs approximately 25 mins and 20-25 seconds. But maybe shortened syndicate versions of episodes are on other discs? (I don't have the time right now to check). I've only watched thr first two sets and I thought I remembered noticing that they all came in around 25 mins...

I completely agree with, well, all of this--though I had never heard about them releasing edited episodes (from what I've noticed they all seem to be the proper length but I haven't gone through all of them yet). SHOUT is usually pretty good at getting that right, and nothing's come up on the PP groups I'm on, but I'll have to investigate...

YES of course I meant From This Day Forth (I guess I was thinking of the song title LOL). Still, I prefer it as a title... Thanks for the welcome back--really enjoying catching up on your posts! Peyton Place at least makes more sense to me--since Shout Factory seems to be doing their best to (ever so slowly) release them on DVD. I admit I have umm... fanmade DVDs of the entire show (though I took a break and still have a "year" left of watching) that I bought when it looked like no other DVD sets were coming out--from the Romance Network airings, but out of guilt and a desire to support I did buy the two new box sets out this year.

Love reading your thoughts on How to... (BTW, anyone else agree that the working title, From This Moment On is better? How to Survive a Marriage just sounds awkward and, well, negative). I know much of the soap press at the time found Anne Howard Bailey's initial work on Marriage *way* too didactic--I've read pieces that claim that, unlike say Agnes Nixon's social issue storylines, the work on it (and speeches from rosemary Prinz' shrink character) often felt like lectures, though the general consensus agrees with what you said, that the show improved a lot once she left. The rather infamous Lin Bolen and her investment in the show often gets lots of the blame as well (I think maybe unfairly--she was unfairly caricatured in the film Network which I see as being reactionary because she was a woman with so much power in the tv world). Alas I've only ever seen the brief clip on youtube.

As you probably know, Retro started with mid 1967 episodes--but I don't know where you can find them now. I *believe* those are the earliest episodes available from the company that packages the reruns--but have no idea if that means that that was when full episodes were saved to video tape or if earlier ones exist (and not just random kinescopes).

Exactly.

Ah had no idea, but that would make sense if they decided they might as well cut their losses...

That's right--thanks for the correction! Apparently (I found a quote) Ruth was taken aside by the director who pointed out that four major characters had already been recast at least once (Kate, Jeff, Ann and Lincoln) and she could be next-- (although I wonder if there was much of a threat--I don't think any of those actors had the pedigree that Ruth had). Yes the Kent murder mystery, I have it on good authority, was done when they decided to let go of the actor. Dunno why they didn't recast though I assume he was pretty popular (I'm never sure why they decide to recast or not--but of course often when an actor is let go for a reason like this the recast is NOT well received--look at Pierce, or Dimitri)

Odd--where are you located? They work for me here in Canadaland... Ah, this is what Wiki says: " Family became the subject of a 24-year legal dispute[2] due to a lawsuit filed by writer Jeri Emmet in 1977. The claim was against Spelling Television and alleged that Spelling had stolen the idea for the show from a script that Emmet had submitted, entitled "The Best Years." Spelling responded to the lawsuit with a statement explaining that he had conceived the idea in his kitchen with Leonard Goldberg, his professional partner at the time. Next they pitched the idea to scriptwriter Jay Presson Allen to create the pilot. She had just completed writing the screenplay for the film Funny Lady, starring Barbra Streisand and directed by Herbert Ross. In October 1981, the suit was dismissed for lack for prosecution. Jeri Emmet filed an appeal the same month. Approximately a year later, she withdrew her appeal as part of a settlement with Spelling and Goldberg for $1,000. Emmet later filed a legal malpractice action against her own lawyers in which it was argued that she would have won her original lawsuit but for the malpractice. The case went to trial and a jury awarded her $1.7 million in damages. The verdict was then successfully appealed based on the resumption of the suit having occurred beyond a one-year limitation period allowed in the law. The trial result and the judgment were thrown out.[3] Emmet sued Spelling a second time, in 1996, after Spelling published his memoirs. She claimed that Spelling had defamed her in his book, as she had not been credited with conceiving the original idea for Family. She lost on appeal in 2001, with the court saying she had not met the standard for showing damages due to the alleged defamation and that she had not explained how the defamation legally constituted a second theft of the same intellectual property. The litigation finally concluded with Allen retaining her "Created by" credit for the series " It's interesting that it does sound like it didn't really have a showrunner the way I'm used to in later dramas (even the Herskovitz/Ziwck shows that owe so much to this)--Allen is given creator credit and wrote the pilot but nothing else. Goldberg/Mike Nicholls (!) and Aaron Spelling were, according to WIki as well, in charge of the show creatively. It doesn't seem like it had a writer's room (did American primetime shows have it back then?) and they used many different writers. Aside from David Jacobs, and Herskovitz and Zwick getting their start there so did Richard Kramer (who went on to do the first Tales of the City adaptation as well as being a writer on basically every later Herskovitz/Zwick show including writing the infamous "gay" episode of thirtysomething), and Ron Cowen and Daniel Lipman who went on to create Sisters and the US (*cough* inferior ) version of Queer as Folk.

Ah, that would make sense. It's interesting looking at the old ratings--the soaps actually moved around somewhat (more so in the 1970s) week by week--something I'm not used to seeing lol.

Interesting, I know the creator of Marriage was out very quickly, but had no idea who else wrote it. It's on the antennae old-school tv network Retro TV which I don't get, but it has been getting posted to youtube regularly. I will say compared to other mid 70s soaps I've seen, I don't think The Doctors is... great. But as others have said, compared to what we've had to endear for ages now on the soaps it's a breath of fresh air.