EricMontreal22

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.

So what caused DAYS to go to number 1? Was that HH or demos?

Right--I saw that going through this thread. Wasn't there just a lawsuit settled to do about the writing credits for Family?? Maybe something to do with credited creator Jay Presson Allen? (Who has had some slight infamy with writing credits--the film screenplay of Cabaret is credited to her, however, most sources now acknowledge that playwright Hugh Wheeler did the final script).

I can't find the quote now, but yes, Ruth says something about how someone involved (a director?) pulled her aside and basically said that she should want the audience to love to hate her--not just to hate her.

Oh thanks! It drives me crazy that we never got anymore of it on DVD. I don't think it gets the credit it deserves--a lot of great writers came from it (Herskovitz and Zwick I believe met on it--nearly a decade before creating thirtysomething).I'll often see youtube and blog posts about groundbreaking "gay" themed episodes from the 1970s that mention stuff lie the gay bar on Taxi but completely ignore Family's Rites of Friendship episode from its first full season which is shockingly progressive in its take on homosexuality for the time (nevermind that Willie's "best friend" is never mentioned again lol)--or I believe there was a season 3 episode with Buddy having a crush on a lesbian teacher.

It's too bad he was apparently a jerk on set which is why Susan used her clout to get him fired....

I agree with everything you say Vee Didn't know that about Giles. I corresponded with him briefly after the book on FB and he seemed pretty laid back but every so often would take offense at seemingly random things. Regardless, the book truly is a treasure.

Thanks for posting that. This is my bias, but from all the interviews with Mulcahey I've read--he likes to come off as rather irreverent so I assume he's exaggerating (at least I hope so ). I guess my take away from that is not a very popular one--I think Nixon has every right to, well, micromanage her show (though I'm a little surprised at how involved, day to day, she was during the time Marland was writing--I can sure imagine this was a big reason why he left after a year). I completely get why for many that would be a horrible way to work, but... From my interviews I know that during the 95-97 Broderick era Nixon remained very hands on even if she took no official credit (though if I recall she did go up with the writers when they won the Emmy)--in that she offered her feed back on every script (apparently sometimes would even phone up one of the main writers late at night with a story thought), even though she wasn't credited *however* they have also said that--by that point (and Loving ten years earlier may have been different) she was also respectful enough that she knew that they didn't *need* to take her input and put it to use by any means. It's funny with Nixon and AMC in that I think fans tend to (myself included) both overplay her involvement and underplay it. As has been mentioned, a lot more credit--especially for the early 80s greatness--deserves to go to Wisner, but other writers as well, for creating fave stories and characters. On the other hand, by all reports, she was overseeing things (I suspect even, though to a lesser extent especially with her prolonged grief at the death of her husband, during the awful second McTavish run) and while her power greatly diminished, she seems to have been overseeing the show to *some* degree during some of its worse times (for me the solo run of Passanante after Nixon stopped writing with her officially being the nadir--others will prob pick a McTavish run)--the only time that she wasn't allowed to offer story input and advice being during the Pratt era. Again from her confusing memoirs it does seem that officially she was co-HW of OLTL with Gordon Russell from 73 (when she left the HW position) to 75 which is when she started to feel too occupied with AMC and "comfortable" leaving it with Russell, but she also claims to have consulted at least through the end of the 70s (I know that during the 80s and I think even early 90s she did hold an official post at ABC as consultant for all of their daytime shows but that could mean anything).

One brief comment about the original 1960s DID story--in Agnes' memoirs which I've just re-read for my thesis (and, I'll say it again, are a mess), she does make it clear that she took the Vicki part of that story , and her trauma, very seriously but also saw Nicki as the number one source back then for the comic relief element that Nixon felt was so important for her soaps (she mentions how she was able to first use comedy when writing Another World and she felt that was as responsible for the rating climb as the Rachel/Alice/Steve stuff). Nowadays I admit I always find it in poor taste when they use DID stories for comic relief (as arguably Carlivati did)--but I also understand things were different back in '68.... I must have blacked that part out because watching it when I was a teen, I got no sense that we were meant to find any of it funny. Of course I coulda been too connected to the material as it was the first time I saw on TV anything dealing with or acknowledging the long term effects of sexual abuse which, bla bla bla, is something I can personally relate to. Certainly I did think Higley made it distateful and Ron treated it as comedy (it's funny--again the Giles book--that the actors all praise Carlivati to the Heavens--and I think Giles is biased towards him as well--but then they have a random comment from Hillary B Smith where she says that the one time she basically wanted to disown her show she felt so disgusted with it was when Mitch was trying to "rape" his daughter while spouting bible verse and then the electro shock--however they don't make it clear to a reader who wouldn't know that that WAS during the Carlivati/Valentini era--despite the book, which I love, making both men sound infallible. I somewhat disagree--it worked for me and I think the show DID manage to get away from the Rauch camp under Gottlieb/Malone/Griffith into *some* semblance of a modern take on the 1960s version (at least kinda...) But I completely get your point (and remember, it was this era where I started to watch the show was a 12 year old--only seeing clips of older stuff thanks to the "Megan Death Flashback Week" ) and as I said, even St Nixon treated it as comedy when she was playing Nicki (although not dark comedy as Higley et al. would--Nicki just wanted to basically have the fun that Vicki, due to her father, would not allow her--nothing more or less). I would argue though your point that under Rauch, Nicki was "unintended camp"--I have to think O'Shea at least was aware of the camp during that era.

Were the O'Neil's introduced during that quick time Henry Slesar was co-writing with Sam Hall? it's too bad that no one asked Sam Hall about that confusing time (the Corringtons then coming in) while he was still alive. Of course knowing grumpy Mr Hall he woulda just said what a terrible writer Slesar was and left it at that (his comments about Gordon Russell in Giles' book are hysterical--implying he never wrote, he just sat around drinking and flirting with women and Agnes Nixon had a crush on him so let him get away with everything, etc... I mean the very fact that OLTL's style changed when Russell passed away proves that obviously he wasn't just HW in name only)

She only sent me one of the Another World scripts as I wasn't too interested in it or Somerset, but basically Canedella's notes were just VERY sparse and didn't feel too "involved". I will say that she seemed to love working with him almost as much as Nixon... Nixon's on the other hand, as I said, were just all over the place--but by no means mostly corrections. Lots of comments about what she liked (on one page she makes a note "And here is where people across America will start to cry!" ), they just seem really involved as if she was picturing the drama while reading the script and trying to see if it fit her vision--if that makes sense. They're not here at school with me but I've been meaning to scan at least a few pages as they're really fascinating (the three AMC ones don't really involve any big storyline though the OLTL ones are during the Marcy (Francesca James) gaslighting Vicki story.) I think DePriest can be a cold writer--I take that away from every era of her writing I've seen but she certainly made AMC a much colder feeling show in her brief time--she also really pulled it into focus (the final year of Broderick's run that time sorta became a muddle IMHO) and emphasized dramatic moments. It's purely conjecture on my part but I just assumed that maybe she didn't often do SUCH short runs (under a year) due to being hired then fired but rather agreed to them -- as at least in the case of The Doctors, AMC and OLTL she seemed to be called in when they felt the show needed sharpening up and more drive. I'm with you on the Cult of Marland. I admit, I might feel differently if I had watched his ATWT or his GL as it aired. And of course, to be perfectly clear, I do think he's a very strong writer. But from what I've seen comments like "he could do every genre and type of story" don't ring true...

Thank you! I'm glad to see you are still here

The abuse aspect made *complete* sense to me (if it hadn't been so well done, though, I probably would think differently). I can't fault Malone/Griffith for that personally. (I can blame Higley--well for everything but especially for making Nicki guilty for practically pimping young Jessica out, not to mention how Higley had a shrink say it was beneficial for Clint and Vicki to watch the kidding porn made from that session--NO shrink would say that--etc etc.) And let's face it to those who say it ruined Victor--he was already, well, a creep to put it mildly, especially after the 1980s "revelations". I guess some think molestation was a step too far--but is it really after him sleeping with Irene Manning and everything else? It seemed a natural further revelation to me. (One thing I find amusing is on in interviews Susan Bedsow Horgan stated how they consulted with Agnes Nixon who thought it was a great and powerful idea--then in the Giles book Nixon basically says it was a terrible idea she had no input in, I think with the thought that Victor was somewhat based on her father, and she wanted to be clear HE never sexually abused her. I adore Nixon as everyone knows, but she has contradicted herself before--especially later in her life--the Giles interviews were done post-stroke--so who knows where the truth is...) It DID annoy me how Joe (Kevin's father for [!@#$%^&*]'s sake) was essentially erased after the Heaven story really. On one level I get it--in All Her Children (back in 1975) Agnes talks about one dilemma with soap writers is how much of the character history should you keep referencing---her example was that Ann Tyler was a divorce from a wealthy European aristocrat, but that by this point in her history in the show--while that shouldn't be ignored--it just made things too complicated to ever even mention it. However, in this case fans knew about Vicki and Joe for more than a decade...