EricMontreal22

I rack that up to Peggy O'Shea, who I think is such an underated soap writer. From all I've seen, the show crumbled into full on camp when Schnessel became HW--especially after a year. All Her Children implies that Agnes thought of herself as Cathy in a way. I know she was very involved in casting back then, I wonder if the |not typical soap starlet" look was on purpose.

The late 80s were when the show was in a bit of a slump and Behr was hired as EP--and she hired Margaret DePriest to try to cut back on cast and integrate the community more (while SOD said the show was in a slump under DePriest, it seemed like she did her job, and was quickly hired over at OLTL to do the same, which didn't happen as well but OLTL was in a worst state). I know many felt AMC from '87-'89 got more and more fragmented. Once DePriest moved to OLTL, Agnes Nixon returned to head write (with McTavish) for the next two years.

I admit, I've never taken to what I've seen of the Rauch era the way many have--though I do think when Peggy O'Shea was writing it was still pretty classic soap--much less so when she left (or was fired?). It does seem like Gordon Russell took some time to really find his feet with the show--after Agnes left in '73, even though she speaks about helping Russell write the show for a year after, it took till '76 or so to start to really seem like compelling soap again. It's interesting, one of LaGuardia's soap books from the mid 70s says that OLTL had already become more of a fantasy and lost its original issues. One character I wish we could see more clips of is Cathy Craig, who in the last years Nixon wrote seemed to be the show's heroine, more so than Vicki.

Really? I think the first five years sounded pretty amazing. It does seem like in the mid 70s it got kinda dull.

She certainly seemed to mention it in every episode lol--but I know some criticized it saying it was just dialogue tacked on to a normal soap story. That photo most be a posed shot for magazines.

Are the McCain Bros people I'm meant to know? Never saw Laura's funeral before. So sad--and just how soap funerals shoul dbe done and rarely are now.

Yeah, I wasn't a huge fan of that era but it (and the other stunts--the Prison musical was way more entertaining than the recent musicals, Trading Places, etc) were a lot of fun. I believe a lot of live week, if not all, is on youtube.

Wsn't Ilene fired due to weight issues? it does seem like ABC's meddling with different writers and trying to make the show BIGGER (and increasingly mob related) missed the point of RH, but...

Gorney isn't a brilliant actress, but she does have this *different* quality, that I think was very hard to replace. I do think it's a role that probably shouldn't have been recast... But I guess they felt like they managed to successfully recast Chuck and (to a lesser degree) Phil, so... I do think the triiangle was a big selling point for the show in its first three years--but after that, I think it probably should have been dropped. Not sure I agree about the show climbing in the ratings when it finished though--I think that more had to do with AMC improving their production values, being more sure in their mix of serious and near-caricature characters, etc.

Yet, she praises Ryan's Hope and Labine to the high heaven's in that 1986 Paley Center symposium on her website... As for the timeslot change, what Agnes really wanted--and ABC shoulda done, was to sandwich Loving between her two other soaps, but I get in a way why they moved it with RH--Loving was a new product that had uge hopes tied to it--RH had always somewhat struggled, for the 8-9 years it had been on there. Of course the change in the end was probably stupid, and I'm not defending it, but, I get the thinking...

I watched today, on tv, the movie adaptation of Marsha Norman's amazing, but hard to watch, play 'night, Mother (1986), with Sissy Spacek as the middle aged daughter who plans to commit suicide and Anne Bancroft as her mom. Had seen the play before, but never the movie. Anywa, I was just looking it up online to read reviews, and was surprised to see that besides the odd fact it was produced by Aaron Spelling--one of the roles, if you can call it that, of hte phone operator, which is just a voice, was played by none other than Claire Malis.

I am pretty certain there is some sort of twist. In the pilot we know Jack finds the body (and has a gun), and that Declan and Charlotte (so I guess they end up together) then find the body again and alert everyone.

Ha ABC sitcom stars pimping the soaps. Sadly that ballroom scene with Dimitri and Erica, seems to be the only bit of the Budapest shoot we ever see.

Oh Enid and Phoebe together, how they warm my heart. OK in that promo, that's Joey and Emily Ann right--and Billy Clyde (who was Emily's father?)'s return which led to Tad's "death"--who's he trying to lock in the garage, is that Donna?

I noticed both have had quite heavy promotion in soap magazines too (which advertisement wise normally nowadays seem to only have full page ads for those odd, creepy "collectible" dolls and figures lol).

I *think* I read somewhere that James Storm wanted to be able to do more outside projects and not stuck on a soap, which is ironic since he ended up on a soap later, but I suppose job stability was more important to him then.

I don't mind Nancy as Tara at all in that 1978 episode on youtube (though I had trouble at first realizing the blonde WAS Tara), but she is off putting in that photo.

I think Revenge benefits from being one of the few full on soaps (and I don't mean period soap like Pan Am) on the major networks--especially up against two aging procedurals.

I think it'll at the least make its first 13 episode order--and thankfully we've been told all the major stories and mysteries from the pilot will be answered then. ABC can't really afford to drop it right now--not with Charlie's Angels, etc. Give it a chance.

HA I'm not familiar with the Potter movies (I know!), but I loved the score and often thought that. And, it can't be just coincidence that Amanda uses the pseudonym Emily when that's the name of her actress AND the actress who plays her as a daughter in flashbacks.

Wow what a great exit :S I wonder how any sympathetic audiences took that...

Didn't they make some comment that people assumed arties was a senior but he actually isn't>? I was only half paying attention... And yeah Kurt is meant to know his musical theatre--I don't get at this point him being so clueless to think he could pull off Tony.

I do like his voice more when he does that style of music. Glee records their music so quickly, relies a bit too much on auto tune (because of that) etc, and all the other issues, do make his vocals sometimes all sound samey to me.

Still... wow.

How many months was he there? I always wondered why Jim Storm was on so briefly, only to be replaced by his brother--did he always only plan to be temporary?