EricMontreal22

Did she die? Wow, seems like a weird way to end a tentative lesbian story (I can imagine the uproar now). I remember an interesting article way back about why suiide is so rarely done in daytime (a large part was most writers felt it just sent too negative a message to anyone contemplating suicide watching) and I think that may have been mentioned...

I'm impressed that thy got Phillip Noyce to direct the second episode as well--I thought he would just stick around for the pilot (OK maybe he's not a major, major movie director, but he's fairly big). I enjoyed the second episode as well. (I also didn't realize when I watched the pilot, why Conrad Grayson looked so familiar--of course it's Canadian theatre/film actor Henry Czerny who was terrifyingly intense as the pedophile priest in Boys of St Vincent as well as in one of my fave movies, The Ice Storm--great cast). My one major complaint, and it's a petty one, is Connor Paolo is an actor who DRIVES ME CRAZY--he can just look at the camera and I get annoyed... Although I did feel a bit bad when he got beat up. I also had no idea that it actually is officially based on Dumas' Count of Monte Cristo--here I just assumed it was an uncrtedited influence.

I feel clueless--what are you hiding in brackets--Judith?

I'm pretty mixed on Anderson as I said in the talk show thread (I think)--and don't feel too bad, I saw about 15 mins of The Chew today as well. I think it helps me get out my frustrations at getting annoyed at it... Nate needs someone to energize his show. I like him fine, but I'm pretty surprised his show was renewed--it just feels so not ready to me still. And I hope you told your bf for shame!

I really miss Donahue. I think Anderson is trying to model his show on him--what with the audience questions, and the mix of topical serious issues with 'fun" episodes.

I love that hair!

Yes I got to go home early cuz of my flu. LOL now I'm comforting myself with AMC clips. It's nice of you to care Ted seemed to have trouble with his lines (in the other episode with him available on Agnes' site, where Nick comes into his shop asking them to donate a car to his benefit raffle or something, he does as well)--I wonder if they had kept him on, if he would have been recast like so much of AMC was in the first year.

Yes he was. I believe he drove off angry (because of Phil maybe finding out about his true parentage? not sure) and I believe crashed in a storm--can't remember if drink was involved. You can see Ted in the first few minutes of this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1U4QE5Cl_Os&feature=related

Was all of DAYS saved? I know a lot of it was--was it because the Cordays saved it themselves?

I'm just going by Schemering's book which has the Exec producer talking about Irna killing off Robin as a sort of exit of her second stint there. She did seem to like to make the shows hard to write for her sucessors (even when they were friends like Agnes)

Ted's in two of those 5 1970-71 episodes we do have easily available. By the writing, I assume Agnes set out to kill him off quickly from the get go. As a kid new to AMC it did confuse me that Charlie had the last name Brent, and I couldn't for the life of me figure out how he was related to Ruth and Joe.

Ha I can't help it (And have nothing to do, I swear, anyway...)

HA that must be it! I can't watch here at work, but I wonder if the quote is there. But obviously I didn't look very hard, thanks!

Jenny Jones! I wonder if the old Donahue AMC episode is online (i've seen the Oprah one). It must have been around '92 or '93. I remember as a kid being shocked because they asked abotu sex scenes, and Michael Nader admitted that while doing love scene it was sometimes hard not to get a "woody" (his words, not mine)...

Didn't someone connected to drugs open a rival disco? By the time the soaps all had their disco stories (ie very late 1979--but more early 80s) disco was pretty much passe anyway...

I always assumed it was still Bell/PFS, but that may just be because Bell flirted with a lesbian story around the same time on Y&R.

She did, for at least a year. In Schemering's 50th Anniversary GL book he doesn't give exact dates, but he does say that Agnes Nixon actually wrote almost to the very end of 1966--so far I'd trust his word (the behind the scenes section of that book is a wonderful read, BTW). So I assume these Summer episodes--the 30 out there--are largely hers. (It's interesting that when she created One Life to Live she likewise continued writing AW at the same time for 3/4 of a year--which is even more impressive since these were two 30 min shows--with GL and AW, GL was still 15 minutes under her). Schemering doesn't go into specifics but he does mention, after the stability of Nixon HWriting GL from 1958 to 1966, it went through 6 HWs/HW teams in 2 years. (I believe the Ferro's had been regularly writing Peyton Place scripts just before then). Then in 1968 Irna Phillips left ATWT with Katherine Babecki--sp?-to help at GL for a year, but without much success. Ironically, as is typical of Irna, she had popular heroine Kathy killed in the infamous wheelchair in traffic death JUST as she gave the show fully over to Agnes, leaving Agnes in a difficult spot. When Irna left again in 1969, popular heroine Robin threw herself into traffic and was killed, leaving again the new HWs in a nice spot. The show finally found stability for four years under Robert Soderberg and Edith Sommer, but then went into another, shorter cycle of headwriters until the Dobsons came in 75.

'Revenge' creator Mike Kelley: 'You will have all of the answers by the 13th episode' Image Credit: Jim Bridges/ABC The new fall TV season has officially begun, and one of the breakout shows (and one of the favorites around the EW offices) is ABC’s new nighttime soap Revenge. Starring Brothers & Sisters‘ Emily VanCamp as the vengeful Emily Thorne, who seeks retribution for her framed father, Revenge premiered on Wednesday to a surprisingly healthy 10.1 million viewers. So how will this soap play out? “I will tell you will have all of the answers to all of the questions that the pilot poses by the 13th episode,” says creator/executive producer Mike Kelley (Swingtown). “Then we will have an whole new installment of revenge that has to do with the trial of the murderer [of Daniel Grayson] that will take us through the back-half of the first season.” The biggest question is what would season 2 entail? Another revenge saga? Basically, yes, according to Kelley, who cites Dexter as somewhat of a storytelling model. “In our show, there’s a whole conspiracy and seasons worth of people that will reap what they’ve sewn,” says the producer. “Revenge is a universal concept and it’s gonna permeate the show on every level. I plan to do installments of revenge. So I’ll set two installments a season which will be self-contained. They’ll focus on a group of people that need to come down and we’ll introduce new people. We’ll also give other characters on the show a reason to want their own revenge.”

Wow I'd love to see some of first year OLTL. It sounds like it really began from the start with all guns blazing (pretty impressive as it seems Agnes created the soap and its bible relaitvely quickly--also impressive that it doesn't seem like she directly borrowed anything from her already created AMC bible--which I'm sure made launching AMC so soon after that much easier). And yes I'd love Larry to come back--even make some appearances before it leaves ABC. Didn't he make a cameo at one point since RC joined--or was that just a bit before?

I thought he did stick around longer than that (although maybe it was just in the hospital while slowly dieing?)

Body Electric? This week has two West Side Story songs--Darren Criss (who performs everything with the same mannerisms, etc) singing one of my faves, Something's Coming, already has me cringing from the preview.

Yes--and it's almos tbecome a joke--the press comments on it all the time. Credit where credit's due he seems to be really great at concepts and working out the initial show (I know Glee was apparently a dark, much heavier drama before he came to it)--and usually the first 13 eps or so are largely great, and then it just falls apart--characterization is inconsistent (to say the least), stories dropped, too much done for shock (of course Nip Tuck cuz of the kind of show it was was the worse at this), etc. I except the same wih American Horror Story. I wonder if RM beinginvolved with his movies and American Horror Story and Marti Noxon brought in as story consultant will help things--but the premier was basically more of the same old...

Loved that bio, back when A&E had some worthwhile programming. --from when Culliton was briefly writing it. I actually bought the episode on DVD from Amazon some years back, cuz I'm a geek.

I know many fans at the time seemed to hate the Lazarre story, but I probably would have loved it as a kid...

Yeah the Beauty Shot (or somethign similar). All the Agnes soaps did it (I'm sure other soaps did too), though OLTL dropped it first under Rauch. I believe AMC and OLTL kept it up till '89 or '90. I loved them, but I suppose they were just a short thing that costr them more time and money and was seen as not needed. Someof this story is online in those week of 1987 pisodes. I think Lauren was pretty strongon AMC, dunno what happened (has she even done a movie lately?)