EricMontreal22

Yeah the early Chandler stuff was quite gothic (I wonder when Adam gave up on his love for Asian sculptures...). OK refresh my memory, who was Phillip Peter... Agnes seemed to have a somewhat secret love of the gothic, it's never really mentioned when people talk about her work. And for Rebecca style sinister housekeepers--Helga, Joanna, Myra--who of course turned out to not be so sinister...

James Mitchell really was a dance legend, something that actually seems somehwat forgotten. Agnes DeMille (who infamously choreographed the groundbreaking Oklahoma ballet as well as the ballet for Bloomer Girl and other shows he was in) called him the best male dancer she had ever worked with--and actually tried to romance and marry him a number of times. I uploaded this to youtube, but they removed the music, cry And some of the Dream ballet from OK http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9wMFXSFKRBU

There's a Feb 1984 AMC ep online where Erica is fighting with the Chandler housekeeper (forgetting her name but I think she turned out to be evil) to see the house to find a location for her wedding, and of course she's not allowed into one wing where strange noises are coming from (poor Stuart...)

I def agree with all of that--well Tad didn't bug me too much till the second half of McTavish's last stint though there were some bad eras before. Lowry as Jake--ugh.

Yes! Who is in it? I agree--and I really wish there ws a chance they could get Julia Barr at PP but even if there was I have the feeling it's not on their radar.

Yes, although I have to say I'm kinda glad we're getting a Martin episode this week--I've actually (largely) liked Tad and Jake (wow) under Broderick's current last few months. Actually I thought Tad was relatively well handled under K&S (Jake was just annoying though)--his interaction with Damon especially, even if they ruined that with the lack of Hillary. But I certainly know where you're coming from.

I agree. I miss the Tylers, but in a way their role was filled with the Cortlands, the Chandlers, even to a much lesser degree the Merricks (who in some ways were a replacement for the once Gothic, and less and less so Cortlands). It makes sense to have one or two welathy families moving out by Pine Valley in an estate--it doesn't make sense to have three huge companies based in downtown Pine Valley though at all... Even having a campy small disco like Erica's makes some sense (by 1980 discos were showing up in suburban strip malls--which is why 'true" disco fans said they knew disco had officially died lol). Again to be fair, AMC held on to the Martins well for a while, again better than on some other soaps--and there were extents later on to build them--having Kelsey live with Ruth and Joe, etc, but more thought should have gone into it.

Right, and particularly with Agnes setting her soaps where she did--on the Main line, essentially suburbs (I got the impression Pine Valley was a more domestic and richer suburb than Llanview), where New York is a quick train ride away.

Yes, totally agreed. Agnes tried (somewhat) to bring back that small, fairly well off, town society in 1999 but it was pretty much lost by the 90s. To be fair, nearly all the soaps had problems with this--lots of it happening in the 80s when soaps felt they had to glam it up to Dynasty levels, in some ways AMC held onto it longer than some others.

No, in fact I always got the sense (obviously this is more just an impression than based on actual observation) that fans really enjoyed many of those stories--of course Jesse and Jenny's Summer in New York *was* a beloved storyline. AMC used to do better with that in general--they also used Center City whenever they needed to show a pimp, or that slum Foxy's where Opal made Jenny work, etc--since much of that wouldn't exist in Pine Valley.

There's a week of Dec '87 episodes online I've posted before (in very good quality) and they're pretty great, although it does feel like there were almost too many different, and not too interconnected, stories going on, which is one complaint I heard about AMC until 1989 when it was restructured under DePriest and Behr (ABC seemed to have a lot of faith in DePriest--immediatelyafter she went to OLTL to, I assume, also kinda restructure the show where she seems to have had less success).

Yeah for a while they went back and forth between NY a lot--and actually for the most part it didn't seem to hurt the show, the way sometimes it does when they do that on soaps. But I do think Erica still went back to NYC didn't she? initially of course she was still with Tom.

You never seem to hear as much about the 81 strike as the 88 one--was it shorter? I think AMC was still peaking around then and it probably would have taken much to derail it. I don't think the AMC Family Album mentions the story. I think they lost some steam in '85 and '86 which is when Babbin, who initially was given so much credit for the hugely popular 1983 season, left or was fired. Broderick also was promoted around that time to co-HW, according to the credits.

It was off and on for a while but I think she did interact with other Pine Valley people--and of course it led to her agent Olga hiring Jenny, the whole death of Jenny story etc. And yes AMS you're right and of course EH always elevated everyone who worked with her.

Meh not really--I think nearly every great actor has had to do their share of acting opposite lesser (ahem) talents--besides Myrt didn't exactly get chummy with Greenlee--it wasn't like her spiked lemonade drinking companion, Simone

Finally watched this. It took me a while, but I liked it. Didn't even recognize Buffy's Marcus Blucas as Emily/Amanda's dad. I'm not completely sold--some things I wasn't sure about (I mean she's SOO clever--but maybe we'll find out why she is and that's why she was locked up, the revelation about her being the waitress who served the soup left me a bit weird, I guess I wanted to see how she got the uniform and nametag from the waitress, though maybe she used some of her vast money--but she certainly thought up that plan quickly on the spot). But I'll keep watching. Creator/showrunner Mike Kelly also created Swingtown, which was far from a perfect show but one I enjoyed, though I know nobody else who even watched it. He has said that every single question and mystery raised in the pilot will be answered by episode 13, so I guess it'll remain to be seen how they can grow the show past its initial premise--if they manage to get that far.

Funny, she was in a movie called Revenge too with Kevin Costner... But to be fair she hasn't been the name she was back in the 80s for a while now...

Serious? He's "carrying" a bit more than he should for his age, but I wouldn't categorize him in the category of half of America--let alone ABC people like Brian Frons.... I just wish they wouldn't always try to hide it with suit jackets. Plus as Miss Austen said, those pics are all horribly unflattering. They aren't often mentioned anymore, but the romance of Jeff and Mary, and Mary's death seemed to be major moments in early AMC history. In some old interviews Agnes talks about being worried that she doesn't know where to go after losing both actors.

Those are fantastic!

Ha I had such a crush on Dylan... I'd almost forgotten. I wonder if that was the last time ABC would actually feature soap stars in a network promo.

Ha, but I don't follow. You mean Julia look like Maya?

The True Blood pilot leaked about 4-5 months before the premier (with the different Tara--the girl from Passions). Didn't cause any problems--there are other examples of pilots leaking early and they don't seem to cause any probs, in fact it might be good word of mouth.

LOL I was thinking the same thing--they don't even start rolling the credits till quite a bit in...

Aww I used to rush home everyday after school to watch Cyndi's 20 minutes of soap gossip and recaps on Komo

ANd last we saw it was some random small thing in a mall...