EricMontreal22

Interesting, because in the original filmed pilot, Daenerys Targaryen was played by Tamzin Merchant who was Queen Catherine Howard in The Tudors. The pilot also had, as Cat, Jennifer Ehle - most famous for starring as the lead in the classic mid 90s BBC Pride and Prejudice. She still looks a bit too yougn and, well, happy for the role - I can't imagine either role played by anyone but who we have now, but it'd be interesting to see.

I don't think she deserves it at all. Well, ok maybe a little bit. Yes she came off as a spoiled brat often enough, but she obviously never set out to be cruel to anyone, she comes off as hopelessly naive (even later on when she falls into Cercei's game so easily), and easily glamourised. But she's also a silly, young, teenaged girl (I believe she's meant to be 14?) Then again, I've been told I tend to be too sympathetic to people who sometimes don't deserve it, so *shrug* Anyway, this weekend I finally watched the final two episodes. I had been keeping up to date, but missed ep 9 due to a vacation, and on that vacation picked up at the airport the novel, and was reading that. By the time I got to roughly where ep 8 ended, I decided I should watch the last two episodes before finishing the book, so finally got caught up. Anyway terrific stuff. (My older brother is quite annoyed with my extreme love for Thrones - he's been trying, with no luck, to get me to read the books for the past ten years or so). Comparing the novel, I think Benioff and Weiss did a superb job of adaptation; knowing what to cut, what to combine or re-arrange, and what to focus on and keep. The tone is spot on. A few things have become clearer to me due to the novel (though the novel's long appendix with some history of the world, family trees, etc, is both a help and almost makes me more confused...) I do think some things in the novel change perspective--if Sansa's best friend had been kept in the TV show I think she'd come off a bit more sympathetic, for example, but there are already so many characters, that the early TV episodes are kinda intimidating until you have a grasp on who's who, so to add non essential ones wouldn't be wise). I admit, I wasn't at first keen with Benioff and Weiss as showrunners. I knew a lot about the series already from my brother and was looking forward to it, but the screenwriters of that historical mess of a film, Troy, hardly seemed a good match, but I stand corrected. My one complaint is, as Juliajms pointed out I believe, the several gratuitous sexploitation scenes. Maybe it would bother me less if (that one, fairly tame gay scene aside), the nudity seemed more balanced between men and women, but... I have no objection to graphic sex and nudity, if anything the opposite, but at the same time this isn't True Blood which relishes its pulpiness so that feels less out of place. The one scene that stood out the most this way for me was one midway through where Littlefinger instructs two whores on how to pleasure a man and then gets them to demonstrate. This scene isn't in the book *whatsoever*, and kinda screams out to me "Well this is HBO, and we do wanna secure a young male demographic, so..." Granted, the scene did have one dramatic purpose, it led to Littlefinger's monologue about how he lost Cat to Ned's brother, which is the kind of exposition that's very hard to deal with in a tv show, but very easy to deal with in the narration of a novel, but still it left me with a bad taste in my mouth. Someone commented about not liking the George RR Martin episode (8). That was the last one I saw before starting the novel, but I thought it was perhaps the best written out of all of them. Martin does have a background in TV writing, he worked on Beauty and the Beast and the new (1980s) Twilight Zone among others, but he said he left it when he could afford to because he hated how all of his scripts were edited and watered down by execs, he doesn't seem to think any of those pieces reflect his voice (which in the case of Beauty and the Beast, I say thank God to). Anyway, I found the actual episode to have the best dialogue, and a very clever flow of scenes. But it was also one of the subtlest one (ending on a quiet note instead of a climax, in fact), without many big huge moments, so it might depend on what you like. I will say that I actually don't mind if they can't afford huge battle scenes (the show looks so incredible gorgeous and *expensive* anyway). But that's me, I find battle scenes in movies, for the most part, beyond boring. Unless there are clmactic fights between two characters I care about and know, or something, big war scenes leave me cold and I'd rather they just fade to black and tell us of the aftermath. Anyway it's an absolutely terrific show, and the ending leaves me with a problem - do I read Clash of Kings now, or do I wait (ugh 9 months or so?) towatch Season 2 first and read it after. The books and series, so far anyway, complement each other so well that I can't decide (not the same kind of show at all, but I haven't had this problem with True Blood, after trying the books and really not thinking much of them at all). At any rate, the last episode leaves all the characters heading in such compelling directions... (I'm glad that it looks like Arya will end up seeing Jon and that the king's bastard son is joining her - forget his name but I had actually kinda forgotten about him except I know the actor from Skins lol) Juliajms you may find this recent article about George R R Martin from the New Yorker, if you've not read it, interesting. It talks a bit about his background and about the series, but also about his absoilutely crazy fans, including the many who have turned their backs on him and see him as a betrayer for taking so long to come out with the 5th book that was just released. Absolutely ridiculous. Just Write It! A Fantasy Author and his Fans

Did Eban turn out to be as psychotic as Billy Clyde? But yes, I'm certain Agnes introduced him. I'd love to see the interview... I'm making my way through the synopsis, but slowly--I have them printed out. I do really appreciate you posting them.

Ugh, sounds like one of Agnes' definie missfires. Watching the 1987 episode posted, it really seems a lot better than the impression I got. The production values are much better than I expected, and the acting and writing definitely at least solid. I see this was by the time Ralph Ellis took over, but I guess Agnes had left sometime that same year, so many of the characters could have been her creation.

I *believe* they kinda dropped the story, didn't they? He didn't last long anyway...

He's briefly in that great 1985 episode online

What exactly was the Dolly story and what year?

What year was this?

I've been lax about checking this thread, and just realized Saynotoursoap put up a 1987 episode on Youtube! Thanks so much!

Oh good, so when the show was still fairly young and strong. Thanks!

So that should be Sam Hall and Henry Slesar. Wiki says: July 1982 to January 1983 Sam Hall Henry Slesar March 1980 to May 1982 Sam Hall Peggy O'Shea

I have a friend who is going to try watching Ryan's Hope on Soapnet (sadly I still can't get Soapnet here in Canada). Could someone tell me roughly what year they're showing currently?

Who was HW at that time? Was it still the pretty great Sam Hall? Or was this one of the funny interim eras like when Slesar came on briefly to co headwrite or the Corringtons?

One more comment, what she calls bad direction to me seems intentional, and again a style she just didn't like. Agnes wrote Phoebe as a Broad Dickensian caricature, especially early on. Joe and Ruth on the other hand were meant to be the down to eaarth, realistic flip of that. It's not actor or director choices, it's what the characters were meant to be. Sheesh Deborah!

I just get the feel she simply didn't get the show. Agnes' strength has always been to use soap tropes like amnesia, etc, but in intelligent ways. Reading the story for other soaps at the time, particularly Irna Phillips late stuff, I simply don't buy what Deborah is saying in her first two paragraphs (only with Harding Lemay's work I suppose, where he did consciously set out to avoid soap melodrama cliches). She doesn't really give many examples of where these other soaps avoid the cliches. It is true though, again that many vet soap fans were thrown by the mix of story styles in AMC, from broad comedy, to slightly cliche love stories, etc, and it sounds like Agnes, Washam and crew, didn't really find a way to make these styles mesh better together till later on. She mentions how interracial concerns are of importance, and MC didn't touch much on them early on, though of course OLTL did, but I don't see other soaps of the time doing much with them either. Even Lemay's AW was more about intereconomical issues. And I don't agree that intereconimcal (or I'd just say class issues) ever truly became irelevent to modern Americans, even today. In fact I wish soaps would deal more with them now, where everyone seems rich, or at least very comfortable.

It is commonly felt too, to be fair, that AMC came into its own in the second half of the 70s--although All Her Children was written in 1975, and it's clear it was already attracting a group of soap fans who would never normally have been attracted to soaps. Still the very title of her piece gives me the impression she was thinking "You think you're so great and sophisticated, AMC, but let me tell you you're not, so THERE!"

That article is amazing! But the thing is, throughout the 70s there's a marked resentment about AMC, and to a lesser extent OLTL from the soap press. I have a number of books that clearly have an agenda against them. It seems that part of it is a love for old school soaps like ATWT, and I think there was some resentment about the fame Agnes got from the press for "updating" soaps, making them socially relevent, etc. It's too bad cuz in the pieces Agnes did write to the NYT and elsewhere defending soaps, she's VERY clear to point out good stuff happening on the other soaps as well--at no time does she come off as bragging about how great her own shows are compared to the others. But still, I honestly think a lot of it is jealousy. Kinda ironic that now AMC looks like perhaps the most traditional soap on the air...

Agreed. What was so wrong about that too, was it was clear that the show had given up on Edmund by that point. Wich is too bad, but... Of course under Rayfield we had Edmund suddenly lock up and try to drug maureen to force her to remember Maria, which really won him over. And then Edmund got in the accident--I mean did they even have more than one second of being happy as a couple when Maureen did become Maria again? What a poorly toild story (and then Edmund was killed for a reason I still can enver remember by jonathan... ugh)

Aside from Guiding Light, out of the dozens of radio soaps I've listened to, Right to Happiness is the most compelling. I know Irna only wrote it briefly, but every era I've heard has been pretty compelling and I believe it was well rated, I dunno why it was never transfered. It would seem natural when GL became a TV hit to pair it with RTH

Here is the People article mentioned http://www.people.com/people/article/0,,20084224,00.html How did I miss this thread? I've wondered about this soap for AGES. A cable soap from Marland with tons of familiar soap faces, that has almost completely vanished? (speaking of didn't Falken Smith have a showtime soap set in a Country Music Bar? The Soap Encyclopedia mentions it in passing but doesn't even have a heading for it... Anyone know?) It is interesting he went from this immediately to Loving (like the same year).

Well deserved!

I always wondered about the singing on Y&R (and man I wanna see that special). EVERY 70s soap opera book says that Y&R was filled with musical sequences--surely this was phased out (at least done less frequently) by the 80s. I love the optimism of mid to late 70s soap press and books--I know one of the books I has claims that within ten years stars like Barbra Streisand will beg to star in a soap, the future is unlimited, etc.

I've been behind with this thread--but the show has quickly become my favorite show of the moment. Ep 7 (which I watched last week due to the HBO on Demand thing) was particularly good--the only bit that annoyed me, and my brother says was not in the book, was Littlefinger's obvious monologue, setting up the end, accompanied clumsily by the softcore (if talk of anal sex can be called soft core) whore action. It felt like it was there to keep teenaged males invested, which is something I've appreciated about the show otherwise. Yeah it's as graphic as most HBO shows, but it doesn't seem to pander. (Would I have complained if the same scene had shown male prostitutes? Probably not But I already have ahd some trouble convincing some women friends that they'd really love the show, and it's not typical fanboy stuff). When I was flying back from San Fran I picked up the novel at the airport, and have read up to, basically, where ep 7 ends, now. While this isn't a True Blood case--where I think the tv material is far better than its source--I have to say I actually enjoy the series more. Martin is a very good writer (aside from some comments, like Cat musing about missing Ned's seed in her--I really doubt any woman, or man, actually thinks so literally and ickily like that), but the visuals, and the more interesting take on Cersei, who comes off far more intelligent and rounded in the show, among other things has me more into it. That said, I'm not sure if I can hold back from reading the following books for a year waiting for Season 2. That said, I do appreciate the details the novel fleshes out--and I admit until about episode 4 I had to go to HBO's viewer's guide and re-read all the back history, and character relationships. I'm a little surprised it's doing so well, because I do think it takes work to get into--but is very rewarding. (But please, no more views of the sky prison cells, etc--I thought I had quit being afraid of heights, but literally all those scenes caused such a reaction in me that my legs would start twittching).

Well done! Hope you feel better.

I didn't watch, but I gathered from Schemering's book some hardcore traditional soap fans felt AMC off putting becase in the same bit between commercials you coul dhave a comic scene played broadly, a dramatic scene, etc--lots of different tones. From reading All her Children which was written late 75 though the show and sense of community is something the author of it felt was best of all about AMC, and stood out compared to other soaps.