EricMontreal22

Agnes actually mentioned that prob about a college based show--to be fair the Aldens were key players from the start (and were connected to the college)--I think the first two years stuck fairly closely to a college background--then it didn't come back till '92 or so. They DID have tent pole "older' characters--Ava's mom (think Mona Kane), Isabelle Alden, etc, but I think your point is valid.

SHe may have been mad he left when he did--in the LONG youtube interview (3 hours or whatever) with her she of course has only ncie things to say abou tanyone, or else she kinda politely declines to answer--re Douglas she basically says she has great respect for his talents, etc. I believe it was him who asked that his name be removed from the created by credit

I wonder if it's cuz they want a retro Beverly Hills Cop type score? I had assumed he had just retired and was living off the huge profits that crap liek Crazy Frod covering Axell F was paying him.

Interesting, in the Agnes Nixon Paley Center video interviews on her site, someone asks about how recently (this was 1988) AMC had started using film music cues sometimes. Hima nd Agnes mention Erica's theme being from the movie Somwhere in Time and Cyndi's AIDS story used music from The Untouchables

I have a good friend from South Africa and somehow we got talking about American soaps--he said as of this year the ones they had were DAYS, B&B, Y&R, and AMC. Then he asked me about Loving and said it was such a huge show there--everyone knew about Ava and talked about her, he was shocked to find out it was never a hit here. Funny as I had read elsewhere it was big in South Africa, but kinda didn't believe it

On Agnesnixon.com in the second Paley Series interview (anyone with the free time I've had the past two days into Agnes or soaps owes it to themselves to watch these--fantastic stuff) in the third part Agnes answers some questions about Loving--like if she thinks it willbe as big as AMC and OLTL (It was almost 5 years old at the time) and then some questions about the Sowelsky's (the actor who played Harry had just left for 6 months to be on the new Mary Tyler Moore show), if she'd recast a role, etc. She does stress that there was a desire by her to have a show finally with a college campus on it as on her other shows it had proved difficult to have the characters leave for college (I guess this was before OLTL or AMC had their made up colleges)

*CRY* I shoulda saved it I wonder why it was...

Joel Fabiani was on Dynasty? lol I know nothing...

Forgot all about Azure (the first transgendered character on soaps, right? though they had no idea what to dow ith her and her bf). When did Steffi leave? And was it announced then that Deb had the Alden mansion? I don't remember any of that. Can't wait to see the episode.

I love the way she says "roMANCE" in that promo.

Damn why can't I find it anymore--any luck? I need to save more faves on youtube

I see Lemay's point, but then I think about what life was like for me in college, how VERY close I was to my friends. That couldn't touch my family life back home, but it was still valid. I do believe in the concept of created family, and Angie, Jacob, Frankie, Zoey, Kayla, I mean, they had a little more of a traditional family thing going on. I did enjoy when Deborah was there for Steffi, though I also loved the concept of her winning the lotery and buying the Alden mansion, living happily in Corinth!

I thought Morgan Fairchild was great, but she was poorly propped. No offense to Joel Fabiani, but his Jared was a bit of a dud, and I just NEVER bought into... oh God, Australian dude... Richard? Whatever, I just never bought into him as Sydney's not-really-adopted-but-real-son. She sorta bonded with Jocelyn, she had her right hand man Samuel, but overall, Sydney was way too islanded to be the star of the show. In retrospect, she needed like three kids, she needed the Dirty, Sexy, Money son and daughter to give her grief, but of course this was before the age of the Paris Hilton Manhattan It Girls.

I think I would have loved Lemay's AW--I love what I've seen--and I'm DIEING to see some of his own series Friends and Lovers, and I love his book, 8 Years in Another World. That said, when he was consultant for ABC Daytime none of his suggestions that I have heard seemed to be all that good, and if he did offer good advice they never listened to it. His complaints about City come off to me like an old fuddy duddy. In theory I agree with him that soaps are about family, but at least by the time Tracy came to the City I think they did a really good job of making the friends and building feel like a family and even of maintaning a small community feel that still felt believably like it was in a big city like Manhattan which is damn hard to do (one prob I have with, for example, AMC right now is everyone in Pine Valley is so rich apparently and into big business yet they almsot exclusively itneract only with each other like a tiny town, it feels at odds with itself to me).

Deb was on The City? Or am I confused with what you mean?

I had completely forgotten abotu Jared, he was kinda a non character for me IMHO. I liked Richard more later on when he was with Zoe (their relationship probs actually felt real to me--I loved the Zoe actress who seems to have disappeared along with Amy Van Horne) and Sidney had left (i loved Morgan on the show but I never felt they fit her character or type of character into the others well). (Richard was part of ABC Daytime's AUssie Hunk explosion at the time, I think whathisname had just joined GH, and of course they brought in Tanner disastrously on AMC--the actor who played Tanner and the one who played Richard were both from my fave Aussie teen soap Heartbreak High).

(why can't I remember who Kayla was lol)

*edit* too funny I just realized that the actor who played Jared has played Barry SHire on AMC most of the past decade.

I think what made Loving work was the commitment of the actors. It's interesting because AMC always had a VERY distinct identity, and it kept that identity for many years. I think Loving was more like OLTL, a show which Nixon also took a reduced role on (even more than Loving), and which had many different identity changes. I guess the big differences with Loving and OLTL were OLTL had stronger showrunners and their timeslot helped provide better ratings, along with their stories, and some of their casting moves (like Reinholt and Courtney). And OLTL started in an earlier era, when ratings were healthier all around.

Agnes also left OLTL in a very good position (and hand picked and trained Russell to follow her) which really carried OLTL through to the early 80s. So there was a stability there at the start that Loving never had (and they had actors who stayed on the show a long time) though I do get what you mean. I also think it was a bit out of date with the times (something that appeals in a way to me I admit) There's a promo somewhere of Agnes introducing her show and she says something about how exciting it will be, modern, sexy, etc, and then they show the Loving logo and it just kinda makes me laugh--cuz it really doesn't seem like the two go together at all.

I do think that by 93 or so they had found a smart return in tone to the early days--but that would be probably too late for many.

Carl I think City was consistantly strong once Tracy came in--but I actually liked the Angie baby storyline. I agree the first half of its run it really was trying different things and didn't really know what it meant to be--I liked Sidney but she didn't really help with the tone, Tracy was a better fit. The last few months did a good job of mixing the youth storylines with some light social stuff and humour, etc. (and I LOVED the last episode end montage to the Beatles "The End"). It also took complete advantage of being a 30 minute soap (which made stories that on other shows may have bugged me--some of the Danny/Ally/Tony stuff though including Carla into it first as a comic villain and then making her actually be an emotionally involving character helped a lot--didn't in such a short time). And the way they used location shoots, which at first sometimes did seem done in a bit too self consciously cool a style actually reallys tarted to work. It's a shame that Burke brought absolutely ZERO of that with her when she came to EP AMC and really did nothing for the show.

I wish we'd get a warts and all story about the early days of Loving--or maybe all of it. It feels like Agnes wanted to create a traditional small town soap--the kind of show AMC was becoming less and less of, but ABC probably didn't want this at all (it was pretty out of touch with 80s soaps). Then there's the fact that originally it was going to be done with Agnes and her friend Dan Wakefield the very good novelist who met her while he was writing his fan biography All Her Children and went on to write books like Going All the Way and Starting Over as well as creating the 70s show that inspired Dawson's Creek, James at 15. On paper anyway, he seems to be a great choice but sometime between '82and '83 (and the name change to Loving from Love Without End (which is a bit of a generic title too but I actually vastly prefer, it seems less awkward). Then somehow Marland came on, then somehow he left (did ABC fire him? Did Agnes? Did he just get bored?) and his named disappeared from the creator credits...

While Creative Horizons owned it I'm pretty sure ABC might have at least owned some and many of the changes were imposed by them.

As for generic... There was a lot of good stuff, the main prob was lack of consistancy with actors and stories/style. But I'll admit it never really had a full on identity (except for at somepoints a kinda small AMC and that's not really an identity). Agnes (and the other writers who knows how much she was involved) did retread many of her old stories but, for example, less blatantly than other soap writers have (this is a common "problem" in the industry) most notably the early years of Bell's B&B cribbing so much from early Y&R and even his DAYS... But Agnes herself never seemed quite able to put a full on identity on the show--like she didn't know herself (maybe cuz she was getting older, maybe cuz she had two co creators essentially, maybe cuz of ABC, who knows) though I did really love her period writing it in the 90s (and those last few years in general).

The City still looks pretty good (especially compared to GL) and I think after some mistakes (doing another serial killer story so soon, etc) the last 8 months were really good. I've said it before (I'm repeating myself in this thread a lot ) but its last half year or so (which I have all on video and mark my words I will upload sometime soon I hope) it was my fave of the three ABC/NYC soaps I watch (granted OLTL had fallen off the rails quickly at this period, but...)

The last period the ABC here showed it after the news at midnight but I actually think it played better as a late night soap (11:30 am, when Loving aired here, is a particularly awful time for a soap aimed at younger and urban audiences--at least AMC has the lunch break factor for it). I know it was expensive to make, but its ratings were the only ones at ABC to remain steady or climb at the time it was canceled and I think it deserved a bit more time. (I would like to know how much Agnes Nixon's co creator and consultant credit really incluenced Brown and Esensten's writing--certainly people in the soap industry thought well enough of it to hire them elsewhere... I know people often only give them credit for the Loving Murders as their good soap, but I think the last 6 months of City they really found the way to mix the traditional and modern well--even if Harding Lemay thought it was atrocious or whatver )

Having watched nearly all of Jeremy's time on Loving, he never really did fit in. It was smart to get him involved with the campus but the reinstating of the university feel of the soap never fully caught on and dc is right his chemistry with Peluso was *great* yet they never had much to do (even when Faison chased them to Universal Studios and King Kong fell for Ava). And yeah didn't Jeremy kill Gilbert? But I guess not if he was at Jeremy's funeral, LOL I feel badly I mis remember that.

DC what years did you actually watch regularly? your knowledge on the storyline is so amazing I thought you watched regularly--but if you didn't see much of Jeremy/Ava I guess not.

Did Susan Keith do anythign when Shana was written out? Anything for another show I mean--to the best of my knowledge it seems not. I loved her (though I get why she was written out--the show canvas was a bit overloaded)

Yeah I guess Egypt wasn't created by Agnes (though I have a feeling she was still involved at Loving in some capacity) but seems such an Agnes character--not just cuz of the obvious Opal similarities. I read that the actress was on OLTL but I don't remember her *at all*--i wonder if there are clips. I have to admit I hated Higley's OLTL so I didn't watch as closely as I could have (and hated Margaret).

The Clay Steffi stuff really worked for me *at the time* anyway--but I didn't have a huge past with his character. But I got that he was doing it to get even with Cooper who he felt slighted by his dad over for running the company, etc. I really enjoyed all that actually. (it's funny that clip of the car attack shows Loving had pretty good production values for such a little soap--of course wasn't the Alden mansion one of the biggest sets at ABC Daytime?)

I do think that Steffi, Cooper prob Casey were all intended or hoped to go to The City--it'd make sense for them to go, they were quite popular and the City was more focused on the younger characters (interesting that for me most of my faves were still the older characters--Tess, Roscoe Born's character, Angie, Tracy when she came, etc). Still I did grow to love some of the new characters like Zoe and of course Carla.

I actually have some clips on a compilation tape I clumsily made as a young teen (I shoulda just saved full episodes lol) of Minnie and Egypt--they were great together. I think Loving was the "warm up soap" at most households. Since I was the only one in my house who watched soaps, and did it mostly by myself I grew to really love it (and The City)--some of it may be sentiment and I admit some of it was I hated how even back then the show seemed ignored--it never got ANYthing except a recap it seemed in SOD, and we had a local show from Seattle where Cindi Rhineheart would discuss the soaps--even though it was on the same ABC affiliate as Loving etc, she NEVER discussed Loving so in a way I liked it I admit partly cuz it was the underdog (don't even get me started how it was never even considered for ANY Emmys it seems). But I think in hindsight it does stand up even with all the problems it had--it's the only one of Agnes' shows we have in its entirety (in fact you could run it as an hour a day and get it all done in 5 or so years ) and it'd be great if it appeared somewhere. Besides never getting the prestige of Ryan's Hope one reason it may never have been on SoapNet, even when they did stuff like show old soaps, was didn't Agnes Nixon's company Dramatic Creations (her second company, not Creative Horizons under who she staged her first two shows) own it and City for their full runs?

He was still quite young--sad.

Yeah as I've said way too much on here I really enjoyed the show in 94 prob all the way till the end. I know the Cooper actor has a big following cuz of his primetime stuff but while I had a crush way back on him as Cooper, I've never seen any of his primetime shows. I did like how he and Steffi bonded over their childhood traumas

I wish there was some online material of Egypt--either her 80s run or 94 return. I don't think Agnes wrote for her in the 80s though she did in '94--but it was always interesting to me that, similar to how Ava in many ways was a retread of the Erica Kane character (who was a retread of Rachel), Egypt was VERY very much like Lyman's original Opal Gardner.

Another random 1994 clip (by the same person who has the five Murder clips) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w7Qe6qNf89M

Did the actor who played Jack Forbes pass on?

Yeah I saw your comments Carl so thought you found them--I don't remember that character pre psycho to be honest, lol. I liked Casey but wasn't a huge fan, still I'll try to get through the scenes but I could see it taking a year...

JackP I think right now there's just the 5 part edit posted of the murders... The actual story took several months of course--I have most of it (and nearly all of The City) on video and soon have to digitize them and then plan on uploading them...

For anyone with a LOT of time on their hands, some fan has made over 100 clip collections of Casey's story on Loving from 92 on.

Do we know Tudor didn't leave the business on her own?

I was gonna say we did get Kim Stanley on a soap but I was actually thinking of Kim Hunter In hindsight maybe it was a mistake to have thePilot movie focus on characters missing from the show (its storyline didn't even really set up all that much on the show)

WoST ran the Loving movie a few years back. Getting to see the late great Geraldine Page do a soap where she wore hats and smoked Nat Shermans was by far the best thing about it (imho).

HAHA i love her. Yeah even most fansof the series didn't seem to think the pilot movie was all that good.

I watched very heavily back then and don't even remember Neal

I dunno, I actually think the last 6 months of City were *very* good (this was Spring 1997 and at the time I felt my other shows--AMC and OLTL were slipping while City was finally improving--it actually was the only one of ABC's shows to have ratings gains week to week too, albeit tiny ones and the show's cancelation was already a done deal). OK Tony wasa bit one note but by the alst few months I liked nearly all the characters--I much prefered Angie on City to Loving as well where she never really felt part ofthe canvas tome.

I didn't have a history with Curtis but I admit as a horny young gay teen I found Mercantal an odd fit--he just isn't as soap opera handsome as I guess I expected--in hindsight though I see what a good actor he was and the show was already doing really well with male eye candy by this time (I still think Trucker, who disappeared from acting pretty soon after--is the best looking of rhte cliche "romance novel cover guys" on any soap of the time)

For those who didn't know, it probably seemed like Lily's story ran it's course. Lily revealed to

The 1987 clip is from Ralph Ellis, who was Nixon's successor. I don't know when Ellis started, but he was there at least Sept 1987 (the date of this clip) until the beginning of the Writer's Strike in April/May 1988. Taggert and King were hired to write the post-strike episodes. Overall, Loving was never able to find a head writer who could really give the show a strong group of characters to work with. I feel like Marland left the show in good shape in 1985, but Nixon's follow up was so vastly different from Marland's style that it simply didn't work. Marland had such a rich executive set with Alden Enterprises and its subdivisions Amourelle and Burnell's. Nixon really isn't a business stories kind of writer so this left her in a bit of a bind. Lorna and Linc seemed farcical dealing with Linc's secret wife Zona (the name alone was too much) and her fake pregnancy. The hooker with a heart of gold (Dolly) was too dated a concept by then to really work. Nixon was able to coast off the baby switch plotline for some time with Ava/Jack/Stacey/Curtis, but, other than that, most of the work seemed so bizarre.

So is that youtube creditless episode of Jack and Stacey's rehearsal dinner from 86 under Nixon?

Yeah that was shortly before the original Curtis returned, under Nixon, as Dante's "pet"

But was it any good? I think one soap critic said it showed she should stick to soaps--still I'd love to see it.

*edit* it must not be too obscure and seems to have lots of fans (probably partly cuz of the actors) as youtube is litered with clips and fan vids to it.

It was briefly available on NTSC VHS--I rented a copy from a local Blockbuster when i was first soap obsessed so around 1991. It may have had a slightly different title. I wish I could track down that historical miniseries Agnes wrote around the same time.