EricMontreal22

I do wish they found some new excuse for Harold's exit because it seems basically like he's leaving for the very same reason he just recently came back anyway.

Well I certainly remember that--but not many Phoebe/Erica altercations.

The NBC isn't a quote but someone saying "this COULD be what happened maybe" as far as I'm concerned (I had forgotten that from the great Ryan's Hope book though!) And of course Loving was already at ABC and had been for a year--it all just sounds like supposition to me. But obviously people were concerned--still, as mentioned, Ryan's Hope was doing poorly already and why anyone would consider it a bargaining chip is beyond me.

Thanks for this! I never thought about the fact that around the same time ABC Daytime obviously made a point of hiring outside the soap world for exec producers (Felicia Minei Behr was doing fine at AMC.) Gottlieb was the highest profile one, but Loving hired Haidee Granger from the BBC (who Logan thinks shows promise--but would have a falling out with headwriter Addie Walsh, serve as HW herself for three months, hire Millee Taggert and Bob Guza, and then get fired by ABC) and for GH they took TV movie producer Wendy Riche who Logan doesn't think shows much promise, but of course... would (mostly.) However, Gottlieb seemed to be the only one to immediately hire a headwriter from outside the soap world as well. (But what was the S&M sex?)

Malone says in the Llanview oral history book that he had been learning so much about OLTL's historic storylines and loving the history that he felt he would use Megan's death as a way to remind the audience of the show's legacy with characters coming to her death bed and telling her stories about their lives (cue the flashbacks.) I might find that annoying myself if I was on my death bed, but it was an amazing week for new viewers like myself. I was NEVER a Todd fan (though did like him marginally better as played by TSJ who I like a lot as an actor.) The fact that Howarth often didn't want to be there didn't help. Funny, i was watching regularly then, and have zero memory about Grace Phillips as Sarah Agreed. For those of us as viewers, it can be easy to forget how much has changed in attitudes and awareness in 30 years.

LeCler did get acclaim in the late 70s replacing Frank Langella and Raul Julia as Dracula (really!) In the beloved late 70s Edward Gorey designed revival on Broadway. Interesting they couldn't make Jeremy and Ava work--I remember their main storyline was a Summer (?) story at the new Universal Studios Orlando (before Disney owned ABC obviously) because they were on the run from a General Hospital supervillain I think (Faison was it? I had no idea who he was so it was a cross over completely lost on me.) There was a goofy scene with Ava interacting with the animatronic giant King Kong that I think the soap press throught was a dig/homage to the infamous Ryan's Heart story.

Yeah saying Nixon threatened to bolt to NBC if ABC didn't give Loving RH's timeslot doesn't... make any sense at all when you look at the facts. In terms of ratings--how much truth was there that Loving out performed... Y&R I think (could that be?) in NYC and some other major metro markets? That always gets mentioned but with no proof lol He wasn't great at it but I kinda loved the Gothic over the top spooky storyline. It was during Agnes Nixon's 1993-94 run as HW when, as we discussed some weeks back, she decidedly focused on Gothic storylines. Wow that was fast

Brian Green's Brian was such a departure I remember thinking as a 12-13 year old. I liked him (and already at the time knew him from his Broadway musical stuff) but he just seemed so much... not like a bad boy (or former bad boy.) Interesting to see the Cullitons listed as (I think?) breakdown writers with Hal Corley in the credits. Thanks for those Michael Logan pieces. I don't agree with a lot of what he says in them (from my memory anyway...) but they seem to be honest--if catty--and not how he would eventually become in his soap writing which was simply unbearable. Great question that I have no answer for Did Phoebe ever really have much of a gripe with Erica after Erica's obsession with Chuck? (I'm sure I'm forgetting something.) In theory of course she should have hated her simply due to the eternal Erica/Brooke feud, and yet...

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Speaking of missing the first ten minutes today--how exactly did Derek help out Hayley?

Oh wow! Thanks Mitch.

I've been working at preparing a conference so haven't been able to watch since Tuesday, so how annoying to sit down and see that Wednesday's episode was nearly entirely pre-empted here for Trump's inane/insane tariff crapfest. And then so were the first ten minutes of Thursday's and Friday's (I'm sure others in this thread on the West coast have complained about this...) I admit, having not been a daily soap viewer in ten+ years I forgot about the annoyance of news pre-emptions when you're a soap fan. In the past, I usually could get around it because the soaps I watched were simulcast here on Canadian stations which wouldn't have the pre-emption, or I could watch the streaming feed, but with Gates, I can only watch it via its Seattle feed (have any Canadian stations picked it up for simulcast?) and all the sties streaming it are region blocked. Still, it doesn't seem like I missed much on Wednesday (I wasn't looking forward to seeing how Derek's My Dinner with Andre went.)

I think this is what always gets me. Don't get me wrong--I've stuck with a fave soap for YEARS of mediocre or even bad writing and still mourned when it was cancelled, so I get it. But it's not like RH was at a creative high and ABC/Evil Aggie were sabotaging it (well maybe ABC was with some of the creatives they hired...) @DRW50 I completely agree.

YES! I should have saved the episode to write down all the weird/awkward dialogue but I remember that one about the virginity too--I mean could you imagine someone you're dating saying that? (Of course they'd never say it in my case, but ) There was another one in the bar/restaurant with the other characters that I'm trying to remember...

Yes, that topped my list, particularly because of course the actor playing Tomas was complete at sea trying to make that reference sound natural (I think he even made an awkward hand gesture.) But I felt like it was throughout Monday's episode, lots of characters saying "indeed" etc. Just dialogue that on the page might read as more clever than normal, but did not work.

Yes, I think that's a fair way to look at it (and ridiculously to assume Nixon should have turned down the offer and told ABC they should focus on one of their low rated soaps instead.)

I agree it was so/so but I did think it had much more natural dialogue than yesterday (I know, Ron C doesn't do the dialogue...) Monday had SO much high-faluting dialogue and allusions that just came out awkward...

I think it was just on the right side of the kind of camp that AMC can pull off--not quite going over the edge.

And we were just discussing this *rolls eyes* I have to laugh when Agnes calls the show "hot." Has there ever been another time when the advertising for a soap actually featured the soap creator?? And don't forget, Agnes Nixon ACTUALLY wanted ABC to sandwich Loving in between AMC and OLTL but for some reason they refused (even though frankly it makes a lot of sense to me) though I know that would have affected Ryan's Hope as well.

When Mike Poirier was editing this he called it the most boring bad seed storyline ever... LOL Check out how many recasts there are here (including Curtis number 2 AND 3)

Yes, I did make the mistake of asking after the Ryan's Hope one if he'd ever do one for maybe Loving... sigh lol

Oh the stuff with Kendall (they met in prison--when Kendall was in there for perjury because of course someone in jail for perjury would be with someone in jail for murder ) wasn't connected. This is what the PineValleyBulletin says: 1995: Janet was determined to win custody of Amanda. She believed her chances were compromised as a result of Trevor and Dixie Martin’s smear campaign. She hired an actor named James to impersonate Dixie's late brother, Janet’s first victim Will . At trial, James arrived and revealed Janet’s deceptions. Trevor won full custody of Amanda. Janet was determined to make everyone pay for her loosing her child. On the day of Trevor and Laurel’s wedding, she stormed the chapel with a bomb. Only, Amanda had already arrived and was standing with Laurel. Not wanting to hurt her daughter, Janet ran into the street with the bomb. Before she could disarm it, she was struck down by lightning. (This led to Pierce Riley/Laura stuff under Corley and Broderick.)

Had no idea there was a rewatch podcast (I'm probably not up for following it regularly lol but nice to know)... But that was a really great interview! interesting that she auditioned first for Kelsey. I must have started watching AMC in 1991 JUST after Robin Christopher left (or maybe she was still on but was about to leave and made no impression.) So Carrie was Skye for me and I had no problem adjusting to her or anything. Funny to think that she was only on just over a year as I remember her stuff so clearly (and yes, her best storyline was the "three witches/weird sisters" story where Skye, Janet and Erica were forced to team up to bring down Jonathan--the stuff with his "body" Marian helping him escape, etc. I remember finding it all a lot of fun. Skye's involvement in the pretty hated Maddie storyline on the other hand... I think it was. Oh even more so, if that's possible. No wonder people started to think enough is enough.

I forgot about Will's doppelganger (Janet used him to gaslight... someone? Dixie? (Why would Janet want to gaslight Dixie?) God that story is fuzzy in my mind but of course was one of the stories that finally gave FMB the leverage to get rid of McT with dropping ratings and examples of her going back to the same tricks one too many times.

OK remind me--what were they gonna do? Thanks for tagging me in this fascinating episode. You know, in the back of my head I always blame Sam Hall when he went solo for the Dallas-ification of OLTL but obviously stuff like this proves it was in full force while Gordon Russell was still writing with him... ❤️ To his credit, I have always gotten the sense that he does try to take acting seriously (and I haven't seen him do anything in years,) but...