EricMontreal22

Isn't it wild. I know that memoirs can be filled with scandalous info, but (despite her crazy introduction) I have no idea how she thought this would make it to print. Given Washam's comments about McTavish and that she basically caused him to leave the writing team, I can't imagine he hired her, unless it was a case of buyer's regret.

Here it is https://mega.nz/file/AGgAlTJL#30UD8WxSgSPuzUiKO6mRtLPjTH5kuAAnQ46-t06HwYA

You're right. To be fair, her last run was under Biran Frons' idea that the show should be a daytime version of Sex and the City.

I agree. I do find her story projections that were made just before she was let go (in 1999) amusing though. To be fair, I thought her first stint was mostly great (I know some long time fans disagree) and actually kept up that Gothic quality. And when she returned in 2002 for a *brief* moment the show felt like AMC again.

I think this was completely true--as a fan of both shows. AMC was going through a sorta (?) better-than-it-had-been stage, but OLTL was at a low point, so... From McTavish's own words:

Send me a message and I'll dish... It's ridiculous (and for some reason in the Agnes Nixon archives at Northwestern)

Where do you think she did her worst? After AMC, ABC seemed to move her to OLTL for a bit, which was in a terrible era at the end of the Rauch era (but from what I've seen, she didn't do much to help or hinder, either way, as a co-HW.) She did go to Sunset Beach and I remember thinking her period on that show was its best, but it's obviously a very different soap from AMC. McTavish's ridiculously hateful soap memoir draft, Tap Dancing in the Cuisinart, would give some credence to that, though of course it's hard to read in it from an objective perspective (she says that Felicia Minei Behr hated the idea of a Pine Valley hurricane claiming that the network wouldn't give them the money to pull it off, and that hurricanes wouldn't hit the East coast in December anyway, until brilliant McTavish did some research and contacted the network execs and proved FMB wrong and ABC insisted on it, and it led to, in McTavish's words, AMC's best moment of all time. I mean I did like a lot of that storyline, but no wonder FMB fired McTavish months later...)

Watch it Jonathan Who is this Rosanna woman?? Lucci holds her own with great dignity and knows her stuff--mentioning Tonya's Tony wins, etc--but never mind how rude the final question is "It's time!!" Jesus Christ. She also doesn't seem to know anything about this play, let alone how theatre works.

AND some research shows you're right--Phantom Erica was one of Agnes' first storylines when Agnes Nixon returned as official HW in 1999. McTavish v.2's main story for Erica was the resurrection of Mike Roy which I think most found to be a bust (and as a teen to me meant nothing as I had no idea who this Mike was--)

Do I have Phantom Erica in the timeline confused? Of course maybe Agnes suggested it as she was still an active part of the writer's room even when not HW, in the 1990s Nazi art WAS McTavish though 100% (I think Hayley's psychic bleeding tattoo was too, with someone from Adam's past wanting revenge, etc.)

Ah, that's fair, because I totally missed that detail--because the times I looked around, she was the only one I saw.

I don't mean to snark on an episode I mostly enjoyed but I love how understaffed this country club is when they host events (I already felt this way for the wedding but more here.) Was "Sherrie" the only server around at all? And she was a temp at that (I'll let it pass that there's no way she would have gotten that job so quickly, etc.) Wasn't it established in a previous episode that Vanessa is friends with Nicole as well and not just Dani? Where was she? I laughed when Nicole invited her family up at the end and with the family all now on stage, literally the audience that was there for apparently a Big Deal award cleared out so there was about 1/3 left...

It did seem to be one of the few storylines from McTavish v.2 that got some traction, to be fair. Certainly not Palmer's stolen Nazi art.

Yes--even if the execution didn't live up to her lofty ideals, I gotta respect the thought she put into this, as well. I would love to know what Marland made of it all (or was he already planning his exit at this point? For some reason I get the feeling he may have been...)

What's interesting is the story outline for the supernatural stuff is from November 1984 when I believe Doug Marland was still HW. But actually the storyline played out over a year and a bit when all is said and done... The story starts Summer 1984. He “dies” in November. Comes back soon after as Keith. By spring you realize Jonathan is back. He has his finale in Nov 1985. (Douglas Marland was off the show as HW I believe in June 1985 when his two year contract was up.) Here's the story proposal/treatment's first few pages--message me for more if wanted. Over half of it is Agnes Nixon, God bless her, detailing classic literary precedent for her story, etc--I doubt JER did that when he pitched the Marlena possession storyline .

There actually was a problem with uploading several of the full episodes--YT kept flagging them due to copyright issues and Mike couldn't figure out what needed to be edited out so this is probably the best compromise, although I agree with you that it's always nice to see these stories in context and how they played opposite all the other stories.

I love how in the car chase, etc, sequence it goes all 1980s cheezy horror film which is not remotely I think what Agnes Nixon intended

During COVID some of us Loving fans managed to get (from a kind fan) and watch a good chunk of the episodes from this infamous storyline but for various reasons weren't allowed to share them. So I'm so glad that this fan edit of the story at least was just made now. And though she wasn't credited as HW at the time, let's all remember this IS an Agnes Nixon storyline at least at heart--I have a copy of her lengthy story outline for it (including her reasoning for it) copies from her archives.

Oh you're absolutely right about Bill too, and we have heard how Dani quit her modelling career when she married him, but it seemed more like it was her decision (though one he would have wanted) and not as blatant as with Martin.

I'm with you--given it was 1992, I thought it actually worked well (and it truly was groundbreaking to feature the AIDS quilt, the first time a scripted program was given permission to feature it and something I'm certain most of the viewers had no knowledge about but shows so clearly the scope of devastation of that disease.) I guess as a young viewer at the time, I never really thought it did make me more sympathetic to Sloane (actually I did like that it gave more compassion to Andrew and explained his reaction despite being a priest) OK but now I have to ask--I completely missed Eva la Rue's brief run on GH. Anyone give me a quick rundown? If we're talking homophobic OLTL storylines we have to look no further than Higley and the Daniel Colson storyline where a man in the 2000s who by all reports otherwise was a good guy, was driven to MURDER to hide his sexuality (and they even brought back that short term "love shack" Malone/Griffith x 2 character as his BF which just made the storyline all the more confusing because if he had a bf who was keeping his secret... why was he killing people? Was his name Mark? I think he was played by Matt Cavanaugh who at the time had a major Broadway career--including Tony in the last West Side Story revival, but seems to have completely disappeared from stage and film a while back) Talk about a storyline that belonged in 1981 (and would have been tasteless then anyway.) Sidenote--I did like Riley, Daniel's son who I think also came out of the Love Shack--was that the name?--storyline and recently saw the actor has a lead in the new Amazon Prime trans sitcom which was the last thing Norman Lear did. This was all a part of my MA project, because I compared the Billy storyline with the gay story four years later on AMC. (When I interviewed Hal Corley he swore that when planning the story they never brought up the OLTL storyline.) Which did make a concerted effect to involve more of the canvas and to last longer (it did--starting with a focus on teacher Michael Delaney, then when that played out moving to Kevin coming out, and then keeping him on the canvas--including the first "gay conversion therapy" storyline on US TV--as much as they could until of course McTavish returned as headwriter and he disappeared. But as far as AMC storylines go that has been overshawdowed by the Bianca storyline a few years later when they finally were allowed to have a core character come out--though I argue they did somethings with the Kevin storyline better... ) RIGHT, this is what I was trying to say but you said better, especially about Andrew. But wait--who was Natalia? LOL

So the dynamic they seem obviously to be playing up is the most typically male chauvinistic (in terms of how they're spouse should behave) character on the show isn't any of the straight men, but is Martin who seems to want a 1950s housewife in Smitty? I get it... It's actually an interesting take on gay marriages, though annoying at the same time lol. I did actually like the kids, and their complete siding with Smitty on the subject... I still am not 100% sold on the relationship as played out (I laughed when all of the other husbands/boyfriends have had much more... revealing sleepwear than Smitty's 1950s, again, pajamas...) but actually did enjoy their storyline beats today. As for Eva and "Leslie" I'm actually enjoying the over the top soapiness of it BUT it does have me wondering how she raised Eva (and successfully, it seems) for all of these years until now (and we've heard her husband/partner wasn't very paternal so we can't chalk it up to him.) Still, I gotta say, I took today off and was nursing a cold in bed, so did check out all the remaining soaps for the first time in a while, and Gates, for all the things I'm not completely sold on, was far more compelling than anything on the three other shows, and had better dialogue. I know it's only in its third week so is hard to judge, but... (I also didn't mind a break from Dani.) AND despite my praise, I 100% agree with absolutely everything in this post., We definitely have to start having Derek and Ashley interacting more with the others as, despite what we've been told, they still don't seem to have any connection to the others (Nicole talking to Ashley didn't seem very personal--more like co-workers at the same hospital, which they are, but not someone who presumably grew up knowing Nicole as her best friend's aunt, or whatever...) The gambling storyline also is completely islanded/isolated from the main focus stories as well (and I guess we can see what's gonna happen to Vanessa's storyline but I'm not sure why she went from apparently randomly hooking up with men in roleplay situations--stupidly at the bar her friends all hang out at--to sleeping with a key staff member of the country club they all practically live in...) I actually thought for a long time they would do this as a 30 minute soap (if anything to pair with B&B) and I agree that probably would have been the best way to launch the show.

Interestingly, looking at the episodes on archive, despite what other sources have said, it looks like Agnes Nixon doesn't start getting credited as HW until the start of 1990, which was also AMC's 20th anniversary and when the new credits premiered. I'm definitely with you on lighting and sets (which really became basic and lacking personality in the 2000s) Ha you're right--McTavish's second run did have those ridiculous Gothic storylines... Oh Erica's mask, and the Camille mess (which was not helped by having a terrible actress from what I recall.)

It actually lasted for several years, didn't it? Inexplicable (I mean I know Sunset Beach used it initially but that was to try to make it look like the Spelling primetime soaps and they dropped it within a year...) The final part of Pratt's run on the show was close to the show's nadir for me, but you're right--it started with a lot of potential, surprisingly. I remember he also brought something that the show had been missing previously (were Brown/Esensten the previous HW?) and that was classic AMC--*humour* I remember posting, probably on here, about how in his first few weeks he really brought that back. But... Maxim thanks for the tip of the AMC episodes on archive--WOW, I wouldn't have thought to look... I haven't seen a lot of this since I got sent dozens and dozens of VHS tapes in the 90s from someone online

I dunno--I was a bitter gay teen when it was airing, but I never thought we were meant to sympathize with any of Greenlee's behaviour. But like a lot of stuff of that time, I have no doubt that it wasn't clear in how it played. And I was an obsessive viewer at the time--admittedly with a short history with the show, but from what I remember there was virtually no material with her and Phoebe (or other tentpole characters) to re-establish her connection to the canvas. I never had any idea who she was and, like I said, I watched very closely back then. I definitely feel the same way Christopher Lawford was a wonderful guy by that stage, after dealing with some demons (I've heard this from Corley and other people I've interviewed--partly when I made the mistake of saying that I thought casting him was a mistake...) Ha I actually have the Masters of the Universe DVD (don't ask) and never made any connection.

My introduction to Cecily was when she was brought back for Christopher Lawford's Charlie Brent, who already was a character that baffled me. At the time I had friends who had been watching AMC longer because their mom was a fan, and they said how the Charlie he replaced was so cute (I don;'t think Christopher Lawford's looks were exactly something 14 year old girls--or 13 year old gay guys--would find appealing.) And then Cecily, who, yes, seemed very annoying, came on without much of an explanation of how she was tied to the show... They were going for a cutesy Nick and Nora thing with the two of them after, and I hope I remember this right, a very early You Got Mail rip off storyline where they didn't realize they were talking to each other, but I remember even as a relative soap newbie and a teen never thinking it worked (and then they were written off anyway...) Cecily certainly would have been more appealing if they were able to give her more interactions with Phoebe and maybe that was down to the health issues Ruth Warrick was having off and on by that point.