Khan

You can see Gloria Monty injecting some Hitchcockian touches into the sequence. I find them too distracting.

Judging from his final quote, I don't think Shaw was saying he wrote for SFT for five years. I think he was speaking metaphorically, saying that ANY writer is bound to go a little nuts if he/she stays at one show for too long. Post-er(s): But he said he did SFT for "a long time," when he was HW only for a year. Me: To your average soap opera writer, a year at any show is probably a long time. OTOH, Laiman, along with Sheri Anderson and Thom Racina, understood that female viewers were soaps' bread-and-butter, which is why romance, and especially supercouples, seemed so important to them when they were writing DAYS. They gave consistently what they thought their average audience members -- again, females -- wanted consistently.

Agree. SBH, and Cynthia Benjamin, faced a very uphill battle when they became HW's, because, thanks to EP Mary-Ellis Bunim and the several HW'ing teams that had come and gone during her regime, the show was WRECKED. The Hugheses and Stewart/Lowells, save for Tom, had been relegated to supporting/recurring status; and if your character wasn't part of James Stenbeck's orbit, or involved with the younger group, you basically had nothing to do. It's to SBH and Benjamin's (and new EP Robert Calhoun's) credit how they brought the show back down to earth, with more character-driven storylines that seemed to touch more on the show's history (Bob and Kim's reunion and marriage being but one, very notable example) after Bunim had overdosed on action/adventure and murky crime stories.

I think TPTB were still skittish about putting Bob and Kim together, because of the reaction that their ONS and her subsequent pregnancy probably engendered from the audience. They probably thought having Bob and Kim reunite and marry at that point would look like "rewarding" Kim for trying to steal away her sister's husband. Plus -- and I don't know, this is pure conjecture on MY part -- but I wonder, too, whether TPTB thought that Kim had too much vitality to be tied down with a conservative (read: boring) character like Bob. Hence, her marriage to the presumably more dynamic Nick.

I'm sure he has skeletons in his closet, too. Nevertheless, right now, I just love this man. Agree. People like the ones you've mentioned always forget that Obama deported far more "illegals" when he was in charge. Yet, they insist that everyone merely looked the other way around before Trump took office. Yup. The entire nation is falling apart before our very eyes...but they still believe their consciences are clear.

Must be a quote from her new book, "Everything I Need to Know I Learned from Being Brainwashed by the SLA."

It's just incredible to me how Robert J. Shaw could write for so many landmark shows -- DALLAS, PEYTON PLACE, GH, etc. -- and yet be so incredibly mediocre.

If they didn't, they should've. Anne Sward looks like their sister, not their mother. Janet Zarish's haircut was...unfortunate.

Heather exasperates me, because I don't understand why she is (or was) the way she is. I mean, even BEFORE her bad acid trip, Heather apparently had emotional issues -- but why? Of course, since she was created by the Pollocks, I can't expect there to be a deep-seated reason for her psychosis, now can I?

Caroline McWilliams appeared in the episode concerning Papa Bauer's funeral, and I swear, with her outfit and hair, it was as if she was channeling the spirit of first-season Mary Richards.

The thing that gets me about the DOJ report is the absolutely firm conviction that neither Comey nor anyone else at the FBI was motivated out of political bias against HRC. Well, if Comey in particular didn't do what he did out of bias, then why DID he go public not once, but twice, with materials pertaining to the department's investigation into her and Her Damn Emails, while the entire FBI remained silent about investigating the Trump campaign? I just wish someone at the FBI would admit what the whole world already knows: that they would have done whatever was necessary to keep that woman from becoming president.

Actually, I'd rather treat him like "Scooby-Doo" fans treat Scrappy-Doo. But, OTOH, he didn't quote Paula Abdul and admit he wanted to be treated "like the gift that I am." So, there's that.

Is that the guy who co-hosted that MTV game show w/ Jenny McCarthy once upon a time? "Singled Out," right? I've always believed that some women have the mentality of, "Well, maybe I'll be the one who changes him." No, dear, you won't.

Accompanied by the song "Oh Yeah," of course.

I thought and said the same thing when I read the news earlier this morning (and I'm not even a fan of ST). Frankly, I'm not surprised Harberts and Berg turned out to be such lousy show runners, since I've never liked any of the stuff they've penned for various shows.

Yeah, I think it is AT. So, lemme get this straight: everyone on the street's congratulating Tony Blair, because he has his poll card? Wow, if only we here in the US could get that worked up over someone going off to vote!

Well, so much for the come(y)back tour!

If she's moving out, then it's only because she's gotten everything she could outta Bill and their marriage and is ready to move on.

God knows that, by all accounts, Irna was a real character to work for, or work with. However, I wonder whether at least some of her more bizarre behaviors wasn't a put-on. After all, Irna might have been the "Queen of the Soaps," but she was still working in an industry dominated by men. Ergo, maybe she saw being aggressive and eccentric as her way of ensuring that she wouldn't be second-guessed or taken advantage of by the higher-ups at the networks and the sponsors.

True. However, I think LOL hung on for as long as it did, BECAUSE she was still there. Otherwise, it seems as if there was little or nothing there to keep even the diehardiest of diehard fans (the kind who never, ever quit on a show, no matter how rotten, because, "like a tree that's planted by the waters, I shall NOT be moved") from fleeing. I mean, even Sammy Davis, Jr. and his "Candyman"-singin' ass would have been out the door the minute the news broke that Audrey had quit/retired/died, and he was supposed to be LOL's #1 true-blue fan! Contrast that with GL, for example, which seemed to do okay (for awhile, anyway) w/o Charita Bauer as Bert. Not only that, but it was also their way of capturing the attention of newer (read: younger) audiences, who could form their own attachments to the newer characters and families, in the same way that their parents and grandparents had formed attachments over the years to the original ones. In the case of SFT, I think the tactic worked, even if it was ultimately undone by a revolving door of HW's and EP's who ruined the show with one bad story-related decision after another. Unfortunately, where LOL was concerned, growing the show in that way seemed to have almost the opposite effect (again, from what I have read about its' history): not only did expanding the show's canvas alienate large sections of the show's standing audience, BUT, it seems as if the younger audiences whom TPTB had desired weren't all that interested either. As (I think) Mimi Torchin once said, LOL was doomed to be just "your mother's soap opera."

So, bringing it back to THE DOCTORS... Given her fan following from THE SECRET STORM, I'm not surprised TPTB would ultimately snag Jada Rowland to succeed Carolee Campbell as Carolee. However, I AM surprised that Rowland herself joined the show at a time when several others -- AMC, Y&R, etc. -- were beginning to eclipse TD both in ratings and in acclaim. Does anyone know specifically how or why JD came to work on TD? Did any other shows attempt to court her? If so, what made TD the more attractive opportunity? (I, myself, have wondered how JD might have fit in on AMC.)

For better or worse, DePriest was there for the start of the whole "Supercouples to the rescue!" era at DAYS. However, unlike the other architects of that vision -- Pat Falken Smith, Sheri Anderson, Thom Racina and Leah Laiman -- DePriest wasn't employed already at another soap OR out of the business entirely. Ergo, from a certain standpoint, hiring her to head-write another NBC soap being targeted to younger audiences made sense. It's just unfortunate that, in SUNSET BEACH's case, they weren't blessed with a good enough cast to overcome some abysmal writing.

You're right, she did. Damn, I wish I knew more about this show.

Agree -- and to tell you the truth, I'm not even 100% sure it was DePriest who instigated that story. (We tend to forget that Lorraine Broderick and Victor Miller were still on staff, even if they had been demoted to associate head writers.) Regardless, though, as bizarre as it was to learn that Eric had been reduced to working as a clown for a circus troupe, I, too, feel like it was a good way to show Erica that he was NOT the man she had built him up to be in her mind; that, as Susan Lucci once said in regards to the storyline, he very much had feet of clay. Agree here as well. Now that Erica had become a mother, the time was right for her to mature emotionally; and reuniting her with her father was the key. Unfortunately, the problems with Eric Kane and his storyline came afterward, when DePriest and her team tried making him a permanent part of his daughter and granddaughter's lives. (I, myself, would have been fine with him living outside of Pine Valley, but visiting occasionally, like w/ Nick Davis.) Bringing some resolution to Erica's "daddy issues" was one thing, but having him back in town full-time, and Erica giving him Enchantment stock? Unless Eric is played by a "lovable curmudgeon" like Barnard Hughes, there's nowhere to go with that kind of character. Thankfully, when Agnes Nixon returned as HW, she sent Eric packing, lol.

True -- and I guess that was my point in my last post. SFT's focus DID expand over time, to the point where the show's mere survival didn't rest entirely on Mary Stuart's (and Larry Haines') shoulders. Don't get me wrong, there were times when SFT was so bad that seeing Stu and Jo onscreen was the only thing keeping fans going. However, if MS and/or LH had passed away or retired while SFT was still running -- yes, it would have been a blow, just like losing any original cast member is to any show -- but I feel like the show itself could have weathered the losses (with the right production team in place, of course) and carried on. But could LOL have weathered losing Vanessa? Again, going on what I have read about the show, I don't think so. I think if Audrey Peters had died suddenly, or if she had chosen to leave the show for whatever reason, LOL would have been as good as gone -- which tells me that the show never evolved as much as it probably should have. Am I wrong, or didn't Vanessa adopt a child at some point? Actually, AMS, I would have developed Vanessa and Meg's offspring the other way around: Meg's kids would have been (more) virtuous and had more in common with their "Aunt Van," while Vanessa's own children would have ended up more like Meg. But that's just coming from personal experience.