soapfan770

This thread is great. Loving was the only ABC soap I seem to watch even if it was only occasionally, I think I was more interested in saying that I watched the lowest rated soap more than anything else. That said I never watched The City, I think I only watched the first episode of it because my ABC station later stopped airing it.

Well I don't know if this one's been mentioned or not but I didn't see it on the list but Mira Sorvino was a temporary replacement for Jocelyn Seagrave back in 1991/1992 as Julie on GL. A clip of Sorvino as Julie was shown during a montage during that terrible fiasco CBS AT 75 back in 2003.

OMG I thought I was the only one who remembered such odd letters like that! I specifically remember that letter because years later I looked up that casting despite it not being a soap I watched. I use to love that section when I was a SOD subscriber in the late 90s. SOD would give some great informative answers with pictures to boot, yet some of those questions could be kooky, especially the ones disclosing dinner bets.

One question I've been wondering about is was there really a scandal that Jo divorced Martin in the early '80s?

The Brighter Day, of course was a radio soap by Irna Phillips first aired in 1948 until it transitioned to TV in 1954 where it lasted until 1962. P&G sold TBD to CBS, and like CBS would do later to TSS and Love of Life, proceeded to destroy it resulting in cancellation. Here is this overview by Matt Smith:

Rod Arrants' character actually had crossed over to AW inbetween L&F and FRFP, and of course went on to become one of daytime's leading men in the 80s in major roles on three soaps(SFT, Days, Y&R). Here is an overview which Matt Smith had written up on his now defunct website:

It was pretty much a revisit to the Neil/Dru/Malcolm/Olivia quad. After Malcolm found out Callie was married to Trey he went off to Paris and ran into Dru and convinced her to come back to Genoa City with him. Dru wanted to rekindle things with Neil, but then Olivia became deathly ill and Neil stayed by her beside day and night and professed his love for Olivia. Dru started dating Malcolm, and about this time is when King took over. She pretty much had zero chemistry with KSJ, Moore, and Willimas, and then the story was suddenly dropped and Dru was written out with some really flimsy excuse of not being able to hack it or something.

Beverly Garland as Kathrine? Can't even imagine it, mainly because I've never been too fond of any of Garland's work. I wonder when if the dreadful Wesley Ann Pfenning subbed for Bauer on Y&R before or after her short stint as an Alice recast on AW. Kent Masters King is a nice person, but Dru's 2000 return was ruined because of that and they wrote Dru out again. The second time Mantooth took over from Hendrickson on ATWT it was supposed to be permanent until Hendrickson decided to unretire and came back in '05.

Thank you for clearing that up for me. While I am more of an SFT fan from what I have seen on the net, Edge is still a great show in my opinion and I'm sorry no other soaps ever came up with doing mysteries like that. I know of its popularity, it just struck me as odd especially the Time Magazine article which was actually pretty harsh towards all the P&G, Edge's criticism being the harshest.

I was wondering, often looking back at old articles from the early daytime magazines it was seems that Edge of Night was held in low regard in comparison to the other soaps. A recently posted poll from 1970 had EON at the bottom of the list of favorite soaps, and the famous 1976 Time Magazine article on soaps deemed it "old fashioned". It just strikes me as funny because it seems to have a cult following today and is fondly remembered. Was it the predictable Perry Mason formula that caused it be viewed this way back then?

I can't believe they are going to do a story with that girl intern becoming NotMcDreamy Derek's stalker and a "danger" to Meredith. Actually, even though I'm skeptical about this, maybe some good campy, cheesy story could liven up the dead show.

I actually wonder why they didn't fully bring back Maureen from the dead and instead we got left Maureen's ghostly appearances to Michelle and Maureen being Vanessa's guide in Heaven. Given some of the more outlandish plots of the Rauch regime, Maureen being alive and well in 1997 would have been far more plausible than later storylines. Heck they went through the trouble to bring back Robert Gentry as Ed, they could have made it worth their time.

Question: Who was Lana Reardon? Another long lost Reardon child? Who played her, or was she ever actually seen at all? I just remember reading somewhere long, long ago she was supposed to be Maureen's twin sister.

So is Katherine Heigl even on this show anymore? I was taken back by her little 5 second appearance last Thursday because I thought she was done with the show. I heard her last movie bombed though or something.

As crazy as it was and crazy as it may sound looking back I have to admit did thoroughly enjoyed GL in 1998, it was 1999 that was the killer aside from the Jesse/Drew stuff and early San Cristobel. Though I never understood the whole cloning bit, and I never will. Hell they could have gotten the same ratings if a drunk Josh ran into a red-headed Reva doppelganger, instantly fell in love with her image of his "dead" wife as she did with him and then hired her to play Reva. You would have gotten the same great campy scenes and storyline.

It was actually. Tabitha's Thanksgiving dinner party in 2004 was one of Passions' finest post-Timmy moments and included all the over the top soapiness and camp Passions should have been. Tabitha was hosting the dinner and invited everyone just to "accidentally" let it slip that the Wheelers were really Martin and Katherine. Chaos ensured afterward.

Actually that sounds like a smart idea! Given on old WB shows like Dawson's Creek and Charmed had their own continuing book series I wonder why Passions didn't do a dime-novel series as well.

Heh out of habit I guess, much like Y&R. It's a muddled mess and Shonda Rimes is such a hack. I watched an episode of Private Practice, which is desperately clinging to survive seems to be simply using old Grey's scripts right down to the same dialogue. Actually, I'm surprised anyone besides me and a couple friends still watch. The show keeps going down in down in the ratings. A couple seasons ago it was in the top 5 show; the 2/12 episode last week has been the series' lowest-rated so far and it came in at #16. At this rate they're going be out of the top 20 by May.

God this show totally blows right now, the past few episodes have been quite terrible.

Ok I'll say it: desk sex was hot for Fletcher and Holly, but their subsequent relationship was terribly boring. Always love DANfan's posts keeping GL's memory alive!

She did indeed! I was sorely disappointed when LML brought on that B-movie actress who's name escapes me at the moment instead of trying to get CE back. The amazing thing is the music remains timeless and not outdated in any way, much like the rest of 90s Y&R.

Both of these videos contain classic, epic Y&R scores that are favorites of mine: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VXsv0uLxMu4

Hence my reference of Julia Shearer--Matthews related character played by a young Kyra Sedgwick AND Faith Ford only to meet a violent end. Also I believe they started AW's trend of nabbing high profile actors for roles. Now granted this always occurs at every soap but it seemed more obvious and frequent at AW. In the late 70s AW hired quite a few for Y&R stars with William Grey Espy, Jennifer Leak, and Janice Lynde, in the 80s AW with multiple ABC stars, and in the the 90s especially in 1991 in which saw three major roles recast with three big daytime stars. However the show could never bring in the ratings, showing that star quality alone could not help the show.

Funny you should bring up Lemay and Rauch decimating the Matthews and Frames. I've often heard it argued in the end they destroyed the success they had created.

I have to say this was what I was thinking as well. The thing that bugs me is the constant turnover and inconsistent writing between 1981-1987 and 1995-1999. Characters constantly came and went except a select few ie Rachel, Cass, Felicia etc. Both the Matthews and Frame families were completely to obliterated to the point where there was only a single Matthews related character on the show, Josie. Up and coming characters like Julia Shearer and Sally Frame killed off for no good reason while other vets wasted and forgotten. The had no real sense of identity. No matter what you think, the Swajeski years were a saving grace for the show and at least gave show a small period of stability and good writing. On the other hand, what AW really needed was a Douglas Marland type writer over a long period of time. Alas that why I would also disagree with the opinion I had posted. Aside from the Britney Peterson stuff and Justine junk, AW certainly was never the worst soap on the air during this period (hello Generations!). I also agree with all of your story highlights except for one--The Steve Frame is back from the dead story was a spectacular failure. It failed because two actors from the original Rachel/Steve/Alice triangle were long gone and the fact there wasn't much chemistry nor interest. Yet when AW brought back Courtney in the role of Alice, she was quickly sidelined and then written out not long after. Go figure.