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This weekend, I watched a couple of late June 1993 episodes. The show has decent energy in all the stories, even in the news I don't like (Victoria / Bill / Holly). In my opinion, the strongest material surrounds Karen and Jagger. It should be clear to the audience by now that Ray Conway sexually abused Karen as a child. That dramatic tension builds nicely in scenes. I appreciate the work that was done to make Rhonda a human being compared to the cariacture we were introduced to in 1992. Rhonda has a bad history with men, exhibited by her experiences with Frank (Gary Hudson) the cop during the May episodes. I can see why Rhonda (foolishly) wouldn't understand why Karen wouldn't want to see Ray after explaining how so many guys she went out with bolted the minute she revealed she had a kid. Rhonda's relationship with Alan Quartermaine is also so much more complex than I would imagine. Two broken people looking to connect with an undercurrent of sexual tension that both, in previous lives, would have acted upon. In these episodes, Rhonda was gushing about how Alan had popped by Karen's graduation party. It's these relationships that make the little episode by episode moments rich. There is tension between Karen and Jagger due to Karen's secret, who, like Rhonda and Alan, are also two broken people hurt by the past.Jagger's broken home (he has located Gina, but she wants nothing to do with him). There is a little moment where Jagger is showing Ruby the newspaper ad for the fight and how he was hoping that Mike would see the ad and contact him. It's a tender moment and Ruby reassures him it's still possible. Karen's neuroses involving the men in her life seem grounded in her abuse and her inability to process this. There are a lot of little moments I appreciate where Karen tries to explain why she has abandoned Ray's locket (a graduation present) and trying to maneuver Rhonda so that she doesn't have to be alone with Ray. In other stories, there is nice movement. Sean confronts Jessica about the possibility of Jessica being pregnant with Jessica saying she doesn't want to know whether or not she is. Andreef plays it less as an act of manipulation, but rather a realization this could upend her world in so many different ways involving both Sean and her career. With Tracy on the run, Jenny starts to feel guilty about keeping the truth about Tracy's role in the accident secret. There is a nice scene with Jenny and her visiting mother, Angela, talking over Jenny's decision regarding the secret citing how she had ruined her marriage to Ned because she just didn't tell the truth. I know people don't have much use for Paul and Jenny, but it was one of my favorite scenes in these episodes. Carol Lawrence plays all the versions of Angela Eckert so well, but I do love this sorta social climbing menace who meddles in her kids lives the most. Bill also got harassed by her in her visit, which gave some nice insight into the Bill / Sly dynamic. The Bill / Victoria / Holly stuff is of little interest to me. I don't know what the long-term plan was here had Genie Francis not returned as the Summer in Provenance stuff had been going on since October, 1992, and I think they revealed the Victoria angle by February. With that said, the script writing is stellar and the calculating moves by both Victoria and Holly to win Bill is well done, but would have been better suited for Katherine / Scotty / Lucy. There was a little bit of Katherine planning on returning to New York and Scotty wanting to go with her. Lucy, of course, is jealous. It's all a nice continuation of Scotty's grief and the pregnancy, but I do wonder what would have happened with Katherine had Levinson stayed. There was a lot of stuff about the boxing match coming up between Jagger and AJ. I don't necessarily understand where any of this is going. The summer had a lot of animosity between A.J. and Jagger as I seem to recall (or at least I imagine there was issues with Jagger and the Q boys when they were slut shaming Karen). Maybe they were heading for some sorta of Jagger / Brenda / AJ / Julia / Ned scenario with Karen and Stone/Mike. I don't know. The rivalry is decent, but I am often left wondering if A.J. doesn't want Jagger for himself. Also worth noting, I saw some scenes before Paul and Tracy's wedding from 1991 where Gerald Hopkins' A.J. was putting the moves on Julia, pre- Nancy Eckert. May sweeps was so strong and so much story climaxed that there is a bit of a lull as the new stories are being set in place, but I still find it all very interesting.

In the summer of 1985, Sarah Whiting was interested in becoming a singer. It was a bond she shared with her grandmother, Jo. I believe Jo pulled out the guitar and sang “Green Coffee,” which I believe was a staple of Mary Stuart’s.

@DeeVee I'm pretty sure Acapulco Bay is on YouTube is nearly its entirety. There was also a website. There seems to be a bit of a cult following. I read Woman Hollering Creek by Sandra Cisneros with my students a few years back and which watched a clip of Acapulco Bay and the same scene from Tu o Nadie so the kids could understand thereferences in the story. Acapulco Bay was very weak in terms of writing and acting from the clip we watched. Morgan Fairchild was wasted as Sophia Blakely. The part was interesting and the setup of the story was potent for drama; she was the first wife of Maria's husband and her son, William, seduced Maria. Taylor Kinney was anattractive man, but he was hardly capable ofcarrying the dramatic story (even though they didn't really write much). I thought the Sophia / William / Maria / Luke / Michelle dynamic was interesting, but it never really popped the way it could have. The stunt casting was always amixed bag. Bo Derek was rough. Robin Givens and Maria Conchita Alonso both played to the back of the house while Mel Harris was to tepid opposite Alonso. Alonso at least appeared to enjoy herself as much as Tatum O'Neal. Dayanara Torres (a Miss Universe I believe and Marc Anthony's ex-wife) was very bland as the lead of Watch Over Me, but I enjoyed the general story. I think Theresa Russell delivered the best performance finding the right mix of snark and dramatic flair. Russell's style though fit the material better, or so I remember. I believe it was stated int he press that the target audience for the novelas were originally gay men which is why they went in heavy with the camp. The original intent came about because of the ratings final being tabulated for the Spanish stations and the relatI remember the original plan was a syndicated program, hence the title Desire. I can't remember if Secret Obsessions only came about because of the fold of UPN/WB or if they were going to always do two series at once. The stunt casting was definitely something that occured when MyNetworkTV arrived. The other thing about the situation involving MyNetworkTV was that the ratings bottomed out in the final months of UPN (which was most of the affiliates that switched over). There was a preview night where they ran highlights from the first two novelas as well as a trailer for the remaining to be produced ones. And of course, originally there were the Saturday night recap shows. They dropped the recaps in episode by the end of the first round of novelas, but they still did the occasional recap episode up until the end (Saints and Sinners had a couple but seemed like less than Desire and Fashion House). The slow death of the novelas was unfortunate. Originally Saints & Sinners and American Heiress aired 2 episodes a week on different nights, than by late April it was one episode a week. Then, it just stopped airing in June or July. I remember they originally said they would put the material on their website, but they never did. They had bought several years worth of novelas for both series. None of the attempts to try a novela in that period panned out other than Ugly Betty. Lifetime tried Monarch Cove, but that was a bust. USA was considering a couple of properties. Rick Draughton was attached to one of them. I do think one of the big 3 networks was also considering something. MyNetworkTV's failure didn't help. Part of the MNT's issue was they were originally producing the shows with non-union writers claiming they were just "translators" when that clearly wasn't the case. The cost rose significantly when they actually had to pay people to write the shows.

Here's what I found on Rule of Deception: Rules of Deception was a telenovela planned for the American television network MyNetworkTV. Twentieth Television was developing this limited-run serial, based on the 1999 Caracol TV series La Guerra de Las Rosas (The War of The Roses). The unproduced series is also known in singular tense, as Rule of Deception. Guy Busick was head writer. This amorous tale involved Mia (Rachelle Woods) and Emily (AnnaLynne McCord), two beautiful best friends who find their relationship shattered by unexpected events. They are each seduced by the same handsome man, named Richard (Dylan Bruce). One tyst was for love, but the other was for money. Richard falls for the poor girl, Mia, yet he dreams of becoming a rich playboy. When the wealthy Emily discovers the duplicity, she frames Mia into signing documents that eventually get her thrown into prison. Once Mia is released, she uncovers the conspiracy and seeks revenge against those ruined her life. This is how I remember most of the information being from the original press release except for Guy Busick being headwriter. In the 1990s, when Fox launched some English language novelas, La Madrastra was the source material for Forever, which starred Maria Maynet and Mark Schneider. There were two other novelas, Acapulco Bay (which is preserved online I believe and is a variation on Tu o Nadie) and The Guilt (La Culpa).

Sean Young was slated to appear in The Art of Betrayal opposite Gordon Thomson, but they were replaced by Tatum O'Neal and Clive Robertson when they rebranded it Wicked, Wicked Games. There were a couple of recasts from the pilot/vignettes to production. Bo Derek's Maria Gianni was originally played by Riley Forbes. There was a clip of her in the role years ago and I think Maria's original surname was different. Julissa Miro originally had the Juliet role in Saints & Sinners, which was originally titled A Dangerous Love. There were two more that were in pre-production when the projects were terminated. One was called Rule of Deception and I think it was to be set in Miami. I think followed a woman returning home after many years in prison. The vignette casting had Annaleigh McCord and Dylan Bruce in the roles with an African American female lead, Rachelle Woods. Another show was announced, but had been put off for a version of Crossed Loves. I want to say the scrapped or delayed novela was a version of Como en el Cine. The description I found for it was a woman fakes being a psychiatrist and falls in love with a wealthy man. The name was Friends and Enemies. In the original press release, American Heiress was called To Love & Die, though the original it was based on was La Heredera. Thanks! I also noticed you uploaded Carson's Law. Thanks!

Caldwell House comes into play in summer of 1985 under Avila Mayer and Braxton. It was again a historic home, and it was a bed and breakfast. I believe it was intended to give Jo a set as she hadn't had a business since the Riverboat exploded in June, 1984. She was then taking college classes, hosted the murder mystery party, and attended town council meetings but I don't think she had a permanent job per se. So that would have been over 3 years after they torched the inn. Caldwell House isn't open long because of the flood. Probably six months. I thought the kitchen set was nice. Prior to this, they had Jo in that small little attic looking apartment so this was a step up. I really liked the kitchen set. I don't think bringing Patti back was a bad idea. I don't think Jacqui Schultz was the right actress, but I don't think they were going to cast someone age appropriate. I do think Jo having a daughter on canvas outweighed the obvious issues, but I don't like Patti and Hogan personally. The bigger issue is that there were just no real strong males on the canvas in her age range. I think they should have brought back Len, even if it was for a short run, to play out the paternity reveal involving Chris. Too bad Ryder's background was so well established as I think I would have liked Adam Storke as Chris Whiting.

Dorothy Peterson was Mary Shaw C.M. Gampe was Dr. Taylor.

As someone who didn't like the concept of Martin and Jo, I felt there was something about them in the late 1983 episodes I've seen where Martin is in the hospital after being shot by Vargas (I think) where I see a bit of a spark between Aniston and Stuart. I do think Maree Cheatham and Aniston were gold. A Martin / Stephanie / Lloyd triangle would have been quite fun. Revisiting the 1981 weekly summaries, I think ending it in 1982 would have been bleak, not that ending in 1986 was less bleak. Personally, I like the stretches I've watched of Tomlin's first run and most of the 1985 episodes that I'm happy the show lasted.

When the shows first aired, I followed them. The production looked decent compared to daytime, but I know a lot of people have knocked the look. I thought action novelas were a bit better than the campier ones though I do wish all of them were available for viewing as I would like to watch Wicked Wicked Games again even though I preferred Watch Over Me at the time. The early novelas (Fashion House and Desire) featured too many flashbacks and character episodes to bring people in. I liked the wedding event they promoted for Fashion House, but overall I thought Fashion House fell flat. I enjoyed Desire a bit more, but there were so many stories featured that it probably wasn't the easiest thing to follow for a casual viewer. I watched Saints and Sinners in its entirety this summer as I had never seen the ending episodes because the show was cut off. I enjoyed it in a cheesy, plot heavy way. I thought the main romance between Roman and Julie was silly, but I really liked the secondary romance between psuedo priest Father Marcus and the devout Catholic Pilar. I thought the hotel stuff was interesting enough with Sylvia and Diandra. I thought a lot of the scheming worked. A lot of overacting (Robin Givens, Maria Conchita Alonso) and a lot of underacting (Tyler Cain and Scott Bailey). I tried to start rewatching Watch Over Me as I thought it was fun at the time, but I didn´t get past the first few episodes. I might revisit it later in the year if it remains up. There were a lot of actors who popped up there that I thought were good and got some more work later on (Robert Buckley, Natalie Martinez, Jaime Alexander) and others who popped up later on daytime (Jon Prescott, Scott Elrod) and others who I thought deserved more recognition (Jessie Ward, Kelly Albanese).

@Paul Raven I don't know if we have ever determined a definitive departure for Dana Andrews. I tried looking again today and only came across an article from late December, 1970, stating that Mark Miller was replacing Dana Andrews on "Bright Promise." I'm pretty sure they meant that Miller's Howard Jones was the new adult male lead assuming the role from Dana Andrews' Tom Boswell. In the episode synopses I posted, Tom is around through at least July 7, 1970. They are already playing Howard Jones and Ann Boyd later in the month. I remember Eric James (ex-Jim Boswell) said that neither Andrews nor himself were happy with the show and that they had been promised something more topical than they got. The episode synopses for the April 1970 sequence on IMDb sound a bit provocative for the time, but maybe James and Andrews wanted more. Jim's drug use and suicide attempt would have been considered pretty extreme for the time. Those April summaries are intriguing as it suggests that the shift was at the six months mark with Sandy's divorced parents Isabel and Howard Jones arrive in April as well as Bill quitting the university and Sandy dropping out of school. Earlier, the question of the writers came up. Soap World lists Frank & Doris Hursley, Rick Edelstein, and Robert J. Shaw as the headwriters. Given the work depboy did on the writers of General Hospital, I do wonder if there wasn't a rotation of weekly writers that guided the show. The Hurlseys script collections has character sequences listed through episode 309, which looks like it would be late November / early December, 1970.

@Khan Oh don't worry! Don Chastain had the NASA footage he planned to use for his proposed storyline in the closet of his apartment. Also, the explosion at Hartford House is late January/early February, 1982. So this wasn't Chastain, it was Ralph Ellis and Eugenie Hunt.

I think I only watched a bit of season 1 of Jackson's Wharf, which wasn't terrible but wasn't my cup of tea at the time. As I recall, the second season was more of a traditional cop show while the first one was more soap opera. As you get on, I believe a lot of the racier material becomes the subject of a bit of meta commentary as it usually is set in the ad agency and there is talk about what is appropriate and all the ad campaigns seems to involve T&A. Not that this is better than the early parts, but it at least seems to flow slightly better. The first season revamp is odd with Annie Jones character. I do feel the surreal elements of the second season do work for a bit before they don't. Also this and Number 96 will be airing on Foxtel starting tomorrow https://tvtonight.com.au/2026/02/soap-classics-number-96-chances-to-replay-on-foxtel.html

I have about ten scripts for it (#4, 9-14, 16-20). In addition, I have the drafts of episode #12-13 written by the original writers before Lakin took over. Rita Lakin reused a little bit of those episodes, but heavily rewrote them. In both versions, episode #12 is called Identity Crisis, but episode #13 was called The Naked Towers of Ilium or something of that nature. Wikipedia lists it as episode #20, but that is inaccurate. The last episode I have, #20, is called Uncoupled and deals the rift in Don and Helen Walling's marriage after the scandal of David Valerio's death and the episode ends with the couple agreeing to stay together for appearances. I've never really deep dived into them because they tended to be a bit dry, but that was many years ago. I also have a character bible for the show from the first set of writers. I don't think much of the show visually has popped up but may be a promo years ago. I do think someone who posted here years ago and use to post a lot on YouTube had it. The Friday night slot was very short lived. While Lakin's team rewrote episodes #12-13, episode #14 was announced as the launch of the new soapier Executive Suite which was suppose to focus more on the interpersonal, romantic, and family relationships and less on the inner workings of the Cardway Corporation. Only a handful of episodes aired in the slot before it was cancelled at the end of January with episode #20 most likely in production already (I have the call sheets for the episodes as well). The show wasn't given time, but it was also ranking in the bottom two spots for the week for most of the Friday episodes. When it was launched, the network said that Executive Suite was in response to the massive success of Rich Man, Poor Man the previous year. There were several other book related series that season which also didn't score well.The original production team was touting that they were airing up to 9 different stories in a single episode, which was probably too many. Also, the cast seems quite large. Lakin trimmed it down, extended the David Valerio story which was originally only 4 episodes (he appeared in 8), and then introduced Kim Hamilton as one of the board members wives. I believe that Executive Suite's original slot was Mondays at 10, but that All in the Family and Maude were loved to a different slot

Don Chastain was working off of Harding Lemay's outlines the entire time he was with the show. He said he made some choices here and there, with some nuance, but that he was fired when his first set out longstory was submitted. He planned on having Travis Sentell join NASA and go into outer space. I suspect this may have been the original plan for Operation Sunburst before it became whatever it was suppose to be. Chastain is briefly replaced by two writers who are assumed to be Millee Taggart and Courtney Sherman, who are credited in the newspaper as being the Ellises later script writers. Taggart and Sherman didn't do much, but I remember reading that they were being credited with writing the tale end of the Hong Kong sequence because the sequence overlapped with the Ellises material and it had been pre-taped. I think the switch to the Ellises was to beef up the hype for the move to CBS as it was announced in the same press releases as NBC acquiring the show. There were definitely flourishes that were uniquely his. Supposedly, the Halloween, 1981, episode included a drunk Stu Bergman encountering a lifesized rabbit (presumably someone in a Halloween costume). This was the same month (October, 1981) that Stu learned that Ellie had run off with the chef. Some other misfires by Chastain included murdering Mignon Sentell after recently bringing her back. Some of Chastain's work definitely sounds like Lemay as Mignon returned and was immediately obsessed with making Roger Lee Sentell her new Travis. Lemay claimed he and Bunim argued over a rape plot that ended up appearing after he left when Garth Taper's maid, Vicky Curtis, was sexually attacked by I believe the creepy character Peter Burnell played, but maybe I'm confusing the years. I'm not even sure Don Chastain wrote Max's exit as it would have been very close to the time he departed the show (November 1981). @VelekaCarruthers Chastain had a returning Brian Emerson involved in a boxing story, which was pretty well received in the press. I think there was always a sorta homoerotic undercurrent to the Brian / Spence dynamic, but I am not sure if that carried over onscreen to the boxing story. Larry Joshua probably started as Brian before Gene Pietragallo wrapped it up as I seem to recall Gene is promo pictures in the boxing ring. @Tisy-Lish I have not seen Mary Stuart as Kate, but I think they missed an opportunity in 1983 not making Vargas' Kate's son. It would have given even more depth to the kidnapping tale if Vargas' mother had ties to Martin just as Martin was dealing withthe revelation that Steve Kendall was his biological son.

I think I read either in some fan recount or some newspaper article that Secrets of Midland Heights had been developed for daytime, which is why some of the early episodes were so slow. Though, I may be confusing it with Behind the Scenes which had initially been conceived to be stripped nightly (hence the half hour slot) but a change in presidency at the network ended those plans. I have a script somewhere for Secrets of where Melora Hardin's character is revealed to be the product of her father's affair with an African American dancer. I don't think the character learned of her maternity, but someone did, maybe her brother who I think was played by Lorenzo Lamas. I think this was one of the show's unaired episodes.