dc11786

Thanks for confirming. I had seen him in a later sequence with Tom Lignon going off about a missing Jack and I thought it was him, but couldn't be positive. I think most of the significant changes were network dictated. Marland had no issue doing the interracial romance several years later, albeit with a white man and a black woman. That seems more like a network issue especially since the character of Lyle Turner doesn't seem to appear until later in the show paired off with Terry Hindman, Art's daughter. With that said, the Terry / Lyle coupling was ripe for conflict given what was to come with Jack's trial and both of their fathers involved in the case. It would have been easy to just dump the character of Lyle, but bringing on Terry seems to suggest there may have some plans. I do think given that the show is given a rather public turnover in early 1984 with network dictates, it would suggest that the changes weren't internal. Thinking of other things that didn't happen in the bible would also suggest network interference. Billy Bristow's impotence is dropped before it aired, presumably. While this isn't something Marland would tell again, I do think it seems more like network insecurity over the writers. The problem becomes once you start to pull threads out the other stories start to fall apart. The Rita Mae / Mike affair made less sense when Rita Mae's lust had less rationale. With Roger dying, Patrick's death would seem like overkill in the same period. I also have to wonder if the sexual issues were added so that Nixon could play the game and get the incest plot through by offering up another tawdry tale as a peace offering. In addition, the decision to not include Jake Vochek, the father, seems like a network who doesn't want too many older characters. I like Marland's work, but I don't think he was the right person to launch the show. Nixon should have done it solo. The writing staff in those early years doesn't seem pleasant. Dan Wakefield departs during pre-production. Mulcahey complaints about Nixon's notes. Marland leaves and his creator credit disappears. Given the creative environment of ABC in this era, I could see Nixon frustrated trying to fight for a show that was grounded in realism rather than escapism. Part of me wonders how Pat Falken Smith would have paired with Nixon. Probably a behind the scenes nightmare, but never boring onscreen. After Ava brought a gun to a showdown with Stacey, I'd say its a bit of just desserts.

@slick jones Robin Givens' character is Terry Hindman. In her conversation with Stacey, she acknowledges that she is Art's daughter and the connection between Mike and Art being on the police force together. Her boyfriend is Ron Turner's son, but I am not sure what the name is. It does sound like Lil, but I think it's Lyle Turner. It's worth noting that, in the bible, Ron Turner's son was to marry Lorna Forbes in an interracial romance story that wasn't focused around race. I didn't realize that Ron's son had actually appeared onscreen in 1983. Terry and Lyle would be a pretty unique couple in the sense that they are two children who's family units completely ignore them even though other siblings are introduced down the line for both of them. It's wild to think that the show could have had such a vibrant African American canvas in the early-mid 1980s had they committed to the characters. Robin Givens and Susan Walters fighting over Tony Todd would have been something. @Vee @DRW50 I apologize. I feel like I've read posts by one (or maybe both of you) talking about some of Tony Todd's work. Am I wrong in thinking this is him?

I only skimmed a bit. Terry Hindman… is this the character in the scene with Billy Bristow asking about where Jack is? I think it might be a young Tony Todd, but I am not great at identifying people especially without their original voice

I think that the first year material is good emotional material, and probably more mature than a lot of its the same era when the "love on the run" stories were taking over everywhere. A lot of the show's domestic drama is potent, but its hard for me to appreciate it without the original Englsih language track. Lorna's failed seduction of Doug was wonderful and there were so many nice connections built between characters that this whole inconvenience could have fueled a series of interactions given that Lorna is Roger's daughter and Merrill has recently called off her engagement to Doug to be with Roger. I do hope we someday get more English language material, but until then I'll survive. I think Ralph Ellis is credited in the scripts as headwriter even though he isn't credited on screen. I'm not sure exactly when that is though. I know the late 1986 stuff I watched felt very much like reheated Search for Tomorrow, but I've seen Nixon previewing the April Hathway story in mid 1987. King and Taggart with Joe Hardy isn't my favorite material. I cannot remember if there was any point it was King, Taggart, and Joe Stuart, but I don't think so. The stuff that was good in those sequences online recently become even better in 1990, but so much of the story doesn't work for me. I know this is sacreligious, but I don't like Trisha and Trucker. To me, I could probably tolerate them as a C-couple, maybe a B-couple, but they carry too much story and Trucker isn't that interesting a character to do that. Trisha and Trucker work better as a concept when it was Trisha and Steve. By the end of the couple's run, Trucker basically is a surrogate Steve without the connection to the Rescotts. 1991 is strong from what I've seen, but not perfect. I think from Jackie Babbin to Fran Sears and Taggart/King to Taggart solo to Mary Ryan Munisteri is pretty engaging. There is definitely big turnover with the change in EPs. Sears overseas the departures of Clay, Abril, Rio, Rocky, and some of the supporting players like Walter Bobbie's Denny and Ilene Kristen's Norma and we get Ally, Matt, Flynn, Dinah Lee, and Giff. This is after, earlier in 1991, we see off Cabot, Isabelle, Curtis, Alex, Egypt, Dane, Elizabeth Savage's Gwen, and Monty to the second murder mystery in under a year. I am one of the people who thinks (at least in 1992) the show leaned too much into the younger set. The soft launch of the college revamp in the fall of 1991 worked well because it focused on the established players (mostly Trisha and Trucker) and included a solid crossover (Jeremy and Ceara). Once you launch the sorority storyline, it's a lot of new characters at once in a single story (Cooper, Staige, Kent, and Casey). Hannah and Ally are the carry overs. I also didn't like sacrificing Carly, Flynn, Michael, and Paul, but Walsh didn't write for them well anyway. Also, the revamp is such a hodgepodge of the two headwriters obscure soap opera work. When Casey/Revel is originally mentioned in the scripts (December, 1991), he is one of Giff's three sons and he is a musician. There is immediately a storyline in January, 1992, under Walsh that involves Matt joining a band and an attraction between Aly and one of his bandmates, James. Munisteri had very recently written a similar story on Tribes and had also had a plot where a young woman accused a teacher of something sexual in nature the way Ally, under Walsh, also accused Giff of getting her pregnant. It is my hypothesis that Walsh revised Munisteri's existing story projections to run out the story for the characters she inherited while she built up the younger crew. While Munisteri cribbed from Tribes, Walsh recycled from her work on Riviera with Cooper Alden arriving on the scene just as Beatrice and Laurent de Courcey's niece and nephew appeared after the tragic death of their parents. In addition, the romance between an illegitimate de Courcey, American Sam, and his presumed half-sister Gabriella de Courecy, was upended by Sam's paternity reveal while it was revealed in the concluding episode that Gabriella was the product of an affair between Beatrice and another man. I wonder if Wnlsh was considering a Shana / Clay romance. Haidee Granger's arrival causes its own shockwaves. Yes, Paul Anthony Stewart stated that the show had no headwriter by the middle of the summer of 1992. I believe the crux of the conflict between Granger and Walsh was over the Cooper sexual assault plot with Granger rewriting the story to suggest that Cooper initated the encounter with Selina, the nanny, which Walsh rewrote in her return in September, 1994. It is never clear to me if Walsh came back in 1992 though she was credited until January, 1993. Things turn around a bit in late 1992 when they start to reshuffle the canvas and decide what the direction is with the younger set involving Ally-Casey before Ally becomes pregnant. It isn't really until Guza and Taggart return in January that the show really ignites.

The quantity of new Loving material is a pleasant surprise. The quality is definitely mixed. I am not a huge fan of Taggart and King's 1988-1989 material, but I will say that the Jackie Babbin led stuff in May into June 1990 is very engaging to me. The 1989 material feels very on brand for what I have seen of ABC Daytime in general of that era so there seems to be a stronger sense of network identity and unity in the show. It's nice to see some of the Curtis / Rocky / Todd stuff in context of entire episodes. I don't know if the scene was uploaded by Albers, or I just missed it, but the scene where Curtis admits he fears that he will revert back to his old ways because of Lottie's death was very enlightening. It gave the choice of killing off Lottie much more depth. A lot of these 2 nicish guys, 1 girl scenarios are usually played with younger appearing males which typically dilutes the (presumably) unintended homoeroticism of the storyline (unless you are Search for Tomorrow 1984 staging a queer production of Flowers in the Attic with twins Chase and Alec Kendall). The Dirty Dancing sequence followed by the girls night with Trisha, Stacey, and Shana shows what Taggart, King, and Joseph Hardy are aiming for, but it never completely hits for me in the way it appears in these episodes. I really like Juliette Crawford the more we see of her. Ron Nummi's Rick (Stewart) Alden remains a hidden treasure that was never truly maximized to his fullest potential. One of my favorite scenes in the 1989 set is when Rick and Curtis are having breakfast in the Alden dining room and Curtis speaks of using his trust fund to refurbish the train depot and Rick realizes how he remains and outsider having to fight for everything on his own. I didn't love the framing of Rick's point of view regarding Stacey's pregnancy. I cannot completely blame King and Taggart for the worst of the Alex / Clay spy saga because so much of that was embedded into the backstory that you really cannot ignore it. I liked James Horan much more in seeing him in stretches of episodes (in 1989 and 1990) where the character has more layers than in someof the more consistent 1991 stuff I've seen. Parlato's version seems like a natural extension of Horan's version. Malloy's Clay just doesn't work for me. I think leaning into Clay's feelings of betrayal were smart and it gave Clay more of a point of view than I expected. The Clay / Ava tension was good. So was Ava side stepping the truth and telling Cabot that she didn't know Alex was pretending when she married him, while neglecting to mention she had known for a good amount of time by March, 1989. Alex is the fictional Latin American nation does little for me. Though, I do see some similarities between the Alex / Clay story and the later Buck / Curtis / Tess material which was equally wonky, but all driven by Taggart and Guza, making me think that Taggart liked the concept enough to reuse it. I've only watched a bit of the December (or maybe November), 1986 - January, 1987 episodes. It was odd seeing the trailend of Judd Beecham and this floundering period where Ava bounces between one forgettable one-shot love interest to another. The extensive flashback of Tony and Marie was something. I had forgotten that Marie and Tony were raised as siblings with Tony as the ward of Marie's gangster father. I get the point of it (to give insight into the danger that Trisha faces being involved with Nick), but its a lot of story space for characters that don't feel super important . Everyone fretting about Trisha seems tedious. I did like the idea that this was supposed to represent some sort of foolish rebellion on Trisha's part and howit ultimately is a case of Gwyn getting her just desserts for ruining Trisha and Steve's romance. I don't know if he's being credited, but I would safely bet Ralph Ellis is guiding the show through late 1986. It is very much a retread of the work he did on Search for Tomorrow when it moved to NBC. Clay, the believed dead spy father, is a revision of the Rusty Sentell plot. The River Palace seems reminiscent of the River Boat restaurant. Nick Diantos is a Warren Carter type with the two Jennys (Loving's Jenny Baylor and Search for Tomorrow's Jenny Deacon). I don't think it happens in these episodes, and I know its a common soap trope, but the Cece / Steve story ends up playing out similarly to Kristen / Brian with Kristen/Cece miscarrying and lying that she's still pregnant to keep the man. It was nice revisiting some of late stage Addie Walsh and early Taggart / Guza. As much as I find Walsh's 1992 run generic and listless, I did appreciate the small town, class conflict element embedded into the Aldens vs the Mayberry girls even if Hannah, like many of those country girl types the Nixon soaps tried in the 1990s, is a washout. I could care less about the breakup of Hannah and Cooper, but Dinahlee lamenting in the bowling alley that she feared that Cooper would ruin her reputation was a nice beat. I really enjoy Taggart and Guza. I thought they wrapped up the gaslighting plot well even though it isn't one of my favorite Loving stories. I also love Gwyneth putting all the pieces together with Clay, Isabelle, and Tim Sullivan. The music is very evocative and I know several pieces are shared with General Hospital. Maybe not specifically in these episodes, but I know there are one or two shared music cues. I watched a couple of the clips from the Italian episodes from 1983. Most seem to be from August - November from what I can tell though they all aren't in order because we bounce back and forth between Peter Brown and John Shearin at some point. There is a very nice flashback to Mike returning from Vietnam and Doug and Merrill welcoming him on the eve of Founders' Day, which gives another layer of depth to Mike's Founders' Day speech crash out. There is a nice sequence where Doug is seduced by Lorna, who plies him with champagne after his break up with Merrill. Doug gently rejects her and the writing and acting is well done with Lorna maturely accepting the rejection (at least initially) and not making a scene of things. I don't think I knew that the Trish personality Lily had seemingly got her name from her alias when she and Jack were on the run. Jennifer Ashe is intriguing in the dive bar with Dirk?, who oozes that sort of swarmy sexuality that reached its peak in the late 70s/early 80s. Lily's premonition of the future encounter between Jack and Garth felt James E. Reilly esque. There was some nice stuff between Merrill and Clem Margolies, who I don't think I realized was Roger's good friend on top of being the Alden Amily attorney. I believe they briefly tease a Clem / Merrill pairing and Margolies hangs around past Marland for a bit if I recall correctly. Clem confirming that Roger was ambitious and basically would never back out of his marriage for that reason was a harsh truth for Merrill to face. Shannon Eubanks is just stunning and its a shame she was dropped quickly. Callan White works in a very different version of the character. I really liked the 1990 episodes, but I am not done so I'll save that for another post.

I watched a bit of January, 1987, this weekend. I had seen bits of late 1987 with the Maddinghams and I thought it was decent and more compelling than the stuff I typically see on Crossroads, which I think stylistically just isn't my cup of tea. The stories are light hearted and quaint in the early years through the Phillip Bowman era with Bowman going more posh and William Smethurst going more reality based. In January, you have several significant events taking place. Tommy "Bomber" Lancaster arrives as the new owner of Crossroads having purchased it from MIH, its previous owners, despite a local attempt by Jill, Adam, and Nicola to reacquire it. Smethurst said to the press at the time that he wanted the show to be more reflected of the Midlands where it was set. Lancaster is bombastic and seems very ill suited on the more staid, reserved show that Smethurst inherited (maybe it was bigger under Bowman but Lancaster seems bold even for Nicola Freeman). There is an odd attempt to tie him to the past by digging up Amy Turtle, who had appeared since the late 1970s, claiming that she was friends with Lancaster's late mother. Lancaster's arrival is played with a bit of shock, with us only seeing the back of his head initially. I guess he appeared late in 1987 in a one off or so as a guest at the hotel in the same role. This is immediately followed up with the Amy appearance so it's quite a bit of the old and the new. There is a lot of hand wringing about what will happen to the staff as well as what Bomber plans to do with the property in general. Some characters are already starting to scatter to the wind with John and Kathy taking a post in the near future at a boarding school and bartender Barry Hunt make plans to return to Austailia or Tasmania. It is simple workplace soap. The real oddity is the sudden appearance of the Grice family, who literally appear out of nowhere and are suddenly moving into a unit near where Kathy and John are temporarily lodging before the move in a housing complex. The family is not only disconnected from the rest of the story the conflict is immediately watching what feels like an attempt at poor man's EastEnders/Brookside with a tale of two cookers. It's jarring. With that said, I don't hate the family as its assembled, but they just are disconnected from the rest of the show. Mother Margaret Grice is going to run the corner store and I think they live above it. And when daughter Beverly runs away a few episodes in, its a bit wild to think how much story is given to this entirely new lot of characters. There are other silly plots like spoilt Daniel Freeman running all around the leisure center and hotel making out with his girlfriend Fiona as well as his feud with Charlie Mynecroft resulting in the kidnapping of a stuffed dog. Frenemies Ann Marie and Lorraine both have potential holidays cancelled. Everything else seems up in the air. I can see why fans would initial be displeased with this period.

I remember a soap fan from danfling's board claiming that the Emily Benson storyline involving Royal Dunning was written from a story projection developed by the Dobsons.

For Search for Tomorrow to survive, what the audience wanted and what the network thought they wanted would have need to match up, and I don't think it ever truly did. At times, the show was close to being a strong contender. What I have seen of the Joanna Lee / Gary Tomlin era, they were the closest to match audience and network expectations. If Lee had stayed, she would have had to stream down the cast size as her canvas was large (I believe in anticipation of an unlikely switch to an hour). She also would have needed to just focus on producing a decent show as her attempts to get eyes on the show (Cher/Michelle Phillips guest starring, the Live episode) wasn't as powerful as just well produced story that she and Tomlin were cultivating. I can only imagine what Monty would have done to overhaul the show. If it was anything like her return to General Hospital, the show would have been better off dead. I do think that AI might produce a hilariously devastating vision of what that would look like. In terms of new people, I would be interested in what someone like Jorn Winter or Jacquelyn Babbin might have done as producer possibly paired with Peggy O'Shea, Henry Sleasar, or even Barbara Morgenroth Reverting back to Liza as the sole female lead was foolish. When Lee and Tomlin were in charge, Liza and Travis were part of a larger ensemble and their main story revolved around Liza's desire to have children with the birth of Tourneur and then later with fostering Bilan (or whatever the baby's name was) and T.R. Tomlin / Barrett set up Hogan and Sunny well as the seconday couple until Forsythe's exit in the late summer of 1984. I don't think Sunny ever really recovers from that. The show had two strong younger female leads, Lisa Peluso's Wendy and Terri Eoff's Suzi, but Paul Avila Mayer and Stephanie Braxton sent the characters into different story orbits (Wendy with Quinn & Sarah and Suzi off with domestic drama as a young wife in the emotionally complicated McCleary family). Even in these separate orbits, there stories were playing out within similar story spaces (the McCleary family) that could have and should have kept things interesting. People will probably disagree, but I probably would have returned Brian Emerson in the summer of 1985 as a romantic complication for Suzi and Cagney as well suspecting that Quinn was up to some underhanded things (like Warren Carter) which could have given him animosity with Wendy. Jo was on the town council for many years. I agree that it was unlikely that anyone would be able to save the show. How do you think Falken Smith would have done with Search for Tomorrow given how she did on Ryan's Hope? They aren't necessarily similar shows, but tonally very different from General Hospital and Days of our Lives. Falken Smith would probably have done very well with the Warren / Suzi / Wendy triangle if that had been going on at the time still. I also wonder how she would have done with Brian and Kristen or if she would have dumped them as well. I think the Corringtons returning would have been wonderful, but I don't know if they would have written the type of show NBC was looking for in the mid 1980s. I do think they had a great understanding of what the show had been and had they arrived post-Gary Tomlin in 1984 I think they could have done some good work if they weren't stymied by Ellen Barrett. The story was well set up for Travis to return in 1985 before Sherry Mathis left by Jeanne Glynn. I believe Glynn was writing with Tomlin when the backstory between the Kendalls and the Tourneurs was explained involving a failed business deal involving airplane parts that I believe resulted in the death of soldiers during World War II, the bankruptcy of the Kendall clan, and the patriarch's (Lloyd's father) suicide. This, along with the fact that Lloyd had raised Martin Tourneur's son Steve as his own was fodder for a long running feud between both families. Having Travis die saving TR, Kendall's lost daughter, only would have added to that complexity and having TR wanting an insta family with Lloyd and Liza after Travis' death would have been brewing conflict between Lloyd / Liza / Travis if Travis were to return from the dead. I don't think Sherry Mathis would have been thrilled, but I think Jerry Lanning would have been a very different Travis recast if he has suffered a lot during his missing year(s). Sherry Mathis, Rod Arrants, and Peter Haskell playing all those parts would have been ideal, but most likely unfeasible.

I am not a huge fan of Sunset Beach, but came across this when searching for information on Gary Tomlin Never Say Goodbye: An oral history of Aaron Spelling's Su...As the short-lived sudser turns 25, take a look back at the cult classic with the cast and crew themselves!It's an interesting read. Some details I definitely hadn't heard before including that Pratt was offered a chance to headwriter in 1999 that he turned down and that the plan with the Rosario jewels storyline was to reveal Phillip Vargas was a vampire, but that the twist was nixed because NBC wanted the supernatural for Passions. There are probably other details others might have known like Lisa Guerrero auditioning for Maria Torres.

Dalton was Steve Kendall’s sports agent on “Search for Tomorrow” in May, 1983. I believe the episodes are online

Wright plays every version of Ally well. I thought she was great in her more rebellious work paired with Eric Woodall's Matt Ford. A Matt / Ally / Casey storyline in 1992 would have been brutal, and I believe that was the original plan when Casey was set to be a musician and most likely Matt's band mate. Her work as a more scheming Ally under Addie Walsh also worked before she settled more into the romantic heroine / single mom role. With Jessica Collins as Dinahlee, Trucker and Dinahlee were hot. Elizabeth Mitchell did not Collins' charisma or energy. I suspect the plan was to kill Dinahlee off in 1994 in the plane crash that took " Lily is around from March, 1987, until late August, 1988, I believe. She was brought on as a romantic spoiler for Stacey and Jack. She emotionally manipulates both Jack and Stacey at different times, and, teams up with Rick at one point. She doesn't revert to her multiple personalities, but she ends up faking a suicide attempt, I think.

I'd LOVE to see the projections Don Chastain submitted that got him fired. To an extent, I get what Chastain was thinking with Travis in outer space. You could easily do a crisis style story during sweeps month, but it wasn't sustainable. It was merely an event. In a post Ice Princess world where the show was doing the jade necklace story, I think there was a way to build tension in the marriage of Travis and Liza over Travis desire for adventure. I just don't think that was the route to get to that point. Chastain seems like he could do some decent character work when in more grounded stories, but that was more than likely working off Harding Lemay's blueprints that gave him that edge. It's just wild to me that he openly speaks about working during the strike in the press given the union. I believe Rainbow's End was set in the rock industry.

I loved "Grosse Point." I believe they toned down Marcy Sternfield (the Tori doppleganger) after the pilot episode. I don't think she ever mentioned her wealthy relative (I cannot remember if it was her father or an uncle). I also think they dropped any allusions to the character having an eating disorder. Ironically, Marcy became the more sympathetic character, usurping the female lead (in my opinion) from the show's original entrance point character, Courtney, with her pairing with Dave, who I believe in the original pilot script was actually supposed to be paired with Courtney. I didn't watch much of the WB after the trifecta cancellation of "Grosse Pointe," "Popular," and "Buffy."

I believe both Van and Meg ended up in New York briefly in the late 1950s. For some reason, I thought it was slightly longer. I know the parents stopped appearing in the mid 1950s, or at least according to the soap books. I'm very curious on how Bruce entered the story. I imagine that he married Van and brought her home to Rosehill, but that has always been my assumption. I am unsure if the marriage took place in Rosehill, New York, or even Barrowsville. I believe Jean McBride, Bonnie Bartlett, and writer John Hess all leave within a year of the show expanding to a half hour. The shift to Rosehill would be within the year of the transition as Bruce is introduced in January, 1959 and the wedding of Bruce and Van is in April, 1959, when Audrey Peters assumes the role. Original headwriter John Hess' script collections is stored at Darmouth. The scripts run through July, 1958. So some of that would be covered. I don't think the modern soap community considers this as gay content, but I do think that this content in film is often considered in films of the time as having a queer interest. I think there are probably a lot of lost "gay adjacent" storylines that have fallen by the wayside. Brad Vernon was actually assaulted in prison around the same time (I can't remember if it was before or after). Also, wasn't Bill Horton "attacked" in prison in a way that suggested he may have been sexually assaulted or was that a completely aborted story? Then, there was the "Sympathy and Tea" storyline on "How to Survive a Marriage" with Brad Davis' Alex Kronos who was attracted to Rosemary Prinz even though his father suggested he was too weak or something along those lines.

I've been following the thread for the past few weeks, but I didn't respond so I'll just post my random responses. Gus' messy paternity was never a favorite story of mine even when it was being written by Taggart and Culliton. The original Gus / Selina / Miguel story was under Labine , I believe, or at least I think Labine set the story in motion. I thought it was Lucky Gold who killed that story with the insistence that Gus couldn't have been adopted and was the Augusts biological child. Then, Taggart and Gold revisited it when they were building a Gus / Harley vs. Phillip thread that, as I recall, started with Harley wanting custody of Zach. I seem to recall Phillip having Harley arrested for trying to take Zach from the Spaulding mansion. The Journal was mentioned as late as 2005. In May, there was a thread building around a Spaulding takeover launched by Josh Lewis and Roger Thorpe's children, Sebastian Hulce and Blake Marler. I don't remember what the impetus for the story was, but I felt like Sebastian was trying to avenge Roger or continue his legacy. At the same time, Alan and Holly had spent some time together as Alan was interested in purchasing the Journal. Holly ends up selling him part of the Journal or all of it in exchange for shares in Spaulding Enterprises. Blake has a conniption fit because it was somehow going to disrupt their plans. This was all scrapped with the budget crunch and Sebastian was shipped off and Maureen Garrett stopped appearing. I felt like the show was going to try a Holly / Alan pairing. In terms of gothic storytelling in 2000s, I do think the dreaded Maryanne Carrouthers storyline from 2003-2004 would also fall into the catefory. The atmosphere in that was very well done. Very moody and haunting. I thought the climax was decent at the house of mirrors, but there wasn't a whole lot happening between the reveals. I don't hate Conboy and Weston as much as others do. I thought Ben becoming an escort made sense with who the character had been with Bomer in the part. He had made that sex bet regarding Marah and was pretty worried about money all the time. I could see Ben turning to sex work. I didn't love how Ben's sexual abuse was treated like a post script, but I wasn't as mortified as others. I felt a lot of the online reaction was a bit insane like saying there was no one Ben could have been molested because Fletcher would have known which was more degrading, in my opinion, than Ben actually being abused. I don't think Regina / Sister Lucia was used appropriately. She wasn't just Gus' mother, but she had also been Phillip's (retcon) nanny. If you are looking to do a longer Phillip vs. Gus narrative, this was something that should have been considered. Though, I didn't really have much use for Gus in general, to be quite honest. Gus and Harley were fine as a B-couple, but didn't work in the A-couple role for me. Looking back at the Dobsons, there were references to a woman in black at the end of the tenure. I think people have speculated this would have been Amanda's mother. I wonder if they recycled any of this for Santa Barbara with Sophia Capwell. Who was the writer that proposed the initial Janice Stafford storyline? Was it Doug Marland? I would be curious if Janice (or some iteration) wasn't the original intended mother of Amanda. The Dobsons had Sophia "die" in a boating accident. It could be coincidence, or just another reference reference to A Place in the Sun. It's interesting hearing that they didn't want a strong headwriter after Marland and that was, in part, what led to money issues with Pat Falken Smith and her quick departure. If available, I imagine Smith would have been better suited to continue after the Dobsons rather than Marland. Stylistically, the Dobsons and Falken Smith seem more psycho-sexual in their writing than Dobson while having their own flourishes.

@slick jones I believe Michael Ryan's role on Another Life is from September 1981 - March 1983 when the character is killed off. I feel pretty confident that its Ann Marie Geyser as Trudy in that early episode of The Guiding Light. I don't have much more about any of the FOX English language telenovelas from the 1990s. There was also Empire, which seems to be produced as a part of the same block of series but may have only appeared abroad.

In the bible, I believe Isabelle is described as a Eleanor Roosevelt type, very diplomatic and pragmatic. Meg Mundy, who was well known for her controlling society matron role on The Doctors, was initially cast against type to play Isabelle. Mundy, though, had recently played a more gentle grandmother role in the film Ordinary People. I think Mundy would have been bored with role eventually, though I wonder if Doug Marland, who had written for Mundy in her previous role, would have given Isabelle more of an edge, especially in light of the arrival of Shana. Ultimately, it wasn't creative issues that led to Mundy's decision to not continue with the daily series after the telefilm, it was money. She wanted more than ABC was willing to pay. Augusta Dabney really embodied that initial description of the character. She seems very sweet, but I haven't really seen any of her work that seems super memorable. That isn't something I would fault Dabney. There are some scenes when she and Cabot return in 1994 where Clay confronts Dabney's Isabelle about his paternity and it just seems quite unfair to see Dabney's Isabelle suffer for the sins of the previous Isabelles. Dabney does her best trying to bridge the characters, but it would a hard sell for anyone. The evolution of Isabelle in the 1990s was the result of constant changeover. The face cream story was Tom King /Millee Taggert with Jacquie Babbin as EP. Babbin wanted to shake up the show. In interviews, I believe Babbin alluded that the Aldens represented too much of the Reagan / Dynasty era and that she wanted something different. It is Babbin who's behind Isabelle's departure in March, 1991, after Cabot's death. When Celeste Holms' Isabelle returns in late November, 1991, it is now Fran Sears (of Handmaid's Tale fame) who is EP with Mary Ryan Munisteri headwriting. Munisteri's version of Isabelle, played by Celeste Holms, is a delightful character who is a little bit wicked and is paired with Matt Ford's mother, Bethel Ford as her social secretary. Holm's Isabelle shows a unique approach to business that works in the brief weeks that Munisteri pens the character. She utilizes her social connections to determine where businessmen are located. One of my favorite Isabelle scenes is when she is interviewing Bethel and Bethel is instructed to call Shana so that Shana will badmouth Isabelle while Isabelle listens in. The shift to Addie Walsh is very harsh. Celeste Holms was promised the chance to work with her husband Wesley Addy, and those scenes are very whimsical at first before they end with an abrupt about face from Cabot's ghost telling Isabelle "she knows what she has done." Walsh recycled her work from the French soap Riviera penning a story that undid the paternity of one of the central characters under similar circumstances, I believe. This version of Isabelle became increasingly menacing and controlling. Holmes didn't like the character and I believe clashed with new EP Haidee Granger when she arrived. Granger doesn't seem well liked from one of the Loving interviews several years back. Pat Barry's Isabelle is a snob. As @Sapounopera pointed out, she becomes a carbon copy Phoebe Wallingford complete with a visit from Ruth Warrick's Phoebe as Isabelle's friend. I know its sacrilegious, but I enjoy Celeste Holmes the most.

Also, my thoughts on the evolution of Bert Bauer: I have very mixed feelings about the reformation of Bert Bauer. I was completely unaware that Bert’s cancer crisis was used as a bridge to heal some of the wounds between Mike and his mother. The relationship between Mike and Bert is very complex, and I think this has been lost to time. As a result, it has been overshadowed by the Ed / Bill dynamic of the later 1960s. Here, in the late 1950s/early 1960s, not only is the Bert - Mike dynamic a powder keg for domestic drama, it is the primary fuel source for the animosity between dueling matriarchs Bert Bauer and Meta Bauer Banning. Early in the year, Bert’s realization that she is becoming like her own controlling mother was a critical insight into Bert’s psychology, which is something we get with all the characters this year. The tension between Meta and Bert remains very strong throughout the first half of the year with Meta and Bert both feel vital to the canvas and fully realized characters. I wish more shows did this sort of matriarchal rivalry with one more sympathetic and one more controlling mother figure. I think the mellowing of Bert could potentially set in motion a long term shift that leads to Meta’s eventual departure several years down the line. With that said, every time in the summaries I expected a more sympathetic Bert, there was a shift back to the more devious, cunning, and manipulative nature that fuels so much of the familial conflict on the series. In 1961, the great love of Bert’s life isn’t Bill Bauer, but her son, Mike. With Mike back from Venezuela in late 1961, maybe Bert will finally let Mike move on, but I am not convinced we won’t see the eventual pendulum swing back in the direction of Bert the family agitator. With a more toothless, at times at least, Bert, a new enemy has emerged for the Bauer family, Alex Bowden. Alex is a captivity complex character who seems to shift into a bit of a neurotic mess towards the end of the year, but that may have been a misreading on my part. When Alex first arrives, he is presented as a sort of modern day aging playboy in the mold of Charles Cunningham and Ted White before him. In particular, when he recalls his complicated childhood revealing that his parents divorced and he was neglected, I was reminded of David White’s recalling his son Ted’s childhood during Meta’s murder trial. The Guiding Light loves to have echoes of the past, and I don’t hate that. Alex’s childhood also provided an interesting insight into his marriage to Doris. You could see why Alex might not be so quick to dispose of Doris having seen the impact it had on his own parents and sense that there may have been, at one point, a true desire to make it work. Ultimately though, it would appear that Alex ended up repeating the mistakes of his own parents and sets in motion yet another round of misery and emotional destruction through his involvement with Robin. The set up of Bert and Alex as potential partners in crime only for Alex to reveal that he is onto Bert is delightful. Very early on, Alex shows that he has no use for strong, independent women in control of their own lives. He equally has conflicts, to a much lesser degree, with Marie Wallace Grant and Meta Bauer Banning. He doesn’t like women who don’t crumble under his control. It would have been equally captivating, if Alex had managed to get Bill Bauer, a weak man, under his control. For a moment, when Alex had his lawyer George Hayes investigate Bill, I thought this might be where it was heading. And what a delight it would have been for Alex to shower Bill with money and for Bert to have to convince BIll not to chase the golden road leading to wealth. I would be curious to see if Alex ends up interacting more with the fairly secondary Bill Bauer at this point in the story. The build of Alex and Bert’s dynamic is intriguing as they are such different characters united beautifully by circumstance. Bert is such a low level domestic schemer compared to Alex, who is pathologically manipulative and psychologically cruel. The dynamic each individual has with Robin Lang is complicated, but neither is positive. By maintaining Robin’s ties to the Bauer clan not only through Mike, but through Meta as well, Robin becomes central as the crux of the conflict in the war between Alex and the Bauers. It’s fascinating as I believe this dynamic continues with Alex and the Bauers when Alex becomes involved with Mike’s second wife, Julie, as well. Bert being frightened by Alex was also a nice change of pace as Bert seems to lose power and position with this man around. This is why I would be curious to possibly see Bill in Alex’s employ especially if this were to occur during the reformation of Bert Bauer. Dragging out a new reverend character in August to play a part in the absolution of Bert Bauer was a nice nod to the show’s origins in both 1937 and 1947. Alex seems to make enemies with everyone in the Bauer clan to the point I wonder if Nixon was considering a murder mystery. He fights with Bert over Robin and Mike’s relationship, would have fought with Mike if he was in Los Angeles, sparred with Meta, caused Papa to state that no one would keep him from loving his granddaughter, and Bruce seems to be set in motion as a potential foe when Bruce succeeds Dick as Alex’s physician during his gastrointestinal crisis late in the year. One could only imagine Ed is off in the attic somewhere play fighting with a make believe Alex Bowden.

I have a lot of thoughts about 1961. I took a lot of notes while reading so it may take several days to organize everything, but I'll start with Dick / Marie. I’ve never been a fan of Dick and Marie, but this is the first time I have really started to enjoy them. Marie’s desire to have a child seems less neurotic now that the need is filled with Phillip, bu it is quite brutal to give young Phillip a heart condition and nearly destroy Marie’s chance to be a mother. I do think it was smart to use Phillip’s ailment to reunite Marie and Dick. I like the work that Nixon does with both Marie and Dick during the Phillip story. Dick realizing that a child doesn’t mean losing his wife and Marie realizing that a doctor belongs to his patients and his wife are important emotional shifts for both characters. I do think I would have grounded some of Dick’s issues more in Robin’s paternity and the early days of his marriage to Kathy. The ghost of the Kathy / Bob / Dick history would be very relevant to the Robin / Michael / Karl story as well as causing issues in the more current Alex / Robin / Michael story. Robin has so many nice father figures, I do wish a bit more was spent on the Robin / Dick dynamic (do they ever really interact like this was the child he once thought was his?) The emotional angst with Dick and Marie, both separately and together, hoping and praying that little Phillip will recover would have been pulling at the viewers’ hearts. In a way, it almost seems like Phillip was just a vehicle for uniting Marie and Dick, but also a tool for Joe to try to get Marie to be with him. I am not a Joe fan, but he was too quick to not only leave Phillip, but to invoke his name to try to get Marie to stay with him. Using the divorce laws to prevent Joe and Marie from quickly marrying was a nice twist, but I wish that Joe had gone a step further and suggested that Marie was willing to return to Joe because of his softening stance on children. With a newly child friendly husband, Marie was more likely to achieve her dream with Dick in a shorter amount of time than she would with Joe. I have no real use for Joe so his exit was much appreciated. Marie emerged as a much more interesting character to me in this period. There was something about Marie that always came off as weak and emotionally exhausting. In these summaries, there is a vibrancy to Marie, especially noted when she stands up to Alex Bowden. Alex is a menacing figure, maybe not physically dangerous, but very much so emotionally. For Marie to manage to hold her own against such a powerful figure was a pleasant change of pace. One of the elements I really enjoyed in the crossing of stories was Marie and Bert’s friendship. Marie always seemed to be willing to give Bert tough love and call her out over things, as well as vice versa. I do wonder what will happen to Bert without that sort of moral core coming from a female figure. Papa represents a similar role, but the Bauer family dynamic does lean towards outsiders and insiders with Bert seemingly assuming both roles at different time and, on occasion, both roles at the same time. Marie seemed to be a level head. I do wonder how much of this was replicated on All My Children, a question I ask a lot while reading through this year’s synopsis. Is Philip Collins an early iteration of Phil Brent with Joe Martin and Ruth Brent as the spiritual successors to Dick and Marie Grant? Collins and Brent were both adopted. Ruth and Marie were both involved with doctor characters. I think Ruth and Joe’s bonding had a bit to do with the connection between their children so that is a bit of a variation. There was a Dick thread that seems to go a bit unresolved with Amy Sinclair. The suggestion was that she may have had more sinister intentions with Dick, were those ever resolved? Thinking through the lens of All My Children, I wonder if Amy would have been revealed to be Phillip Collins’ mother. I believe they both appeared in about the same month. By the time Marie and Dick are having the same arguments about Doris that Paul and Anne are, I feel that there time is up and they have reached a natural conclusion to their story. I don’t think there was much story left wihtout going in wildly different situations. I like Marie’s role as Bert’s friend, though. I think a lot of Dick’s role and position on the canvas is consumed by others. It does feel that once Dick and Marie got back together, there wasn’t much to do. They could have explored the situation with Phillip further, but I just don’t see that being brushed upon. I think a Phillip / Ed friendship could have caused some Marie / Bert tension had Ed been a wild child who was getting the two in trouble. For the sake of a 15 minute soap, Dick and Marie leaving makes sense. As someone who thinks a Dick and Kathy reunion at some point would have been more compelling, I will say that I think Nixon did a good job reforming both Dick and Marie while providing them a happily ever after.

Sorry to hear of his passing. I see the resemblance a bit, but the treeline reminds me of the Burton home on Savannah. I know I've read in one of the early iterations of the show (there was a 1980 pilot and a 1982 set of pilot episodes) there was suggestions that the Catlins were based on Ted Turner, but the suggestion was that idea was nixed. At one point, the Catlins were said to own a club of some sort during this period.

I always assumed the Jeff / Trisha 1993 exit was intended to build natural conflict when Trisha would return to Corinth. Of course, that day never came and it felt odd. The dramatic value of Trisha having amnesia, falling in love with a "reformed" Jeff, and then having to deal not only with the life she left behind, but the lies Jeff told her was probably the reason they went that route. I don't really love this era, but some episodes from 1989 popped up: Janey was great and, I suspect, an unfortunate victim of the crossover from Agnes Nixon to Laurie McCarhty and Addie Walsh. For years, I have heard that the original (or one of the original) plans for Ava was to make her biracial. Janey seemed to be Agnes Nixon's attempt to make that version of the Erica/Ava mold happen. I thought that Janey was a well integrated character in a time when a lot of characters were islanded in stories. She seemed to just flow through stories. I love when she claimed she was Clay's daughter for a hot minute. Babbin was pretty blunt in her Loving interviews. She took the job as a favor to Agnes Nixon and was only staying one year, which is what she did. On air, Fran Sears takes over in July, 1991. In her interviews, Babbin was pretty clear about her dislike of the show she inherited. Said it was nothing more than a Dynasty clone and that it needed its own identity. Under Babbin, a large number of the cast were cut. Wesley Addy's Cabot dies. Augusta Dabney's Isabelle leaves Corinth for Palm Springs. Stan Albers' Curtis is sent to Iraq. Perry Stephens is dumped and replaced by Christopher Cass. She also wrote out Egypt and Alex Masters. She brought on a lot of character actors in bit parts. I remember there was a district attorney who was fairly well known. Harvey Fierstein played a hypnotist. Ilene Kristen was on as Norma. Class distinctions started to be present again. Shana was broughtback. Carly Rescott was introduced. Patrick and Rose Donovan were back occassionally for the first time in years. Storywise, you had Trisha lose Trucker's baby and the adoption of little Tommy, which led to the blackmail scheme of Monty and his subsequent murder mystery. Carly was hiding that she had Paul's baby in high school. Dane was manipulating an amnesiac Shana after Jim and Jimmy died. Cabot died and there was in fighting over the family fortune. Kate and Louie married. Rio and Rocky (nearly?) married to prevent Rio's deporation. Alex and Egypt's daughter Alexis had a medical crisis. There are probably other stories, but I don't recall.

That's a great question. I don't think it was ever rerun and given hw cheaply the show was producd, I almost wonder if the masters were even saved. I imagine that P&G would have, but I am not convinced they would have saved them in the first year. Chris "C.T." McIntyre passed several years ago, I believe. I think the best hope for recovery with the show in terms of longer sequences of whole episodes (or even partials) would be if any actors or production staff saved it. Babe is a rather fun character. She is featured in several sequences I have seen. Her final story (or a fairly late run story) had her paired with Dirk Stack. Criminal Dirk involved with cop Babe while the shadow remained of his relationship lawyer Maggie Catlin (who seemed poised for a return based on how often she is mentioned from Novembe 1984-March 1985) remained. Bolling managed to keep Babe rugged without teetering into the territory of off putting. I wish we had more of the show's first year as I suspect it really started to take shape under Steve Lehrman, who came in mid-to-late July, 1983. I know that early August episode online is a bit of a chore, but so much of the show was dropped or revamped shortly after. Babe seems part of Lehrman's soft reset with Joe Ranier's Dirk Stack, Charlie Hill's Woody Thorpe, and McLinn Crowell's Cullen Quinn. I wonder if Iris Little Roberts' Andrea Smith was also a Lehrman addition. All of these characters seem slightly more developed in the later episodes I have seen rather than others. As was common with shows, there was so many recasts. I really appreciate both versions of Annabelle Catlin. Pamela Burrell has such a quiet strength and managed to hold her own against more established Michael Forest and seemed to be fine with David Haskell's Robert Boone. Muriel Moore's embodied Southern aristocracy from my very Northern perspective. I would be curious how Forest and Moore appeared as a couple because there was at least a two month period where they were in the roles together. I almost wish they could have kept Moore around in another role. I adore Jane Berman's Lucille Crowe in the iittle bit I've seen her when she basically is Medger Quinn's mistress and operating his TV station, which irritates Stacey Manning. I'm not sure I would have liked her oriignal story, something about a shady modeling agency that roped Jennifer Catlin in, but the 1985 episode I saw her in was pretty fun.

@watson71 The P&G logo appears at the end of the episodes starting in late March or early April, 1984. I believe P&G assumes production responsibilities around the first year's anniversary. In the meantime, P&G was the primary (and possibly only) advertister. The financial logistics for the show got a bit of press because not only was P&G and Ted Turner's WTBS involved, but there were also private investors. It seems like there was quite a bit of financial mismanagement with some suggesting that it was intentional on the part of the producer, but I am not sure if anything went to court. @slick jones I found an article stating that the full name of Charles Hill's character was Elwood T. "Woody" Thorpe. In watching episodes of Another Life, I have gotten very nostalgic about The Catlins, which was always the soap that had so little presence on line given how long it ran and that it aired during the VCR era. The little we see doesn't seem anywhere near as strong as Another Life, but we also don't really have anywhere near close to a stretch of consecutive episodes to see how the day to day build was. in looking through this thread, I was reminded of how disappointed I was in that August, 1983, episode which was probably under a month into Steve Lehrman's run as headwriter. I do wish more of that period was available when Sam Smiley and Lehrman each were in charge of the show. Smiley said he had kept material, but I don't know what his family did with it when he passed. Unfortunately, I think a lot of it was saved on his computer which I imagine wasn't saved. The closest we have to a continuous run is about 6 or so episodes from late November - December, 1984. By that point, the show is mostly LA and NY with a few Atlanta stalwarts mixed in. It's a decent show, but I know the numbers were not great. In December, 1983, it was reported the ratings were around 240,000 households. I don't hold out hope we will get much more than a few episodes here and there, but I need to get better at saving what does come up. I could kick myself for letting the Tony Wright episodes come and go without saving them. Also, I have spent the last day trying to find a post saynotoursoap/jon made about the show, before realizing he made it on danfling's old soap opera board. I remember he referrred to the show as a "Southern fried soap opera" and complimented elements of it while acknowledging its faults. I did stumble on some new information (or maybe its stuff I forgot), but there were two sets of pilot episodes. The first pilot was filmed in early 1981 and shown to P&G in April, 1981. The next set of pilot episodes were filmed in June, 1982. I believe the June episodes were actually used, but I am not sure. Sam Smiley came on in the fall of 1982 as the consultant during the development phase and then was in charge of story. Sam Smiley wrote (at least) 48 scripts which would put him into June, 1983. Sam's script writing team included Claudia Johnson, Craig Brown, and his wife Anne Smiley. Producer Chris McIntrye stated in an article that he wrote the story for Steve Lehrman (at least initially) and that Lehrman developed the outlines. I wonder if that's why Lehrman didn't stay. I know in later shows (in 1985) McIntrye gives himself onscreen credit for the shipping storyline so I don't think this process continued until the end. Though, Smiley also commented in an article how television is a director and producer genre from his experience with The Catlins. For Marilyn Martin's son, if he ever pops in again, his mom might appreciate this. I suspect it's from the opening episodes even though it was attached to a December, 1983, article Also, a shot of David Frizzell (as himself) who appeared as himself and sang at the local honky-tonk bar, The Lucky Seven. And since I mentioned Sam Smiley and his computer

If Josh's secret child was a male, he would have slept with Reva. Be careful what you wish for.

Susan Scanell had a busy 1982. She marries Chris Roland on April 23, 1982. She first appeared on air as Kristen Carter on Search for Tomorrow the last week of May, 1982. Then about a month later she exits as Becky on Another Life. I dislike most of Becky's story after her miscarriage. I did like the final implication that Dave had lied to Becky and that he wasn't really a famous producer with Becky being his first star. Don't even get me started on the "not married" revelation. Wasting mother from hell Carrie Weaver on that tripe was disrespectful on multiple levels. I felt like you could always revisit Becky. Jaded by her career, Becky returns to Kinsley and doesn't receive the warm greeting she was hoping for with everyone moving on with their life. I would have had her and Carla fighting for a position at a nightclub as a lounge act with the club owner having mob ties and drawing Becky into that life which would provoke some sort of response from the people who have loved her. I also would have revisited the idea of who Becky's biological parents were and maybe reveal she was the daughter of a minister or someone in the political circle. Russ and Becky would be a toxic end game because Russ would always want Lori so I would probably move Becky onto someone like Gil if they weren't going to keep Amber around. Amber does seem increasingly hostile without any real moments of sincerity. This is one of my only complaints in the Phillips family story. There was a nice moment of jealousy where Gil gushes over Miriam when she and Charles are dining at the Greenbriar with Amber being furious about the lack of attention, but Miriam is so possessive. Everything is an object to her; everyone is just pawns in her game. Part of the issue is Amber's world is so narrow. I'll be curious to see how she interacts later on with Blair Simpson. I think I would have twisted the knife with Amber by letting her land a local public access talk show so that she could be a faux journalist and torment Stacey some more. I think Elain Graham left Another Life for a travel production of Home, which she did for most of the fall and winter of 1982. She appeared with Samuel L. Jackson and S. Epatha Merkensen for the Negro Ensemble Company. I also feel like Elain Graham is known for speaking her mind. I did notice that they recently had Carla wearing a bit of a turban to cover up the new haircut Graham got. Kari Page was just very unmemorbale in the role. She also wasn't given much to do. Streisand is definitely someone on the mind of the writers. In a bit in the last set of episodes I watched, Nancy calls a second hand store to speak about selling her mother's furniture. She gets the store owner's wife Rose and starts cracking up, and I believe mentions Streisand by name. Babs is interesting. There is quite a gap, from what I recall, from when she starts until when she appears regularly. I remember her initial appearance in jail with Nancy (just like Dave with Jeff Cummings), but I don't remember her popping up again until what felt like several weeks later. The original appearance is definitely under the Barnes, but I cannot recall right now if Babs is featured much again until she is thrown out of the car. I feel like she is already looking into another life out of the prostitution ring before Vinley arrives, but maybe I'm wrong. I thought Babs' monologue about running into a former classmate who was now a wife and mother leading to Babs to want to start over was well done. Jesus was Jewish. I have seen sitcoms do more of the blending of Christmas and Hannukah than I have soaps, but I do know there is occasionally an attempt at unity. The suggestion that Babs and Harold might have been presented as Jewish characters is intriguing and something I will think about more.