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Wendy Riche spoke about dealing with the network when she wanted to tell an AIDS story before the Labine had decided on Stone and Robin. She had gone to the network about having A.J. Quartermaine contract the disease from a situation that would leave people asking who slept with who. Of course, it's also rumored that Marland intended for Hank Eliot, not his lover Charles, to die of the disease. In both scenarios, there is definitely a concern about perpetuating a stereotype that gay men are promiscuous. Here's the transcript from the Riche interview on WeLoveSoaps: I'm watching a bit of 1995. There is a scene that I watched, before seeing this more recently, where A.J. shows up at the gatehouse and crashes a girls' night with Brenda and Lois. I believe the purpose of the scene is for Ned to walk in and be upset that A.J. is meddling, but there are moments where I feel like A.J. enjoyed just dishing the dirt with the ladies and that the show was testing the waters at pre- "Will and Grace" dynamic between A.J. and the ladies. It's entirely possible I completely misread the scene as well.

I thought Lee was Rusty's nephew. I know @slick jones recently added a description to E.N. Sentell, who I thought was Lee's father or brother. I'm a little rusty on some of Sunny's stories, but wasn't she originally brought on as a love interest for Tom Bergman in the late 1970s or was it always Sunny and Lee? Cissie and her brother Beau Mitchell came in late 1979/early 1980. Lee was dealing with some impotency issues and Cissie was able to awaken a part of him or something along those lines. Once she was pregnant, Cissie found an ally (briefly) in Spence Langley, who had pretended to be Stephanie's long lost son, Brian Emerson. Of course, Cissie later gave the baby up to Liza and Travis. Now that I think about it, I wonder if Millee Taggert was involved in writing this. The Cissie / Liza / Travis story is very similar to the Abril / Trisha / Trucker storyline including someone pretending to be the father (Monty / Spence). At the very least, Taggert would have been on the show at the time. Anyway, Cissie left in June 1982, or thereabouts. I think Patsy Pease left the show of her own accord, but it was during the big casting purge after the show transitioned to NBC. She took Roger Lee and left town. In those episodes on YouTube, Lee leaves town in November / December and I believe joins them. . In the Hong Kong episode posted recently, Dane Taylor is actually mentioned as coming to town soon. I thought he didn't appear until 1982, but I guess he did appear earlier in 1981. I thought they should have brought Lee and Roger Lee back in 1984 when they wrote out Travis. I think they could have said that Lee and Cissie had split. Then, you could have done a Liza / Lee / Sunny triangle which I think would have made more sense than the Liza / Hogan / Sunny story. With that said, I still thought the Hogan centered story had some good moments, along with some tougher ones. Jenny's backstory is definitely being mined in several directions. I'm curious what the intentions of Ralph Ellis and Eugenie Hunt were with the Danielle piece of the story. Would Jenny's daughter still been revealed in the same manner? Ringo was trying to be kill Jenny because Jenny had known about Ringo and Warren's involvement in the gun running. Before Jenny had suffered amnesia, she had been involved with someone else in the ring and eventually he was killed. I believe Jenny witnessed her boyfriend's murder and, as a result, Ringo wanted to off her. There is a very homoerotic subtext to Warren and Ringo's relationship. I kept wondering when Warren was going to start cheating on Suzy with Ringo. There is a joke in one of the David Cherrill episodes that definitely played up that suggestion. If daytime was more daring, I would have played the Jenny / Warren backstory as Warren participating in excess in Los Angeles (drugs, alcohol, and sex) and make it clear he had been paying Jenny to sleep with him and Ringo. Obviously, Jenny's backstory couldn't have been given to Patti and a Patti / Stu pairing would have been tawdry, but I wonder if Linda Gibboney would have worked as Patti. The only problem is that age bracket was so underdeveloped at that point and time. I'm not even sure what stories could have been played there. Dane Taylor was a waste. I don't think he fit well into the show. I felt like Hunt and Ellis were laying the groundwork for some sort of deeper connection between Dane / Liza before they left. I just don't think Dane as a superspy or a music producer had a whole lot of mileage.

Marcus has a mixed record like most do. She was the final headwriter for "Love is a Many Splendored Thing." Her plans for the show were included in an article afterward that was fairly progressive. I know two of the stories would later be attempted on "Days of our Lives." Marcus was bringing back Mia Elliott who was looking to reunite with her husband and child that had been lost in Vietnam during the war. She planned on using this with Chris Kositchek. She had also planned on a lesbian relationship with Betsy (I believe) and a nurse character. Later, Julie would be the object of affection of Sharon Duvall. I can't remember anything significant from Marcus' 1970s "Search for Tomorrow" run. Her run on "Love of Life" was decent. There were some misfires, but I like what I've read about it. I wish the show had continued. Years ago, I found brief episode summaries online for L.A.T.E.R. it really wasn't anything remarkable (the summaries, not the storylines specifically). They were on an old computer. I'm sure if someone looked they wouldn't have much trouble pulling the information from online.

January 1994 was better than December 1993 in my opinion so I'm glad those are popping up. Without watching it, I believe January 3 is Pat Barry's final episode as Isabelle. Isabelle announces she plans to leave Corinth and is signing over her shares to Clay. There is a brief attempt on Isabelle's part to get Stacey to understand her choice, but Stacey is still tiffed. It's a very quick exit. We don't see Isabelle again until August 1994 when Augusta Dabney returns in the final days of Nixon or the first days of Addie Walsh and Laurie McCarthy. There are hints in the spring of 1994 that Isabelle might be returning as Shana and Leo plan their wedding, but that goes nowhere. @EricMontreal22 I don't disagree that the Tracey Q sequence is better, but I think it represents one of the fundamental issues with the show. It was suppose to be about the younger characters, but the show is defined by two distinct periods characterized by the show's older female lead. That should be telling of the younger cast. And only a few of those younger characters first appeared on "The City." They were introduced on "Loving" and those contracts were carried over into the revamp. Brown and Essensten's "Loving" was always more than just the serial killer story, but the problem was they only really developed that story rather than really setting up strong story foundations for the characters once they arrived in Corinth. Also, a lot of those final stories were linked directly to stories that B&E told on "Loving." Lorraine's involvement in Jacob and Angie's romance. Was Lorraine really suppose to be their surrogate? Lorraine, only a year or so sober after many years of drinking, was going to carry Jacob and Angie's child? Buck and Tess were already a thing when B&E arrived but I don't see anything significant that they did with them.

I haven't watched the 1982-1983 episodes that were posted. There is a bit more there than what I have already seen. This covers the tail end of Ralph Ellis and Eugenie Hunt's year and the first half of David Cherrill's six month run. @victoria foxtonI like how Rusty Sentell goes about messing with Liza. Rusty is interesting to me. Clearly, he is intended to be a Stefano Dimera type and sweeps into Henderson and is placed in a bunch of different stories. His connection to Warren (don't want to spoil for those currently watching) solidifies his role as a supervillain. In what I saw, the connection between Jenny and Rusty never went anywhere. I imagine that Ellis and Hunt planned to have Rusty be part of the time she forgot, but I don't think that ever played out. I think the potential of pitting Martin against Rusty was intriguing, and Rusty is basically replaced by Lloyd Kendall in that way which I think was a smart move. I think Rusty's motivation for hating Liza is a bit convoluted. As I probably said when I watched these episodes a while back, I think Hunt and Ellis still wrote a show that I reocgnize as a P&G style show. Lots of conversation despite the infusion of lengthy action sequences. A very stark tone. A slower pace. Cherrill seems to be the transition to a much more NBC style serial. More humor, more plot, and a faster pace. By the tailend of those episodes, Freddy Barthlowmeow is on his final month as EP to be replaced by Joanna Lee at the end of March 1983. Cyndy Gibbs is fun as Suzy. I felt there was a really nice moment in December 1982 where she is practicing her ballet to Sheena Easton's Modern Girl that just really set the tone for what the character should be. Unfortunately, in most of what I've seen (and there are gaps), Suzy becomes less of a character with agency and more of a character who things happen to under subsequent writers.

Thanks. In that context, Tess moving to the City makes sense. I just get so bogged down by her clunky backstory with Dante, Curtis, Buck, and Kuwait. Nixon made the best of the situation and fleshed out a more complicated backstory for Tess to rationalize her decision to enter into a violent marriage. In what I've seen, a lot of that complexity doesn't come across in later material once Nixon leaves. In defense of Brown and Essensten, I do think they helped to rectify one of the problems I had with "Loving." "Loving" had a tendency to be too light at times. There was definitely a maturity to the material I watched in those summer 1995 episodes. It just was just so jarring in context of the amplified snark over some rather gritty matters. The possible culture clash between the suburbanite Corinthians and the urban New Yorkers would have given the show something more to play in those early episodes that didn't come across. I think it would have been for the best to write out Steffi earlier like you suggested. "The City" might have worked if they had done it a year and a half earlier in mid-1994 when Michael Weatherly, Amelia Heinle, Paul Anthony Stewart, and Laura Sisk Wright were still all present and had around a year left to their contracts. That younger group worked. I don't hate what I've seen of Corey Page's Richard in the later material from "The City" though I found the character incredibly crass and obnoxious on "Loving." Amy Van Horne seemed like a solid junior vixen, but a lot of the other younger actors were still developing their characters. Jill Farren Phelps was hired to revamp "Another World" around the same time and was doing a lot of primetime influenced things. There was the introduction of a new hospital set, police station, and Italian restaurant which were suppose to be the hub of stories. Then, you had a bunch of older contract players written out, the brutal of a young mother, and a stronger emphasis on younger characters. I do think that "The City" went farther, but I think both were looking to accomplish similar goals. For the most part, I was referring to the first year or so of the show. I've seen a lot less of that then "Loving." I will agree that the end is an improvement and is closer to reaching those goals. In watching some later episodes recently, I still feel the show slips into the problems I talked about though. I think the episodes with the fake Quartermaines are fun, and the confrontation between Carla and Tracey is well played. In my recent reviewing of these episodes, I find something still seems off. The relationship between Carla and Tracey is intriguing, but it's still harsh and brittle in the context there is nothing to contrast it in those episodes. Everyone working to cover up for Tracey does build into that family element, but everything is based on a con job. I think playing up the fact that they have to lie to Dillon about his grandparents leaves a bad taste in my mouth. I do think there was an attempt to make the more salacious elements less tasteless, while still crossing the line. Didn't Gino die in bed with a prostitute who he thought was Tracey? That seems to be an attempt to integrate something flashy into a bigger story where that event is not the sole climax of the story. I also watched the last few episodes recently. Who were people rooting for at the end in terms of the quad with Carla, Danny, Tony, and Ally? Carla is fun, but I still find Danny sleazy. Tony has mellowed, but I don't necessarily find him some big catch. I also don't get a strong connection between Laura Sisk and George Palermo which is what the show sees as the "it" couple. I thought the final story with the arrival of baby Cassandra was sort of sloppy. I imagine the plans may have accelerated to accommodate the conclusion, but the psychic stuff with Lorraine seemed less intriguing to me than watching Lorraine and Nick's relationship a few months earlier after Nick had been released from the hospital. It's nice to think that, if given more time, Essensten and Brown would have gotten it together, but they were given two years with the same producer, which hadn't happened on "Loving" since Doug Marland and Joseph Stuart.

Thanks. I've never seen much of Jones' work but her characters always intrigue me. Originally, Amy was a schemer who had her eyes on the Cushing money, but also seemed to have feelings for Austin. Rod Arrants' Austin was driven to alcoholism by the endless pressure to join the family business when all he wanted to do was be an artist. I remember being really impressed when I saw Arrants in the episode available at Paley Center. During Megan and Desmond's engagement party, Megan tracks down Austin to his room where he is blitzed and going on and on about how miserable his existence was. I would love to have seen the material with Austin went to work at the factory and befriended Lester Saxton, a recovering alcohol, who tried to get Austin back on his feet while the Cushings pushed to have Austin institutionalized to deal with his issues. I don't think Amy was as complex on "For Richer, For Poorer," but I think there was potential to revisit some of that with Amy's modeling career and her previous relationship with Lee Ferguson. It's a shame that most of this will never show up. In particular, the "Lovers and Friends" sequences fascinate me, and I would be curious to see the second half of "For Richer, For Poorer."

"The City" wasn't unique in the sense that NBC was basically trying the same experiment with similar results with "Another World." The writing wasn't there, which was the problem with "Loving." From what I've seen of "The City," the characters are thinly conceived at best and harsh and unlikeable at worst. Like "Loving," the show had some good cast members, but the storytelling and the characterization were inconsistent. I think Harmon Brown and Essensten did attempt some interesting issues (homeless youth, incest, marital rape, transgender characters, racial tension), but the stories were underdeveloped and then quickly dropped. The biggest issue I find with "The City" is tone. The show would deal with such compelling, dramatic ideas but in the most salacious way possible. Azure C.'s revelation being splashed on the page of the newspapers. Jocelyn Brown surviving incest at the hands of her father and living a dual life as a lawyer and prostitute. I didn't enjoy those early episodes of "The City" that appeared on YouTube last spring. They had little energy and the one story that I felt had a bit of energy (Steffi / Tony) was never going to last given Heinle started on the show with two months left on her contract. I definitely felt the primetime influences. I think the first Friday cliffhanger was Kayla firing a shot in Angie's clinic which seemed like a rejected story idea from "New York Undercover." Currently, I'm making my way through "General Hospital" episodes in 1995. I can't help but wonder if the Soleito family was influenced at all by the Cerullos. The large Italian family living in the City. I don't think the found family was the issue. If the characters were more developed, it would have worked. The truth is almost everything from "The City" was based in the work of Brown and Essensten on "Loving" with little of anything from before their period which made sense given what the intention of the network was. I also think most of the pre-B & E characters who were brought to "The City" were bizarre choices. Catherine Hickland's Tess is such a harsh character as written by B & E. The character's backstory was incredibly clunky (the whole Dante Partou mess). And while I get the idea of the cowboy in the City, Buck just seems like a character with limited story potential. What story did Tess and Buck have on the City? Just the cancer stoyline right? Also, it's very weird that the show did nothing with Frankie beyond that brief exploration of his roots with Monti Sharp's film student character. I have to wonder if they didn't dump Frankie to keep Angie appearing as a younger mature lead given that she was now mother to a college student and exploring fertility issues. "Days of our Lives" has this trouble all the time with their super couples having kids decades apart and thanks to SORAS there being a ridiculous age gap. Final random comment, but it's interesting that Noelle Beck ended up appearing on "Central Park West" while "The City" was airing given that they were both attempting similar things at different times of the day.

Jacqueline Babbin came in 1990 as a personal favor to Agnes Nixon. There are some rather blunt interviews in this thread from her. She pretty much says the show was stuck in the 1980s and that she was determined to give the show some more definition. I think part of the process was to basically eradicate the Alden family. In her year as EP, she saw the exits of Rick, Curtis, Clay (maybe), Isabelle, and Cabot. She also got rid of Perry Stephens and was overseeing the show when they wrote out Alex and Egypt. Stephens may have had demons that haven't been spoken about, but my understanding (possibly just an assumption) was that Babbin didn't consider Stephens a dynamic presence. Babbin stayed the year she agreed to. She was also pretty critical of the writing. She stated that she struggled with Tom King and Millee Taggert because they assumed she was going to fire them. In a subsequent interview, she made it clear she still wasn't happy where the writing was at. King did end up leaving the show in April or May 1991. I don't know the circumstances. Taggert worked briefly with Babbin's successor Fran Sears for a few weeks before Mary Ryan Munisteri took over. To be fair, Babbin and Taggert left the show in a decent place for Sears and Ryan Munisteri. It's really unfortunate that the potential of 1991 (Carly and Paul reuniting with Michael, Matt and Ally's romance, Celeste Holms' Isabelle Alden, the sexual powerplay going on between Gwyn Alden and Giff Bowman, Dinahlee refusal to be run out of Corinth) was squandered in the following year. The second stage of the college revamp (the introduction of Greek system and the arrivals of Staige, Kent, and Cooper) was not as interesting as the first stage (Giff's arrival to Alden University, Ceara's brief stint in the administration offices, Dinahlee and Trucker's affair in the art room).

Why Jack never came back is probably tied to why Jack was written out, which I don't know. Christopher Cass was a competent actor, but he was replacing one of the original actors who didn't leave by choice. Jack had very little story under Cass. The biggest stories he was involved in were inheriting the family fortune and the plot to convince Stacey that Jack was sleeping with Dinahlee. Walsh kept Jack and Stacey in different stories before their quick vow renewal and Jack's disappearance during the honeymoon. Walsh seemed determined to pair Stacey and Trucker and I think removing Jack was a way of allowing that to play out even if Stacey / Trucker was only meant as an obstacle to both original couples. I think Noelle Beck's departure, the arrival of Jean LeClerc as Jeremy, and the show's constant identity crisis each played a part in Jack's failure to return. After Trucker fell from the belfry during the final showdown with Giff, Trucker suffered a temporary case of amnesia and thought he was in love with Stacey. This plot point was quickly dropped and Trucker and Trisha remarried in an extensively lavish wedding in November 1992. Beck's contract should have ended with the episodes in December, but she agreed to stay on for a bit to resolve the story. I imagine with Beck leaving and the expensive casting of Jean LeClerc, the Trucker / Stacey story was abandoned for the Stacey / Jeremy pairing and some final moments of happiness between Trisha and Trucker. Once Trisha was gone, the show had to figure out what the central focus would be now that the world could no longer revolve around Trisha. The Jeremy / Stacey pairing was a dud. LeClerc / Taylor had passable chemistry, but it was nothing to write home about. Also, the story between Stacey and Jeremy didn't write itself. Both trying to get over losing their spouses wasn't enough to drive significant story at least in the way it was presented. The sexual harassment storyline where Hannah lead people to believe she and Jeremy were sleeping together when she was his student lead to some drama, but there was nothing to build on so Taggert and Guza decided to pair Stacey with Buck and Jeremy with Ava. A Buck / Stacey / Curtis triangle should have ended in a Curtis / Stacey pairing with Jack returning not only interrupting the Curtis / Stacey marriage, but also J.J.'s affection for Buck. It would have elicited more drama if Jack had returned during the Cradle Foundation storyline rather than Cabot. Truthfully, Jack probably didn't come back because they couldn't generate story for the character and/or they couldn't secure Perry Stephens to return.

Personally, I don’t care for the gaslighting story. I think my biggest issue with the storyline is at its core it’s a perils of Pauline type tale and neither Stacey, nor Lauren Marie Taylor, were suited for this kind of story. Stacey as a victim, at least in this way, wasn’t interesting to me. Lauren Marie Taylor imbued such spunk into the character that Stacey almost felt like another character. Granted, Stacey had gone through a major life change with Jack’s disappearance, but so many of the little details to this story just bother me. There’s a really nice conversation between Trisha and Stacey after Trisha has discovered that Stacey and Clay have married. Stacey makes it very clear that this a very old fashioned marriage intended to be about Stacey needing protection and needing to feel safe. Stacey makes it clear that she is not romantically attracted to Clay. Within a short time, Stacey and Clay sleep together. That seemed like a stretch to me. Stacey began drinking during this period which either Clay encouraged or didn’t try to prevent. In a drunken moment, Stacey left something on the stove unattended and she nearly caused a fire. Later, Stacey was involved in a DUI incident. I found the parallel plot of Stacey’s true unravelling while Clay fed into her moment of desperation pretty horrifying and pretty vile even for someone like Clay. Another problematic piece for me is Stacey’s position in the canvas. Stacey was a young widow with kids. On current soaps, I see women with children, not characters who define themselves by being someone’s mother. Stacey was a young mother and that was a significant part of her day to day story. J.J. and Heather weren’t off at boarding school. We had to watch them while Stacey unraveled. It would have been interesting if that layer was dealt with. Had Clay shipped J.J. off to a boarding school and turned Heather over Gwyn to look after (Heather was their granddaughter after all). I think what bothered a lot of fans about the story at the time was Jack’s fate was very much left up in the air. Jack simply vanished. He was on the boat with Stacey one minute and then gone. I don’t think a body was ever really recovered. I know Clay identified the body of someone, but I believe it was later revealed that Clay had lied about the man being Jack. I think people expected the story of Stacey’s gaslighting to end with Jack returning to Corinth. Had that happened, people probably wouldn’t have been as upset. This is also a story with no ramifications. The story is tied up very quickly under Millee Taggert and Robert Guza. Jeremy and Dinahlee team up to help Stacey get out and set a trap for Clay. Clay is never punished; Isabelle takes the blame for what happened. Taggert and Guza toy with the idea of Clay and Jeremy rivalry which leads to Clay leading the charge to have Jeremy removed from Alden University when Hannah Mayberry claims that Jeremy has seduced her, but it goes nowhere. I did like that they played on the ambiguity of Clay’s motives in that subsequent story (the harassment) with Clay wanting to believe Jeremy was not the nice guy. Clay of the Addie Walsh era is a really hard character for me. When she comes aboard, Clay is intended to be a much more romantic character (a dreamer who has been embittered by the harshness of the cold reality of life). He is romancing Dinahlee and determined to make a name for himself, while Isabelle is trying to lure him back into Alden. Isabelle’s secret was Walsh’s story from day one and it was just a poor story idea. What was the point of Clay being Tim Sullivan’s son? To further alienate Clay from the family? That had been accomplished many times over. It just seemed to be a silly plot driven decision which led to this second act of the story: Clay learning the truth about Tim Sullivan and wanting to make everyone pay by taking control of AE with the intention of destroying the company. It just seemed too much. Now, something I have considered in more recent years, is that I’m much less harsh on the story a year and half later when Curtis starts to place things around the Tides in order to convince Trucker that Trisha was alive. What I think worked better about this story was (1) Trisha was actually alive so this made the deception seem less harmful and (2) Trucker was the type of character who was gullible and I could see easily falling for such a claim. With that said, Clay’s gaslighting story has some elements I don’t abhor. What there is of a resolution with the guy calling Clay to lead him to think Jack is alive while Jeremy, Stacey, and Dinahlee team up is enjoyable. Clay’s monologues from that Shakespeare play add some fun flourishes to the story. And everyone reacts the way you would expect to Stacey being in the mental hospital.

Walsh is credited as writer of the gaslighting storyline. The rumor is that Walsh left the show in a disagreement with Haidee Granger at some point in the summer of 1992. This is purely speculation on my part, but I believe Granger scrapped the sexual assault storyline involving Cooper Alden. After several months of build, it is revealed that Cooper and Selena had a moment together that was downplayed immensely in the reveal. When Walsh returned in 1994, she rewrote the Selina / Cooper situation and had Cooper reveal that Selina had molested him. the gaslighting storyline was late 1992 and was wrapped up very quickly under Guza and Taggert. I'm glad most of December 1993 is making its way online. I hope January 1994 ends up online. That month was a bit stronger. It has the end of Cooper and Ally's engagement on the eve of their wedding and the beginning of the Clay and Steffi pairing.

Thanks for the correction. This is definitely Don Chastain. By mid-September, the episodes would have been credited to him or, at the very least, were being written by him. I believe the strike episodes ended on-air in August / September. The "Ryan's Hope" reruns credited Labine and Mayer again in early September, while there is the infamous story of Marland phoning in the dialogue to the aborted wedding on "Guiding Light" in August 1981. This episode is bad. I'm really not surprised that they dumped Chastain. I know that Travis and Liza had a lot of these types of stories, the spy and adventure plots, but they so rarely worked for me. I actually like when Gary Tomlin and Joanna Lee made them less of the show's signature couple and worked them more into the ensemble. Liza and Stephanie's rivalry and the mystery of the feud between the Tourneurs and the Kendalls was much more interesting to me than these type of plots and had the potential for long term ramifications. It also just dawned on me that both of Travis' parents were murdered. I guess I'm happy that Janet left town on a plane and not in a body bag.

I believe this is a strike episode. Mignon Sentell returned in 1981 under Harding Lemay and was killed off in either late June or early July as I recall. It would be easy enough to track down the month of this. It sounds like this aired shortly after this. Whether or not Don Chastain wrote all of the strike or not, it is known that he wrote a bulk of it. The single storyline episode also makes sense in this context. It is a bit bleak hearing Stu speak about Ellie knowing what would be coming down the pike in the next few weeks. I think Tucker Smallwood was brought back for this storyline. I know he had a recurring gig as a KVIK employee through most of the opening months of "Texas". I didn't realize that Bobby's mother had been the housekeeper for the Tourneur / Sentell family. This episode is really rough. I think the nicest thing I can say is it was nice to see Smallwood, Stevens rendition of "Longer" was fine. I like the set for the Terrace. But, yeah, this really makes one understand why the show would end up leaving CBS later in the year. I'm pretty sure there's a writer's list here somewhere. I think after the Corringtons you had several months with John Porterfield and Linda Grover. Gabrielle Houghton was there for a longer stretch. Then Lemay was there for a minute before the writer's strike. Don Chastain wrote most of the strike and then continued into the fall. Chastain got some praise for infusing some comedy into the show and writing the boxing storyline with Suzi and Brian. Chastain was dumped late in 1981, and a writing team was hired just prior to the announcement that the show was leaving CBS in November 1981. When it was announced in December 1981 the show was leaving CBS, it was announced that Ralph Ellis and Eugenie Hunt were returning. I believe Hirsch or Reed complained about the convoluted spy plots that Chastain was plotting. This spy plot was the Operation Sunburst story which was a convoluted mess that continued well into Ellis and Hunt's reign only to peter out when it became about Rusty Sentell's quest for power. Seeing this after seeing a good stretch of late 1982 (October - December) I have to say I think Hunt and Ellis moved things in the right direction, but were still off the mark. I wish they had managed to keep what had been there. I think Spence Langley was an intriguing character and an important part of the Brian Emerson story. If Spence had taken on the Ringo Altman role in some of the Warren Carter stories I think it would have been a little more meaningful. Spence may have left by the time they got there, but I think it would have worked. Also, I imagine some of the elements of the Jenny Deacon tale could have been used with Cissie Mitchell who had some larger ties to the canvas.

The New Year's Eve episode is the tailend of Addie Walsh's first run. Walsh was out in several weeks replaced by Millee Taggert and Robert Guza. So this was more than likely filler or maybe Walsh (or Granger) intended to use Turner more had the show continued. Dr. Ron Turner (technically Jr. but I don't think this was in the credits or stated directly on the show) was played by Jeffrey D. Sams from all of the run from what I can tell. I'm missing a few weeks in May / June 1992, but Turner appears to be first introduced at the Casablanca Dance in June, 1992. I believe Kent introduces Cooper to Turner as an alumni of their fraternity and a psychologist at AU. Turner treats Cooper for his sexual intimacy issues stemming from his previous sexual encounter with his nanny, Selina Walker. Walsh supposedly left half way through the year and Haidee Granger ghostwrote a period of 1992 according to some comments made in the press. Granger was a former daytime TV executive as was her replacement Jozie Emmerich. 1992 is just a bizarre year. There did seem to be an attempt to embrace the theatre community. The previous summer Ava had those Phantom of Burnell's fantasies.

I believe a day player came to claim the child in the summer of 1984 and the story ended.

I’m pretty sure she was murdered.

Tomlin was credited as headwriter on “Search for Tomorrow” the last week of May 1983. That may help with the timeline.

Regarding Hank and AIDS, wasn't Doug Marland's original plan to have Hank contract HIV or to be dying of AIDS, but that the decision was to not pursue that line because Hank was the only gay man on daytime television. Also, I think the idea of having gay parts in the 1980s would have been great, but wasn't an actor taking a gay role seen as pretty much a career killer at that time? I don't see many people willing taking on that sort of role. I think the idea of a broad range of gay characters seems unrealistic for the time period in question. I do like to consider writer's other aborted attempts to tell this kind of story. I believe Marland intended for Tom Carroll to be a closet case who married MJ Match. Instead, Tom ended up being a child abuser. In the opening months of "Loving," nurse Noreen Donovan was considering taking a job on an AIDS research project, but either didn't accept the position or the story point was dropped completely. Having Hank as someone who was open about who he was and wasn't dying was a pretty big step for the entertainment industry. I feel like some of that might be lost in the passage of time. Regarding AIDS storylines, NBC wanted the Dobsons to tell a storyline involving AIDS as per the agreement to air the show, but the storyline never made it to air. The plan was to have the elderly Mother Superior at Mary Duvall's convent die of the disease after having contracted it during a transfusion. The Dobsons didn't really want to tell the story so they ended up not doing it. One thing I have noticed about some of the gay storylines of the late 2000s / early 2010s was that because they couldn't always go there with triangles and physicality that there were more periods of emotional angst and longing. Not always terribly well written, but definitely something that a lot of the their straight counterparts weren't always getting and would have enhanced the stories. Its a shame we never reached a point with combined compelling plot, angst, and physicality.

I apologize in advance as this post will be a little bit all over the place. I'm curious what impact Paul Avila Mayer would have had on the series. I cannot help but think he would have fleshed out the Perkins family. I really like that unit in its original form, but casting is really rough. I was really shocked to hear in one of those opening episodes that Joe's trial financially crippled the Perkins clan. That was a very realistic story beat. It gave a very solid motivation to John's dislike of his son beyond the fact that he thought Joe was a killer. The John / Joe dynamic was very complex. Marissa clearly loved her Joey in a way that provoked sexual jealousy in John Perkins. I think the Dobsons envisioned John as a Stanley Kowalski type. There was a very good scene in the dining area of the Perkins home where John lets Marissa know he has desires that she isn't satisfying since Joe's release from prison. Also, Marissa's dislike of Kelly seemed to suggest that the Dobsons saw Marissa as a bit of a Jocasta-esque woman. If they were going to kill off John, they should have explored the Kelly / Joe / Marissa triangle more, but clearly none of that happened. I don't think the actors in the role of the parents really allowed these parts to flourish. Speaking of miscast, I don't think Melissa Brennan (now Reeves) worked as Jade. Jade is clearly an antagonist in the beginning like Cricket Montgomery on "As the World Turns." The way she plays John is fun writing and Reeves does well with that. The seductress part doesn't really work though for me. I also think the show completely missed the mark by not even contemplating a Jade / Ted pairing with Warren as a spoiler. I believe that Jade, an aspiring actress, would definitely see Sophia as someone to aspire to or even exceed. I know they teased Warren / Jade, but I think a Jade / Warren / Ted situation would have been interesting and played on a lot of the history with C.C. / Sophia / Warren. Also, I think I would have brought Jade back to town in early 1987. I think Susan Marie Snyder would have worked as a washed up Jade who had tried to make it in Hollywood and failed as Snyder doesn't work for me as Laken. I think Jade returning in 1987 with the intention of exacting money from the Capwells would have been interesting. I would have had Jade pursue the line of thought that the Capwells that used their influence to sway the hands of justice and land Joe in prison. I would have liked to seen Jade convince a returned Marissa (maybe Constance Towers?) to seek financial retribution through a civil case. Even if the case didn't have much of a legal standing, I could imagine some lawyer as seeing it as a way to get the Capwells to cough up some money to keep the story out of the papers. When C.C. caught on to the scheme, he would have asked Ted to intervene to convince Jade to drop the case. Hayley would have been disturbed by the way Ted was becoming more and more like C.C. Maybe after the fight regarding Ted's decision to help C.C. hurt the Perkins family. If Marissa was back in town, I would have liked to see them play more on that dynamic with Joe even though he was dead. Rick Edwards' Jake could have been revealed to have been a cellmate of Joe's when he was in San Quentin and Marissa could have offered the young man room and board. Initially, Marissa would just enjoy reconnecting with someone who knew her son, but later would develop romantic feelings for him. I would have also had Marissa be a buttinsky who was giving Brick grief about his relationship with Santana. I find the 1987 episodes I have watched, certain characters did really well with the Dobsons gone and others just didn't. I think the Gina / Keith dynamic is very intriguing and Gina becomes a much trashier character than she was when Linda Gibboney was playing her, but I do feel the trajectory was set in motion by the Dobsons. I think there are times where the characters delve more into their feelings than they did under the Dobsons, but at other times the show just seems super plot heavy. I know a lot of people like the Elena Nikolas story, but it just seems such a product of the 1980s. Maybe if I saw the entire story I would feel differently. There are little things that annoyed me. Carmen Castillo, Cruz's sister, seemed to replace Marie Alise Recasner's Alice Jackson. I thought there was some interesting potential in the pairing with Alice and Cruz's partner Paul Whitley. I know Patrick Mulcahey made mention of how the casting of Paul was boggled, but the show is clearly going for a Paul Michael Thomas' knock off, correct? I did find it interesting that the initial obstacle to that romance was that Alice didn't trust police officers. That certainly would be something that would be equally relevant today. I wonder if the Dobsons would have played a Brian / Alice / Paul triangle like they seem to be suggesting towards the end of their run. I think Michael Durrell was an interesting addition and C.C. purchasing a chemical company seems like such a huge shift away from the hotel. I don't hate the concept, but it just seems to be such a huge shift in direction. I don't hate the initial Jeffrey / Kelly interplay, but I also really liked the Kelly / Quinn stuff I watched in the 1991 episodes. The craziest stuff I watched was in a February 1988 episode that opened with the fallout of a bombing involving Cruz and later (half-way through an episode) involved a shootout involving Cruz, Eden, and Cain. What a plot driven mess that was. I was impressed with A Martinez handling the realization that he may have a tracking device planted in his head. He played that as serious as hell, which must have been quite difficult. I get why people like A Martinez and Marcy Walker, but Eden and Cruz have some stories that are not really enjoyable. I did like the T.J. / Sophia stuff I watched but it was bizarre to hear Sophia talk about blowing up some oil rig. I guess I liked the concept of T.J. and Sophia more than I liked the actual story. I will say I found the 1991 episodes a lot better than people had suggested, but man is the show overloaded with recasts and poor casting decisions. The Dobsons definitely cut several characters that should have stayed. I think Quinn and Kelly were strong together. Carrington Garland was very convincing and much more interesting as Kelly than Eileen Davidson's Kelly. Yikes. That was such a terrible casting decision. Davidson's Kelly just goes around butting into everyone's story. They were better off keeping Garland. I was surprise to see that Dobsons reused the musician having a heart attack story with Kelly (didn't they give that to one of the Stewart girls on "As the World Turns" with Peter Simon's character?) I know this will be controversial, but I like the Eden multiple personality story. I pretty much like anything that goes back into the original Channing, Jr. murder. The only thing I would have done differently was I would have used Eden's Channing Jr. persona to rectify the Cassandra / Warren. I would have had "Channing Jr." kidnap Minx on his way out of Santa Barbara and reveal that he knows what she did to him all those years ago. He blames Minx as much as Sophia for his death and that he has enacted his own revenge on her. He reveals Cassandra is NOT her daughter that he had gotten his hands on the information about her real daughter and switched it with Cassandra's. Channing Jr. would have implied that Minx's actual daughter was dead. This way you could still do all that Warren / Cassie / Mason stuff without changing Warren's paternity. Also, while I wouldn't have changed Mason's paternity, I think the show should have eventually revealed that part of the root of C.C. and Mason's hatred was C.C. believed that Mason was in fact the son of his brother Grant Capwell, who had been engaged to Pamela prior to her marriage to C.C. I would have allowed Mason and Grant to unite against C.C., for C.C. to reveal his suspicions, and for a DNA / blood test to prove that C.C. was in fact Mason's father revealing that a large chunk of C.C.'s animosity towards his son was based on mistaken hubris. As I watch more and more of Mason, I do have to say it's very clear that something is psychologically wrong with Mason. I appreciate that they don't play him like a garden variety soap opera lunatic, but that it is increasing obvious that Mason is not a mentally health person. I don't have any sort of diagnosis for him, but others do feel this way about Mason right. Like he is clearly a person dealing with personal demons that have manifested into a form of mental disorder. The Dobsons at least seem to be playing him that way in their 1991 run. I don't hate Wanda DeJesus as Santana as many others do. She's not my favorite Santana, but she is certainly functional and much more engaging (to me at least) then many of the other recasts from that period. I do sort of see where the Dobsons want to go with Santana. I was unaware that the land that the Andrades lost to the Capwells was the site of the Oasis, which was a very interesting set piece. I think Santana taking control of the Oasis, while married to C.C. would have been interesting especially if she was given the chance to raise Gina's child by C.C. the way that Gina had the opportunity to raise Brandon. Santana's return story involving that sleazy doctor is intriguing. I'm surprised by the Warren / Santana friendship and how the show doesn't seem to afraid to point out that C.C. isn't against using his wealth and power to get what he wants. I know many complain that the show reset Mason, but so much of who Mason is as a character seems to be based on the animosity between Mason and C.C. I feel like taking that away seems to take away who the character of Mason is. Anyway, Mason drudging up all the history between Santana and Channing Jr. during the trial is just gravy to me. I also love how the doctor just ends up confessing that he did everything and ended up shaming C.C. in the process. I will also say this. I like C.C. and Santana. Not as an endgame couple, but as some complication that allows the characters to react. Santana designing C.C.'s bedroom in the mold of her dream room for her and C.C. and then having a romantic montage to Vanessa Williams' "Save the Best for Last" is just wild to me. I also think Craig as Mason's shooter makes sense, but I'm sorry that they went that direction because Craig worked for me. Also, Angela Raymond was clearly the best new character to come out of the Dobsons' second run.

I read an article on another board that confirmed the original plan for Adair McCleary was to reveal that she was the mother of baby Elan. It seems like this storyline was dropped when Gary Tomlin departed in the earlier part of 1984. I wonder if the show was going to have Travis and Liza raising both Lloyd Kendall's daughter T.R. and his granddaughter (Elan) as the show seemed to suggest that Alec was involved with Adair prior to their arrival in town. I know some liked the other writers in 1984, but I wish Gary Tomlin had been allowed to continue. I don't know if anyone could have made the show work with the second casting purge brought on in the middle of the year, but I'm still curious. Not that 1984 was horrid, but the middle of the year seems to lack the kind of large storytelling that NBC became known for during that time period.

The storyline prior to the television show's premier sounds wickedly good, but the synopsis above covers the plotline when the show was both on TV and radio. It doesn't seem as strong or as interconnected as the other plotline. Prior to this, there was a rather long story involving Sybil getting pregnant by her late husband and deciding that a child would be a burden so she pawned off the kid on her maid Pearl. Pearl had a husband who was in the Navy, but returned and blackmailed Sybil about the baby. Eventually, Pearl offered the child up to Malcolm Overton and his new wife, Augusta. Augusta and Malcolm had been in love many years before, but had been split up by Malcolm's brother Conrad. Now, Augusta and Malcolm were reunited and raising Conrad's grandchild. A custody battle would later ensue. With that said, I like the subsequent story involved Aunt Reggie who ended up losing her money and I think dying in a nursing home because of neglect. That I believe was only on the radio version. It's a shame more of Charles Gusman's run isn't available. Gusman was well liked by TPTB. I believe they signed him to something like a nine year contract to write "The Road of Life." Had the television version been successful, I imagine he would have worked many years on TV soaps. I wonder how a television audience felt about a couple who were being kept apart if they weren't already a little bit invested in the couple. I've also read that the show's time slot was pretty awful.

When I watched the clips, I always thought it was suppose to be the husband's inner thoughts. I think the show was suppose to be a bit of sex comedy. I imagine it must have been jarring pairing this with a soap written by Doug Marland.

It's a shame that this show floundered in the middle part of 1990. I think the start of the year is pretty compelling. I know that Jorn Winter did some really good things for the show, but I also feel like he recasted parts that weren't necessary. Randy Brooks was brought in as a love interest for Debbie Morgan after Morgan replaced Sharon Brown in March 1990. Brown's Chantal was never really featured in a starring capacity. When the show opened, she was involved with a dentist, but that relationship fell apart because the dentist wanted to domesticate her. They briefly toyed with the idea of playing a relationship between Chantal and Martin Jackson, but that was scuttled really quickly. I think that would have been a very interesting angle to play given the complicated nature of Martin's interactions with the Marshall family. The flirtation never went anywhere though. I wonder if they considered pairing Chantal with the Myles Thoroughgood's Wally Beaumont. Wally was the scoop boy at the Marshall's Southside store. He had been a gang member but turned himself around. Henry saw him as a surrogate son and was a mentor to the young man. I believe they briefly played a rivalry between working class Wally and rich boy Adam Marshall. Thoroughgood was a recurring player at first, but was bumped to contract. I believe he was one of the first characters added to a contract outside the original cast. They never did anything with Wally, but I would have liked a love triangle with him, Brown's Chantal, and Martin Jackson. Alas, none of that played out. Anyway, I find the trial stuff with Eric drawn out. Eric was new, the victim was a homeless woman, and there wasn't much to play other than Chantal's end. The show had been really good at integrating the stories together. I know Gail Ramsey's Laura McCallum served on the jury, but it all plays out in such a bubble. When Kyle was introduced as Sam's love interest, he was investigating the death of Jason Craig so the story had more implication and drew in more characters. The show had no clue what to do with Jason and Monique. Maybe Eric should have run over one of the two of them with his car. At least the story would have had more of an umbrella effect. It also would have spared the audience from that lame duck art scam storyline. I don't understand how the show went from Jessica and Rob to Jessica and Reginald. I know Rob was a hard character because he had so few connections, but I liked his friendship with Daniel Reubens. Jessica and Rob as the outsiders worked for me. The stuff with Reginald just seems so vanilla. I like the initial Sam / Kyle / Jordan stuff. I think Jordan was a compelling character, but I don't think this art storyline worked. Eventually, it is revealed that he is tied to the mob (his biological father Nicholas Taylor was the mob boss who ran Peter Whitmore out of town), but I preferred George Shannon to Robert Gentry. Gentry seems bored a lot of the time. Also, Stacey Nelkins' Christy Russell was such a departure from Pat Talman's Christy that I wish they just made her a new character. For a fun couple, Sam and Kyle quickly became trite and predictable. The show should have just played Maya / Doreen all summer or at least continued the Maya / Martin pairing which they also teased.

Thanks, @Paul Raven. For some reason, I thought it was earlier like late 1982 or early 1983.