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@DRW50 It's completely understandable. Joanna Lee's tenure is so well regarded and Sunny's rape was one of the last big stories that "Search for Tomorrow" told that didn't feel like a complete gimmick. I think its also one of the last stories that Gary Tomlin put into place. He would end up as headwriter at "Another World" in either March or April of 1984. What I've seen of Barrett's first few months were very good, but I think she was basically encouraging Tomlin and Glynn to take the story that was already in place and just slow it down and cut it down. There was a lot happened on Lee / Tomlin's "Search for Tomorrow." Everyone seemed to have a little bit of something. I know that most people cite Vargas' kidnapping of Jo as what boosted the ratings, but the show was just really strong in the summer and fall of 1983 as that kidnapping story was climaxing. Not only did Vargas have Jo, but Steve's paternity secret was about to come out, Stephanie and Steve had their aborted wedding, Wendy learned she was pregnant just as Warren decided to stay with Suzi because of her money, and there was a Stephanie / Liza and Lloyd / Travis rivalries brewing over business and personal issues. Lee's departure in December 1983 really hurt the momentum as it coincided with the supposedly pre-planned mass exodus of cast members around Christmas 1983 only to be followed by an influx of new characters in early 1984. The bits and pieces that have crept up from the summer of 1984 are interesting, but not as strong as 1983. I also find myself interested in not so much because it's interesting but because everything is so new and different. The fall of 1984 into early 1985 seems very very bleak and dark. I wonder what Tomline would have done if he stayed? I know Barrett seemed to do a second major cast dump in the summer of 1984. I don't think the newcomers of the second wave survived to well (the Kendall twins, Justine, Adair, Cord Touneur and his half-sister Victoria). In particular, I'm curious what Tomlin planned for Elan story. Weren't there hints at one point that she may have been Adair and Alec's or Adair and Chase's kid? I also wonder how Tomlin would have handled the Suzi / Wendy relationship once Michael Corbett left the show. I know Tomlin's second stint isn't as well regarded though I think there were a couple of producers involved during his second stint. The show's last two years sound and feel so stunt oriented. I do like the serial killer stuff which is very much a stylized stunt. I don't think it helped the show. And I don't think making Sarah a vixen was a skill in Michelle Joyner's wheelhouse. I thought Mayer Avila and Braxton created a very nice triangle there that was quickly abandoned. I am curious what the original plans were for Estelle which I think may have been sidelined by the revamp. Wasn't Estelle suppose to be a much more menacing character?

I think @DRW50meant if Joanna Lee was producer. She wasn’t. Lee’s last episodes aired in December 1983 and the rape was February 1984. The story was in its early stages as she left or right after. Ellen Barrett was producer. I think she wanted less scenes which would explain why there was the rape episode

Jack’s biological parents were Dane Hammond and Linda Henderson. Linda died in an automobile accident and her parents gave her to Roger and Ann Forbes to raise. I haven’t heard of any reference to Zack and Lorna having a child. Kelly was Zack’s daughter by his late first wife and she lived with Cabot and Isabelle after Zack and Lorna left Corinth. I don’t know if Lorna was mentioned during the Corinth murders but her flight (and Ann’s) was delayed which prevented her coming to town for Jack’s memorial. I know Steffy was planning to name her child after Casey Bowman, her friend and ex. I’ve always read the child was a girl, Casey Antonia, but that was on “the City.” Heather was Rick’s child. It wasn’t often acknowledged but Clay and Gwyn did visit Heather when it suited the story. It’s easy to forget it though as everyone referred to Jack as Heather’s father since he raised her.

Daniel Cosgrove also appeared in a shower scene with Deborah Zoe’s Eden. The glass shower was frosted but you could see he backside. This was all around February 2004 when there was the incident at the Super Bowl with Justin Timberlake and Janet Jackson. Conboy was gored about this time.

Barry Lake may have been a writer, but I believe Paul Raven is referencing a character found in an episode teaser that were posted in some newspapers at the time. I think Barney Lake was a criminal character. Unfortunately, I don’t think I know where my “Brighter Day” episode summaries are.

Jon-Michael Reed wrote a syndicated soap column. Newspapers tended to cut up those columns. I think this is probably one of those. I might be wrong. Ben Masters player a movie director. I think Barbara Bailey also played the socialite mother of Tracey Brooke Swopes actress character. They all were jettisoned around the same time.

As @EricMontreal22 mentioned, the characters were all in Agnes Nixon's original bible for the show. It is clear which characters Marland was more interested in writing. The Donovans are much more intricate and their scenes are much richer than the scenes with the other characters. Rita Mae and Billy definitely seem more subtle than Opal, but they are still a bit much for my personal taste. Originally, Billy was suppose to potency issues which was why Rita Mae was constantly sex starved. Rita Mae was suppose to befriend Noreen Donovan during her initial fling with Curtis Alden before having a much more intense affair with Mike Donovan. Almost all of this was nixed at some point. Onscreen, Rita Mae and Curtis had an fling, but I believe it was short-lived (August-September 1983) before Rita Mae shifted her eyes to Doug Donovan and Curtis got involved with Lily. I don't think Billy was impotent, but I do know that later, when Rita Mae and Billy were trying to conceive a child, that the fertility issues seemed to lie at Billy's feet. Eventually, Billy and Rita Mae split and Rita Mae becomes involved with Tony Perilli after it becomes clear that Stacey will never stop loving Jack Forbes despite his marriage to Ava. Rita Mae gained a niece, Colby Cantrell, who bounced between Curtis and Keith before she was also written out. Ann is a thinly drawn character in Nixon's bible. She is suppose to be committed to her marriage and she was suppose to befriend Merrill. I don't know if Ann and Merrill actually became friends onscreen. I suspect Marland worked to expand the character by reconfiguring different parts of the bible. Onscreen, it was Ann, not Rita Mae, who ended up having the affair with Mike Donovan after he was fired from the police force and was hired to redecorate the Alden guest house. Also, there were only a few details about Clay and Gwyn in the bible, but one of them was that Gwyn was an alcoholic. Onscreen, Ann had the problem with alcoholism. There was no mention of Dane Hammond or Shana Sloane in Nixon's bible, but the creation of Dane as Jack's biological father (originally Jack's biological parents were the married couple who perished in the car accident) and the introduction of Shana as a rival really solidified Ann's place on the canvas. I think part of the problem in the Merrill / Roger / Ann / Doug scenario is there is no villain. Roger and Merrill's affair just hurts Doug and Ann, neither of whom deserve the heartache. Merrill was described in the bible as a radical feminist which I think may have been influenced by the women on "Ryan's Hope." On "Ryan's Hope," Jill Coleridge was having an affair with a married man, Frank Ryan, but she wasn't sleeping with Seneca until much later and the affair was mostly backstory rather than playing out in front of the audience's eyes. Also, Delia was a clear villain. I think it helped that Mary Ryan was equally independent and she was just shacking up Jack Fenelli, an older man, but not married. Merrill's fear of marriage was suppose to be rooted in her mother's death; her mother had died while giving birth to Merrill. The bible implied that Merrill would have a string of relationships (after the first year) that were intended to be based on her fear of marriage and having children. Doug was also pretty thinly drawn, but the implication was that after the first year Doug was going to be pursued by a calculated Lorna who was determined to land the older man. Roger accepts a diplomatic mission and, according to SOD, was heading to Nairobi when his plane crashed and no survivors were found. A memorial was held for Roger without a body. The plan was probably to revisit Roger Forbes later on. Right before he died, it was revealed that Roger and Shana had known each other in Washington, D.C. I suspect the show was intending to play a Roger / Shana / Ann triangle at some point. Based on the bible, Lily and Jack were the longterm couple, but the bible only outlined the first year (June 1983 - August 1984). The bible ended with the Olympic cliffhanger which was suppose to be June Slater remembering what happened the night of Garth's murder. This actually happened in January 1984. Almost the entire bible was used or abandoned by January 1984 so it's not clear what Nixon's plan would have been for Lily and Jack after the murder trial. Lily did return to the show years later, March 1987, during a transition period. It was probably one of the last things Bill Levinson did or one of the first that Ralph Ellis initiated. Anyway, Lily was released from the psychiatric facility after June Slater's death and she returned to Corinth where she reconnected with her old friends Jack and Stacey Forbes. I don't think there was much done with Lily and Curtis, but Burke Moses, who was playing Curtis at the time, was hired to appear on Broadway in early summer 1987 and Curtis was shipped to Germany's AE office in the late summer. Then Moses was fired with the intention of recasting, but, instead, they just dropped Judith Hoag and had Lotty join Curtis in Germany. By that point, Lily was working as a model at Amourelle while trying to get Jack into bed and found an ally in Rick Stewart, Gwyn and Clay's son who Gwyn had given up for adoption. Lily and Jack's affair was the bulk of Lily's 1987-1988 run, but there seems to be a bit with her working with Jim Vochek at the homeless shelter before she left town. I don't know if Alden Enterprises was mentioned specifically in the bible, but I know that the offices of AE were featured no later than November 1983 when Dane Hammond was introduced. When Fran Sears took over as EP in the summer of 1991, she decided "Loving" should bring back the college. Under Mary Ryan Munisteri, Giff Bowman was hired to teach art courses at AU and they introduced the art studio set. Down on her luck Dinahlee Mayberry modeled in the art class. When Ceara arrives in Corinth, she is working at AU in an administrative position. Jeremy comes to teach an art seminar. Slowly, they built a small college set around Ally Rescott, who at the time was dating Matt Ford. In January 1991, when Addie Walsh took over as headwriter, she introduced a group of young people who were involved with a band (drug dealer Reggie, singer Tess, brooding James) that Matt was involved with. Matt was quickly dumped in February and Ally started taking courses at AU. Ally still hung out with Tess (Daisy Fuentes' character) and has a brief flirtation with Sam (the senator's son who briefly dated Dinahlee under Mary Ryan Munisteri). By early April, the new group was introduced (Hannah, Arthur, Cooper, Kent, and Staige) were introduced. The campus only really went away in late 1993 when Nixon came on and shifted the characters away from the college campus.

Jack's biological parents were Dane Hammond and Linda Henderson. Dane grew up in Corinth in the working class section and fell for wealthy Linda. When Linda got pregnant, her parents married her off to a wealthy counterpart, Hemsley. Hemsley was aware of Linda's pregnancy and the truth about the baby's father. Shortly after they were married, Hemsley and Linda were killed in an automobile accident. Hadden and Ada Henderson, Linda's wealthy parents, asked the recently married Roger and Ann Forbes to adopt their infant grandson. After Roger Forbes dies, Jack becomes interested in looking into his paternity. At the same time, Dane began to ask questions about Linda's baby, who the Hendersons claimed had also perished in the car accident. Jack learned from Hemsley's aunt, Millicent Whitehead, that Hemsley had informed her he (Hemsley) wasn't Jack's father. Jack eventually learned that Dane was his father and, since Dane and the Aldens were enemies, conflict ensued for the time that Dane remained in Corinth (1983-1986, 1990-1991). Regarding the cast purge, the show's original two plotlines were abandoned for different reasons. I think the general consensus was that the Merrill / Roger / Anne triangle didn't work. The show didn't commit to Merrill after the affair with Roger fizzled. Merrill had some brief relationships with Warren Hodges and Clem Margolies (the Alden family attorney), but ultimately she was just shipped to Washington, D.C. after accepting a new job. I believe they even had Merrill leave town before they killed off Roger. The show may have intended to repair Doug and Merrill because it was only when Merrill left Corinth that Edy Lester arrived and quickly married Doug. Originally, there were hints of pairing Lorna and Doug. Even during the Edy / Doug storyline you have Edy's secret husband Jonathan Maitlane involved with Lorna. The claim regarding the Slater storyline the plan was to kill off Garth from the beginning. June and Lily were written out because ABC wanted to nix the incest storyline so that they could promote their telefilm "Something About Amelia" as the first time the network had dealt with the issue. @DRW50 Thanks for posting the links to these. The amount of location shooting for the garden party was impressive. I think a lot of the actors are very green, but I do think that Susan Walters really stands out. Jennifer Ashe is incredibly stronger in those later sequences posted by Ann Williams' children. I really hope that more of Lily's original storyline would show up. I'm particularly interested in the romance between Curtis and Lily's alter. It was surprising to hear Lorna state that Curtis had been chasing after Lily for a long time. It's funny. I don't have much interest in Merrill / Roger, but I thought Bryan Cranston and Shannon Eubanks were very interesting. Not necessarily as a couple, but they had a nice rapport. Lorna as the thorn in their side was very good. Mike and Noreen were much more interesting. The conflict between Noreen and Mike over having a child was nicely done. Noreen's rapport with Rose Donovan was also nice. It was interesting to see that no one had been cast yet as Patrick Donovan. Garth's manipulation of June and Lily was disturbing. It was nice, but odd watching Augusta Dabney's more grandmotherly Isabelle, after watching Pat Barry's society snob Isabelle meddling in the lives of her family in the 1990s episodes I've been watching. It was unfortunate that neither Curtis nor Stacey appeared in the episodes. Jim's introduction with Rita Mae I believe was intended to be shocking. I believe flirtatious Rita Mae makes a pass at Jim by the end of the episode before learning that Jim was a Catholic priest.

I believe the switch in locations was due to Irna Phillips' lawsuit with the show's first producer or a writer who argued that they were co-creator and should get a share of the profits. Phillips lost her suit. I believe she relaunched the show because of the suit because now she owned the new version of "The Guiding Light" outright. I could be wrong. The show goes off the air in November and I don't think returns to air until the spring. When the show was relaunched, the story opened with Ray Brandon being released from jail and attempting to rebuild his life. I do think the Claire Lawrence story continued from one version of the show to the other.

This seems mostly new to the Internet. I think some of it may have popped up some of the scattered 1992 episodes, but I don't think there has been much online. 1992 is mostly remembered for shift onto the younger set with the arrival of Cooper, Casey, Hannah, and the forgettable Staige and Kent. The actual highly touted sorority/fraternity storyline plays out for about three or so months before they simply drop that angle. I'm not a huge fan of Trucker and Trisha's storyline in 1992 because its mostly Trisha and Trucker fighting over custody of Christopher and Giff going crazy for the sake of maintaining Trucker and Trisha's true love. These clips all cover the second half of 1992 when it's unclear who really was writing what. Walsh is credited throughout 1992 and into the first half of January, 1993, but accounts from actors, Walsh departed shortly after Haidee Granger took over. Granger is the one in charge who basically dumps Richard Cox for Jean LeClerc, which, in my opinion, never ended up being worthwhile. I will say it's not until I watched the early 1993 episodes where Trisha and Trucker are happy with Christopher, living in the Tides, and dealing with a cutesy story where dweeby Arthur has a crush on Trisha that I really see the appeal of the couple. I like the 1991 storylines with losing baby Benjamin and the affair between Trucker and Dinahlee, but both stories are very heavy. Honestly, I think I would have been completely fine with Trucker and Trisha going in different directions. I've been watching spring / summer of 1994 episodes not sequentially. I really wanted to get to the end of the Cradle Foundation storyline, which was worth it. I made several interesting discoveries in the process. Nixon departs as headwriter in August, 1994. She's immediately succeeded by Addie Walsh and Laurie McCarthy, who had been the associate headwriters when Nixon was headwriter from September 1993 until August 1994. With Walsh and McCarthy as the headwriters, Nixon steps into a new title., executive storyline consultant. I have the script from September 1994 and Nixon still receives top billing on the scripts. I've never claimed to be a huge fan of Walsh. I think her work is pretty standard with nothing that stands out. She seems better at generating story than character. I know others have said she has done better at "Search for Tomorrow" with Walsh. Anyway, Walsh's run with McCarthy is slightly stronger in my opinion than the 1992 material, but she has essentially been working with the canvas for awhile so she isn't making massive cuts the way she did in 1992, but the cuts are still deep and leave scars. Either in the final Nixon episodes or the earliest Walsh/McCarthy episodes, we get the start of the undoing of Curtis. Curtis rigs the plane, the plane crashes, Janie dies, and Dinahlee barely survives, loses the baby she is carrying, and suffers a traumatic brain injur leading to cognitive issues. I don't know how Curtis is suppose to recover from that. I don't know if I can even make it to October when Curtis shoots his own mother. In her final weeks, Nixon seems to be building up a nice little relationship between Curtis and Stacey that had the potential to be really exciting, but its completely scrapped. Similarly, the revelation that the Sowolskys were behind the marketing that lead to the success of AE had the potential to completely shake up the canvas. Instead, it was a minor tremor that was quickly abandoned. Such a waste. On the brighter side, I do appreciate that Walsh tends to be a much more dramatic writer and avoids some of the more cutesy aspects that show tends to embrace. I just wish the stories were dramatically more interesting. The younger set does well. McCarthy and Walsh develop Casey's mental health concerns stemming from his relationship with Giff and his descent into cocaine use as a means of coping with all the stress. It really cultivates a nice longterm conflict between Casey and Ally and ties nicely into different parts of the character's history. Similarly, Steffi and Cooper's romance continues to develop nicely and bleeds beautifully into Clay's hit and run. These two stories create a perfect little quad for Casey, Ally. Cooper, and Steffi who have all had sordid history with one another that is used pretty well. Ally and Cooper unite when Tyler finds cocaine in Casey's camera bag, and Casey and Steffi have a drug fueled photography session to escape the pressure from their respective partners. While the dialogue tends to be cringy at times, the show is starting to develop that modern feel that I feel Harmon Brown and Essensten really take to a whole other level. On a side note, it has been interesting noticing some things play out that I know we've talked about in this thread before. When Augusta Dabney returns in August, 1994, as Isabelle, Isabelle is still that cold bitch. She immediately dismisses Deborah, which is quite wonderful. Isabelle and Clay's motives for keeping Cabot hidden away are two fold: they claim they initially wanted him to die in peace not surrounded by reporters, but Cabot makes it clear they kept him hidden in the family compound in Florida because Cabot wanted to reveal that the Sowolskys were the true source of the Aldens fortune. Deborah also is much less wacky under Walsh and McCarthy. The material during the hit and run is played mostly as a cool, calm, and collected Deborah who is upset that Clay has manipulated Steffi into thinking Deborah and Cooper are sleeping together. Earlier, under Nixon, Steffi makes references to her mother's delusions implying that they keep her from having healthy interactions in the real world. While the rest of the world sees Deborah as trouble, Steffi sees her more as troubled.

I find the relationship between Stephanie and Deborah one of the more interesting and dynamic relationships in the final years of "Loving," but I do agree that the flighty, ditzy persona didn't do Deborah any favors. When Stephanie is first introduced, Deborah is at the crux of her backstory. Stephanie's mother is a friend of Isabelle's and this is how Isabelle weaves Steffi into her plot to unite Cooper and Ally by undermining Casey and Ally's relationship. Stephanie is very provocative in the beginning under Millee Taggart and Robert Guza, but she is also a girl with some emotional scars. Steffi and Casey are able to connect because they both had mentally ill parents (Giff and Steffi's mother). Steffi had to take care of her mother. She had agreed to Isabelle's scheme because the Brewsters were broke and Steffi's mother was still trying to live in the fantasy that they had money. None of this is really contradicted by Deborah's arrival in December at the fashion show at Burnell's. I do think the mental illness piece is downplayed. Early Deborah is very cold and easily cuts Steffi with her words. Steffi does evolve when Agnes Nixon takes over so I can see why you would say Deborah is introduced as a way to make Steffi sympathetic. I guess I didn't find the early version of Steffi unsympathetic. I actually think she and Casey were a viable option longterm, but I really don't have many issues with any of the possible romantic pairings among the quad. Nixon does downplay Steffi's sense of survival her ability to do selfish acts to attain what she wanted. Steffi definitely becomes less an agent of action and more someone who is just constantly knocked down by the world. I do think Steffi saw Casey as a chance to escape the cycle of misery that she had known since she was a little girl, and the realization that Casey would never love her the way he loved Ally did break her. It leads to her eating disorder. I felt like Deborah's introduction was meant to examine some of the psychological reasons that Steffi was so sick. I think Deborah's comedic antics were meant to represent how delusional Deborah was, but there was more dramatic potential in dealing with how terrifying that could be. In early 1994, the dramatic ramifications of Deborah's antics manifest themselves beautifully. Hoping to live off her daughter, Deborah arranges a meeting between Steffi and Clay Alden in order for the older man to mentor her "lost" daughter, while coaching her daughter to sleep her way into the Alden family. When Steffi uses Clay to get even with Casey, Casey ridicules Deborah for pimping out her to daughter to Clay. Deborah is mortified by what she has done. I do enjoy that moment much more than some of Deborah's wilder antics. Also, Deborah's refusal to accept that there could be anything wrong with Steffi was such a tragic layer to Steffi's eating disorder. I really like the story where Clay was run down by a mysterious driver on Steffi's 21st birthday. I believe Addie Walsh and Laurie McCarthy were writing by this point. Clay has schemed to convince Steffi that Cooper and Deborah are sleeping together leading to a big confrontation at Steffi's birthday party which ends with Clay under the wheels of Steffi's new car, a birthday present from Clay. Deborah seems more human in that story, more of a complex villain. Deborah is often wrong, but she is driven by her desire to protect her daughter even when she hurts her daughter in the process. When Deborah is trying to convince Steffi she hasn't slept with Cooper, Deborah admits that she is furious with Clay because he has gotten between the mother and the daughter. McCarthy and Walsh follow this up several episodes later with a scene where Deborah (circa 1988) makes a not so veiled accusation of incest to Steffi's father, Malcolm Brewster, which is what Walsh and McCarthy imply is the reason that Malcolm was no longer involved with Steffi. When they play her as a complex being, Deborah is fascinating, but that isn't the way the character is portrayed often enough.

As much as I enjoy 1994, the show made several critical errors in the second half of 1994 that really hurt it which didn't help the many full and partial preemptions in the summer of 1994 when the show was pretty solid. Some things were out of their control (Jessica Collins not renewing her contract), but the handling of Dinahlee's exit was bad. Curtis rigging Buck's plane which lead to a crash was such a bad, destructive move for the character of Curtis. By some twisted logic, I can forgive Curtis for trying to convince Trucker that Trisha was alive because, well, she was even if Curtis didn't know that. Trying to mess with a plane just took the character too far. By the time you have him shooting Gwyn, there is nothing left for the character. Elizabeth Mitchell was very green and was asked to carry a very demanding story where Dinahlee had suffered from injuries that required her to learn to do many basic life skills again. It was too much for Mitchell and the story is pretty hard to watch because its cringy. Also, killing off Janie Sinclair who I think had the potential to be the show's new longterm young female schemer was a terrible choice. Through in the Jeremy / Gilbert story and things really fall apart towards the end of Nixon's 1994 run. Also, I love the Cradle Foundation mystery and Cabot coming back from the dead, but its a story without the sort of gravitas that should have come from bringing this character back from the dead. Revealing that the Sowoloskys, and not the Aldens, were to source of AE's fortune had the potential to create long story for at least a year, but instead it ended up being over in a few weeks. Insantiy. As Ken R said, the Gilbert / Jeremy story is pretty bad. Jean LeClerc was a fine actor, but Jeremy never really fits into the "Loving" canvas. His relationship with Gwyn after Gwyn decides she needs to be independent from Clay and the Aldens is nice, but Jeremy's role could have been fulfilled by someone else. I remember some scenes where they seemed to be chemistry testing LeClerc and Hickland during the fall of 1993 after Nixon arrived. I suspect Nixon would have wanted to do a Jeremy / Tess / Clay / Gwyn story as some point, but none of that came to pass. I do think the quartet was used a bit during the beginning stages of the advertising storyline, but nothing was ever substantial or completely utilized the potential. Back to Jeremy / Gilbert, this is one story that I feel DID get better when Nixon left and the focus was more on Ava and Sandy's kidnapping and the psychological exploration of what caused Gilbert to become the man that he was. The ending that Addie Walsh and Laurie McCarthy penned is very dramatic, but also makes Gilbert much more human. It wouldn't play well in the current climate. Alex, egged on by the psychotic Denise Nostrand, is convinced that Gilbert will kill his wife and son. Once he tracks them down to the Hunter family church, Alex shoots Gilbert even though he has already let Ava and Sandy go as well as save Sandy's life when he nearly fell through rotting floor boards. Alex feels guilty about the shooting and Charles encourages him to cover it up. Ava actually lies for Alex saying that Gilbert had a gun. My episodes stop in January so I don' t know how the story completely wraps.

They have got things working...

Thanks. Yikes.

Rachel Todd played Pam Evans.

@RavenWhitney I got lost in my train of thought and meant to say that Ellen Barrett, not Joanna Lee, casted Conroy. I thought he was fine, but I sort of get your point about not being typical leading man material. In some ways, he reminded me of Grant Alexander, who I also feel has a very specific look. I thought Adair and Chase were decent, but not awe inspiring. I much rather have seen a Chase / Wendy / Alec triangle. @Paul Raven If it was a short arc, spring 1985, Fairchild would have been between "Paper Dolls" and "Falcon Crest." Am I missing something? If they could have gotten like 13 weeks from Morgan they could have ended my silly sanitarium story with a fire where she saved Suzi's life, but was horribly burned. Then she could be sent away with the audience knowing that she could eventually return with a new face just in time for another sweeps. In terms of other stories, I don't think Patti ever learned that Chris was Len's biological child. Crafting a story that built to that moment would have been worth some time. I think I thought it might be good if they had cast an age appropriate Patti to pair her down the line with Lloyd Kendall, but I think that was because I wanted a scenario where Len would have mentored Alec at the hospital which would have built a rivalry there. Eventually, you could have Estelle on the hospital board and show an interest in Len to make things more complicated. I know that they played a rivalry between Estelle / Sunny over Bela, but I would rather have had them bring back Steve Kendall, who I felt was dumped way too quickly. I know the Kendalls end up replacing the Tourneur / Sentell clan, but initially they are there as rivals, which wasn't utilized to its full potential. I think Sunny and Steve getting together and Estelle being the meddling potential mother-in-law who was her boss would have been intriguing. If they were determined to do a Liza / Sunny triangle, I think it should have been over Lee Sentell. I would have had Cissie run off leaving Lee as a single father. Lee would arrive in Henderson to help Liza with the company. Liza would be interested in being a mother figure to Roger Lee, which would lead to Lee and Liza spending time together while Lee and Sunny were also together. I probably would have liked to see this played out around the same time as the Cord Tourneur story with Cord a more traditional villain to take over the role vacated by Warren Carter. I would also have Cord trying to seduce Sunny to keep her off the trail of his illegal dealings at Tourneur Instruments which would play into the Liza / Lee situation. Given how fluid the canvas was at the time, I think I would have had Cord aligned with a returned and recast Spence Langley. Spence, I believe, also had a small role in the Roger Lee plot. Wasn't he friendly with Cissie? I thought I read he pretended to be the baby's father, but I might be wrong. @robbwolff I have heard about the mystery owner before. Any speculation on who it might have been? Could Tomlin planned to bring Martin Tourneur back into the story?

Thanks for sharing. I was a bit shocked to see that Jack Betts character appeared to be a love interest for Jo. Interesting to hear that they seemed to be giving her something more than that.

I have seen a bunch of stretches from late 1982 until early 1984 before Jeanne Glynn came on and then years ago the episodes from AOL from late 1984 until early 1986. I think Jeanne Glynn's work is a bit of a mixed bag, but a bulk of 1984 is missing so it would be interesting to see how most of that played out. Glynn came in after Tomlin, who left the show in pretty good shape, but had a massive cast turnover within months when Brian Emerson, Kristen Carter, Warren Carter, Ringo Altman, and Travis Sentell departed during a very short period of time. Martin Tourneur and Hogan McCleary were out not long after. I think this really shifted too many dynamics at once. I don't know who left verse who choose to leave, but it might have been more reasonable to recast someone like Warren if Michael Corbett couldn't be tied down to another long term contract or at the very least have spent some time with the fallout. If they had to kill off Warren, I would have liked them to have Suzi unable to handle it mentally and have to be committed to a sanitarium briefly. I think this would have added stakes to the custody of Jonah especially if Kristen returned looking for custody of Jonah for herself. I think Kristen trying to align herself with Wendy, first, as they were friends, before Wendy turning on her because of events that had happened between Kristen and Brian offscreen, before siding with Cagney and slowly falling for him. Meanwhile, you would have Suzi in the sanitarium becoming friendly with a woman who is looking out for her who turns out to be Jennifer Phillips, the woman who killed her mother. Jennifer still had some ties to Henderson (she had killed Eunice, had been involved with one of the Walton/Bergman boys, and had been friendly with Stephanie) so I think she could have come town briefly after the sanitarium storyline. I think if they had integrated Kristen and then Brian back into Suzi's orbit that the writers wouldn't have had to try so hard to come up with story for Cagney and Suzi especially since Brian and Cagney were both police officers. I'm perplexed by what period of time viewers consider the show dominated by the McClearys. I feel like the last year is very McCleary heavy, but most people seem to claim that they enjoyed the Ireland storyline. The little I watched wasn't my cup of tea and dominated a large portion of story time. I thought Paul Avila Mayer and Stephanie Braxton did some good work with the McClearys in making them feel like an actual family, but I didn't feel they were overwhelming. Maybe I just didn't watch enough episodes.

Thanks. When I first got into "Guiding Light" around 1998, I found a website that had saved the old usenet posts for "Loving" episodes. I was surprised to see that there was so little available for "Loving" given that it had aired so recently (as of 1998). My first "glimpse" of "Loving" was those old usenet posts from June 1992 until the show's end. I've spent years reading anything I can find on "Loving" and within the last three years or so have been able to obtain a substantial set of the show's later run. I'm not overly fond of the post-Marland period until Jacqueline Babbin arrives as EP in 1990, but I really wasn't all that interested in 1991 until I saw it so things can always change. I really struggle trying to follow the show in the 1986-1988 years because its just so representative of the outrageous excess of camp and adventure that the soaps seem to embrace in the 1980s especially when it was conceived in order to combat that. I realize there are people that don't like the business plots, but I think Dane Hamond's quest to takeover AE between 1984 and 1985 was a very interesting Marland-style tale with a bunch of threads that impacted various areas of the canvas and created a lot of strong interpersonal conflicts between the characters. Nixon and Marland are very different writers, which is why I think the show struggled. The first six months or so are mostly based on Nixon's original projection for the show with some Marland additions, but after the Lily story ends and the Roger - Merrill affair is resolved the show becomes very different. I imagine it was either more collaborative or Marland had more of a say over what was going on. I think 1984 - 1985 plays very well in those old SOD synopses, but by the summer of 1985 you have things like Ava running around with a gun threatening to kill Stacey, Jonathan Maitland impersonating his brother, crazy Zona Beecham arriving, and Keith hiding out in a brothel with a hooker named Dolly. In my opinion, Nixon's 1993-1994 run is much better than the short period between Marland and Bill Levinson. I've only seen a little of Cece and, as I explained above, I'm not fond of her period so I don't always remember details about certain characters. I believe Cece was introduced in 1985 after Marland left or towards the end. I know Trisha and Steve originally had another obstacle, rich boy Rick Elkins, who had some feelings for Trisha. This was playing out in the summer of 1985 synopses I read, but I don't remember if Cece was already there to take advantage of the tension between Trisha and Steve. In the 1986 episodes online, Steve is serving time because he slept with Cece, who was underage. What's interesting is that I don't think Trisha was of age either. I'm curious how that storyline would be perceived by a modern audience. My understanding is that originally she was just a thorn in Trisha and Steve's side and most viewed as troublemaker during Alice Haining and Rebecca Staab's run. Colleen Dion had the longest run taking over around June 1986 and leaving in Decemeber 1987 around the time Steve was written out. I think Colleen Dion seems very interesting in the material that has appeared from 1987 and Cece definitely seems to be a precursor to Dinahlee. It seems like Ralph Ellis gives the character more dimension when he has Cece get pregnant by Steve in the spring of 1987 and then uses the baby to try to manipulate her way back into Steve's life to the chagrin of Trisha. While it was basically a replay of the Stacey/Jack/Ava situation of two years earlier, I'm intrigued by the fact that Ellis paired up Ava and Cece as friends and had Ava as Cece's confidante when she lost the baby and was planning on lying to keep Steve away from Trisha. I know Ava was afraid her part in the lie would affect her relationship with Clay, but I wonder if there was any reflection on the fact that Ava had just done this. As much as I have come to enjoy Jessica Collins as Dinahlee, I can't help but wonder what could have been if it was Cece Thompson who came back to town in 1991 working as a nanny while secretly working on Shana's payroll. Ava certainly could have used a friend with all that was going on with Paul, Carly, and Flynn. It was neat hearing how Millee Taggart slipped in the Kate story. That is one of the few stories from that period I'm interested in. Hearing the Laura Wright story from James Harmon Brown was interesting. I know Millee Taggart introduced Ally and that they cast Eric Goodall before Laura Wright (then Sisk). There's also a SOD article towards the beginning of the thread that says Laura tested with Ally alongside Jessica Collins and that LW thought Collins was being brought in as an Ally recast and was rude to Collins. I wonder if the contest was a chance to audition for "Loving" rather than actually getting a role on "Loving." There was also the national casting search the next year for the college set. There isn't much of Horan's Clay available. He certainly seems fine as Clay and plays the material well. I think Parlato gets more praise because he was good in what he was given. Honestly, the only Clay I'm not thrilled with is Larkin Malloy, but that had as much to do with the writing as it did with Malloy. Chris Marcantel mentioned they were thinking about doing an all Curtis reunion. I'm sure he must have had a way of contacting Albers. During Chip Albers run, I believe he was close to most of the male cast members to the point that they goofed around together. I'm wondering if the "Men of Loving" isn't just a rebranded version of the friends of Randy Mantooth reunion that Marcantel mentioned was coming up. Mantooth would have worked with most of the actors on the panel accept for maybe Christopher Cass. Cass is a bit of an oddity on that panel because he only worked with James Horan from what I recall. Then again, Christopher Cass has commented on Lauren Marie Taylor's posts so maybe there is more contact. Honestly, I was sort of hoping for some combination of James Kilberd, Tom Lignon, and/or Ron Nummi as they all seemed to be connected to Marcantel on social media. I wouldn't be surprised if we get another pop in video or last minute jump in from Bryan Cranston. I have similar feelings about the storyline. Christine Tudor Newman is spectacular in those final scenes and I'm not necessarily sure the entire storyline would be as well remembered. When Gwyn finally is forced the realization that she, not Trisha is the killer, I am absolutely heartbroken. Gwyn begging Steffi to end her pain the way Gwyn has ended everyone else is incredibly compelling. After seeing how Curtis was treated when they thought he was the killer, I was pleased to see that there was certainly a level of sympathy given to Gwyn. I'm not really sure what happened with Gwyn. I don't believe it is DID, but I do think there seems to be a level of disassociation. She is insistent that Trisha is the killer and even after realizing she killed everyone. during her clearest most broken moments, she claims she truly believed that Trisha had been doing it. I find the line from Alex about "never truly knowing what went wrong" psychologically with Gwyn rather cheap given what the audience was asked to sit through. This all happens in 1995. I believe this was around the time that most shows were starting to see a steady decline in viewership. The only show that was seeing massive growth was "Days of our Lives" which I believe hit some highs in early 1995 with the possession storyline. I think network execs saw an opportunity there but didn't truly understand that it wasn't just the possession alone that kept the ratings high. The outlandishness of possession storyline drew viewers in but there were a lot of other storylines building (Bo / Billie, Sami / Austin / Carrie / Lucas, Jack / Jennifer / Peter) that could keep the audience tuning in afterwards. I think having Gwyn (who is now in the mental health field like Marlena) going nuts was meant to goose the ratings to deliver healthy numbers for the start of "Loving." The Angie / Charles / Lorraine / Jacob story is particularly strong and had that continued over immediately, maybe "The City" would have had a stronger start. There is no conflict with Jacob and Angie just arriving in the City and building their careers. The start of the Kayla story with her holding a gun on Angie seems such a poor choice meant to mimic the shocking stories told on the nighttime shows on FOX. While not nearly as extreme, NBC hired Jill Faren Phelps to overhaul "Another World" in a similar manner (primetime elements / serial killer storyline) and CBS did a much milder version with "As the World Turns" hiring Stephen Black and Henry Stern who flooded the canvas with much younger characters. The opening episodes of "The City" seemed rather tame. I suspect that the dead body that was found in the carpet during the move in was suppose to let the audience know that things would still be happening, but I don't think that really happened in the early episodes. With that said, the last few months are well remembered. I wonder what would have happened had "The City" survived until the arrival of "The Sopranos." I believe Amelia Heinle was relatively popular on "Loving" and I believe Steffi and Cooper had developed a pretty decent following among those who were watching the show. My guess is that they were hoping to convince Heinle to stick around or at the very least to utilize her popularity to keep people watching.

Ned Bates was part of high school set built around Kelly Conway, Lorna's stepdaughter. Kelly was involved with Rob Carpenter, who was a punk with a careless mother. At the time, Jim Vochek had amnesia and was working at Corinth High because he no longer remembered being a priest. Initially, Ned is interested in Kelly before April is introduced. Also introduced around this time was Dave Hindman, the basketball playing son of Lt. Art Hindman. Dave had academic difficulthy the basketball coach, MacDonald, made sure that Dave would pass. Jim took an interest in Dave and was determined to make sure he would be able to go to college. There may have been a change in writers (from Bill Levinson to Ralph Ellis) in the spring of 1987 because there are some signficant story shifts. April Hathaway is introduced. April is living with her alcoholic cousin, Marty, who took an interest in Jim Vochek. April had been knocked up by a boyfriend, had an abortion, and was kicked out by her parents. I believe the boy's brother was the Alan Howard character who would later kidnap her. This backstory sounds similar to Ralph Ellis' backstory for Jenny Deacon, woman who was pregnant by a wealthy boyfriend, got pregnant, and became a prostitute. Nixon touted April and Ned as the show's new couple to watch when interviewed about the show's fourth anniversary. By May, Kathleen Fisk was dropped as Kelly. Kelly was sent to live with Zach and Lorna in San Francisco. Zach and Lorna had left earlier in the year on their honeymoon and never came back. During this time, Kelly was living with the Aldens. Kelly was replaced with Teri Polo's Kristen Larson, who was initially helping out Dave Hindman to pass his classes and then set her sights on Ned. Rob Carpenter also sort of disappears from the synopses around this time. His mother had abandoned him and come back only for the Carpenters to be evicted. Terry was leaving town to live with her new boyfriend and Rob seems to be left trying to find a place to live. My guess is the plan was initially to transition this group to Alden University, but clearly that never happened. Most of these characters are completely forgotten. April is trying to escape prostitution, then she is stalked by Alan Howard, and then she ends up being kidnapped by the man. When she started on "Another World," Alexandra Wilson declared that April had no real sense of identity and that "Loving" was extremely melodramatic. I don't think she was wrong. From what I've seen of Ellis' 1982 "Search for Tomorrow" run, Ellis can tell some very good character based stories, but he also has characters with extremely loaded backstories. He also could write very poor action adventure tales. I know some of the Alex/Clay and Ava clips feature a story about the duo crashing in the woods. Seems like Ellis was replaying his South American plane crash story from "Search for Tomorrow." In general, I don't think the teenage prostitution angle was the best story to explore less than a year after suggesting that Dolly Jones' daughter was the star of child pornography. At the same time you had April, Lily Slater did return to town. It may have been too heavy for the show.

Burke Moses left in 1987. He landed the role of Rapunzel's Prince in the Broadway production "Into the Woods" during the summer of 1987. Moses was given a 2 month leave of absence to prepare for the play. Curtis was shipped off to Germany. Moses and the production team couldn't reach an agreement about his return, and he was let go in September 1987. I'm not even sure they brought him back for an exit. In the initial news releases, the show stated they planned on recasting, but they dropped the character of Lotty. Judith Hoag departed in November 1987 with Lotty announcing to Ned she was going to Germany to join Curtis. Lotty and Curtis married the week of May 18th, 1987. Later on, someone asked about Ned Bates. I don't think he made it into 1988. If anyone has some more definitive proof one way or another, I'd be happy to see it. When Lotty initially departs, Ned does stay on as a border at Kate's, however immediately after Lotty leaves Ned learns April was leaving. Perry is still in the credits for November 16, 1987 while Lotty, Curtis, Marty, and April are all gone. Then, Steve is shot during the November 1987 bank hold up and dies in early December 1987, which lines up with Johnson's December 1984 start date. Ned would only have Kate to interact with. Cece, who was also living in the boarding house, was written out in December 1987. I just cannot see him staying on with no one to even be a talk to for. I think the Aldens always owned the mansion. I believe Johnny Forbes, Roger Forbes' father, had made his own money through his construction company, Forbes Construction, which was a pretty prominent business during the Marland years. Credits are hard to come by for "Loving." Without seeing scripts, it would probably be hard to know. Then, of course, you have the questionable authorship of 1992, which I don't know if that ever will be cleared up other than asking Addie Walsh directly. Albers seems fine, but Curtis is such a different character due to no fault of Albers. The show had changed so much since 1983 when Curtis was a rascal and conniving schemer. Taggert and King clearly are playing him as Trisha's brother so that is why he is always in the orbit of Trucker's sister. It makes for a tight B-story to the Trucker and Trisha story, but I just don't find it all that interesting. It would have been interesting if Jeff Hartman had managed to woo Curtis to his side through promising to help his career at Alden Enterprises through the production division and played Curtis' divided loyalties. The Dan Hollister murder story doesn't interest me because Hollister is such a ill conceived character from the spy story. To be fair, I have similar issues with Patrick T. Johnson's Curtis, who Taggart and Guza introduce. His Curtis cannot escape the mold of being Trisha's brother even though the potential of a Curtis / Dinahlee / Clay triangle is intriguing. Even with Trisha gone, Curtis is still tied to one of Trucker's siblings (Buck). I do think Albers played a much lighter version of Curtis very well. One of the moments I enjoyed from his run is when Curtis crashes Trisha's bachelorette party in drag with Dave Hindman. This was inspired by a real life incident where Albers, Randy Mantooth, and a couple other male cast members crashed either Lauren Marie Taylor or Noelle Beck's baby shower also donning women's clothing. The bulk of the Trucker / Dinahlee / Curtis stuff is pretty even keeled, in my opinion. Curtis is clearly suffering from post traumatic stress due to his experiences with Dante and is refusing to recognize the need for help. It puts Dinahlee in an interesting spot as she does want to protect him. Dinahlee clearly loves Curtis, but she is not in love with him. There is actually a decent scene between Dinahlee, Curtis, Gwyn, and Clay at Pins where they are all trying to support Curtis despite all their twisted relationships with one another. I even can handle most of Curtis tricking Trucker into thinking Trisha is alive because, well, she is alive. I start to lose my favor with a lot of things around August 1994 when Curtis manipulates the airplane that kills Janie Sinclaire and Jessica Collins leaves. Clay pops up alive in mid-January 1987 and Steve dies in early December 1987. It was probably 1987 that aired.

I know there is always confusion over Jill O'Hara and Susan "Sue" Michaels. Typically, that role is associated with "A Time for Us." Now, I've found a picture of Jenny O'Hara from December 1965 credited as playing Andy, a nurse and friendly confidante to Linda Driscoll, on "A Time for Us."

The guy I remember Conboy pushing was Troy Kurtis’ Nico Castana, who lived with Danny and Michelle because Danny felt guilty as his parents died due to mob violence. Kurtis auditioned for Tony Santos when they hired Stephen Martines. I believe Nico was created for Kurtis. The guy had no story, but some hype. When Conboy was fired they briefly played Crystal Hunt’s Lizzie with Nico. Lizzie was present when Nico OD on Delerium at the rave. Kurtis was one of the first ones Wheeler let go. Kurtis left in May 2004 when Nico left to pursue his music career in New York where he was suppose to stay with Drew and Jesse.

I have an early outline for this show somewhere. It was suppose to be very different. As I remember, Baylor Duncan, George Hamilton's character, was the main focus. I also feel like there may have been more of an action/adventure story going on. I think some of the original was filmed because they scrapped the original concept when there was a change in producers. The material was repackaged as sold in Europe as "The Last of the Power Seekers." I didn't know that Lana Turner had left the series.

This has got to be one of Travis' last episodes in the first 20 minutes of the video. Travis dies in June 1984. I believe this is the start of a second revamp in a little over a year. When Joanna Lee came on, she shifted the show dramatically, but kept adding characters into the old and the new. So many of these characters are just new. Janet was written out in June 1982 after the move to NBC when the show was going younger to fit the NBC demos. As was already stated, she and Danny left for California. Nicolette Goulet and Patsy Pease. When Danny returns in 1983, he mentions his mother going to Europe I believe.