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Edmund did perish. Some point in early 1979 Jill took Edmund to the Coleridge beach house (located on Long Island?). Jill put Edmund down to sleep while she sat in the dunes thinking about her problems. Before she left, she turned on the heater for Edmund since it was winter. While Jill was on the dunes, the faulty heater exploded. Jill found Edmund dead in the rubble only to be knocked unconscious by a falling beam. Labine & Mayer referred to Edmund's death for many years as they did with Mary's passing. In the 1980s, there was a Edmund Beaulac Pediatric Unit still in existence. I remember seeing Maggie appearing in posters for the unit during the St. Patrick's Day marathon that SoapNet use to do yearly for "Ryan's Hope". The beauty of "Ryan's Hope" is the powerful confrontations between the strong actors. People miss catfights, but I miss a good old fashion confrontation between characters. Unfortunately, today's characters are underdeveloped, plotlines are wrapped up too quickly, and non-romantic relationships on soaps are nearly non-existent.

Harding Lemay didn't say the show needed a core family, he said "The City" lacked a generational aspect to it. His complaint was the show was about a bunch of twenty-somethings. What I find interesting is that many of the fans of the show by either Tracey or Sydney, two older female characters. Based on those two episodes on youtube, Lemay's point seems to be proven. It is only when that generational aspect comes into play (Tracey vs. the Qs/Tracey v. Carla) that the show really becomes interesting. Considering Lemay's own work, I don't think he would say that core families are needed to make a show work considering the turnover of characters on his time on "Another World". He was stating that you cannot revolve a show around one generation, which seems to be a fair assessment.

Reving an old topic, someone has posted Christina's final speech from the convent where she revealed the fate of all the characters on "Rituals". Reading some old soap columns from the 1980s, it appears the Corringtons left the show up in the air because they weren't show if the show was going to be renewed, hence the big cliffhanger with Christina shooting her sister Sara. I have read Kin Shriner was departing the show at the end of his one year contract. I suspect he would have been recast since the show ended with both Dakota and Diandra pregnant with his baby. The other thing is most of the affiliates dropped the show after six months and by February 1985, the show wasn't airing anywhere in a primetime slot having been shafted to a late night or daytime timeslot. The show went through a major revamp in March 1985, when the show wrote off both Tina Louise's Taylor and George Lazenby's Logan, and brought on Peter Haskell and Lawrence Hilton-Jacobs. Jacobs must not have lasted long as I know that Randy Brooks talked about his time on "Rituals" and he talked about the interracial pairing between Lucky and Julia. I still wonder when the Corringtons took over from L. Virginia Browne. I think the Corringtons were probably the show's best bet as they had a strong history writing interesting characters in a Southern setting. After listening to Christina's speech, I will say they seemed rather bitter about the show's cancellation. Most of the characters suffered rather unfortuante fates. I do hope this wasn't there longterm goals for said characters. Here are some synopses from the last few months of the show. They come from a syndicated column called Before & After:

Watching these episodes for a third time, I am continually shocked by how great Labine & Mayer are, not that I wasn't aware of their greatness before. I know "All My Children" was known for being the humorous soap in the 1970s, but I think Labine & Mayer given Nixon a run for her money. Delia Reid Ryan, as wonderfully played by Ilene Kristen, had just been released from the psychiatric ward after faking mental illness to maintain her marriage to exhausted doctor Patrick Ryan. The great thing about the storyline is Delia is genuinely neurotic, the product of an unstable home life and unhealthy relationships with both Patrick and his brother Francis, but in order to keep her beloved Patty, she is going to pretend to be crazy. So she flips out during a dinner party and starts talking to cornish hens and later runs off to talk to "mama", a woman that has been dead for many years. Ever so patient, Delia sits their doing her nails besides her mother's grave while her husband and in-laws worry about her mental health. The problem of course is complicated by her jealousy, which results in irrational behavior. When she catches Pat and Faith sharing a tender moment together, she runs off to the family bar to throw a big scene about Pat and Faith's affair and then makes allusions to the fact that she and Pat had sex before marriage in front of Patrick's very Catholic parents Maeve and Johnny. This of course resulted in Delia's trip to the psych ward. Delia tried to explain that she had been given books about how to pretend to be crazy, but her psychiatrist thought the story was too unreal to be true. When Maeve Ryan learned from the babysitter Miriam George that a nice man was visiting Ryan in the park, Maeve deduced it as her one time son-in-law JAck Fenelli, the baby's wayward father. Jack had divorced Maeve's daughter Mary because he didn't want children, and Maeve was determined to have Jack reveal his true feelings about the child. So Maeve concoted a plot to have Miriam claim she beats Ryan so that Jack would tell the truth. Frances Foster had wonderful comic timing as she reveals that when Little Ryan is a pain she gives her a good whack, shocking Fenelli. Mind you this is a man who was so upset over his ex-wife naming giving their daughter her maiden name as the child's first name that he named the stray cat he found Fenelli Fenelli to maintain the playing field. Of course, this resulted in a rather humorous scene in which Maeve announces Fenelli has come out of the closet causing Johnny Ryan to drop an entire tray of dishes in the middle of Ryan's Bar. Currently, Tom Desmond has feelings for Mary, but realizes she is still in love with Jack so he concotes a plan with Maeve and Faith to lock Mary and Jack in the Ryan's basement until they can work out their problems. The episodes in the basement are wonderful from the scheming to get them in their, to Jack's admission that he's been the scared little boy from the orphanage who didn't want to share Mary, to Mary and Jack's near kiss. I'm usually not big on angst, but I was dying when Mary and Jack nearly kissed for nearly the first time in over two years. Damn, soaps don't do that anymore.The payoff was well done and the acting between Michael Levin and Kate Mulgrew is fantastic as is their chemistry. I was thinking about Jack Fenelli as a stock character, the strong male who doesn't like to share his emotions, which seems to have replaced the old fashioned male hero from soaps of the past. Audiences today often struggle to like this character (GH's Sonny, OLTL's John & to an extent Todd, GL's Jeffrey, among others) and I couldn't figure out why. I should hate Jack; the man left his pregnant wife to raise their child on his own, yet I care for him. I think it's because of his soft spot for the show's mother figure, Maeve Ryan, even if he didn't like Jack. In a recent episode, Jack called the house looking for Mary, drunk and upset, and when Johnny blasted him Jack replied that when he saw a walrus barking orders in the zoo, it reminded him of Johnny. This resulted in a chuckle from Maeve and Johnny slamming the phone. Jack & Maeve have such a wonderful mother-son bond even though he is only her son-in-law. Maeve's love for Jack is unconditional and his love for her is the same. Today's soaps don't allow that dynamic. Could anyone see Sonny and Bobbie having a heart to heart? On Guiding Light, Jeffrey ended up sleeping with Marah's mother rather than breaking bread. When I started watching soaps, the internet audience bemoaned the loss of friendships on soaps. Now, soaps barely have connection between characters outside romantic partners. If soaps really want to survive, they need to establish links between characters whether they be friends or foes. I don't think "Ryan's Hope" is for the occasional viewer. The stories are about characters who aren't flashy or glamorous, but who are well established and firmly grounded in the fictional world they live in. If you are looking for a quick fix, then you'll be disappointed. On the otherhand, if you give the show your attention for a few weeks, the payoff is well worth it. I don't think something like Mary and Jack's reunion has played out in daytime in quite some time.

A Mary Dobson-Collier wrote for "Santa Barbara" from 1991 to 1992. I assume this would be their daughter?

I believe it was Fran Sear's doing. Sears didn't last long after. By September 1992, Haidee Granger was the producer and she was there through at least August 1993 as she was the spokesperson to the press when Bernard Barrows passed away. Joanne Emmerich was there when Nixon was at her height in the summer of 1994. Of course Jean Dadario Burke was the show's final EP. "Loving" executive producers didn't last very long in the 1990s.

I've been using Google's news archive to search for old soap synopses. I found nearly complete weekly synopses for Loving from the beginning until about November 1986. I have some really weak synopses for 1987, but not as good as the ones for the previous years. There's enough to tell the basic outline of the story without going into all the details that some of the other ones. I haven't gotta to 1992 yet, and my older synopses start in the August 1992. Nearly positive the headwriter/executive producer for the episode you are watching are Addie Walsh and Fran Sears. I have a synopsis for the week of March 30-April 3 which states "Gwyn almost blew the plan to fool Hannah. Clay later told Gwyn he won't get Dinahlee out of town. Dinahlee decided to tell Hannah the truth. Paul and Ava went to New York to find Carly. Ally rushed Alpha Delphi, and idolized sorority big shot Staige Prince." Since this is the start of the college stuff, it really has to be Fran Sears and Addie Walsh.

Clay returned to town in late January 1992 looking for Trisha's approval. Apparently they wanted to pair Clay and Dinahlee. In one newspaper synopsis from that time states "Clay's determination to fix the vandalized bowling alley impressed Dinahlee", but later Clay spotted Dinahlee and Trucker together when Trisha was delivering Christopher. Clay told Trisha and Trisha was angry. Hannah arrived in town. Dinahlee apparently had been telling her lies about her life in Corinth as the synopsis for the week of March 2-6 1992 states "Just as Dinahlee was about to level with Hannah about her life in Corinth, Clay pretended to be her finace, Trucker Mackenzie." Why shouldn't she lie? She came to town to be the Forbes nanny and failed to seduce married man Jack and later suceeded bedding Trucker, another married man. Not something you really write home about. There doesn't appear to be much reason for Clay to pretend to be marrying Dinahlee other than his attraction to her, even though this seems to contradict his reason for returnign to town. So I would say they weren't hiding Clay's identity from Hannah so much as hiding the fact that Dinahlee was, to be polite, a bit promiscious. The assumption must have been that Hannah seeing her sister happy would result in her leaving town, but instead she ended up enrolling in AU. Most likely, Gwyn doesn't like Dinahlee because of her affair with Trucker, though Gwyneth isn't one to talk as she slept with most of Trisha's lovers. I do know there appeared to be a Gwyn-Dinahlee-Clay triangle brewing around June 1992 when Gwyn and Clay married with Isabelle on her deathbed. However, this seemed to be dumped when Clay left town. 1992 was a really choppy year for Loving. I think there were three very different headwriters (Mary Ryan Munisteri, Addie Walsh, and Millee Taggert & Robert Guza, Jr.) as well as two executive producers (Fran Sears and Haidee Granger). Yikes! The show did seem to settle by the time Granger and Taggert & Guza took over, but so much was lost in the shuffle.

From the December 24, 1975 Evening Independent.

Metro, a New York based cable station, aired "Central Park West" six or seven years ago. Oddly, in the weekly showings, they skipped over episodes 9-13, but on a Thanksgiving Day marathon, they aired the entire series. I was surprised how smoothly the show transitioned from "Central Park West" to "CPW". The whole Mark-Carrie mess was revealed resulting in Stephanie and Mark returning to Seattle as Adam Brock arrived looking to purchase Communique. Overall, though, the show never completely gelled. The canvas had interesting characters, but they never really seemed to be used well. Rachel Dennis was a wonderful manipulator, but her receiving the title of editor was rather anti-climatic and she was rather dull in the CPW episodes. The potential of the Carrie-Rachel rivalry was always there, but never made it to complete fruitition. I couldn't understand dumping John Barrowman's Peter. Nikki never seemed to have much of a story (other than a romance with a hitman/artist in the unseen episodes). BTW, Melissa Errico's antics were the basis of a plotline on Star's WB comedy "Grosse Point". When the show was writing of Marcy Stenfeld's character Kim, Marcy pulled the same stunt. Star said in an interview that an actress on Central Park West had done something similar when she was killed off, and Errico's Alex was the only female to bite the dust.

I believe Kyle was played by two actors. Kyle and Maggie's one night stand is revealed. This happens about the time Greta starts sleeping with Billy. Greta gets pregnant and contemplates an abortion around the time that Matt and Maggie have it out over the one night stand. Doreen is said to plan a memorial for Stacy in FrenchFan's June synopsis. Is it possible Doreen was the mother? Eleanor Conrad appeared when Althea and Scott had started dating.Althea was aware of Eleanor, but she wasn't there initially. Eleanor was insane and released herself from the hospital and attempted to befirend Althea. Althea convinced Scott to return to Eleanor, and later Althea was paralyzed. Eleanor stays on as Luke's sugar mama. I believe Doreen forces Luke to end it with Eleanor and Eleanor attempts suicide. Wendy returns to worry about losing her mother's money. Wendy blames Luke for her mother's condition. Eleanor awakes and gives Wendy her inheritance as long as they part ways.

I was mistaken. For some reason I was thinking Barlow and Scott were the Konners. The summer of 1981 would have been written by scabs, so that means Levin came in either right before or right after the strike.

re: Ann Larimer According to SOD synopses, Steve and Jason tracked Ann down to Brazil in August 1977. Ann claimed she miscarried and when the Aldrich brothers left she called the doctor who was going to deliver her baby. In September 1977, Steve was concerned that the Ann hadn't sent back the annullment papers as he was planning on marrying Carolee. When the papers did arrive, Ann also sent a 'no claims' clause, which puzzled Steve but was intended to keep Steve from taking the baby from her. Before Carolee and Steve's November 1977 wedding, Ann is mentioned as a possible threat to the union. She isn't mentioned after that. re: Doreen Doreen's father Evan arrived in November 1977 when Doreen agreed to divorce Jason. Evan was devasatated to learn his daughter had been cheating on her husband and he disinherited her. In January 1978, Doreen flirted with newly arrived doctor, Colin Wakefield, who performed surgery on Erich Aldrich and was revealed to be Sara Dancy's old married lover. Doreen and Jason lived in Dallas before arriving in Madison. re: Dr. Croft In an June 1976 (the March 1976 synopsis) SOD that Matt posted online, Winston Croft told Mona he would divorce her if she didn't return to Boston with him. So Mona and Winston were still married in March 1976. I assume the union dissolved shortly after. re: Toni In Manuela Soares "The Soap Opera Book", "The Doctors" was in the process of recasting Toni, but apparently that was dropped. By August 1977, Mike was involved wth Sara Dancy and considering marriage. re: the plague Hilary Bailey Smith once said in SOD that one of the reasons behind the plague on "The Doctors" in 1982 was that a lot of contracts were up and they were using that as a way of negotiating. Who got sick besides Mona? re: Lemay The Christmas 1981 episodes were written by Lawrence and Ronnie Wenker-Conner, but Lemay wrote the New Year's Eve episode so Lemay started in December 1981.

This appears to be an episode featuring many storylines that were coming to an end or slowy beginning. I don't know the specifics about Jack and Stacey, but it does appear that they are trying to start over fresh. Stacey is definitely referring to Jack when she mentions the football hero (in the premier Jack came home from New Orleans where he was playng college football) so she knows who he is. Stacey and Jack would have gone on a long road since they were last together. Stacey witnessed her best friend Trisha's husband Steve take a bullet for her and her son only to learn her husband Jack was sleeping with his first love Lily. Stacey became involved with Rick, wrote a novel about being in love with the two brothers, and underwent a custody trial with Jack where the Judge suggested Stacey break it off with Rick. While Stacey was with Rick, Jack became involved with some woman named Juliette. Rick ended up drugging Stacey into marriage and getting her pregnant with baby Heather. Rick was murdered by Denny in the summer of 1990. Gwyneth was deadset on seeing Stacey go done for the crime. Unfortunately, Gwyneth's friend Norma knew otherwise. Rick and Denny had invested in some shady deals and faked kidnapping baby Heather so that the Aldens would turn over the ransome money. Something went wrong, and Denny ended up killing Rick. The Clay story is complicated because it went through at least three sets of writers (Ralph Ellis, the 1988 scabs, and Tom King and Millee Taggert). At this point, the show is delving more into the Maine murder mystery that brought Trucker to town earlier in the year. The bullseye is a trigger for Alex or Clay to kill the other, which is why Clay is playing with the bow and arrow. Alex and Ava have split at this point because Alex had spent a good chunk of the year on a secret govenment assignment. He simply disappeared and he was believed dead. Ava and Clay became close during that time and Clay appointed Ava in charge of Amourelle, the cosmetics company at AE that was the center of a lot of action in the late 1980s/early 1990s. Alex returned angry that Clay and Ava were close and separated. A bitter Ava took Sandy and asked to move in with the Aldens out of spite, and because they had believed Sandy to be their grandson (his full name was Cabot Alexander). This is why Ava is happy to see Alex at the end of the episode. James Horan played Clay until about June 1991 when Clay left town after divorcing his wife Carly, Ava's sister. Larkin Malloy arrived in January 1992 and had a dalliance with Dinahlee Mayberry, who had slept with Trucker during Trisha's second pregnancy. Malloy had surgery and Dennis Partlou took over as a temporary replacement in November 1992 and when Malloy returned he was fired. Partlou played Clay until his death in July 1995. Brian Fitzpatrick played Mitch Beck on AMC before he played Rick Alden. I think Rick was murdered in the spring or summer of 1990. Ava was sent to Florida with the kids during the "Loving" murders. I assume they never recovered from Ava's affair with Gilbert Hunter.

I think the Aldens, for the most part, remained a fairly dynamic and interesting group of characters, barring the mid 1980s (around 1986-1988) when they seemed to declaw the show's main schemers Lorna and Curtis by pairing them in fairytale romances. Honestly, I cannot understand why Dane never returned beyond the brief 1990-1991 stint. He was a major catalyst for angst for that family. Granted, Anthony Herrera was probably very busy with ATWT, Loving never seemed against recasting. I also never saw any reason for the Tim Sullivan storyline unless there was a change in the production staff. Paul Slavinsky (Joseph Breen) was Louie's gangster son who ran a club/casino? Off Limits (does anyone know if this was the same club/casino that Harry Solowsky had earlier run). When he arrived on the scene, Millee Taggert and Tom King were headwriters, according to Toups credits. It seems that Ava and Paul were going to marry circa June 1991, but then Paul was paralyzed, got out of the mob, and hooked up with Carly, whose husband Clay moved to California only to return in January 1992 in the form of Larkin Malloy. At some point in 1991, Mary Ryan Munisteri took over and she focused on the Paul on his recovery and placed him and Carly in a love triangle with Paul's therapist Flynn Reilly. Addie Walsh took over in 1992 and focused on the college crowd. In August 1992, Carly announced to Kate and Ava she and Paul had married, but I think this occurred offscreen.

It sounds like "General Hospital" and "One Life to Live" were in the same boat at the time, talked about, but still not the top rated show. When I was thinking of "All My Children", I was thinking of Lorraine Broderick's more social consciencous tenure, which was post-"Loving". McTavish's AMC probably was more in line with "Loving" in terms of characters and plot. I still don't think of "Loving" as a soap dealing with deep issues because when they did, they skimmed over them. The aforementioned Cooper Alden sexual abuse plot was shoddy and thankfully rewritten later on when Steffi and Cooper were in prison together. Around the same time, Dinahlee got a letter saying she had been exposed to an STD, but nothing happened with that. Angie was exposed to HIV, but that plotline bleeded into the aplastic anemia storyline with really only giving Angie and Charles a reason not to sleep together. Kate run for office was a side plot, though I've seen it mentioned in soap books as if it was a major plotline. 35 Maple St was an interesting venue to explore social issues, but I don't it really did. I thought Louie's prostate cancer could have been given more time and sent a message, but it petered out because of Ally's pregnancy. When I think of "Loving" in the mid-1990s I think light drama/romantic fantasy. Ava and Dinahlee stealing Leo's car, Leo/Shana's attempt to have a baby, Cooper streaking to save Steffi from Deborah, Deborah's marriage to Clay, Ava in heaven, Casey/Ally busting Basil the drug dealer, Ally pretending to be possessed by the spirit of Abigail Alden, Ronnie/Betty, Curtis pretending Trisha was alive to keep Dinahlee away from Trucker, Gwyn's romance with Jeremy, Dinahlee stripping at the opening of 35 Maple St., Ava and Leo's romance overseas, the Cradle Foundation, the Dante Partou storyline, Trucker calling some madame to get a reference for Tess, Curtis going to Dunellyn because he thought Jeremy was possessed by the devil (a comical subplot spoofing Days possession storyline), Stacey's fantasy where she ended up alone while Ava was happily married, Trucker and Casey dressing up as female nurses to get Trisha to her wedding, and Stacey/Gwyn fighting over Buck. By comparison, the last year was very dark and bleek. Was there any plotlines during B&E's tenure that had a happy outlook? Overall, it my opinion that B&E lucked out with "Loving". They came in with a whole bunch of characters leaving and they were able to do some okay exit storylines and introduce some okay characters, and then they were asked to gut the show so they never really had to provide "Loving" will a solid canvas or any longterm storytelling. re: Angie. To be honest, I don't understand why Debbi Morgan had to play Angie on "Loving". I think Morgan was a fairly big name in the soap world and could have been introduced to "Loving" as a new character. The show never gave Frankie much to do. Angie arrived in August 1993 to consult on Shana's pregnancy. Patti was suppose to have developmental issues, but what those issues were left fairly vague. Shana later gave birth in a storm. To be fair to Morgan, she definitely was part of the better half of the class of '93. A slew of characters were introduced that year. Amelia Heinle was introduced in January as Steffi, originally calling herself Mia and taking money to seduce Cooper or Casey. Curtis returned played by three different actors (one in January, one in June, and one December). Buck was introduced in March 1993. Tess was introduced in May 1993 ala Dinahlee as a new nanny (Dinahlee was initially JJ's nanny before Dinahlee bedded Trucker ruining his marriage to Trisha in 1992). Mac Huston and his girlfiend Dolly appeared throughout the summer to scam on Trucker. Angie arrived in August with Frankie. In September, Alex returned. In November, Charles and Dante arrived separately. I didn't like the Tess/Buck/Curtis story. Later, Taggert tried it on "Guiding Light" with Bill and Beth with even less success. Three newcomers shouldn't dominate a soap in a storyline that really just never developed into a whole lot of anything. I never understand how Catherine Hickland made it to "The City" when she had so little story on "Loving". Having not seen the actual episodes, and summaries being sporadic, I didn't feel B&E were building up to the serial killer. I felt like the show had two major storylines during their run: the drug storyline (January-June) and then the serial killer storyline (July-Nov). Neither storyline was "Loving" and while I think that the serial killer storyline may have been alluring, their wasn't enough else going on to keep the audience around to follow the survivors to "The City". Lorraine was on "Loving" for a short period of time. She arrived in August 1995. She and Charles had been high school lovers and he was revealed to be the father of her daughter Brie, who was a model that dated Frankie. "Loving" was certainly integrated under B&E featuring Charles, Angie, Frankie, Brie, Jacob, and Lorriane, but their storyline was fairly weak.

Brown and Essensten were writing much longer than just the serial killer storyline. The serial killer plot didn't start until July 1995. Even if Brown and Essensten's work was filming in January, they were writing from at least March to mid-July before Stacey ended up dead. There early stuff was painful compared to what had been written in 1994, even when Nixon left. To be fair though, the suffered some major blows with the departures of Robert Tyler, Michael Weatherly, and Paul Anthony Stewart in the course of six months. Jacob Johnson's background story was too similar to Charles accept for the fact that Angie was obviously falling for a Jessie imposter. After all the build for Charles and Angie, it was a fairly one-sided triangle and I don't think many liked Angie breaking her martial vows to Charles to sleep with Jacob. The Charles/Lorraine storyline seemed pretty boring and predicatable with the never before daughter popping up. It felt rather blah. Neal Warren's storyline was interesting but never really developed. It was nice to see Kate dating again and pulling the plug on his wife was interesting. Then, the revelation he had slept with Gwyn's mother was another interesting turn, but then the show was over because Gwyn had knocked most of the interesting characters off. Casey's descent into drugs was a fairly dark storyline for a show that defined itself in the mid-1990s as mainly escapist entertainment. Casey's death in the shootout was a bit much and I didn't even find Casey that interesting. I thought Ally was made a fool when she was paired with Danny, who was responsible for her husband's death. I wonder if Taggert was on the staff at the time because Ally/Danny had a very Danny/Cassie vibe when Taggert was writing "Guiding Light". Tess faking Steffi's stalking left a bad taste in my mouth. Steffi was alone and pregnant and Tess was doing it for publicity. I didn't mind Tony Soleito, but Stephanie and Cooper were such a wonderful written couple under Nixon that Tony and Steffi seemed like sloppy seconds. I'm glad that Brown and Essensten wrapped up the Trisha stuff, but it was weird to have Dinahlee return to the Aldens with the letter, especially since Elizabeth Mitchell had very little to do during her time on Loving. I under Robert Tyler had already left, but Trucker should have been the one there to resolve that storyline. There was some stuff I like under Brown & Essensten. I liked the Stacey/Curtis pairing. I liked the heart disease storyline with Deborah. I believe Essensten and Brown were breakdown writers for "Guiding Light" during its golden period. As breakdown writers they are fairly good in my opinion, I found both "Days of our Lives" and "One Life to Live" very good when they were in charge of breakdowns, whereas Sheffer and Higley could waver respectively during their stints. Wasn't AMC more succesful ratings wise in the 1990s? I known both AMC and OLTL are critically aclaimed for their realistic issue oriented storylines around the time "Loving" was on its last legs, but "Loving" and the other two had a completely different feel. "Loving" of the 1990s was more a fluffy little soap that was more escapist than realistic. Also "Loving" preceded AMC in most areas so I think they were hoping to grab the AMC audienec a half hour earlier I never understand why the Loving and AMC crossovers happened. Was Jeremy really that much of a beloved character that they expecting his move to "Loving" to spike the ratings? Debbi Morgan as Angie was definitely a coup, but she was certainly out of place in lily white Corinth when she arrived. Frankie floundered without much story for most of his time on "Loving".

I would kill to see "Bright Promise". There is a wonderful site devoted to Susan Brown's work and unfortunately this is the only soap they seem to be lacking information on. What a pity as it sounds rather fascinating once it dumped the Boswells and the college and focused on the antics of Sandra Jones and the Pierce family. The set up for the later episodes seems like classic soap with the Martha/Sandra rivalry and the Sandra's marriage to Martha's brother. I would love to see the storyline with Anthony Geary playing David Lockhart who turned out to be the illegitimate son of the late Sylvia Bancroft, who Martha went on trial for killing. I think both Bright Promise and Return to Peyton Place should have been given more time to develop.

Kin Shriner played Mike, an eccentric artist. Mike was initially involved with Lacey and when Lacey lost the baby Mike and Lacey had Dakota carry a baby for them. Dakota was initially played by Claire Yarlett, but during the artificial insemination storyline Marybeth Evans plays her. I believe Mike was around until the end, not sure about Lacey or Dakota.

There is an excellent book called "Prime Time Network Serials", which I belive is the source of the information Paul Raven posted. I have the book. Usually it runs for a 80 to 90 dollars, but if you check Barnes & Nobles Used Book section there tends to be some that come up in 20 to 30 dollar range. Definitely a worthwhile book for PTS fans.

I have an article from late January 1995 saying Brown & Essensten and Jean Dadario Burke are new to "Loving". So I suspect either really late 1994 or early 1995. I would say there work was airing in January as that is when the Gilbert stuff ended and the show became especially dark. Personally, what I've read of their tenure wasn't very good outside of the serial killer plot.

I was just discussing "Rituals" in another post. With the success of all the primetime serials, someone decided it was time to syndicate a soap opera nightly. The show did, however, end up airing in the daytime or mid-evening in some markets. Recently, FOX was going to try something similar with a telenovela platform called "Desire" before the creation of MyNetworkTV. "Rituals" problem was certainly poor ratings. I think it had 2.0 or less at the time, which was terrible. Several reasons can be cited for the show's failure. I believe in the course of the one year run there were three headwriters causing the show to change focus every few months or so. Initially, the drama surrounded the death of Katherine Haddon Chapin and the reprocussion of her will which required the executor Logan Williams (ex-James Bond George Lazenby) to stay a year to evaluate the conditions of the will. Other drama focused on the international love affair between Diandra Santiago, who escaped her war torn nation to work as a domestic in the Chapin family home, and soldier-turned-cop Tom Gallagher. Tom had a secret past involving the suicide of an old girlfriend and Diandra's father was involved with revolutionaries who eventually kidnapped Tom. Tom's sister Noel was the Erica Kane of the series attempting to bed playboy coke addict Brady Chapin, who was more interested in actress Dakota Lane. The show had another couple, Lacey Jarrett and Mike Gallagher, who were dealing with the complications of living together before marriage while Lacey was suffering through a difficult pregnancy. Early on though, there was some press about Ronald Regan's daughter playing a femme fatale Marissa Mallory, who I believe was a student of Mike's who became obessed with her. There was a big squabble in October 1984 about Patti Davis reportedly not showing up to work after she had filmed two episodes. Later, Janice Heiden finished out the role, but was gone by the end of the year. Around this time, Joann Pflug departed the series citing moral reasons for her inability to play the show's rich bitch Taylor Chapin von Platen. Most of the initial cast was gone by January 1985 and the storylines changed focus. Dakota Lane agreed to be Mike and Lacey's surrogate, which seemed to spark a Mike/Dakota/Brady triangle, while Mike's niece Noel did in her nasty father Eddie in February 1985 in a murder mystery that was a promotional attempt to bring in some ratings for the floundering serial. No one stayed around to watch Noel admit her crime or fall in love with her psychiatrist. Taylor departed in February as well and soon after her ex-husband C.J. Fields. I suspect that the Corringtons may have been behind C.J., who fought Taylor's half-brother Carter Robinson for the family fortune. In the early episodes, it had been established that Taylor married C.J. to revive the Chapin family fortune, which was the reason she had dumped Logan Williams (who I think may have intended to be the true father of Taylor's daughter Julia, but I'm not sure if that ever played out). C.J. and Carter were the focus of the final months of the series, which saw Taylor's return in August in the form of Francine York. C.J. became the governor of Virginia, Carter had control of most of the money, and Carter's wife Christina was in a convent after shooting someone (maybe her sister Sara who Christina mentioned was dead in her final monologue). The other major storyline that got the show some attention was the pairing of Julia Chapin Fields and Lucky Washington. Julia was C.J. and Taylor's daughter who was initially involved with Cameron Bernhardt, a wealthy man who lived in a villa in Acapulco. Julia later lost Cameron to another one of the Haddon Hall girls, Patty Dupont, who he married and left town with. Lucky Washington was the son of Maddie Washington, the black housekeeper for the Chapin family. Randy Brooks, the second actor to play cop Lucky Washington, said in an interview around the time he arrived on "Generations" that he received some interesting mail when he was paired with Andrea Moar. Ultimately, low ratings prompted affiliates to drop the program even as producers scrambled to salvage the show, which was something they had been doing since day one. The series was initially based on Charlene Keel's book about college girls who were falling in love with their drama professor, just as their mother's had years before. A pilot was filmed with Philece Sampler, Renee Jones, and Barbara Crampton playing the girls and Joe Lambie playing the professor. However, the initial concept was scrapped several months before the show started and I believe Gene Palumbo created the original on-air concept for "Rituals".

Most people liked that the Ava in Heaven storyline hinted at what was suppose to come in the next few months. Uncle Harry gave Ava several prophecies: - Someone would return (Cabot's return from the grave) - Someone would die (Janie Sinclaire, but I suspect the original victim was going to be Dinahlee) - Someone would come into their own (Ava & Kate getting possession of Alden Enterprises). When did Agnes Nixon's work stop and Laurie McCarthy and Addie Walsh's work begin? July 1994 was awesome, but by late August things were already getting murky and appeared to be rewritten.

Steve went to see Ann in Brazil. I'm not sure if it was to settle the divorce or to confirm whether or not she was pregnant. Anyway, Steve left Brazil believing his marriage to Ann was over and there were no ramifications lingering. Ann definitiely made it clear that she was indeed pregnant with Steve's child. I should be heading home within the next couple weeks and I'll see if I can locate the old SOD articles I have on The Doctors. I had the ones on Love of Life on a computer that I believe has been trashed since then unfortunately.

I liked what I've read of Agnes Nixon's 1994 return. Egypt was well intergrated and set off the well loved Ava goes to heaven storyline. I like how Egypt faked her death and then later blackmailed Buck to get her out of town, supposedly they'd slept together in the past. I believe Curtis burned down PINS for the insurance or out of revenge. Fall 1993 was a weird time with stories starting and ending rather quickly and changing midcourse. I seem to recall within a month Gwyn got pregnant, she ran off to Vegas with Buck, and then miscarried with Clay by her side. I had heard many liked Roya's Ava better and I think you have the Strasser/Wyndham comparison right on. In the later years, Ava wasn't as money hungry and needy as she had been, though it was hinted at in two storylines (the pairing of Ava and Leo and later the outcome of the Cradle Foundation storyline). Peluso's Ava seems rather mellow. Most of the Aldens ended recast at some point. Had the show continued past 1995 I'm sure Cooper #2 would have arrived on the scene.