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Throughout the 1960s, I believe Bruce was in education. First, he was at a private boys school and by the end of the decade he was a college president (I believe). I think the journalism angle was in the early 1970s. In December, 1978, the Sterlings purchase a large home from Professor Timothy MacCauley (Sheperd Strudwick). MacCauley was also a lawyer who would be helping Betsy during her divorce from Eliot in early 1979. I think the house was on the college campus, or the edge of it, and that is how they brought Bruce back into the fold, but I may be wrong as I feel like Bruce and Van may have been both offered their positions in the first week of Marcus in May, 1979. I don't think that Bruce had many career stories in the last few years when he was a reporter. I seem to recall the big story for him in 1978 is when he believed he was dying and he tried to pair up Van and Andrew Marriott. I think Upton may have briefly tested Bruce with shop owner Faith Manning, but that was very late in Upton's run before Cathi Abbi arrived so I don't think it went anywhere.

I'm not super knowledgeable about the details of "All My Children," but didn't Dimitri Marick basically usurp that role (sans the accent)? I've never liked Jeremy on "Loving" mostly because he just seems to be so extra, but also because he seems to replace Giff, who was intially such a vibrant character before Addie Walsh got a hold of him. Killing off Jeremy would have been wonderful. What would you like to have seen done with Tom?

In those early rough days, Mina Kolb's Aunt Mary was a highlight for me of the original version of "Generations" when it was trying to do drawing room drama fretting over things like Adam Marshall living with two white women, Jessica's scandalous past, and attempting to humiliate Ruth Marshall when she joined the Women's Art Council by bringing up Vivian's work as the Whitmores maid. I know Kolb's background was comedy so I can see why they shifted in that direction, but it is a shame. When the initial change is made, Marla Adams' Helen Mullens fills that role before they soften her with the domestic abuse angle, the dead daughter Karen, and the connection to the Reubens family. I grew up on the NBC daytime lineup so I can see why "Generations" made the changes it did and it was creatively more engaging as a result. I am not sure anyone could have matched JER after 1997, not even JER.

I think Kathy's place on the canvas made sense, if not Goulet herself. Was the Kathy / Stephanie friendship a new thing under the Corringtons? I imagine Kathy's work with John Wyatt had put Stephanie and Kathy at least in the same orbit. I believe the show briefly tried Erich and Wendy, before that was abandoned. The bulk of Kathy's return under the Corringtons though was a reunion with David, or the possibility of a reunion. I don't think that gets very far though because the Corringtons may be there until May, they are on auto-pilot by late March. I also have to wonder, myself, if I would have more interest in Allison if someone other than Breon Gorman was in the role.

1992 is such a mess of a year. Addie Walsh seemed to be testing out a long tease of Trucker / Stacey in the spring of 1992 and then someone revived that in October when Trucker had amnesia and thought he loved Stacey. Beck's contract should have been up around December, unless it was extended due to maternity leaves. I know Beck agreed to stay on so that Taggart had time to properly write her out. I thought the show was planning on going Stacey / Trucker / Trisha / Giff. Who wrote the second half of 1992 is a bit of a question. Walsh (and Ryder, I believe) are credied, but Paul Anthony Stewart stated to the press they had no headwriter in the summer of 1992. There was a wiki article about Haidee Granger, I believe, that stated Granger and Walsh had butted heads and that Walsh left in mid-1992, but that's not reflected in the credits. I am pretty positive that if Granger/Walsh did come to blows, it was over the Cooper / Selina story. You are probably right about the direction being Dinahlee / Clay / Stacey / Jeremy. I never would have considered Jeremy / Dinahlee because Dinahlee / Giff had such a strong (non-romantic) friendship that I just assumed they were crossing out Giff's names from scripts at that point and inserting Jeremy's name in (not ltierally of course). Dinahlee and Ava were both present, if I recall, at the airport when the Ceara wig was murdered. The gaslighting story was one of my least favorites, though I felt the ending was much more interesting than it had right to be. Parlato was a saving grace and made so much of the material more engaging than it should have been. This was humorous to me because Larkin Malloy stated he took the job as Clay because Walsh was writing and she had written so well for him as Kyle on "Guiding Light." Malloy's Clay never seemed to be able to figure out a personality that worked best for him. None of Jeremy's stories worked well for me. The best situation he had was under Nixon where he owned the ad agency and was dating Gwyn, though this was hardly Gwyn's best situation. Jeremy could easily have been replaced by someone who cost less money than LeClerc. The Tess / Jeremy stuff seemed to be abandoned when Nixon abandoned the Clay / Gwyn reunion in favor of Clay / Steffi / Cooper / Tess with Jeremy and Gwyn off on an island for a bit. Was LeClerc that much of a draw, though? I got the sense that LeClerc wasn't getting much work in his final year or so of "All My Children" and that he seemed happy to jump ship. His comments in 1991 were that he liked being on the "Loving" set because of the faster pace of filming a half hour. I think he also may have alluded to onset tensions at AMC, but I may have misintrepreted what he meant. Genie Francis was definitely a name and sending her to Corinth to work in the office at Alden University made sense because Fran Sears had arrived in the summer with the plan of refocusing AU. The first stage involved the arrival of Giff Bowman and the art studio where Dinahlee worked as a model while Trisha managed the Alden family art collection. Cox was a treasure and its a shame what they did to Giff within the span of a year. I still think Cox's Giff was sacrificed for LeClerc.

I watched another week in February, 1990. The highlight is the Daniel Reubens story. This week the angst was mostly with Maya and Adam, who has followed Maya and Daniel as they leave Chicago. Adam learns the "truth;" Maya claims she is leaving to go marry an old boyfriend. Adam is a mess afterwards and has a very nice conversation with Sharon Brown's Chantal who notes that Adam is very soulful. It's a rather accurate description of Kristoff St. John's performance. Adam also alludes to how he feels Maya and Doreen are alike in the way that they have lied to him. Daniel and Maya come back to Chicago so that Daniel can fight to reclaim his freedom leading to Maya finally telling Adam the entire truth with Adam commenting he isn't sure how he can trust her when she lies. Meanwhile, Adam still hasn't let Maya in that Doreen is carrying his child so.... There's nice movement in Kyle and Sam's relationship. There is slow set up for a longer mob tale with lots of background action involving Kyle and Nestor complainign about an informant (who down the line is tied to the Taylor mob organization that was after Peter and who's leader is Jordan's father). The cop shop stuff is effective because it is very comical. Less comical is Sam's realization of how dangerous Kyle's work is while she watches him strap on. It's a nice beat that can real make you see why she wasn't just choosing Kyle because in many ways Jordan was a safer, more stable, choice. A picture from a photo shoot taken the previous August comes out setting off a series of nice scenes. One includes the revelation that Kyle knows about Sam and Jason being together in Los Angeles, but it is not clear if Kyle knows all the details. I imagine this was set up for something that might never have happened (much like a future scene with Jessica and Jason later). Sam calls her mother (who appears to be out of town already). Sam nearly leaves the Hale Hotel to resume her modeling career, but Jordan offers her the spokesperson job he already promised Jessica. All's fair in love and the hotel business. Jessica and Jason are looking for the money that Aunt Mary has had. The big moment in their story this week is going to see Aunt Mary who has been diagnosed with schizophrenia. During the visit, Mary assumes Jason is her brother Hugh and gives him some details that lead Jessica to think she knows where it is. The mother-son duo return to the Gardner mansion and cannot find the money. What is discovered by Jason is some paperwork surrounding a custody battle between Jessica and her father over Jason which Jessica proceeds to throw into the fire. I am curious what sort of intrigue they were trying to set up here. In the Jacksons story, Doreen and Martin go out for dinner to return to their house being ransacked and all of Doreen's jewelry being stolen, including her mother's wedding ring (the last thing Doreen has of her mother). The show plays the beat of Doreen feeling unsafe and Martin's rage but quickly shifts to Doreen realizing that this all too convenient given the money issues the Jacksons have and that Martin had insisted they go out to dinner. Doreen's intuition is correct and Martin is left scrambling trying to get the ring back. The show moves very well. It's a shame it couldn't maintain the momentum throughout the entire year.

I think the best crossover was Ceara's in October-November, 1991. The show very smartly tied Ceara's story to Matt's story as Matt had been falsely accused of raping a young woman that had actually had been raped by his preacher stepfather. Ceara and Jeremy were on the outs because of Ceara's fear of telling Jeremy about the incest that occured when she was younger brought about by her late father. The bond between Ceara and Matt was sweet; Francis and Wooddall had nice chemistry (big sister/little brother). The chemistry worked because Ally assumed Ceara wanted Matt and locked Ceara and Jeremy together so that Ceara would stay away from Matt. In the meantime, Jeremy had been Trisha's shoulder to cry on when she learned Trucker and Dinahlee had slept together while she was heavily pregnant. Pure speculation, I think the original plan for Jeremy's 1992 return was for Jeremy / Trisha. Jeremy / Stacey feels so underdeveloped. I think Jeremy arrives just as Richard Cox has been dumped as Giff Bowman and it was recently announced that Noelle Beck was leaving the show. Phoebe's 1993 crossover wasn't terrible as it was superficial and was slightly better than creating some snobby society character that wasn't revisited (though I did enjoy Susan Pratt's Elizabeth Barnes a year later).

Marcus moves quickly to rectify the issues that had been set in place during Jean Holloway's brief run. She wraps up the Bambi Brewster story and quickly shifts Van into the college setting teaching commerical art. Putting Van on the college campus opened up some story for the Sterlings in a series of interesting ways. I really hope one day we get to see some of the story of ex-con turned law student Steve Harbach having his sexual fantasies about Van. I wonder if Peters enjoyed that or was completely appalled. I think the younger characters introduced by Marcus were a mixed bag. Amy Russell is a good schemer and I like her partner in crime Joel. I think Steve is also interesting. I don't know what to think of Wes Osbourne because his character has such a terrible story to start (his romance with Gina Gaspero and her thinking she was pregnant when she wasn't). Lianne's sister Kelly and Judy Landers' Cheryl were introduced in January so it's hard to get a sense, but Kelly seems like a drip in that scene with Lianne. Cheryl seems to be a woman of mystery at this point so it's hard to figure what would have happened with her. I don't think Marcus' work on "Love of Life" is terribly originally as most of it was retreads of her plots on other shows. The rape plot involving Elliott and Betsy was sorta replay of Mark raping Iris when she conceived her daughter on "Love of Life." I think the Gina Gaspero plot was a variation on a story Marcus told with Patty Griffin on "Days of our Lives" but I think the pot brownie angle was new. The Tony has a child from his time on Vietnam was something Marcus had tried to do on both "Love is a Many Splendored Thing" with a returned Mia Elliott and with Chris Kositchek on "Days of our Lives." Also, the Amy Russell story was suppose to follow the projection that Marcus' Donna Craig story on "Days of our Lives" where Amy turned out not to be Bruce's daughter. Despite the replays, it seems the stories fit better onscreen in Rosehill than in Salem. Bruce was teaching law in the final year. I cannot remember if he was already practicing under Jean Holloway or if that was a move made by Marcus early in her run. I know Marcus put him at the college in her first week or so, but I cannot remember if he was working with Timothy MacCauley already or not. Bruce's law students included Amy, Joel, and Steve. I don't have much use for Ray Slater, a precursor to Sonny Corinthos. Under Holloway, they built an entire family around him with his parents and a younger brother and sister. Thankfully, Marcus cut most of them wihtin the first month but let Gina stick around to tell the younger set story. The show was cancelled very late in the game to the point that there may be unproduced outlines. Wikipedia (not the best source) states there 7, 315 episodes and Marcus has scripts thorugh 7,316 and outlines through 7, 320. Tudi Wiggins was leaving "Love of Life" had it continued. She stated so in the press. I don't think she and Cathi Abbi, the final LOL producer, had a good working relationship. It's a shame because I think Meg's final story with Tom / Lianne while she was faking paralysis was fine. I wonder what would have happened had the show continued. I suspect they could recast, but I also wouldn't have been surprised if the show pivoted to Tom / Lianne / Andrew as there was some setup between Andrew and Lianne while Tom and Meg were involved. Throw in an anchorless Mia possibly wanting to get back invovled with her ex-husband while Mia and Lianne's siblings were dating would have kept things messy. As I believe I said above, I have little use for Ray Slater. There were ways to make him work, but it was unnecessary. Pages back, I think I suggested they should have gotten ugly and repaired a pregnant Arlene with Tom (or maybe Ben?) while Ray sought custody by marrying Meg. Meg needed a stronger enemy than Lianne. I also had her going up against Amy Russell after Meg discovered that Amy wasn't Bruce's daughter. I think the cancellation notice came within four weeks of the show's final episode. They were still introducing new characters as late as the final ten episodes. I think Cheryl might have premiered in the last week. Kelly Wilson was only there for about three weeks.

@GymnastGuy Thanks for posting those episodes from 1980. I watched the first couple from 1980. The first one was very good. I suspect it may be a Patrick Mulcahey script. Stephanie Wyatt is the kind of character that Mulcahey can breathe life into with minimal effort. Using the custody battle outcome as motivation for Stephanie's seduction of Martin is a nice move. Stephanie's motives are devious, but I love the way that she just manipulates Martin through telling the truth and withholding important details. The inneudo filled conversation between those two were great. There is such an easy chemistry between Aniston and Cheatham. I really enjoy Stephanie's relationship with Steve Kendall years later and I wish there were more Stephanie / Martin conflict over Stephanie's involvement with Martin's newly discovered son. I thought Renata's comment about living in fantasies given her actress background was insighful. There seems to be a bit of chem testing between Renata and Marc D'Antoni, but I don't think Marc and Simon are around much longer. Is Simon still blind at this point or was his blindness cured? I can't recall. I am curious about the decision to end the Laine / Gary / Carolyn scenario because I suspect that the Corringtons are recycling elements of it with Renata / David / Kathy. Wasn't Carolyn involved with Marc because of the interest in his son? Similar to the set up between Renata and Marc? In addition, Kathy was brought back to revive that conflict for David, though I think the law firm was still very important to the show at this point in time so having an extra lawyer is nice. I wonder if the Corringtons purposely repeated it or were simply already creatively shot. The Italy stuff is not my cup of tea. I don't care about Prince Tony especially since it complicated Renata's already complicated situation. She was the illegitimate half-sister of Travis who had been an actress, novice nun, and a nurse who was now raped by an Italian prince, who dies at the hands of terrorists. It's just all too overheated. Bless Rod Arrants for playing it all with a straight face. The Boilermaker story isn't my favorite. The dynamic between Cissie and Lee is workable, but I don't really care about Beau. I had forgotten that Beau was trying to use the Inn as a front for gambling at one point as this was why he was trying to get Stu to sell. Stu's heart issues were earlier, correct? I'll be curious to see the summer 1980 episodes.

I watched a bit of January, 1990, today. I forgot how they managed to take Rob Donnelly, a character I found pointless and expendable in the first half of 1989 and gave him such a strong sense of purpose. In the aftermath of the scandal with Sam, his insta marriage to Jessica, and being accused of murdering his stepson Jason, Rob decides to find a new path investigating a piece of his own personal history. As a student, he had worked in a lab with Dr. Daniel Reubens, who had been investigating the drug Rioxin. Reuben's wife, Amy, had died shortly after taking it and Reubens lab work showed that it was dangerous. Rob as Daniel's champion is a great facet to the character, and I don't know why the show would even consider keeping Ian Oglivy's Reginald, who is supporting at best. The show minces no words when it comes to the Daniel Reubens story. Rob states that Daniel's investigation was about a black activist taking on white corporate America. In "archival" footage, Daniel states that Rioxin was released in areas dominated by people of color because Newton Labs were using the residents as guinea pigs. Throughout this, there are little beats too that I just couldn't imagine seeing today. As Daniel Davis, Reubens is running a community clinic out of the back side of Wilson & Friends, the bookstore that is housing (and hiding) Daniel and his daughter, Maya. In the clinic, Reubens treats Ana, a young mother, who has agreed to bring her son to Daniel for a flu vaccination and convinces her to bring her grandmother who is afraid of doctors because of the importance of the elderly being vacinated. When Daniel attempts to flee Chicago because Rob has started investigating, Ana returns to discuss the booster and learns Daniel is leaving and makes it clear that she too doesn't trust the medical community. I couldn't see anything like this playing out in the last twenty years of daytime. I haven't gotten there yet, but I am pretty sure it's revealed down the line that Kate Wilson, the "Wilson" of the bookstore, is a college classmate of Rob and possibly a former girlfriend. In any posiiton, Kate is a positioned as a potential love interest for Rob. It is very interconnected.. There is more Sam and Kyle shenangians (which I do enjoy) with bits of Jordan Hale thrown in. There was a snide little comment made by Sidney, bellhop who is friendly with Jessica and hates Sam, commenting that Mr. Hale never whisked him away to New York with a jaded bitterness that is just fun. I had forgotten all the side characters this show had like Lt. Nestor who Kyle calls Nasty and Ted Winters, who is Daniel's partner in the underground network that includes Kate. Gail Brinkley (Colleen Casey) returns for a moment to reveal that Aunt Mary's fortune is missing (Jason had promised it to his mother). Monique and Jason have been positioned into a supporting role at this point after their wedding which they really don't come back from. Doreen and Martin's marriage is struggling on two fronts: a) Doreen is pregnant by Adam and b) Martin's business dealings have left the Jacksons on the verge of bankruptcy. Fitts and Allen are great together. Sharon Brown's Chantal pops up to talk about how she is singing at a club. I think Chantal's singing was dropped when Debbi Morgan assumed the role. I wish Brown had been given more to do or a chance to play the Eric Royal story. Morgan is an incredible actress, but Brown wasn't really given a chance in the spotlight. I want to try to get to the housewarming bombing which is such an intense moment. I had forgotten it was at the end of February, not the start, so I have a few weeks to make it through before hitting it.

@EricMontreal22 Gilbert ends up kidnapping Ava and Sandy and dragging them off to some abandoned church which I think was in the middle of nowhere. While in this decrepit house of God, Sandy nearly dies and Gilbert ends up saving him. In the meantime, back in Corinth, Alex and Charles have tracked down Denise Nostrand, who had been the Hunter family caretaker, who revealed that she had taken Gilbert and told the family he had died, while telling Gilbert his family hadn't wanted him. It's Marian Seldes in a role that she gives her all to as the uncaring, unfeeling Denise. Gilbert starts to show signs that he isn't a terrible human being and Ava definitely starts to soften to him. I never really liked Ava and Jeremy; I thought LeClerc and Peluso had workable chemistry but there was not really a story to tell. I thought Gilbert and Ava MIGHT have a bit more possibilities. Eventually, Alex arrives at the church and shoots Gilbert in a moment of hostility when Gilbert really is not threatening Gilbert's life. There was a question of whether or not Alex went to far in shooting Gilbert which left Ava in the middle. By that point, I wasn't super thrilled with the rest of the canvas other than elements of the youth set (Cooper and Ally were fighting over Casey's drug problem impacting Tyler as I think Tyler got into Casey's camera case where he was keeping coke and Casey and Steffi appeared to be growing closer during a drug induced photo shoot where both of them got high). The Tess / Stacey / Buck hijinks were stupid. I remember not enjoying Danny at all. I don't think there was much Alden story from what I recall, but it's not a period I commited much too. My DVDs end at January, 1995, so I mostly know of the pre-murder stuff from what I've read, but honestly very little of the final months of "Loving" appeals to me. I tried watching the murders during COVID but they were just so plot heavy that I couldn't really find a reason to continue. The pre-murders B&E includes a lot of the early stages of Angie / Jacob and the set up of Bree and Lorraine Hawkins with the write out of Cooper and Casey (both actors contracts were up). There was also the exit of Elizabeth Mitchell's Dinahlee who runs off to tell Trucker she's pregnant again. Then there is the drug storyline ending in Casey's murder and the silly FBI agent Carolyn stuff.

I haven't watched the 1980 episodes yet, but I remember looking into the 1980 summaries a bit after deep diving into the 1981 summaries. From what I recall, there is some interesting set up with Beau Mitchell when he first arrived. I think he had previously known the Adamsons as he had carried on an affair with Ted's ex-wife. I don't think the Prince Antonio / Renata stuff is of any interest to me. The royalty element was recycled on "Texas" in a story that could have been better than it was. I thought Cissie seducing an impotent Lee was an interesting point, but that might be much later than January. I didn't think much of Allison Snowden as a complication for Travis / Liza, but I felt like there was some interesting stuff with her father, who owned a news agency, that was quickly swept up under the rug. I think there was a bit of a cast turnover late in 1979. Gary, Laine, and Carolyn are all dropped or leave about the same time. Then, the Mitchells arrive and Cathy returns with Erick and Doug. If I recall, Kathy's return seemed to be setting up complications for David and whoever his current romantic partner was (was it already Renata?). I remember reading the summaries and feeling like it was a rebuilding period cut short because of the Everything sorta comes to a halt in March, 1980, when it becomes clear the Corringtons are leaving. It feels like the Mitchell story is centered so that it can carry things over until Grover and Porterfield arrive in mid-to-late May. The exact date is definitely in this thread. From summaries, I thought there were interesting elements during Grover and Porterfield. Spence Langley posing as Brian Emerson is a story I would love to see. I think Wendy posing as Dawn and Spence posing as Brian as they fell for each other was intriguing. The fire at the condo complex that killed Renata seems rather dire, but also fascinating. I think Grover continued the Cissie pregnancy story. I'm not sure what the intentions of Dr. Jamie Larsen were, but I don't think that Grover planned for her to be a domestic terrorist as was revealed under Lemay or maybe under Upton. Grover headwrote with Norma Monty in January - February, 1992. I don't think she and Porterfield worked together as I think they were divorced by that point, but I could be wrong.

Tess was best when Agnes Nixon wrote her. A cunning career woman who's outer hard shell hid the pain of low self esteem that had resulted in her pre-Corinth life in an eating disorder during her days as a model and an abusive marriage to the very dangerous Dante Partou. Nixon's Tess could bed down with barely legal Cooper because she understood some of his disappointments in life and could unintentionally play into his past trauma. The brittle Tess of later days lacked finesse. She was painted with a narrow palette which limited her relatability and her longterm entertainment value. I think Curtis' death was plot driven. He was brought back as a red herring in Stacey's murder and then he was killed off so that he could be eliminated as a suspect. I think my other issue with "psycho" Curtis is that it was such a small part of Curtis' history on the show and it also negated the root cause (his experience with Dante). I think if they delved into how Curtis was trying to protect Stacey from Buck, who had screwed him over in Kuwait, there would have been more natural ways to explore Curtis' rationale. If I ever were to revive "Loving," it would open with Curtis Alden coming out of a multi year coma and revealing that the final year of "Loving" was a figment of his imagination. And his psychologist would be Lily Slater. I think "Loving" was smart to kill off the characters quietly in comparison to more higher profile deaths like Alice Frame Winthrop on "Another World" in the same period. My introduction to so much of "Loving" was the old RATS board postings. The very small online audience was pretty chill with all the ups and downs in 1992-1994, but the wheels started to come off when Brown and Essensten started even before the murders. I don't think they were loving "Loving" from what I recall.

I think there is an argument to be made for darkness throughout the show's run, but the show is barren physically and emotionally in those final months. I don't think a lot of those other stories cited can claim that. None of the telefilm plot carried over into the day to day, even though it should have. The original incest plot and even Jonathan's deal with the devil were embedded to the show's fabric, not the entire canvas, which is basically what the serial killer story becomes. In ending a series, the powers that be decimated its history and eliminated the hopes of the people who had watched by eliminating any hope of life continuing on in Corinth after the show had concluded. I found a lot of the writing choices during the serial killer were early of a systemic problem in daytime in the 1990s onward: the brief glint of energy from obliterating years of longterm story and characters without putting any effort into what was to come afterwards. If the show didn't downplay the grief, I think I might have been more interested. Or if the Lorraine / Charles stuff spilled into the City than maybe, but it doesn't. Lorraine arrives and is shifted elsewhere. I am glad Christine Tudor Newman got a chance to shine, but otherwise what a waste of a legacy. And, as much as I enjoy the final performance, it doesn't make any sense what was going on with Gwyn. There was some kind of split because part of her knew it and part of her didn't. God bless Tudor Newman for comitting to the material even while in Trisha drag. I think the "Loving" murders reached the audience it wanted to, and left the ones who had supported it in the dust. I think it was deemed okay because "Loving" didn't have a massive fanbase. If any other show ended that way with a similar tale,

I'd agree it was by design, but I struggled to find it worthwhile at my current age. In the past, I really enjoyed watching the scenes of Tracy paying a group of working actors to play her family. The concept is hysterical and the execution of drunk Lila, gay Edward, and twink Ned is well done, but at the end of the day it fails to capture the real tragedy of this: Tracy was cut off by her family. Watching Tracy's 1993 exit, this is such an emotional wound that there needed to be at least a beat or two covering the real pain that was attached to all of this. Not just it being ammo for Tracy to use to emotionally manipulate Gino. Everything I watch from late in the run is so catty and bitchy. Maybe watching it for a half-hour a day its entertaining, but I found watching stretches of episodes to be bleak. There was a need for humanity that was grossly missing. Or if it was present, it needed to be played up. And also, in my defense, my material gets very spot in the last six months.

@EricMontreal22 in case you missed this as I don't remember how far across the soap sphere this travelled outside this board. The entire show finished shooting before January, 1983. They shot a script a day, which was basically two half hour episodes. The shooting of scripts 26-33 were all done in December, 1982. When it was cancelled, Paul Kent and Dana Halstad came back and shot the conclusion to the serial killer plot when Francie found out that her father Frank had been the rapist/serial murderer and had been faking his paralysis. This was probably in June/July, 1983.

McCarthy and Walsh had also been associate headwriters under Nixon. So she basically had trained them in the vision she wanted. I don't always agree with their execution (almost everythign for the older crowd was trash except for Clay's hit and run). I thought Walsh "got" this version of Cooper / Ally / Casey better than she had in round one. I also think there was a sense of immense satsification getting to have the scenes in September 1994 where Cooper admits to Steffi that he had been molested, and not that he "wanted it" like Walsh had more than likely been forced to say in July, 1992. I find Brown and Essensten's stuff very hard to watch. There are some interesting stories (I think Lorraine and Brianna Hawkins were intriguing additions), but there is such nihilistic (maybe that's the right word) tone to their writing that I find it very hard to engage in. Even with the best of "The City," there is such a nastiness to all the proceedings that it hard to truly enjoy and connect with the material for me. I feel like Marcantel circa 1994 was approaching the hot suburban dad mode for me. Marcantel was hotter than ABC gave him credit for and Robert Tyler was a better actor than ABC expected him to be. Also, other than December, 1984 - June/July, 1985 Marcantel and Noelle Beck never got a chance to interact which seems like a huge shame. If Marcantel's Curtis had landed a strong pairing, they might have given him more of the Geary treatment. Marcantel and Peluso would have been dynamite together, but the timelines didn't intersect until 1993.

Nixon is clearly trying to replay Mike / Shana / Jim with Curtis / Dinahlee / Trucker in 1993-1994. I just don't think Curtis going to war was ever the best solution to any problem. I think resetting the character after the failed romantic entanglement with Rocky during Stan Albers run made sense especially with Rick Alden dead. Though, traditional romantic lead wasn't the original construct of Curtis. Curtis / Stacey had such potential. When Stacey punched Curtis in Vegas, I was shocked and delighted. Marcantel and Taylor were very natural together. I think a slow burn of those two together would have been dynamite. I liked Stacey and Buck, but I think there was a lot of space to explore with Curtis/Stacey especially when Jack returned. Also, Nixon had set up the reveal that the Sowolskys were entitled to all of the Alden fortune so having Curtis in a position to either go after Ava or allign herself with her while also involved with Stacey would have tickled me. Jessica Collins was great as Dinahlee, but I would have dumped Dinahlee in August, 1994, when Collins decided to leave. I would have let Trucker leave town with her and let Tyler out of his contract early. I would have kept Shana and Leo instead at least long enough to play out Nixon's answer to the BeLieF formula for "Loving." I think tonally Laurie McCarthy / Addie Walsh was more appealing than Walsh / Ryder in 1992-1993. The gothic conclusion to Gilbert's reign of terror (more than likely inspired by the Jonathan Maitland and/or Ryan Chamberlain) worked well for me. They also wrote really well for the younger set with Casey's mental health induced cocaine issues and Cooper / Steffi's romance against the backdrop of Clay's hit and run. I just wasn't a huge fan of the decision to ignore the set up that Nixon had built with Ava taking over AE being so quickly dumped.

@Vee Sometimes I have forgotten what I have read and what I have speculated. The bible laid out Rebecca's story pretty much to the mark early on (the hope for advancement at the law firm and the romance with the British attorney Lloyd Bradfield). I think Rebecca was also suppose to be more involved in the merger between Marshall Ice Cream and Midwest Equity or whatever the name of Martin Jackson's company was. The Whitmores in general had more going on in the bible for Rebecca to react to (Laura's affair, Laura's mother-in-law's Alzheimer's, Cory's attempt to recreate "The Graduate" with Jessica, J.D.'s engagement to transwoman Lisa Morgan, Sam's antics, Monique and Jason's relationship, and so on and so on). The aborted stuff from the bible was Peter's return in the first year. He was off living in Europe with a younger Italian wife, Francesca. Peter and Rebecca were going to run into one another in London during seperate vacations with their new partners. The meet up was the end of the story projection. Onscreen, there was a soft reset after the first thirteen weeks or so in the summer around the time of Doreen and Adam's affair. The relationship with Lloyd Bradfield is jettisoned despite Lloyd being played by British soap vet Ronald Allen (former David Hunter on "Crossroads"). Rebecca lingers on through the fall and into the winter before Pat Crowley is dropped shipped off on business to Japan, where she stays until Dorothy Lyman arrives. I suspect Peter's return was cut for two reasons: (a) cast size and (b) NBC's insistence [per the Dobsons] that the soaps cut back on hiring older characters. When Peter does arrive, Rebecca is no longer on contract and when Lyman arrives, her role was recurring. A lot of the best of "Generations" isn't online, but there is still a lot of solid stuff. There are also massive gaps in the tape trading circuit (most of April 1989, fall 1989, late spring-early summer 1990). Hopefully, "Beyond the Gates" will inspire some new discoveries.

The clip posted on YouTube was very interesting. I thought the dynamic between Peter Willis and Dr. Julie Franklin was very different for daytime, but on brand for the work of Rick Edelstein. This reminded me of how others had described the relationship between Johnny McGhee and Fran Bachman after Dave's death. I wonder if this was Edelstein's work or something that possibly inspired Edelstein based on the work of Anne Howard Bailey. I'm curious about the time period because I know George Welbes who played Tony had cancer towards the end of his run and his death resulted in Tony being written out. I am curious if Tony was still onscreen at the point this scene aired. I hope that someday some work of Brad Davis from this series appears. He is such a soulful actor in the work I've seen of his. I would love to see Alex Kronos' story. I really love the look of the set. I know it is very of the era, but I don't feel like that is the look of other series of the time.

No one that I know of was leaving other than Amelia Heinle since her three year contract would have been up in January, 1996. The show would have also had to deal with Wesley Addy's death in January, 1996.

Part of the problem with "Texas" was it was suppose to premier a month earlier. When the material started airing on "Another World" was when the actual premier date was suppose to be, but it was pushed back. I really love the early "Texas" stuff I've seen. The Southern gothic tinged revenge tale between Justin Marshall and Alex Wheeler over Mike Marshall's suicide and the whole Marshall clan reacting so differently to that was great. Striker Bellman as the tragic cuckhold realizing his alcoholic wife is hit the sheets with his "best friend" Alex Wheeler prior to having a heart attack is an amazing dramatic performance from the actor who was so folksy and comical. I thought the set up of Reena and Max with a dash of Justin was great as was the Sam and Justin pairing even if Ann McCarty wouldn't have been my casting choice despite her looking like Carla Borelli's little sister, which worked given they were cousins and Justin wanted both of them. The Middle Eastern plot is interesting because they never let Jasmine and Ryan have any physically affectionate scenes despite falsifying a marriage to keep her safe. I think the launch was a struggle. I probably would have opened with the surgery plot involving the Sheik and had the suicide on "Texas' proper.

Peter and Ruth were together when Peter was married to Rebecca, but Ruth didn't meet Henry, yet, I believe. Henry married Ruth knowing the child she was carrying was another man's. I think they even discussed this onscreen fairly early in the storyline (October/November, 1990). Ruth was a teenager, and may have been underage. I believe there is a pretty decent scene between Rebecca and Vivian where Vivian reveals the sordid truth to her former employer and Rebecca is disgusted by Peter and pretty sympathetic to Ruth, who Rebecca felt was taken advantage of by Peter. I want to say its in the Monday episode of the final week. Doreen was so entrenched in the Marshall orbit that playing a beat with Henry and Doreen was smart, and leading to the health crisis was also good symmetry. I would have been wicked and brought in Dr. Warren Jackson, Martin's father who had appeared previously in the story, to handle part of the crisis. I imagine the heart attack stuff would have led to Chantal learning that Henry wasn't her father with the truth coming out that month. I cannot imagine it wouldn't have been out any later than May sweeps. I will die on the hill that November, 1989 - March, 1990 is strong stuff. The racism storyline deals with so many different issues and leads to a climatic bombing scene where Joan Pringle gives an amazing performance where Ruth, in shock and soot stained after the bombing, attempts to maintain the facade that nothing is wrong. Pringle is just phenomenal. Jonelle Allen is equally amazing and gets her roses, but Pringle's Ruth is a hidden gem. The love triangle between spunky Sam, quirky detective Kyle, and debonair Jordan worked well. Maya and Adam have such a nice romance threatened by the secret of Danielle's paternity with Doreen connecting with Maya's father Daniel. Daniel's false accusation plot and Rob's investigation to clear Daniel is also just a really underrated piece of soap opera history. The interconnections across the canvas in this period are great. The summer of 1990 stuff seems more flat. I'm not a huge fan of all the recasts. I think Jorn Winter wanted more daytime names which is why Blacque was out and Reynolds was in. I thought I read Blacque was fired, but I could be wrong.

There were so many things wrong with "The City." I don't know if the blame can solely be placed on Morgan Fairchild's shoulders. Sydney didn't have enough connections to be the big bad bitch of Soho that they really wanted (needed?) her to be. Fairchild hasn't bothered me in what I've see, but Joel Fabiani is REALLY bad. Like embarassingly bad. I think they wanted to make Sydney more ambigious with the arrivla of Jared, but Jared was a non-starter with Fabiani in role. I would have recasted immediately and tried to make Jared work. The storytelling in the first half of the show is salacious as hell without the depth needed to make it work. It was Agnes Nixon strained through a Rikki Lake filter with lawyer Jocelyn moonlighting as a prostitute because her father exchanged her with other men as a kid for sex while also having an affair with Alex, who was old enough to be her father. Or the barely played relationship between mysterious model Azure C. and the embodiment of machismo Bernardo only picking up when they finally revealed that Azure was trans. I think both stories had potential to be very topical and very interesting, but the seedy misogyny needed the strenght of a Wendy Riche to make palpable. Instead of Levinson's GH, we get something so staged it should have been on Jerry Springer. In one of my "Loving" speculative fictions, Morgan played a recast Ann Alden Forbes who swoops in around the time of Cabot's (natural causes) death and causes havoc since Clay would have been written out (Parlato was leaving the show in 1995 either way). I would have kept Roscoe Born around as Dane Hammond.

There was a slow burn tease between Adam Marshall and Sam Whitmore that never went there. If I recall correctly, I felt like the original bible said they would get together down the line and had even positioned them in the same career orbit (Adam was going to become a male model and Sam was to go into the advertising game with Trevor McCallum and his hot shot colleague Rob Raelko, a pseudo-predecessor for Rob Donnelly). On screen, there was hints that the show might go there, but this was nixed. Additionally, Sussman had planned a romantic triangle between Laura Whitmore McCallum, Ruth Potter Marshall, and a white classmate from high school who had become a plastic surgeon. This storyline was also nixed, but I suspect was the origin story of the final tale. Henry Marshall knew that Chantal wasn't his daughter and that she was the child of a man who had abandoned Ruth. In the final week, Vivian told Rebecca that Peter and Ruth had had an affair, but I think it was made pretty clear early on because the notes about Chantal's paternity (Chantal was unaware) were being hit just as Peter returned to Chicago after several decades in Instanbul. Also, Ruth and Peter were growing romantically closer. I remember reading one of the soap encycolpedias in the late 1990s and being very curious about Chantal's paternity plot because the description sounded half-baked or hadn't completely reached fruition yet. I'm pretty sure it would have come out in February, 1991, sweeps so the story was pretty deep starting in late September. Yes. When James Reynolds arrived in August, the show started a heart health story for Henry that was slow burning throughout the fall. By late January, he had ended up in bed with Doreen and had a heart attack before anything happened. Adam walked in to find his father and the mother of his child in bed together with a closeup on Doreen's face while "To Be Continued..." flashed on the screen. Henry's fate was left up in the air. Doreen and Ruth's friendship detriorated once Ruth learned Doreen's child, Danielle, was actually Ruth's grandchild. At the same time, Peter Whitmore returned after years away and Peter and Ruth were brought together when Peter decided to restore his former nightspot, the Music Box, which I believe doubled as the rendezvous spot for Peter and Ruth's trysts years earlier. Caught up in the nostaglia, Ruth was drawn back into Peter's world. There was definitely some working of a potential Doreen, Henry, Ruth, Peter quad. I don't think Rebecca and Peter reconnecting really had a shot because I don't think Dorothy Lyman was intended for the long run, but I might be wrong on that. Ruth and Doreen also both wanted to sing at the reopening night of the Music Box, but Ruth landed the coveted spot. As I stated above, the Ruth / Chantal / Peter plot was more than likely borne out fo something planned in the bible for Ruth, Laura, and a childhood friend. In addition, Ruth revealling that she was hiding a paternity secret about her eldest daughter after reading Doreen for filth over Danielle's paternity would have set the stage for reconcilliation. I suspect Doreen would have sympathized with Ruth and offered her an olive branch while others would have turned on her. There was another interracial couple: racist Charles Mullens was carrying on an affair with Rita Barton, the wife of the security guard that Dr. Daniel Reubens was accused of killing. Charles had been tormenting the Marshalls when they moved into their North Shore home and was later revealed to be behind the bombing at the pharmaceutical plant that killed Rita Barton's husband. Charles' daughter Karen, like Daniel's wife Amy, had died due to a poisoned batch of cough syrup. It was also why Helen Mullens (Charles' abused wife) knew Maya; Helen briefly cared for Maya after Amy died missing her own daughter, Karen. It was a part of Helen's redemption arc (which included the domestic abuse) once they decided to keep Marla Adams.