Paul Raven

Through 78 and 79 under Marland and Pat Falken smith GH was still heavily hospital based with a mix of storylines. The Doctors would have been fine had they followed that template. Once GH went with Ice Princess all bets were off.Who knows how much TD would have copied that direction? And OLTL, DOOL went in that direction quite heavily while other shows dabbled in far out stories. The thing is that TD was well set up for an expansion.

@jmgaw did not refer to Luke and Laura. Throughout 78 GH's ratings continued to rise as AW's fell. That turnaround was getting a lot of attention in the soap press with Scotty/Laura, Rick/Leslie/Monica etc . So the 90 min decision was a reaction to that. I guess the thinking was that 60 min expansion had worked so starting AW a half hour before might keep viewers from switching to GH at 3pm. I don't think anybody really thought it would work. The most sensible solution would have been to expand The Doctors and hope for a GH like turnaround, but for reasons unknown TD never went to an hour.

Hotel no doubt benefited from the Dynasty lead in and didn't move until it was jettisoned to Sat night wasteland to play out a final season. Maybe it should have been moved earlier to perhaps bolster another night and allow ABC to nurture another show in the post Dynasty timeslot when the former was still a ratings winner.

Sounds like a must miss. Victor and Nikki's love story is about control, addiction and manipulation. As for their children, with over a dozen marriages b/w them I think the ship has sailed on success with love. The only thing more important than Lauren/Micheal's relationship is getting some airtime. Hopefully Jack's special gift to Diane is hiring a decorator to redo the manse.

Yes, and by the time the 2000's rolled around Katherine was a saint and a dynamic business women. Hard to connect with the drunken lush isolated in her mansion of the 70's.

I think the Ralph story was a one of those Kay redemption stories that came up every so often where she would vow to make better choices. I guess Ralph appeared at the mansion for work and was friendly towards Kay and Liz encouraged it. There would have been a bit of comedy with haughty Kay attempting to relate to down to Earth Ralph. How it was resolved I don't know. Maybe as simple as Kay announcing she wasn't interested? Did Liz and Kay ever interact until Jill got pregnant/Phillip's death? I don't think so and at that point they would not have been friendly. Liz very much knew her place in dealing with the likes of Kay Chancellor.

Finland seemed such an odd choice for a location shoot. ATWT went to Greece and later Spain while GL had Tenerife and there were others in that timeframe. But Finland not being a known tourist destination or offering the tropical/sunny atmosphere usually associated with location shoots seems off brand. Maybe they were negotiating a deal with a tourist association and it fell through.

Just thinking how the Ruth/Leticia guest spot really cemented how Days had changed. Stunt casting with a campy/comedy character in a 'wacky' storyline was something that a few years previously would have been completely out of place on Days (and most other soaps for that matter).

I am interested to see how they handle Leslie/Dana down the road. If she continues in this path, it would be unrealistic to have her around. Like other shows have done this with a 'villian' character and ended up with people looking stupid putting up with someone they detest. Another thought-could they be building up to a murder story? Maybe Les/Dan will be left in a coma and we will have a whodunit with several characters as suspect. It would also be a chance to redeem her I wonder how long the show will go w/o resorting to soap cliche stories-twins,switched at birth, murder mystery, long lost child etc

Daytime belonged to CBS. They would have been making a lot of $$$ with that lineup. For context, this is the lineup at that time. Only one soap on ABC (GH) and NBC (TD) which was still an anthology at that point. So it wasn't until the opposition added more soaps that they became competitive. NBC CBS ABC 10:00am Say When! CBS Morning News LOCAL 10:25am NBC News 10:30am Word for Word I Love Lucy (R) 11:00am Concentration The McCoys (R) The Price is Right 11:30am Missing Links Pete and Gladys (R) The Object Is... 12:00 Noon Your First Impression Love of Life Seven Keys 12:25pm CBS News 12:30pm Truth or Consequences Search for Tomorrow Father Knows Best (R) 12:45pm The Guiding Light 12:55pm NBC News 1:00pm LOCAL LOCAL The Tennessee Ernie Ford Show 1:25pm 1:30pm As the World Turns LOCAL 2:00pm Let's Make a Deal Password 2:25pm NBC News 2:30pm The Doctors Art Linkletter's House Party Day in Court 2:55pm ABC News 3:00pm Loretta Young Theatre (R) To Tell the Truth General Hospital 3:25pm CBS News 3:30pm You Don't Say! The Edge of Night Queen for a Day 4:00pm The Match Game The Secret Storm Major Adams-Trailmaster (R) 4:25pm NBC News 4:30pm Make Room for Daddy (R) LOCAL

Has BTG been using flashbacks much? Of course, as a new show there aren't many f/b worthy moments but I think they can get by w/o having to use/recreate the Leslie reveal scene. What other 'soap' tropes have they employed or ignored so far? We've talked about the lack of traditional cliffhangers with lingering camera shots. They have done a couple of fantasy scenes. Has anyone apart from Dana had talk to themselves scenes? Montages?

French fan summary Rusty took over Simon's job at Lewis Trucking after Simon transferred to Lewis Oil's North Carolina office to live near Jessie and Calla. I doubt they would bother following up a story for offscreen characters eg marriage and a baby.

Those Soap Central profiles have a lot of incorrect info. According to SOD summaries and the Daytime Newsletter of the time,Tim left town for a new job and Pam reunited with the father of her baby and also departed Springfield.They did not marry.

Do we believe that Jabot is at the level of Estee Lauder?? I am on board with Jabot deciding to expand but the way it was handled was ridiculous. Jabot just decided and bingo, that was that. Not months of negotiations and decisions about how it would fit into the Jabot portfolio. And then no follow through. Josh thinks he's serving business stories by characters sitting around and discussing mergers, takeovers and job switching. Now we have Audra setting up her own company -Vibrator or something. Well, why not? You don't need staff, office space or even products.

No, but that wouldn't stop Josh.

I wonder if Ruth ever saw this fake ad.

Which could make sense , except that we have seen Mariah function for years w/o any real residue pain from her upbringing. Josh decides to randomly make it a thing, when a good writer might foreshadow that for months. It's not like he's just arrived at the show. He's been there for years . Everything seems to be thought out only a few weeks ahead. It's like Phyllis all freaky from being kidnapped when she has done a million other things that didn't seem to bother her at all.

Yes, Billy was all nostalgic about the Abbott home and didn't like the changes,yet he had no second thoughts or respect when completely renovating Chancellor. He could have actually mentioned that misguided step as evidence to Diane that these type of changes can backfire.

Vernon actually had a cravat not a turtleneck. I didn't like Nicole's dress with her breastes prominent.

Yes, and we never see them at work. Cassidy First-yet another company that served no purpose except an Oprah like 'you get a company and you get a company...'

And of course none of this is seen on the show,just told second hand. Can I ask who Mariah works for these days?

I never understood the point of Marchetti. Summer left the show for a job there in Italy. OK. When she returned they had Jack buy the company. Why couldn't Summer have returned and simply stated it was not a good fit, she missed her home , family/friends etc It was absurd that this internationally successful fashion empire could just be bought by a US cosmetics firm at the drop of a hat. What was the point when they never did anything with it at all? Summer simply could have gone to work at Jabot. And wasn't there some nonsense about an offshhoot called Marchetti Home? Was Phyllis attached to that at some point? This show...

Haven't seen today's ep yet but so will be interested to see the clothes. So far I think they have been very character specific (even if I don't like some of them eg Kat's cutsie style) Anita is very showy/glittery, Nicole classic elegance, Dani sexy/bold colors etc. Unlike Y&R which seems much more generic. Also BTG pays attention to the men's wardrobe and has developed a style for the boyz-which is harder to do with male fashion. The absence of any of Derek/Ashley at any of these big events again demonstrates how they are in a different universe to the rest of the show. Not that a nurse and a fireman would be there but still they seem destined at this point to stay in their own lane and have little interaction with the core of the show.

Agnes had written for Bernard Grant for many years on TGL as well as Ernest Graves and Joe Gallison,Doris Belack,Robert Milli,and Antony Ponzini at AW. So she would probably gravitate to writing a role with an actor in mind or choosing someone she had written for before who she knew could deliver.

It's quite unusual for this type of announcement to come out the day before a last appearance. We usually hear weeks before. eg Billy Flynn's impending arrival was announced weeks ago and he's yet to air. Will Nick get to farewell Summer.? Are he and Sharon still off air visiting Noah?