Paul Raven

@tonymidnight and all GL and Marland fans. Doug Marland interview from SOD August 16 1982. This was was conducted a few months before he left the show. As I was typing I had some thoughts that I'll share later, but for now I hope you enjoy and we can have some discussion. An interview with Guiding Light head writer Douglas Marland Will Guiding Light ever beat its #1 competition General Hospital? While lunching recently with Emmy award winning headwriter Doug Marland, it quickly became obvious to me that this is a man totally dedicated to making Guiding Light the best soap on the air today. He is a man very proud of his craft and very well versed in this phenomenon called soap opera. During the two and a half years he's been writing Guiding Light, Doug has completely overhauled the show adding many fresh new faces and sprucing up old favorites by creating innovative, provocative stories for them. In the interview that follows Mr Marland takes a look at Guiding Lights past. Present and future. Can a #1 rating be far behind? SOD How did you become a soap opera writer? DM I started out as an actor.I'd been an actor all my life , up until eight years ago. I was on TD and ATWT. I always wrote as a sideline, though. It was a way to ease my frustration when I wasn't working. I guess it was the last two or three years of my acting career that I found myself wanting to spend more and more time writing. SOD What was the first soap you wrote for? DM I worked on AW for a while and then NBC asked me to take over as headwriter for TD. From there I went to GH. It was thrilling to be part of the rebirth of a long forgotten show that even the network thought was a turkey. It was probably the single most exciting experience of my career. SOD Why, Doug after you helped catapult GH to #1 in the ratings ,were you suddenly fired? DM I think I was fired because Gloria Monty (exec producer of GH) and I are two equally strong creative forces and I was just as strong in my convictions as she was in hers. We came to loggerheads. Also,it was very disconcerting to me that the writing was never mentioned as one of the reasons for the success of GH. Once I brought that out into the open, once we reached that point,there was no return. SOD How did you get to your present position as headwriter of GL? DM Well, after GH, I wrote ATWT for a while and then P&G switched me over to GL. When I started watching GL I was fascinated by it. There seemed to be a lot of potential. Of all the shows I've written GL is my favorite. I like the feeling, the chemistry of GL -the family ties and values, the family love. I adore the Bauers. The values the characters hold give me a great jumping off place for things to stem from all kinds of storytelling. The show was very well set up. I inherited the wonderful Alan-Hope romance and had the pleasure of marrying them. And I had the pleasure of killing off Roger Thorpe, who'd been the villian of the piece for eight years. Although I hated to lose the actor who played Roger, it was fun to devise a way to give him a finale equal to his talent. SOD What were the elements of GL that you felt needed to be changed? DM One of the things that bothered me about the show was that there weren't any teenagers. Because I love writing young stories the best, I wanted to bring in some young characters. So that was the birth of Morgan and Kelly, and I changed some of the other young characters like Kate, Hilary and Floyd. And I brought Tim back. It's been wonderfully exciting to see how the audience reacts to these characters who were new two and a half years ago. They're standard characters now. SOD How do you conceive your characters? Are the based on your imagination, from newspapers, or from people you know? DM I think a combination of the three. They're all brought about in different ways. Kelly is a very special character to me. I think we all tend to project something of ourselves into our characters if we're going to create a hero. After I brought Kelly on, Nola came about, That was a lucky day!I wanted a girl who would be from the other side of the tracks. That was the other problem with GL-everybody had achieved. Everybody lived in a nice house and nobody worried about money,I thought “We have the haves, where are the have nots? I remember we were testing for Morgan and suddenly on this tape of Morgan's came this red haired, big brown eyed girl with a throaty voice who had a sound different from everybody else. I sat there fascinated. This girl was no more like the Morgan I envisioned than the man on the moon, but I couldn't take my eyes off her.. I had to get her under contract before anybody else did, because she was wonderful. Since I wanted to bring on a have not family, I put Nola in the boarding house as the daughter of Bea Reardon. So that's how Nola was born. Everything else has come from what Lisa Brown has brought to the role. SOD Do you discuss with the actors the direction you want their characters to take? DM Yes I do, especially with the young actors. What I really do with most of the characters is watch, and the first time I see it's terrific, I call the actor or actress and say, “That's dynamite. You've got it, now just stay with it”. SOD Do you listen to the actors when they suggest storylines and /or changes in the direction of their characters? DM Oh yes,I always listen. But I don't think actors are the best judges of where their storyline should go, because it's all tied into them personally. I always listen if an actor doesn't understand why a character does something or where he's coming from. I'm a firm believer in open communication. The better the communication, the better the show. The old myth about a headwriter being some strange, mysterious person who sends his material and says hello to the cast at the Xmas party is awful. I'm trying to destroy that myth. I go to the studio and socialize with the actors, talk to them. You write better for the actors when you get to know them as people. Sometimes when you get to know them, you find another side of their personality that you never find onscreen. SOD Do you have any favorite characters? DM I'd love to say that I don't, but I do. Kelly is one of my favorite characters. I love what he stands for as a human being. I love the fact that he can be wrong. I love the fact that he can be crazy jealous, which is an insecurity. Kelly can cry and still be a man, and I think that's today's man. Hilary is a woman you can see doing anything side by side with a man. She holds her own. Her brain works. She's very much representative of today's woman, who's out in the world doing things and has a life of her own. Yet they still want a home and a family just like the woman who stays home all day. I love the character of Morgan, because she's layered and complex. Nola is one of my favorite characters of all time. Floyd knocks me out. He's dear, gentle,talented. Carrie is an incredible character. I love them all, but I'm partial to the characters I created, because they're mine. SOD What do you think makes an actor stand out from the rest? DM I think it's a combination of the storyline and the actor playing the role. You have to have a multi faceted character with a lot of things boiling inside and then cast an actor who can pull on various sides of that character. You have to fascinate the audience so they never know what to expect-What is – going to do tomorrow? SOD Where do you get your storylines from? DM If you keep your characters alive and consistent, they tend to create their own stories. I guide them, but they do make their own plots. I don't believe in telling a plot – no matter how good it is- if it isn't right for the characters. You have to keep your characters, more or less consistent. If they're going to change, you must build up to that. You can't change them overnight. The audience has to understand the character's motivations. I'm interested in telling stories that work for my people. SOD Do you prefer writing for the lighter characters, like Floyd, or more serious ones, like Kelly? DM I enjoy them both. A writer needs relief from the heavy drama as much as the audience does. It's a wonderful release to switch from a tense, dramatic moment to a lighter one. If there's too much intense drama all the time, the show becomes top heavy. SOD What are you most proud of accomplishing on Guiding Light? DM I guess I am proudest of the young people I have brought on that have been accepted by the audience. They've become an important part of GL, and if I took them out now, the audience would scream. If I'd taken them out a year ago, the audience would have said 'Thank God you got rid of all those kids running around.' SOD Many viewers complain that the soaps have become too youth centered. What are your feelings about that? DM I don't think youth has been overdone but I'm willing to say I might be wrong. The interesting thing is that the kids I brought in two and a half years ago as teenagers are now young adults. In another eight or ten years they will be where Ed and Mike and other older characters are now. If I could reply to all the people who complained about the teenagers I brought on, I would have said, “Now wait a minute. When you started watching Guiding Light, how old were you? How old was Ed Bauer? How old was Mike? They were the same age as the people you are now complaining about. I really want to sat to those people, “Give the new characters a chance. Give the people who are watching the show for the first time the same chance to identify with the young people the way you identified with the young people when you started watching the show.” I like writing the young characters because I think the audience can forgive them of almost anything. It's much easier to forgive a 22 yr old than a 32 yr old., because you feel that by that age you should know better. There's a vulnerability in youth that is appealing and exciting. SOD Another complaint we hear frequently is that there are too many divorces on soaps. Why is that? DM I think that its because you only have a limited number of characters, What you are doing is taking the population of a town and trying to represent with 30 people what goes on in today's society. The divorce statistics are incredibly high and you do need to keep freeing characters for new romantic entanglements. I don't think the divorce rates on soaps are out of sync with society today. SOD Do you think you've made any mistakes with 'Guiding Light'? DM Perhaps that I didn't fight harder with the network's decision to drop some of the older characters. If that decision hadn't been handed down to me, I would have worked harder to find them something to do. SOD How did you feel when Guiding Light won the Emmy for best writing last year? DM I was shocked because I though General Hospital would win. They were a solid #1 and the most publicized soap in the history of daytime television. I had no clue we would win. I just expected to go to the Emmy awards and have a wonderful time. I also felt vindicated because when you have been fired from your job and then win an Emmy...it was a wonderful vote of confidence from my peers. SOD Do you have plans to bring any minorities onto Guiding Light? DM Yes I do, in fact. I created the first black characters on GH. I'm going to bring a minority family onto Guiding Light some time soon. I'm working on a storyline now. SOD Do you always become involved in the casting, or do you usually leave that up to the casting director or the producer? DM I'm very involved in casting. It's important because the writer is the only one who really knows the characters and where he wants them to go. I've approved every new character who has come onto the show, even if other people didn't want him in the role. They never fight me on it. Having been an actor myself, I have an instinct for actors and what they can and cannot do, SOD What about the current trend towards celebrity guests on the soaps? DM I have mixed feelings about it. As far as Elizabeth Taylor is concerned, I think that to bring her on as anybody but Elizabeth Taylor is wrong. (Miss Taylor had appeared as Helena Cassadine on GH) People believe soap actors are real not actors. Suddenly there's Elizabeth Taylor on the show playing someone else. I really think it explodes the 5 day a week reality and the believability of the show. I don't think there's anything wrong with bringing her on as Elizabeth Taylor if there's a place where she would logically fit in. We're going to be bringing a lot of name people to Wired for Sound on GL. We'll have singers coming on as themselves to sing their hits. That's a realistic situation to bring these people into, and there's nothing wrong with that. SOD What is your hope for Guiding Light's future? DM To beat General Hospital in the ratings! That would be wonderful. Seriously, I just want Guiding Light to be a good, healthy show that everyone is proud of. I want it to be a show that everybody enjoys and really cares about.

When did Sharon Osborne join GH?

I just can't with the Jack v Victor battle. Do they really think we want to sit through another rehash of a story that's been done so many times? Eric and Peter probably aren't given scripts-they just repeat lines they've said so many times, they could recite them in their sleep. Still not sure why psycho Martin chose to kidnap Sharon and Phyllis- 2 total strangers? Like he didn't have enough on his plate impersonating his brother and romancing Traci?

It will be put on contract and be in the opening credits.

I think everyone involved tried to forget it. I wouldn't be surprised if it didn't get edited down to movie length and renamed for a video or syndication release. Friends had a short run in the dreaded Sun @7 slot against 60 Minutes. It was about 3 kids, one of whom was Jill Whelan (Vicky from Love Boat) Between her and his own children Aaron seemed to have a thing for putting homely kids onscreen.

As though the messages and representation on nightime TV was any better at that time. Yes, a lot of TV Guide articles and interviews in that era took a very high handed cynical approach . Biting the hand that feeds them in a sense. Meanwhile readers were watching Beverly Hillbillies and Bewitched in droves.

Aaron Spelling discusses the failure of FAA. Kudos to him for fronting the press and not trying to make excuses. Aaron Spelling: made mortal by a miniseries The veteran producer with hits in almost every format ran into trouble with his first miniseries try, but remains in demand for series material. "It's a shocking blow to me. This is the worst shellacking we've ever taken. Now I know what producers go through when their series don't work." As one of Aaron Spelling's characters once used to say: "That's no brag, just fact." The producer of such current hit television series as Charlie's Angels, Love Boat Fantasy Island, Vega$ and Family (all on ABC -TV) is hardly used to failure. But by any objective criteria, that is just what happened four weeks ago with Spelling's first attempt at producing a miniseries. The three night, six hour run of The French Atlantic Affair on ABC (Nov. 15, 16 and 18) fell far short of delivering the numbers networks like to see during rating sweeps- 13.4/22, 9.7/17 and 16.2/25, respectively. Or, as Spelling puts it, The French Atlantic Affair "could be one of the biggest disappointments in miniseries history." Production problems plagued the program -the least of which was a delivery to the network of the finished print less than a week before airing. Shooting was completed by Spelling's crew last Sept. 21, which left only seven weeks for post -production work. (One of his series hours customarily gets six.) Also, the show did not develop as an original concept with Spelling, and he suggests that he was never totally committed to the idea of doing it. As Spelling tells the story of the ill -fated Atlantic, the story was first offered to him as a feature film. He was not convinced it could float in that format but did see possibilities as a miniseries. Then Anthony D. Thomopoulos, president of ABC Entertainment, entered the picture with a plea for an action- adventiïre miniseries for November. Thus the miniseries was christened. "But I don't want that to sound like a cop -out to the ratings. The one thing you never know about in television is what can work and can't work. By all indications this should have gone through the roof. It just didn't." But Spelling, who has made something approaching 2,000 hours of network television programs over a 25 -year career, remains undeterred. He admits that he is not enthusiastic about another miniseries, but he feels as confident as ever in his independent companies' abilities to turn out series television. In addition to the four programs he currently has on ABC and Family, which will make its season debut at the conclusion of the football season, Spelling has also placed B.A.D. Cats, a police action adventure series, on ABC - TV. And his list of credits is one of the most impressive in Hollywood. Beginning in the 1950's with Dick Powell's Zane Grey Theater, Playhouse 90 and Desilu Playhouse, Spelling went through the next decade making such series as Burke's Law, Kaiser Presents the Lloyd Bridges Show, Honey West The Smothers Brothers Show, The Guns of Will Sonnett (whose title character, played by Walter Brennan, was renowned for the "no brag, just fact" line) and The June Allyson Show. Late in that decade, Spelling introduced yet another ABC series, Mod Squad, which was noteworthy for introducing the 60's counterculture to prime -time television. But it has been in this decade, the 70's, the era of fantasy television and narcissism, that Aaron Spelling Productions and Spelling /Goldberg Productions (a partnership with Leonard Goldberg, the former head of programing for ABC -TV) have found their true place in the medium - violence, sex and glamour. Their programs include Angels, Starsky & Hutch, The Rookies and S. W.A.T. When talk in television circles gets around to quality programing on the commercial networks, an Aaron Spelling program is often cited as art example of what is wrong with prime time. "They never mention Family," replies Spelling, "because that ruins their story. They like to say Charlie's Angels and Starsky & Hutch. They mention those two the most because in their minds one is violence and one is T &A. They never mention Fanìily. It's been on for four years. It's won more awards than any show in the last few years. I don't think I do T &A. "No, I don't think Family was our apology to the American public for doing these other shows. Family was something we wanted to do." (The show, however, is not something ABC wants to do any more; Family is not being renewed for next season.) Spelling is lavish with his praise, and he speaks fondly, admiringly even, of such old programs as The Twilight Zone (a genre he is currently attempting to revive with a development project called Nightmare), Naked City and The Defenders. He readily admits, too, that few, if any, of his programs have ever attained such levels of esteem. And, revealing a little -known side of himself, Spelling admits that "my idol is Walt Disney. That was a contribution. Those Disney movies will go on forever and ever and teach so many children." In fact, children's programing is just about the only area of television that Spelling has a real desire to explore. "I would sign exclusively with any network that would let me do a series of children's movies," he says. (Last season, he had a brief and unsuccessful attempt at a child - oriented program- Friends.) At 53, Spelling does not look to be producing regular series for many more years. Although like most Hollywood producers, he is always ready to take on that one last project. "I'm tired of being put into a niche," he says. "After I wrote anthologies, I wrote my first western. Then all I could ever do was westerns -'He's a terrific western writer, a western producer.' I had to fight my ass off to get out of that. Because I was at least smart enough to see the new trend was going toward cop shows, then: 'All he does are cop shows.' "In comparison to comedies like Three's Company or Detective School or The Ropers, is Love Boat as good as them? If it is I guess I'm a comedy producer. Is Family as good as Dallas? Then I guess I'm a dramatic producer. Is Charlie's Angels as good as Flying High ? Then I .guess I'm a good T &A producer. Is Starsky & Hutch as good as David Cassidy Undercover? Then I think I'm a cop producer." It remains to be seen, however, whether Aaron Spelling will get a chance to consider himself a producer of successful miniseries.

A very negative review of Friendship, Secrets and Lies http://hillplace.blogspot.com/2013/07/gaggle-60s-starlets-friendships-secrets-lies.html

TV Guide looks at soap operas 1965 THE SOAPS —anything but 99 44/100 percent pure by Edith Efron With daytime dramas sloshing around in human frailties, authorities contend they merely reflect America’s disintegrating morals. Some months ago, the sleepy, Victorian world of daytime drama made news. The news was that it had ceased to be sleepy and Victorian. In fact, said the reports, the soap operas were doing something no one could quite believe: “peddling sex.” Announced one astounded critic: “Folks squawking about cheap nighttime sex should harken to the sickly sexuality of daytime soap opera. Love of Life details frank affairs between married women and men; Search for Tomorrow has a single girl in an affair with a married man, result: pregnancy; The Secret Storm has another single girl expecting a married man's child.” And, under the headlines “Era of Souped-Up Soapers” and “Torrid Days on TV Serial Front,” Variety, the weekly newspaper of the entertainment industry, reported that there was a daytime “race to dredge up the most lurid incidents in sex-based human wretchedness,” and cited “a torrid couch scene involving a housewife with gown cleaved to the navel who was sloshed to the gills on martinis, working her wiles on a husband (not hers). The fade to detergent blurb left little doubt as to the ensuing action.” Even a superficial investigation of events in the soap-opera world confirms that these reports are true. To understand this phenomenon, one must enter the total universe of the soap operas. And if one does, one soon discovers that the central source of drama is not what it used to be in the old days, when the brave housewife, with husband in wheel chair, struggled helplessly against adversity. The soaps have shifted drastically on their axes; the fundamental theme today is, as Roy Winsor, producer of Secret Storm, puts it: “the male-female relationship.” More specifically, the theme of nine of the 10 daytime shows on the air when this study was launched* is the mating-marital-reproductive cycle set against a domestic background. The outer world is certainly present—one catches glimpses of hospitals, offices, courtrooms, business establishments—but the external events tend to be a foil for the more fundamental drama, which is rooted in the biological life cycle. Almost all dramatic tension and moral conflict emerge from three basic sources: mating, marriage and babies. The mating process is the cornerstone of this trivalue system. The act of searching for a partner goes on constantly in the world of soap opera. Vacuous teen-age girls have no thought whatever in their heads except hunting for a man. Older women wander about, projecting their intense longing to link themselves to unattached males. Heavily made-up villainous “career women” prowl, relentlessly seeking and nabbing their prey: the married man. Sad, lonely divorcées hunt for new mates. This all-consuming, single-minded search for a mate is an absolute good in the soap-opera syndrome. Morality —and dramatic conflict—emerge from how the search is conducted. Accordingly, there is sex as approached by “good” people, and sex as it is approached by villains. “Good” people’s sex is a somewhat extraordinary phenomenon, which can best be described as “icky.” In The Doctors, Dr. Maggie confides, coyly, to her sister: “He kissed me.” Her sister asks, even more coyly: “Did you want him to kiss you?” Maggie wriggles, and says: “He says I did.” Then archly adds: “You know? I did.” Maggie has already been married; her sister has had at least one lover. Coyness, not chastity, is the sign of their virtue. “Good” people’s sex is also passive, diffident and apologetic. In The Doctors, Sam, after an unendurably long buildup, finally takes Dr. Althea, a troubled divorcée, in his arms, and kisses her once, gently, on the lips. He then looks rueful, says, “I’m sorry,’ and moves to look mournfully out the window. “I’m not,” murmurs Althea softly, and floats out of the room. The “good” people act like saddened goldfish; the villains, on the other hand, are merely grotesque. One gets the impression that villains, both male and female, have read a lot of Ian Fleming, through several layers of cheesecloth. To wit: a dinner between villainess Valerie Shaw and Dr. Matt in The Doctors in which Valerie leers, ogles and hints (“A smart woman judges a man by his mouth. Yours is strong and sensual. I’m glad I came to dinner”), announces she will be his “playmate” and boasts throatily, “I play hard and seriously—but not necessarily for keeps.” And in Love of Life a sinister chap named Ace drinks in a bar with a teen-age girl who used to be his mistress. “We used to ignite,” he breathes insinuatingly. They exchange a kiss— presumably so inflammable that the camera nervously cuts the picture off beneath their chins. “Not bad, baby,” he gasps heavily. This endless mating game, of course, has a purpose: It leads to marriage, the second arch-value in the soapopera universe. And the dominant view of marriage in the soaps is also worthy of mention. According to the “good” women, it consists of two ingredients: “love” and homemaking. “Love,” in the soaps, tends to be a kind of hospitalization insurance, usually provided by females to male emotional cripples. In these plays, a woman rarely pledges herself to “honor and obey” her husband. She pledges to cure him of his alcoholism, to forgive his criminal record, paranoia, pathological lying, premarital affairs, etc—and, generally, to give him a shoulder to cry on. An expression of love, or a marriage proposal, in the daytime shows, often sounds like a sobbing confession to a psychiatrist. In Search for Tomorrow Patti's father, a reformed drinker, took time out from brooding over his daughter’s illegitimate pregnancy to express his “love” for his wife. It consisted of a thorough—and convincing—rehash of his general worthlessness and former drinking habits. “I need you,’ he moaned. “That’s all I want,” she said. In General Hospital Connie’s neurotic helplessness proved irresistible some weeks ago; Dr. Doug declared his love. They engaged in a weird verbal competition as to who was more helpless than whom, who was more scared than whom, who “needed” whom more than whom. Doug won. Connie would be his pillar of strength. Homemaking, the second ingredient of a “good” woman’s marriage, is actually a symbolic expression of “love.” There is a fantastic amount of discussion of food on these shows, and it is all strangely full of marital meaning. On The Guiding Light the audience sat through a detailed preview of the plans for roasting a turkey (the stuffing has raisins in it), which somehow would help get separated Julie and Michael together again. On The Doctors one ham was cooked, eaten and remorselessly discussed for three days; it played a critical role in the romance of Sam and Dr. Althea. If domesticity is a marital “good,” aversion to it is a serious evil. On Secret Storm a husband’s arrival from work was greeted by a violent outburst by his wife, who handed him a list of jobs he had not done around the house. His neglect of the curtain rods was a sure sign that he was in love with a temptress who works in his office. Conversely, if a wife neglects her house, the marriage is rocky. After mating and marriage, the third crucial value in the soap-opera universe is reproduction. The perpetuation of the species is the ultimate goal toward which almost all “good” people strive. And “The Baby” is the household god. “Good” people discuss pregnancy endlessly. Young wives are either longing to be pregnant, worried because they are not pregnant, getting pregnant or fighting heroically “not to lose the baby.” And at whatever stage of this process they happen to be, it justifies their being inept, irritable, hysterical and irrational. “Good” men, needless to say, are unfailingly sympathetic to the reproductive process and are apparently fascinated by every detail of it. In The Doctors you knew one chap was a “good” husband because he referred to himself as “an expectant father” and earnestly discussed his wife’s “whoopsing” with his friends. The superlative value of “The Baby” is best revealed when he makes his appearance without benefit of a marriage license. He is usually brought into the world by a blank-faced little girl who has been taught to believe that the only valid goal in life is to mate, marry and reproduce, and who has jumped the gun. The social problem caused by this error in timing is solved in different ways. The girl has an abortion (Patricia, Another World); she loses the baby in an accident (Patti, Search for Tomorrow); she gives the baby up for adoption (Ellen, As the World Turns) ; she has the baby and marries its father (Julie, Guiding Light); she has the baby and marries someone else (Amy, Secret Storm). The attitude of the baby-worshipping “good” people to this omnipresent social catastrophe is strangely mixed. The girl is viewed as a helpless victim of male villainy: “She loved the fellow too much,” said Angie’s father sadly in General Hospital. Of course, she has acquired the baby “the wrong way” and must—and does— suffer endlessly because of it. Nonetheless, she is having “The Baby.” Thus she receives an enormous amount of sympathy, guidance and help from “good” people. It seems almost unnecessary to say that only “bad” people in soap operas are anti-baby. The fastest bit of characterization ever accomplished in the history of drama was achieved on Secret Storm, when Kip’s father recently arrived on the scene. He said: “I can’t stand all this talk about babies.” This instantly established him as a black-hearted villain. The worst people of all, in the soaps, however, are the “career women,” unnatural creatures who actually enjoy some activity other than reproducing the species with the single exception of The Doctors, which features two “good” career women, Drs. Maggie and Althea, even the feeblest flicker of a desire for a career is a symptom of villainy in a woman who has a man to support her. Some weeks ago, we could predict that Ann Reynolds, in The Young Marrieds,was heading for dire trouble. She was miserable over her lost career, she had no babies, and she said those most evil of words: “I want a purpose in life.’ It is hardly surprising to discover that even when the female characters achieve their stated ideal, they are almost invariably miserable. A man to support them, an empty house to sit in, no mentally demanding work to do and an endless vista of future pregnancies do not seem to satisfy the younger soap-opera ladies. They are chronically bored and hysterical. They also live in dread of the everpresent threat of adultery, because their husbands go outside every day and meet wicked “career women.” They also agonize frequently over the clash between their “needs as a woman” and their “needs as a mother.” The male denizens of this universe are equally miserable for parallel reasons. They suffer quite a bit from unrequited love. They are often sick with jealousy, tortured by their wives’ jealousy of their careers and outer-world existence. They, too, have a remarkable amount of trouble reconciling their “needs as men” with their “needs as fathers.” So we find, amid all the gloom in Sudsville, a lot of drinking, epidemic infidelity, and countless cases of acute neurosis, criminality, psychotic breakdowns and postmaternal psychosis. And this, dear reader, is the “sex” that the soap operas are “peddling” these days. It is a soggy, dreary spectacle of human misery, and is unworthy of all those “torrid” headlines. In fact, if one wants to be soured forever on the male-female relationship, the fastest way to achieve this state is to watch daytime drama. The real question is not “where did all the sex come from?” but where did this depressing view of the male-female relationship come from? Hardened observers of TV’s manners and mores have claimed that sex is being stressed in the soaps because it “sells.” But the producers of soaps retort hotly that this has nothing to do with it. Their story lines, they insist, simply reflect social reality. Says Frank Dodge, producer of Search for Tomorrow: “We always try to do shows that are identifiable to the public. These shows are a recognition of existing emotions and problems. It’s not collusion, but a logical coincidence that adultery, illegitimate children and abortions are appearing on many shows. If you read the papers about what’s going on in the suburbs—well, it’s more startling than what’s shown on the air.” “The moral fiber has been shattered in this Nation, and nothing has replaced it,” says Roy Winsor, producer of Secret Storm. “There’s a clammy cynicism about life in general. It deeply infects the young. It leads to a generation that sits, passively, and watches the world go by. The major interest is the male-female relationship. That’s the direction the daytime shows are going in. Some of the contemporary sickness has rubbed off onto TV.” A consultation with some authorities on feminine and family psychology seems to support these gentlemen's contentions about the soap operas. “They’re realistic,” says Dr. Harold Greenwald, training analyst of the National Psychological Association for Psychoanalysis and supervising psychologist of the Community Guidance Service in New York. “I think they’re more realistic than many of the evening shows. They’re reflecting the changes taking place in our society. There are fewer taboos. The age of sexual activity in the middle classes has dropped and it has increased in frequency. There is more infidelity. These plays reflect these problems.” Dr. William Menaker, professor of clinical psychology at New York University, says: “The theater, the novel, and the film have always reflected people's concern with the sexual life; and in this sense, what’s on the air reflects these realities of life. Increasing frankness in dealing with these problems isn’t a symptom of moral decay but rather reflects the confused values of a transitional period of sociosexual change. “Unfortunately, the vision of sex that seems to emerge on these shows is mechanical and adolescent, immature. The ‘love’ seems equally childish; it is interacting dependency, rather than a mutual relating between two autonomous adults. As for anti-intellectualism of these shows, it is actually antifeminine. It shows the resistance of both writers and audience to the development of the total feminine personality. There is no doubt that these shows are a partial reflection of some existing trends in our society; it is not a healthy picture.” Finally, Betty Friedan, author of “The Feminine Mystique,” says: “The image of woman that emerges in these soap operas is precisely what I’ve called ‘The Feminine Mystique.’ The women are childish and dependent; the men are degraded because they relate to women who are childish and dependent; and the view of sex that emerges is sick. “These plays reflect an image built up out of the sickest, most dependent, most immature women in our society. They do not reflect all women. In reality there are many who are independent, mature, and who possess identity. The soaps are reflecting the sickest aspect of women.” On the basis of these comments, one can certainly conclude that all this “sex-based human wretchedness” is on the air because it exists in society. And the producers’ claims that this is dramatic “realism” appear to have some validity. But does the fact that a phenomenon exists justify its incessant exploration by the daytime dramas? Two of the three experts consulted actively refrain from making moral judgments. Betty Friedan, however, does not hesitate to condemn the soap operas. “The fact that immature, sick, dependent women exist in our society is no justification for these plays,” she says. “The soap operas are playing to this sickness. They are feeding it. They are helping to keep women in this helpless, dependent state.” ~ Edge of Night, the 10th, is not a “‘soap opera’; it is a serialized melodrama whose hero is a criminal lawyer, and its events bear little resemblance to those described in this article. The two newest daytime dramas, Flame in the Wind and Moment of Truth, have not been on the air long enough to permit extensive study and are not included in this analysis. 8

A lot of TV movies are on YouTube. Dr Cooks Garden 1971 An interesting movie on a number of levels. Bing Crosby taking an acting role for the first time in years and playing against type as a murderer. Based on a play by the legendary Ira Levin (Rosemary's Baby, Stepford Wives) Friendships, Secrets and Lies had an great all female cast, including Tricia Cast (Nina Y&R), female director Marlena Laird (GH) and writer Joanna Crawford and Babs H Deal who wrote the original book.

But didn't Dani give up modelling when she married Bill,like 20 years ago? Why would Pamela still be her bestie when their lives went in different directions decades ago? And Bill insisted Dani give up modelling, right? And she acquiesced?

ABC soon latched on to the idea that their TV movies could serve as pilots. It was much more cost effective. One thing we often saw was actors 'stretching' themselves-usually (not always)comedic performers going for dram cred. eg Carol Burnett (looking more like Vicki Lawrence in that artwork)

@Errol Perhaps this should be moved to the primetime thread as Palace Guard is not a cancelled soap.

Of course we have to mention the iconic Trilogy of Terror

Y&R must have been listening. Today we had 5 sets. Nate's apartment, Jabot, GCAC, Society and Jazz lounge. Still too many sparsely populated meeting places but an improvement. As for what was actually being talked about...

Invested? Not sure as we still haven't seen them face enough. Nicole and Bill are most interesting to me but that's also because the actors are strong. Still I'm waiting to see how he navigates his marriage and relationships to his daughter and if he and Dani can reach some sort of truce. How they balance his ruthlessness with some humanity. With Nicole she seems very level headed ,so how she deals with the marriage drama will be interesting. I'm still puzzled about how 2 professionals who seem to believe in education and empowerment have a daughter who seems the opposite. I know that can happen, but I feel it should be addressed. When she was talking about Kat's birthday she was telling her mother how she loved to go all out with the party and this year had to reign it in, which seemed the opposite of how I saw Nicole. That seemed a more Dani thing to do. So I still need more time to see where the characters go and if there is consistency. Some of the others eg Vanessa, so far not invested. Her story seems by the numbers to me and isolated. Martin/Smitty-just a domestic story that could be a straight couple. If the show really wanted to be contemporary I would have liked the gay story to be a little more edgy.

Is this worthy of a new thread? Palace Guard isn't even a soap, obscure or otherwise.

I enjoyed a lot of the 90 minute suspense movies from the early 70's. the shorter length usually ensured that there was no padding. One I recall was Night Terror with Val Harper. Sort of Duel with a suburban mom.

Margaret De Priest was an actress up until that point. She appeared in some of the first episodes of The Doctors on Retro from Dec 67. I think she met Lou Scofield when they were both at Edge of Night-he a a writer and she an actress. Were they romantically involved? Can't recall off hand but someone will remember. Scofield died in 1972.

Definitely for CBS in terms of scheduling. They had been leading Sunday night for years with 60 Minutes leading into the sitcom block. But Archie Bunker ran out of steam, bringing the rest of the lineup down and their attempts to refresh with new sitcoms -Goodnight Beantown, The Four Seasons and Maggie Briggs all failed. So they took a calculated risk by going with MSW and it paid off. But Alice and The Jeffersons were the next to falter and they seemed to have solved the problem with Crazy Like A Fox at 9pm. But CLAF was a short lived success and CBS went with a movie which was a winning formula for years. Anyone have any thoughts on Crazy Like A Fox? Never saw it. Was it just not good enough or not compatible with MSW or both?

I think they can use that product placement to their advantage. Lean into it with some humor. It can become a meme worthy event.

That was remade as Vanishing Act in 1986 with Eliot Gould,Mike Farrell, Margot Kidder and Fred Gwynne.

I think they need to make more of the final scene of the episode. Dani gets out the booze, takes a swig and a quick cut to the credits. It kinda takes away from the drama. They need to go for a soapier moment. Dani taking the drink and then the camera pans away and we emphasize her loneliness in the empty room-then a lingering close up, fade to credits. Maybe they are trying to be more up to date but it is a soap after all.

So Traci is leaving town. Bye bye Beth. Thanks for your service. Don't let the door hit you on the way out. As for Phyllis' trauma, I could care less. After all she's been through and the stunts she's pulled for her to be so bothered by this... At least La Stafford is having to tone down her performance.

My memory (may be completely wrong) is that Don Stewart felt Trish was too young for Mike. Let's hope someone can track down an interview.