DeliaIrisFan

Thursday's show was really good.  I believe this was the first full episode of a current soap I've watched in years: maybe since the Prospect Park AMC and OLTL reboots, and GH around that same time for the 50th anniversary festivities.  The veteran soap actors whose deaths affected me the most in recent years had primarily starred on shows that were no longer around to give them on-air tributes, and/or their characters had already been killed off.  I happened to be home recuperating from some dental work on Friday and had read the tribute to JZ was happening, so I watched much of the week.  Agreed that the dialogue on Monday/Wednesday was hit or miss, but at worst it was innocuous, and again Thursday's payoff was worth it.

I also give them credit for the human trafficking story, and not just the good intentions.  It was well-done (mostly, aside from the aspect I mentioned in the potential spoiler).  It was awesome how with just a few lines of dialogue they corrected the record on Bobbie's back story as it had always been presented - not discounting what had come before, just stating the obvious that we all should have known better.  I was impressed that they even managed to acknowledge Ruby and Luke's roles, while holding space for Bobbie's genuine love for them.

I agree the pacing was weird and the time jump jarring to see on a daytime soap, but it didn't bother me too much because I wasn't particularly interested in continuing to watch/fast forward through the rest of the show long enough to see it play out in real time.  The "to be continued" on Wednesday and lack thereof on Thursday helpfully signaled that Bobbie's story had been wrapped up and I didn't need to keep watching.  I just can't help but think it defied some of the fundamental conventions of the genre (make them wait...).  I have a Hulu subscription so it would have been easier than ever for me to tune in a bit longer to see the resolution (compared to when I figured out how to program a VCR as a preteen), and theoretically I could have been drawn in by something else the longer they had my attention.  Even the Cornelia actress seemed better in her few scenes than many of the contact ingenues, and this certainly would have been a powerful way to introduce a new major character with no blood ties.

The passing reference to Monica being too sick to attend the funeral was very distressing.  Have I missed any recent updates about LC?  (And who was that character who provided that exposition?  Has Emily come back from the dead, or Dawn?)

Wow, I never thought I would be moved reading something about Black and Stern.  Then again, I didn't watch ATWT regularly or at all when they were there.  I agree nobody was likely to succeed at ATWT in that moment. 

I wish an LGBTQ+ couple had gotten to co–head write soaps to great acclaim for a long career.  Alas, Frank Provo and John Pickard probably would have been the most likely candidates, and we know how that turned out.

On 1/2/2024 at 1:36 PM, Mitch64 said:

I also agree that Marland improves what he inherits, but then its back to cold analytical time...I thought it first year on ATWT was his best...it still had some of the campy messiness of the show he inherited but he put polish, and structure to it, while going back to the core. 

This is an interesting perspective, and probably not wrong from what I've seen.  I'm slowly working my way through 1986 ATWT and I agree it's got an energy that I've never gotten watching Marland's later work.  I think it's also probably true for most head writers after shows expanded to an hour, so I'm not sure if some of that is burnout. 

What's interesting with Marland is ATWT's ratings were actually better (at least relative to other shows) toward the end of his run.  That's probably due in large part to attrition: GH being dethroned after 10+ years in the top two and the other mid-range shows losing their way.  Although of course Marland's GL was the highest-rated non-ABC soap for the entirety of Luke and Laura's heyday right out of the gate.  I still can't help but wonder what might have been if he'd been hired at ATWT long-term in 1979, when the show was just a year or two away from being #1 in the ratings, if he'd managed to introduce a story that successfully drew in younger audiences while perhaps luring back some lapsed viewers.

On 12/29/2023 at 2:11 PM, dc11786 said:

Raunch and Labine were never going to work. I´ll agree on that. I don´t think Labine was a bad fit though, but she was certainly hired for the wrong reasons. Given her track record at ¨General Hospital,¨ it appeared CBS and P&G wanted her to continue to turn GL into CBS daytime´s answer to ¨The Sopranoes.¨ I think early 1990s ¨Guiding Light¨ tonally is something that Labine could have worked within. Also, if the woman could bring life into ¨Love of Life,¨ than I don´t think GL was too conservative for her lol.

I don't know that MADD, or whoever was actually in charge by that point, had a singular vision of what they wanted the Labines or anyone else to do at GL.  No sooner were they out than Reva was time-traveling through paintings, which was pretty much the polar opposite of what I imagine anyone would have thought to hire Claire Labine to write.  And then only a few months after that, the tone completely shifted again: to family/medical drama.  Incidentally, the main plotline in that next phase borrowed heavily from at least one classic soap story originally written by—checks notes—Claire Labine (arguably two.  My understanding is she wrote daytime's first story about taking someone off life support on Ryan's Hope in 1975, although it's just as likely the 2002 GL story was directly "inspired" by more recent entries like ATWT).

Of course, Labine's experience (especially everything that's been written about Love of Life) was a perfectly good fit for what GL should have been in the 21st century.  And of course she and Rauch were doomed to be a terrible creative match, but I suspect the larger issue by that point was that CBS/P&G were never going to stay out of any head writer's way long enough for them to succeed.  See the past few pages analyzing the weeks/months' worth of material generated by the half dozen or so configurations of writing teams in the subsequent year or two.  I'm sorry Labine wasn't given the chance to do what she did best.

As far as asking one of the other writers what the original plan was, didn't Mulcahey essentially state in print that initially there was no firm commitment as to whether the Carly character would be good or bad, or what her agenda was - they just gave her different types of scenes to see what stuck?  His words were more gracious than I am conveying—I recall he meant it as a compliment to SJB, saying they basically figured out who the character was based on her performance and all the layers she brought—but that was my takeaway.  I think it's kind of similar with the Cassadines, no?  In hindsight, 1996 GH was a lot of interesting ideas with mostly good casting, but not much follow-through.

Culliton got a lot of blame at the time and my teenage self certainly partook in that, but by all accounts he's been very successful as a staff writer since, i.e., executing a(nother) head writer's vision.  If there was a long-range story in place at GH with characters he clearly wanted to keep on, I feel like he would have followed the contours.  Unless Guza had a brilliant, multi-year story outline that he refused to share with anyone else on the writing team, and never came close to replicating in his career.  Didn't he write a crossover story for Faison on Loving in the early 90s that is largely considered a flop?  I can't help but think that's illustrative of what the '90s Cassadines might have been with a lesser (cumulative) writing team and/or a weaker foundation to build upon.

8 hours ago, titan1978 said:

Well for me what you post is ultimately why I got sick of them. The only actual endgame that happened with any consequence was the slow dissolution of Luke & Laura’s marriage. The immediate goals of establishing the Cassadines on the then current show (including the tone they wanted) was a success. Within a few years we had an impeccably stylish Helena just threatening everyone without any major movement. Stefan was saddled with Katherine, who was killed twice, and a relationship with Laura nobody thought was going to last. Everything after that was just a slow slog to the end of the character.
 

We never got to see where the hospital takeover was going, or Stefan and Bobbie’s marriage. I know real world issues happened that they had to work around in 1996- John Beradino’s death, Bob Guza leaving due to his Sunset Beach contract, Genie Francis’ second pregnancy- all played a part in the way the Cassadine story was told. I don’t even remember whatever the stupid faberge egg had in it, or the online game Stefan was playing with Lucky was all supposed to be about. We even got Lesley back, but Culliton clearly had no interest in telling that story. And 1997 became the year Riche got distracted by the launch of Port Charles.

 

Agreed completely.  I just don't think Guza staying would have changed much of any of that (except Katherine's involvement).  I believe the Faberge egg contained a computer virus - which, while terribly executed, was as logical an endpoint as any for a character who was presented as holding an epic vendetta against a woman his family had trafficked and an entire community they had tried to eradicate, literally.  Either these Cassadines would have eventually shown their hand and been dispatched of like '80s short-term villains, or proven to be not as bad as their relatives - which would have had to involve making a definitive break from them.  (Or some combination of the two, i.e., Nikolas realizing his family was as bad as everyone said just as he was put in a position where he had to kill Stefan to save Laura, perhaps with Laura even trying to take the rap to protect him like her mother had done for her.)  I really don't believe there was ever a long-term story plan or character arcs, just a lot of mood and dialogue that was probably better than it had a right to be.

On 12/17/2023 at 8:37 PM, Vee said:

The youth set on TC was more than enough for the show's demographics, I think. That was the focus in those days, hot young twentysomethings.

Found family was not the draw of MP, but it was a common thing you saw in dramas or sitcoms at the time (Friends, etc.). It's true the popularity of MP evolved later in its more high-octane, super-soapy storytelling that began near the end of its first season, but I don't think TC's setup was at all uncommon for ensemble TV.

Oh no, not uncommon for the era at all.  I was just surprised to see MP's name invoked as an example here, given what it's most remembered for.  Was Amanda really friends with anyone?  I think MP was able to get by with the most OTT/campy elements of soaps without the emotional investment in characters or relationships for a few years during its heyday because it was only on once a week - every episode was the Friday cliffhanger, basically.

On 12/17/2023 at 10:07 PM, Paul Raven said:

The desired demo is Women 18-34. That's who advertisers want to catch. The belief is that they are most prepared to spend money and try out different things.

Teen demo was secondary. Were there ads aimed at teens? NBC tried to push that the teens would grow into the desired demo but what appeals to a teen -campy Passions type writing has lesser appeal as viewers mature. And do you want to be watching what your kid sister is into?

That's a good point, and again I was not suggesting that TC should have had a teen story.  Like I said, the concept for TC was more my fantasy than the heteronormative, milquetoast teen stories other most other soaps were grafting on.

Although didn't Reilly's first run at DOOL supposedly dominate 12-17 as well as 18-34?  Isn't that why Passions was greenlit?

21 hours ago, Khan said:

ICAM, @chrisml.  James Harmon Brown and Barbara Esensten should have introduced Sydney Chase on LOVING in preparation for the spinoff.  Doing so might have helped give TC more of a "push" in terms of building suspense around her, and around the new show in general. 

I don't necessarily agree that the LOVING Murders needed to continue on TC, but I do think they needed to plant story seeds other than, "Hey, everyone, Corinth's been a real drag since Gwyneth Alden killed everybody, so let's all move to SoHo!".  (In retrospect, maybe they would have been better off just moving some of those actors over to AMC or OLTL.)

I wonder what would have happened if all the Loving characters who moved over to TC (plus maybe Jeremy or one of the other victims as a red herring) had moved to NY a few weeks early—for the same reason Ava left Corinth, to get away from the serial killer—and begun their new stories, only to be lured back home for the murderer reveal?  It would have been an interesting cinematography experiment, if nothing else: the transitions from scenes taped in traditional soap opera style to what TC was going for.

17 hours ago, chrisml said:

I'd be curious what the demographics were for LOVING. It never struck me as a show for the younger viewers so it always seemed odd to me they would try to facelift it into a "hip" show. I am curious if Linda Gottlieb would have been a better producer for the City. She tried to modernize OLTL, and I thought she did a first rate job in most instances. For most of her reign on OLTL, I thought it was must watch television which is something THE CITY was not. She might have done a better job at getting the writers to work on the plots. I also wonder if not having Lisa Peluso on the show was another negative because I remember a lot of people were upset she was not making the leap to the new show. 

 

Bringing on Linda Gottlieb in whatever capacity for the end of Loving, as opposed to TC, was such a bizarre move.  Unless the ABC brass recalled she had once pitched a story in which Viki's alters killed off all the Lords and Buchanans, and wanted to get their money's worth while ensuring she couldn't sue them...  Anyway, didn't even Gottlieb's first few months at OLTL have actual stories?  They were just sped-up and didn't involve characters the audience cared about, right?

2 hours ago, j swift said:

Similarly, even with the emergence of Soho, I don't think Sydney Chase would live downtown, unless there was an economic downturn that forced her to live in the building that she leased out to others.

I think SoHo had already emerged by then.  I don't doubt Fairchild's character or even Tracy Q might have lived there, but I agree the others wouldn't have been able to afford to live in their building.  To bring it back to MP, it seemed like they were trying to set her up as a Heather Locklear clone.

By that point, Fort Greene or maybe DUMBO still might have been accessible for middle class young professionals moving from Pennsylvania, which would have been close enough to downtown Manhattan by subway that you could maybe imagine at least some of them hanging out there.  There could have been an interesting dynamic where Angie and Jacob were friends/acquaintances and still neighbors with the other Corinth transplants, but tended to hang out in Brooklyn more.

The scenes from the first few months of the Cassadines' return in 1996 were exciting, and did manage to fit into the more grounded show GH had become by that point.  But I question whether that ever could have been sustainable, even if there hadn't been another writing turnover. 

A lot of dramatic (and well written by Val Jean, Mulcahey, et al) confrontations with most everyone in town could only go so far.  Eventually the Cassadines, who(se family) had once tried to freeze the world, would have to show their hand and actually attempt to do whatever they really came back to town to do - and every other character/story on the show at the time would have had to exist within that same universe.  And the friction between Laura and the men/boys in her life also seemingly had a shelf life, before they would have to get to the uncomfortable (especially given her history with Luke) gist - they blamed her for being sexually trafficked and/or how she reacted to becoming pregnant as a result.  I actually wonder whether Guza or anyone else actually knew what the emotional and/or mystery climax would be.

Never mind that ABC had just been bought by Disney, and the network seemed to be a lot more involved from that point forward.  Not a lot of long-range umbrella stories like this was shaping up to be (didn't the Cassadines even buy the hospital or something?) really got to play out as originally planned from that point forward, even if the credited writers stayed put.

This commentary on the Loving murders and the transition to The City is fascinating - especially Kane's blog, which I am just now reading.  It's been a long time since my college humanities courses, and I have my doubts that Esensten and Brown were intentionally drawing from Greek tragedy, but the Gwyn/Medea parallels are striking.

I was still in my 30s when I first watched the serial killer storyline on YouTube during COVID: so, I guess, the tail end of ABC's target demo for The City (just a few decades removed thanks to technology).  And I agree completely that the most interesting material got resolved (or was left forever unresolved) in Corinth, and the stories they were setting up on TC paled in comparison.  Did anything ever come of the business with the dead body in the carpet, or was it just a cold open?

One thing that's interesting about demos is that there were NO teens on TC.  In that sense, the show had at least the potential to be a more mature contrast to some of what the rest of daytime was prioritizing.  I was an adolescent at the time, and I actually checked out TC at first after seeing the publicity.  As a closeted teen, what the show billed itself as was probably much closer to my escapist fantasy than the heteronormative teen stories that other soaps were offering up in the mid-late '90s: growing up and moving to NY.  But even at that age, I was quickly able to discern that those characters' lives were much less interesting than the ads.

In any event, I wonder, when did the 12-17 demo (officially or unofficially) become the holy grail for soaps?  Did TC maybe even die by its own sword in part because it was SO specific in its youth focus?

Also, this is off topic, but was "found family" really the draw of Melrose Place?  At the beginning, I know that was the focus, but once they revamped it, I have no recollection of any specific scenes focused on friendships (other than Matt, as a supporting character).  I suppose the few characters who didn't become completely cutthroat still hung out together at the bar sometimes, but I feel like that was mostly for plot purposes.  Again, sorry to go OT.

So sad.  If Ellen's OLTL material is almost all lost forever, at least her long form interview a few years back exists for posterity (apologies if this has been reposted since the news, but I didn't see it): 

https://interviews.televisionacademy.com/interviews/ellen-holly#interview-clips

Clearly the Times obit writers didn't read her book - if ever there was a time soaps deserved to be savaged in the mainstream media, this was it, but instead they make it sound like OLTL was a largely positive experience for her.

I may go watch some of her recurring run on GL in the early '90s - even in a supporting role, she created a three-dimensional character who made every scene more engaging.

4 minutes ago, Khan said:

ABC would have needed to think outside the proverbial box and hire a HW with little-to-no previous experience in soaps.  Or, if we were talking about post-Pat Falken Smith, maybe someone like Susan Bedsow Horgan, since she loves everything related to Gaelic culture.

I wonder what Mary Ryan Munisteri could have done as head writer at a better time, and/or with a co–head writer who brought some complementary skills to the table and possibly an outsider's perspective (perhaps the aforementioned Martha Nochimson, but Horgan would also have been interesting, going by her very brief stint at Prospect Park's OLTL).

MRM got promoted only after Labine and Mayer each left at different times in a matter of months, and her predecessors had already begun introducing the Kirklands - when clearly their hearts weren't in it.  At least if the network had given a new head writer a mandate to create a new, wealthy family, they could have had the chance to develop characters they actually believed in.  Also, RH had already veered off-track (and lost momentum) by 1982.  Mary's murder might have been a better turning point for a handover behind the scenes, especially if Kim was going to be central to the new direction, since she was the one who could identify the killer.  Maybe that would have been the time to go all-in on Kim, including her newfound family.

Yes, thank you.  That is a lot of material this family burned through in a few years...and some of it very dark, even for the '80s era.  Wasn't one of the hallmarks of the "supercouple" formula that the disapproving relative finally sees the antihero's gruff charm and has a change of heart?  They kind of had to live long enough to do that.  And how old was Steve supposed to be, that he was Kim's brother-in-law?  From the footage of Nick and Kim that I've seen, which admittedly wasn't all that memorable, I didn't get the sense that there was an age difference.  It's interesting that Steve had already been to prison for drug smuggling, and that he was introduced in a story with a pre-Dobson character.

2 hours ago, Khan said:

For sure, I think Douglas Marland would have respected Labine & Mayer's vision enough to keep the Ryans and Ryan's Pub front-and-center.  He might have been okay with writing for the Coleridges, too.  The only question mark in this situation is Delia.  In Marland's hands, Delia either would have become boring or overly kooky.

Oh, my alternative soap history was pretty much pegged at 1983-84, and Marland would have been in lieu of Falken-Smith.  My guess is Delia would have stayed in San Diego for however long he was head writer, probably no more than 2-3 years, which by all accounts would have been better than Robin Mattson's brief run.

I imagine the Coleridges would have still had a place on a Marland canvas, like the Stewarts on ATWT, but the focus would have been on the Ryans and (probably) a new, more ostentatiously uppercrust family that actually had stories directly connected to the main Ryans.  Most likely, via a daughter who was switched at birth at the same time of one of Maeve's pregnancy losses (I know, I know, the dialogue was very specific that Maeve's only stillbirth was Sean, and the rest were miscarriages.  But unless ABC would have allowed for the introduction of a gay male or trans Lily Walsh prototype who longed for the simple life at Ryan's Bar—which would have been amazing—I suspect Marland would have found a way to fudge that detail).

2 hours ago, Soaplovers said:

I think Marland would have a very bad fit for the show.  He wouldn't have been able to capture the essence of the Ryan's nor what made the show so unique.

While Marland could write a good umbrella story, his day to day episodes were quite dry and boring with too much exposition.  I used to watch episodes of his ATWT and GL and remark how unrealistic the characters were when interacting with one another.

You needed a writer that could handle the half hour format, understood the dynamics of the Ryans/Coleridges, and captured the feel of the close knit New York City neighborhood.  I can't think of any writer that could have been able to write about the Irish Catholic Ryans and the upper crust Coleridges well... that wasn't Claire Labine.

Oh, it still definitely would have been a departure from what RH had been, not least because of the dialogue.  I just think it could have been interesting story-wise, without damaging the core of the show, and might have led to the introduction of characters/elements that Labine/Mayer would have had fun with later.  Kind of like how Claire Labine seemingly went with the ridiculous aging of Ryan and John Reid in her last return, even if she probably never would have pulled that trigger so quickly (and, I suspect, would have mined their on-screen childhoods to "create" more interesting adult characters for them than the interim writers did).

And maybe it could have bought the show a little more time?

Fair points about Marland.  I doubt it would have been his most successful soap gig, but he maybe could have provided new energy and maybe appeased the network somewhat without decimating what RH had been.  And Falken Smith couldn't have come cheap at that point, so whatever else there was a point when ABC was willing to spend money on RH.

2 minutes ago, DRW50 said:

I liked Maggie (much more than Doug Marland did apparently), but so many of these 1984 and 1985 episodes have her weeping and wailing. A chore to sit through.

Ah, thanks for sharing the Thanksgiving episode.  This Tom recast didn't last long...  Also jarring to go from Brian proposing to Juliet (just before) Thanksgiving to Brian/Barbara by Christmas, not least because I can never quite watch Pinter as a romantic lead without thinking of his Grant Harrison on AW.

Was Maggie still on the show by the time Marland became head writer?  I can't remember seeing her in those episodes.  I liked what I saw of her in these episodes, but I couldn't follow what was going on with the wedding(s) of Diana/Cal/Maggie/Frank.  Near as I could tell, the judge was giving baby Jill to anyone who was married (to anyone) in time for the custody hearing(?) - like she was a honeymoon sweepstakes prize.

I also can't keep track of the Andropolouses.  I found myself wondering if Steve's father (whom I always assumed was Kim's ex, but I guess that was Frank's father/Steve's uncle?) was still living in Greece when Steve got arrested.

54 minutes ago, Khan said:

Douglas Marland head-writing RH sounds intriguing, but his track record with half-hour soaps (THE DOCTORS, LOVING) was spotty.

46 minutes ago, Vee said:

Holy shît. I didn't know Martha Nochimson had worked on the soaps vs. writing about them (specifically the media book in the '90s that quietly outed Tony Geary and alleged a pretty shocking BTS issue between him and Genie at that time) and in more recent years, writing several essential tomes about David Lynch and Twin Peaks.

Oh wow, I didn't recognize the name.  That would make sense that this was not her first published TV commentary.  Nochimson was also the only one interviewed to mention James Reilly's stint on the writing team, and not favorably.

59 minutes ago, Khan said:

Douglas Marland head-writing RH sounds intriguing, but his track record with half-hour soaps (THE DOCTORS, LOVING) was spotty.

Was his time on The Doctors considered spotty at the time?  I've read that those who watched on RetroTV preferred his predecessors, and that Liz Hubbard said in later years she did too, but I thought the relative success of TD was what got him the GH job.  It doesn't seem like anyone who came after him had better luck, and the same with Loving.  I know soap writing isn't cookie cutter and you can't just cut the recipe in half, but Marland managed to keep so many characters frontburner on hourlong soaps - I can't help but wonder if he could have been the one to find the right balance and successfully fit another core family into RH.

The Christmas Eve 1984 episode has been (re?) posted on YouTube.  The stories don't seem that engaging, the holiday spirit is a bit anemic compared to later in the decade, and Nancy and Chris are still in Arizona, but Calhoun/Bedsow-Horgan are clearly trying to right the ship.

It was interesting seeing Cal (and hearing about Jay, from Julianne Moore's predecessor) pre–Douglas Cummings.  I can't believe Cal lasted almost a year after this episode.  Was the audience supposed to root for Diana firing and evicting him on Xmas (Brian urged her to do so, and they were going into business with Lisa, so that was my guess), or was Cal meant to be at least somewhat sympathetic?

I could have sworn this was the same Xmas episode that used to be on YouTube, when Kim had one of her "open houses" pre-Marland (I had totally assumed that expression wa one of Marland's touches, but I guess it was something people actually said in conversation at the time.  I remember when I first started watching ATWT holiday episodes on YouTube/DVD, I had to Google "holiday open house" once I realized Kim wasn't selling her house).  I do remember Kim and Bob were a couple in that other episode, whatever year that was.  How long were they together in the '80s before their wedding?  The stuff with John and David saving Dusty from the mystery disease also seems familiar—I would have figured that was the same episode I was thinking of—but I definitely do not remember the ending with Kim and Bob thinking they heard Santa's sleigh.

I was finally able to finish the book over the long holiday weekend.  Post-1983 was way less interesting for me on-screen and off, but reading about the show's low point in the mid-'80s was way more compelling than trying to watch any of those episodes.  And there were some interesting stories from Claire Labine's final stint/nice memories from the finale.

Martha Nochimson was the most fascinating interviewee to emerge from the '80s era.  She joined the writing team under Pat Falken Smith, but was definitely not in agreement with everything that regime wanted to do to the show—and she had stories to tell about her former boss.  I can't help but wonder what Nochimson would have done if they promoted her (although rationally I know an inexperienced writer being moved to the helm of a show on the brink of cancellation would have probably had no power at that point).

Relatedly, I really don't get Joe Hardy, the one who hired and championed Nochimson.  Is it unusual for an executive producer to hire staff writers against the wishes of the head writer, or should I say was it at the time?  Hardy was so proud to have a writer with a Ph.D. on staff, at a time when the writing was at its all-time lowest grade level.  It would make sense if Hardy were trying to undermine Falken Smith on principle because they wanted different things for the show, but it's not clear what Hardy did want.  Maybe that's why ABC kept him around for so long, even as the network's "vision" for the show kept changing drastically...

As far as Falken Smith's unfortunate tenure, I still say if ABC wanted a former GH writer who had left the network on bad terms, why not Doug Marland?  His style would have made for an interesting interlude for the show, but not necessarily at odds with the show's identity.  In fact, I bet Labine and/or Mayer when they returned again would have had fun picking up some of the character/story threads he would have left behind.

4 hours ago, dc11786 said:

I hadn´t considered that. I like near a smaller size city and briefly hung out a neighborhood bar so I got that kind of vibe. I do think the show always felt more vibrant though when they explored the other aspects of the city (Kimberly´s attempts to become a Broadway star, Delia purchasing the Crystal Palace, the mobsters out in Sheepshead Bayy), while I also recognize that a lot of those ¨excursion¨ type stories, for lack of a better term, may not have been what most people wanted. 

I haven´t rewatched the show from the beginning in many years, but my teenage self, on the first go around on SoapNet, loved the first seven months, and then struggled to maintain consistent interest in the next couple of years that followed. I became much more interested around late 1979 when Faith started boozing and Kim decided to pursue Seneca and so on. It was probably the third viewing before I ¨got¨ why people thought Mary and Jack were so special. I felt that first year presented some very raw characters that had their edges shaved down over the years in order to present an idealized version of the Ryan clan. I felt some of that edge came back in the early 1980s, but not with the characters it probably should have. I was very pleased that the recently published book mentioned how unlikeable people were allowed to be, but I struggled because of the lack of consistent accountability by the family for their own.

That's an interesting perspective.  I agree the show might have been more sustainable with the balance of Ryan/non-Ryan elements that they originally planned, but once Frank lived it threw off the pacing of most of the other stories for me.  For me the show coalesced when they started narrowing the focus to the Ryans in 1976; starting with Delia and Roger's affair and Nell's life support, the momentum really picked up early in the year.  By the time Andrew Robinson debuted, all the stories seemed organically connected.  Frank was the only weak link, and suddenly he was being played by a really good actor.

For me the show continued firing on all cylinders for a year or two, and never quite replicated that success (1983 came close, except for Delia being sidelined).  On paper, many of the "excursion" stories (that's a good way of describing it) in the '80s seemed intriguing, but the pacing was off and the show seemed all over the map.

With all the '80s trends ABC chased and all the failed efforts to graft new characters onto RH, I wonder when exactly Cheers took off and if anyone at RH ever considered emulating that and expanding the focus through some of the regulars of the bar.  Some lost soul with no connection to any of the long-term stories could have found refuge from their drama at Ryan's and confided their troubles in Johnny, unknowingly putting the family in danger.

1 hour ago, P.J. said:

I'm not sure you can blame PR for that. Marland wanted suspicion to fall on everyone other than Doug.

Right, but the promo was written as if "Ken" was a major character the audience was invested in. If I'd been a longtime viewer and had missed a few weeks, my reaction to seeing this ad would have been, "Who is this Ken?"  Although I might have been intrigued seeing Barbara in danger and hearing that Kim was involved.  I just think the focus should have been something along the lines of, "Is Kim's stalker a mysterious man from her past, and is Barbara in danger next?" 

I've just finished the 1983 chapter.

Shirley Rich returned, at Labine and Mayer's insistence, and cast Geoff Pierson (and presumably Felicity La Fortune, who did not participate in the book).  I'm not sure how long Rich's initial involvement with the show lasted, but assuming she was gone by the time most of the original cast members under 30 left in the first contract cycle, I wonder if she might have had better luck with some of those recasts.  I realize that's probably an oversimplification...whoever was responsible for all/most of the Mary recasts must have also been responsible for discovering Sarah Felder.  But still, I can't help but wonder.

Interesting that Cali Timmons said she got to know Claire Labine better when she (Timmons) was living in LA and Labine was writing GH.  I wonder how/why.

I still want to know what the original plan was for Charlotte Greer after the McCurtain vendetta story concluded.  That can't be what Labine and Mayer originally planned, although the book makes me wish more of fall 1983 was online.  And I'm trying to remember Charlotte's erotic fantasies about Frank that almost got banned.

The Kirkland era remains an enigma.  While I always sided with the creators and original cast members when I read about that interlude, I appreciate the multiple perspectives the book offered.  Although I tend to think Geoff Pierson's take, as the new guy who had no horse in the race, was the most persuasive - he was watching the show after he was hired trying to get up to speed and couldn't figure out the title or how his character would fit into the show, because Hollis Kirkland seemed to be the patriarch. 

I found myself feeling oddly sympathetic for Kelli Maroney, who must be a good actress because she played such a negative, hateful character but seems to be a lovely person, and who got caught in a backstage tug of war that was much larger than her character/story.  Also Mary Ryan Munisteri, who clearly loved the show—including the original vision, which centered around a character named after her—and was no doubt in an impossible situation when she got promoted to head writer for those few months. 

There's an (archival) quote from Labine that's included in the book about how she wished she'd taken a break when she sold the show to ABC, let them try to do what they wanted, and perhaps come back someday while it was still "salvageable."  She said something similar years later in the We Love Soaps interview.  I can't help but think what might have been with a better planned and timed handoff to Munisteri. 

I really don't understand the brouhaha about Michael being killed off.  And I had forgotten many of the details of the Egyptian tomb story - even that Gordon Thompson's character was tied to the mob element.  I'm also struggling to remember what the story with Maeve that Tom Aldredge came back for was, if it even aired on SoapNet.

7 hours ago, P.J. said:

LOL...my memory's not that good..but wasn't Babs trying to hold on to Brian at that point? It might explain some dramatic rape whistle scenario. I did read in the ATWT book that Marie's baby was Tad Channing's, and that Iva was questioned, and she admitted she had also been having an affair with Tad. 

Also, Lisa suspected John was trying to cause trouble between Bob and Kim. Lisa was admitting to Babs she still loved Bob and that Ellen noted that the "gifts" always seemed to show up while Lisa was around. I couldn't find a specific reference to the card, but I know it tied into the lyrics of Someone to Watch Over Me, as it was a picture of a lamb and shepherd.

Whoa re: Marie and Tad Channing.  So I guess Iva's reference to having been in New Haven wasn't just a red herring - she actually was (in)directly tied to that whole story.  How long was Marie on the show, and when/where did she manage to hook up with Tad?  I didn't think he actually appeared on canvas until after Doug had died.  And did Iva and Doug ever share a scene together?

The subplot with the card was featured in the Christmas Eve episode that was on the DVD.  John was the one who sent a card, to Lisa, that was identical to the one Kim got from her stalker.  Ellen suspecting Lisa of being the stalker sounds amazing!

This is the rape whistle promo.  Whoever put it together apparently didn't watch the show.  Ken, the guy who wanted to give Barbara a message for Kim and might "face conviction" couldn't have been on the show long enough for even a soap-length trial.  Ah, what does it say about the genre that someone who worked in soap PR assumed that the protagonist—whose fate the audience was supposed to care most about—must be the character whose menacing behavior prompted someone else to blow a rape whistle?

I believe Ken was the one who worked with Doug and Marsha at the restaurant and knew Kim back in her lounge singing days, so he became the first suspect (in the stalking, not sure about the murders).  Come to think of it, didn't he also have a thing with Marie?

On 11/8/2023 at 11:02 AM, Xanthe said:

I was looking at the Wikipedia entry for Another World (I wanted to know when exactly the cancellation had been announced, which was apparently April 12, 1999) and I was brought up short by this description:

I cannot think of anything I would describe as exotic melodrama, let alone anything that was more exotic or melodramatic than something I might have seen on Days of Our Lives or As the World Turns.

On 11/8/2023 at 10:37 PM, Xanthe said:

My comment about the AW page wasn't to complain that it was wrong -- if it had been absolutely clearcut I would have felt bold enough to edit it. I was more bewildered and curious to see how other viewers interpreted it since I assumed it was intended as a good faith interpretation and evidently the wording has been there for a long time. 

I don't know about philosophy (even what little I've seen of Lemay's work - and a heated debate about Immanuel Kant was about the only thing that wasn't used as filler in that first 90-minute episode).  From what I've read, you could make the case that more melodramatic things happened to the Matthewses in the first 10-20 years than most other soaps' core families, namely, so many of them were killed off.  And you could argue that the core families were successively replaced by increasingly "exotic" families, as in more ostentatiously wealthy (Matthewses --> Frames (well, Steve) --> Corys --> Loves), and/or by chosen families.

Just some guesses, but, for sure, it's an interesting choice of words.

1 hour ago, P.J. said:

I can't speak to whether Iva was a red herring in Marie's murder, but I distinctly recall we were led to believe it was Shannon calling Lucinda re: Lily.

Ah.  Which reminds me, at some point just before (or possibly during?) Kim's stalker story, she was attacked by some thug(s) who were after the jewels Shannon and Earl were smuggling?  Or at least Shannon blamed herself when she confessed her real identity, but maybe she was mistaken and Doug or Marsha was responsible for whatever happened to Kim that time as well?  Again, I'd be really curious to see how all those story threads gelled.

Watching that episode when Iva came home (thank you again for the link, @MarlandFan) right after binging everything else I could find on YouTube from the Doug Cummings saga made me wonder - was Iva a red herring in Marie's murder/Kim's stalker mystery at some point?  When Emma asked Iva where she had been all those years, I caught that she listed a city in Colorado (Denver?), where Doug took Frannie and Kim hostage, as well as New Haven, where Marie claimed she was leaving town to go back.

Of course, Lucinda was also getting mysterious phone calls at the time.  I'm not sure how obvious it was that Iva was responsible, and/or if it might have seemed possible that the same person was calling Kim and Lucinda.  And in one of Meg's early scenes arguing with Emma, she asked obnoxiously, "After all these years, how do you even know she's really Iva?"

Again, I'd be fascinated to see how all those mysteries (and everything else at the time) played out alongside each other, day to day.