DeliaIrisFan
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On 6/2/2022 at 11:24 AM, dragonflies said:
Wow, 25 years...I feel old.
PC occupies a weird place in my heart. I was rooting for the Labine GH spinoff, but GH was still watchable when the decision was made and I was totally on board for a Lucy-centered spinoff. Unfortunately, there were clearly not enough closeted, unpopular teens with nothing better to do in their free time that summer than watch an extra half hour of GH. Even I'd stopped watching GH by the time PC actually premiered, it had gotten so bad...and I gave PC a few weeks at most.
The late '90s on ABC soaps was such a fascinating moment in hindsight (at the time it was mostly frustrating), and PC was case in point. So many resources available: for primetime episodes, relatively high-quality marketing, casting. And the existing vet cast who could be strategically utilized after not getting much airtime for a while were nothing to sneeze at either. But even when those budget windfalls got allocated for good things, nobody who knew what they were doing was ever empowered long enough for all that money to pay off.
PC had a good cast and some talented people behind the scenes. My teenage self would never have admitted the latter, but the Cullitons and Riche probably had good ideas and clearly were trying their best. In hindsight, they were clearly too overworked churning out 1.5 hours of TV a day to come up with a long-term vision, let alone fight for it.
And hey, PC was the last half-hour soap to premiere, and the last soap to premiere, period, that wasn't Passions (of course, you couldn't make up the fact that PC ultimately went off the air plagiarizing Passions if you were trying to come up with a really esoteric parody of soaps at the turn of the millennium).
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I've often wondered what the deal was with RH and the Emmys as the '80s wore on. I know the show was in a bad way for quite a bit of the decade, but still.
Did RH not have affiliate clearance in area(s) where a critical mass of people in the industry lived after the timeslot change? A part of me wonders if the last few acting nods were not entirely based on work on the show and/or during the eligibility period. Helen Gallagher and Bernie Barrow likely had accumulated some goodwill, and I would think there may have been buzz that they were getting material again and making the most of it - deservedly. It's nice that Helen won the show's last Emmy, anyway. And I wonder if Tichina Arnold and/or Grant Show were more well-known for their other work by the time awards season came around.
I'm not saying the show deserved to continue its '70s Emmy streak, but there were quality periods/performances, and even Claire Labine's return later in the decade with really solid material didn't make a difference. I suppose by then Santa Barbara had displaced RH in the hearts of writing Emmy voters as the "little soap that could," but was there no room even for a nostalgic nomination one year or another? Especially after Labine/Mayer's back-to-back wins for their briefer return earlier in the decade.
On a related note, I wonder what would have happened if the awards ceremony had aired in 1984, when Pat Falken Smith was head writer but Labine/Mayer had been at the helm for most(?) of the eligibility period. Would they all have attempted to take the stage (speaking of SB)?
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Wow...I had been away, and my news feed was inundated with other things, and the algorithms probably don't even know at this point that I have/had an interest in soaps.
I've felt sad about the other daytime vets we've lost in recent months, some of whom I only came to fully appreciate more recently thanks to that immortalizing YouTube. But I actually do have decades' worth of history with Jerry ver Dorn as a soap patriarch, so this is more personal. He was a great actor, for sure, and he and that cohort he worked with at GL most consistently for all those years really elevated the genre; Maeve K's quote, which I could hear her reading in my head, really reminded me of that.
I had watched OLTL on and off by the time JvD came on, and in hindsight I don't understand the approach they took with the Clint recast. Especially since it seemed like all Clint had to do was overcome his homophobia (although of course TPTB would have had to overcome their own) and be back on track to being the kind of compassionate, wise tentpole character that Jerry had played for 25 years or so, which I'd assumed was what they hired him for. Maybe there was a payoff to Clint's turn to the dark side that I missed during one of my off periods. In any event, as always JvD did everything he could with the material, and at least he got to be a part of one long-running soap's finale.
On a more personal note, there was a time in the '90s when my closeted adolescent self thought Ross as well as Roger and Ed were all so handsome—and I sort of envied Blake, at least as far as having them all in her life in different, bizarre ways. (Plus Alan-Michael on the side, and a mother as fabulous as Holly to fight/conspire with.) A big part of me still does. I know that is weird to say right now, but going by some of the bawdy anecdotes, I can only hope Jerry wouldn't take offense.
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On 11/18/2021 at 4:16 PM, Forever8 said:
Found this BTS of the ABC Soaps from Summer 1995.
Well, that was terribly produced and scripted, but I do miss when soaps mattered enough for anyone to bother with such promotional vehicles.
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Speaking of McTavish, I finally finished watching all that's available online from Natalie in the well to the resolution of Will's murder for the first time.
Given everything McTavish subsequently did in her career, it's fascinating to watch what I believe were the first characters she officially created: Angelique, Galen, Gloria, and Stephen Hamill. I have to imagine at least three of them did not work out at all as planned.
I actually wonder if Gloria, the only one who ended up lasting, was even intended to: I kind of got the vibe early on that she was originally going to be the victim of a less far-reaching whodunit, maybe limited to the Cortlandts, and they changed it to Will when the actor left. In any event, I was surprised by how much I liked Gloria. The actress/character were wasted in later years in such unfortunate stories, from what I saw—somehow I still remember even her scenes from the ads for that Maria/Erica baby switch story, when I wasn't watching the show, were like nails on a chalkboard—but she was about the most riveting part of the show for a good month or two after everyone discovered Natalie was alive. And I'll be damned if I didn't feel for Gloria in the rape story, manipulative and problematic as it clearly was.
With Angelique I was actually expecting the worst, given the general concept and how short-lived I knew she would be, but surprisingly I thought she had her moments. (Sometimes perhaps unintentionally hilariously, like when Angelique still couldn't speak and was just watching all the teeth-gnashing at WildWind after she was wheeled into the party, but I'm not sure what more any performer could have done with that.) I assume Angelique was meant to last longer and they cut their losses, but I also suspect the triangle they were setting up with Dimitri and Erica when the uploads cut off was originally intended for Dimitri and Natalie. Am I wrong, or did Angelique just vanish for weeks after her intro, while Natalie dropped Dimitri with barely a second glance, and Dimitri showed no inclination of wanting to reconcile with Angelique at that point? Did Kate Collins announce she was leaving right then?
As for Galen and Stephen, I am guessing they were meant to be long-term romantic leads? They weren't terrible, and I'm not 100% sure if Stephen/Dixie was cut short more to make way for Tad's return than for any other reason, but it foreshadowed McTavish's challenges making "good" characters compelling/dynamic. I had heard of Galen but had no idea she was actually recast in such a brief time period, so I was as surprised as most viewers would have been 30 years ago, but the character still didn't take.
To be fair, I picked these four characters even though I know McTavish must have had a major hand in creating Dimitri, and I actually think Lucas Barnes—Terrence's father—pre-dated Angelique by a day or so. But Broderick and Washam were still credited above McTavish in Dimitri's first episodes, and I really doubt Lucas was intended to stay on the show longer than he did, or move beyond a supporting role. (Although if the actor were interested, they absolutely should have kept him around and given him more to do!)
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2 minutes ago, DRW50 said:
@DeliaIrisFan The more I think about it the more I agree that asking whether the character should be de-aged (if they did) is offputting, and really tells you where the mindset of the soap press and industry was.
Much as we may all take lumps off soap fans for some of their views, they were usually very upfront about wanting to see older characters - so much so that when soaps began chasing young faces, their ratings dropped en masse and never recovered. The refusal to respect older characters, who were loved by viewers of all ages, was one of the greatest nails in the coffin.
Yeah, honestly, it wouldn't surprise me that much if they were floating some of the same names as potential Iris and Vicky recasts.
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1 hour ago, DRW50 said:
September 9, 1994.
I haven't seen the wording of the original question, but they may have just asked for other suggestions, rather than giving specific names as choices. If I have it I'll see what the question was.
Ah, so ~ 1 week before CD's last episode aired. I love how the question/possible responses were phrased as though the writers/casting director still had months to plan next steps.
But, that would have been my next question—which other actresses were they teasing? Even if write-ins were an/the only option, Kate Collins at least looked/comported herself someone like Iris as portrayed by CD; and she had been on a popular soap just a few years before. KC may have just won a plurality among the sliver of respondents who chose that (younger recast) option, which could have been due to name recognition more than anything else. I'm not sure the majority of her fans at that time would have even read a soap mag poll about AW all the way through.
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On 10/27/2021 at 8:36 AM, DRW50 said:
Soap Opera Magazine 1994 issue - readers were given 3 options about recasting Iris when Carmen Duncan announced her departure:
1. 50 percent would do anything to see Beverlee McKinsey return to the daytime role she created. Even though it's been nearly 15 years since Beverlee was last seen in Bay City, her portrayal of the complex Iris is one of the best in soap history.
2. 10 percent think the show should advantage of the situation by hiring a younger actress to play Iris. This group believes Kate Collins would be an excellent choice.
3. 40 percent really don't want the show to recast this role. Even though it's a pivotal one, fans have been lucky enough to have both Beverlee and Carmen play the part - and topping both of them would be next to impossible. Instead, Iris should just leave Bay City in some dramatic way.
Wow...what was the date on that issue? I'm stunned that SOM had enough lead time to run this poll via whatever technology was available at the time—presumably a 900 number—while her on-screen exit was seemingly so slapped together. I always assumed negotiations fell apart midway through that storyline in which Iris shot Carl halfway across the country from where her ~ 2-day trial+sentencing ended up taking place.
My recollection is that SOM was not in the top tier of soap rags when it came to cutting-edge journalism, which wouldn't have said much to begin with, so a part of me wonders if these three options were basically dictated by someone in PR at NBC/P&G. If so, the phrasing of the third option makes me think they were already seriously contemplating leaving Iris in jail indefinitely, and maybe provides a window into how TPTB thought the ending was an appropriate swan song for the character. Although I can't imagine P&G at the time would have actively encouraged speculation about BM's return, post-GL, even if they might have secretly been open to the idea...
Regardless of who came up with the wording, how gross that hiring a younger actress, specifically, was one of the other prescribed options—and without even an alternative for an age-appropriate recast if BM wasn't interested. Still, how awesome that only 10% voted for that, especially when you consider how few things poll at 90% these days.
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I agree that each year from 1993-1995 brought major developments, many of them mentioned above, that changed the genre as a whole for the worse. But here's another potentially unpopular, related opinion: I would argue the brief period right before that—and, for a handful of shows, well into those three years—was actually setting the stage for the '90s to be one of the best decades in soap history.
Looking back, a number of the soaps in the early '90s were taking significant steps toward the 21st century. At least, they got a lot closer than just about anything that I've seen on soaps since, more than 20 years into the millennium. And they actually had long-range stories with momentum.
I think it's significant that Y&R, AMC, and ATWT of that era were, respectively, the three top-rated soaps for a few years there, after the over-the-top '80s came to an abrupt end. Admittedly, I wasn't watching any of those three at the time. But I can't help but wonder if those shows, which were (at the time) relatively grounded and diverse, sparked a trend that at least indirectly made some of my favorite soap eras possible: Nancy Curlee, et al's work at GL and Claire Labine's tenure at GH. Not to mention the Malone-Gottlieb era at OLTL, which I know is just as beloved by many other fans.
Of course, then DOOL's ratings went up—during the OJ Simpson trial and the demonic possession story, as discussed above—and the pendulum swung back in the opposite direction, and off a cliff...
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I love the discussion of the Alex/Mindy dynamic. FWIW, I will say that, before Nick came to town, especially, Alex seemed to me to have a sense of perspective with Roger and Mindy both. When Alex blackmailed Mindy into coming to her showdown at the country club, for example, it seemed primarily to help further unnerve Roger as she moved in for the kill. I thought it was very clear that taking down Roger was Alex's job but making Mindy's life hell was more of a hobby.
For me, the (first) point of no return was when Alex actually recruited Roger to break up Nick and Mindy. It led to some memorable scenes/stories but, from then on, Alex clearly had it in for Mindy more than she cared about keeping her family safe from Roger. In hindsight, that damaged the character and strained credibility, for sure.
Perhaps not coincidentally, I remember from rewatching all those 1991-92 episodes on YouTube a few years ago (RIP) that plot twist happened right after Nancy Curlee's name had just disappeared from the credits, when she went on maternity leave. I recalled that McKinsey had drawn a line in the sand at Curlee's departure in her exit interview, and I actually thought of that again when Curlee was describing her process for pitching stories in her recent YouTube interview: how she would say, "You'll never guess what happens next," and someone would try to guess, and she would respond, "No, because..." and then Curlee would reveal her actual idea. I can't help but wonder if that would have been a "No Because" moment had she been in the building.
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On 9/27/2021 at 11:40 PM, j swift said:
Heaven forbid! She was the titular Ryan of Ryan's Hope. What would they all have hoped for if she was killed off?
I have no doubt a baby for Mary and Jack named Ryan was in the original RH bible, but to be fair the show was on the air almost two years before Ryan was actually born. I hear you, killing off Ryan would have added to the depressing factor, for sure, although I have no doubt at the end of the story arc there would have been a new baby named after Ryan.
Probably Jill's, instead of naming her second child with Frank after Mary—even if she was married to Frank at the time, she could have kept her name and insisted that naming the baby Ryan Coleridge would honor both their families. Alternatively, it would have been fun/twisted if Delia had another baby while not married to someone in the family and decided to name them Ryan, over everyone's objection. Perhaps down the line Maeve and/or Mary would have felt an irresistible urge to become a surrogate parent to the poor child and provide a good influence.
On 9/27/2021 at 11:34 PM, DRW50 said:@DeliaIrisFan That's a great idea about Ryan - it would have meant Jill did not get the very strong material she had after Edmond's death, but they could have found story in her continuing to raise Edmond and her deepening split with Seneca.
Yeah, and my recollection is within a month or so after the explosion, most of NAA's material was more about Jill's opioid addiction anyway, which could have been accomplished without Edmond actually dying. Jill could have successfully rescued Edmond but still hurt her back in the process, and the Ryans could have had all sorts of foreshadowy scenes about how devastating it would be if they lost one of their grandchildren. And if (other characters actually noticed that) Jill neglected Edmond (only because of the pills, of course!) and then Frank and/or Seneca challenged her for custody....
I feel like someone at the network, probably, got cold feet after Edmond died—I'm sure the ratings were not doing well with all the cast changes around that time—and sent a memo decreeing that nobody could mourn him on-camera anymore. Which again might have worked out better if Ryan had been killed off to facilitate a respite from the Kate Mulgrew recasts: Jack would have likely hidden his sense of loss behind renewed rage and an attempt to go back to his pre-Ryan/Ryans life. And like I suggested, Mary could have left town to grieve off-canvas, but leaving the door open for a KM return someday to bring closure.
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I'm glad they never fully went there with Jack and Siobhan, even with Sarah Felder.
It would have made sense for Jack and Mary's differences to continue to drive a wedge between them, even after Jack took responsibility for Ryan and they reconciled. There were surely all sorts of other Ryan family heirlooms that would trigger Jack in new ways.
To j swift's point, there is a way they could have justified Mary leaving NY and upped the stakes of the mob story even more than they did by killing her off: if baby Ryan had been accidentally(?) killed in an Uncle Tiso–ordered explosion or something. Instead of killing off Edmond, which never packed as much of a punch because Frank was clearly too self-absorbed to really care about his children, but none of the other characters seemingly noticed. Whereas Jack and everyone else besides Mary and Maeve swore up and down he'd never be a good father, but we actually saw him grow to love Ryan.
Claire Labine would have written the hell out of it, of course. Maybe Kate Mulgrew could have been persuaded to return longer-term at some point in the '80s, between gigs, and Jack and Mary could have tried to deal with their mutual grief and make it work again, but ultimately...
On 9/26/2021 at 8:21 AM, amybrickwallace said:Were Maggie and Dave really that popular of a couple? I do know that she was much more interesting as a vixen than she was as an ingenue.
When/how did they go from romantic location shoots for Maggie and Dave to Maggie being the spoiler for Dave and the cheerleader from Romy and Michelle's High School Reunion (I know she was supposed to be playing one of Kathleen's daughters, but from what little I saw of her run, I suspect she had a way better role in Romy and Michelle)? Didn't I read that the mid-'80s writers recycle one or more of Delia's desperate antics to hang onto Frank/Pat with Maggie/Dave, or am I making that up? Never mind that this promo was mere months after she was conspiring—among other things—with Roger to ingratiate herself as Jill's long-lost sister.
I like what I've seen of CT's intro and Maggie doing battle with Delia toward the show's end, but I have a hard time believing there was a plausible throughline for Maggie's character in the intervening years.
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5 hours ago, titan1978 said:
The only story I know she pitched that got rejected (and this was directly because of the Stone storyline and audience erosion) was Audrey developing early stage dementia/Alzheimer’s. ABC and Riche felt like it was too many depressing stories in a row. Stone was the only major story going on for the two months leading to his death, and the entire show revolved around it. I’m so glad they told the story, but I can also see why they wanted a change after.
The Labines set Guza/Harris up pretty well- they did the Jason story (his accident and personality change afterwards), Bobbie’s memories of the child she gave away, Carly’s introduction, and Jax.
I do remember the dementia story - didn't it go beyond a rejected pitch, with Audrey actually being shown forgetting things airing, or is that soap opera urban legend?
My recollection of that time period (and/or what my brain filled in in the years afterward) was that Bobbie and Tony were onscreen a fair amount, albeit less than Robin/Stone for sure, and again in that short-term story with Alan. I assumed for the next decade or two, until that interview, that the Labines were just not committing to long-term stories for Bobbie/Tony or virtually anyone else at that point because they were only staying on to finish the AIDS story. Bobbie and Tony weren't quite back together, so another triangle/quadrangle made for a short-term detour without throwing anything else at them that was too high-stakes.
Of course, it's possible Labine thought of a long-lost child for Bobbie at literally the eleventh hour, after the reconciliation with Tony. Otherwise, though, I'm just surprised they didn't introduce that sooner, as a slow-boil teaser thing.
I see no reason why it couldn't have overlapped with the Stone story, or even been connected: Bobbie could have been visiting him in the AIDS ward, met another patient who had been a sex worker, and made some offhanded comment about how back when she was in the life the most she had to worry about was getting pregnant. Her memories could have been the obstacle that delayed Bobbie and Tony's reconciliation, as she pushed him away because she didn't trust him enough to confide in him after all they'd done to each other.
Again, unless the network was skittish and refusing to greenlight any other longer-term stories.
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For sure. In hindsight, it's like the Great Recession came to soaps 10 years early. GH—like most if not every other soap—was getting ratings that would be unheard of today and the economy as a whole was booming, but soap budgets were starting to shrink in the most ridiculous ways. Even as they obviously had money for the most pointless things: Culliton's anecdote about the PC premiere becoming a Sunday night movie at the eleventh hour reminded me that GH/PC got not one but two primetime specials during Richard Culliton's brief, rocky tenure.
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I guess I can see how Claire Labine would have come up with the general idea for Carly. In hindsight, Bobbie was even living in the brownstone set in which RH's Jill Coleridge's long-lost sister Maggie Shelby weaseled her way and ended up seducing Jill's husband. But that RH story (and the Kim/Rae story before it) seemed like attempts to satisfy the network's insistence on introducing younger characters, while connecting them to the existing cast, rather than something Labine's heart was really in. Whereas GH in the mid-'90s didn't necessarily have a lack of younger characters. So it really was surprising to me when she said that.
I recall it was reported at the time that Labine extended her GH contract six months to finish the Robin/Stone story and never intended to stay longer, and the timing jives, but it was surprising that she was still invested in the rest of the canvas enough to come up with long-range stories at the last minute. It seemed like Bobbie and Alan almost having an affair was a short-term story to keep those characters busy during that interim period, whereas the summer of 1995 would have been a logical time—before Bobbie and Tony reconciled—to introduce Bobbie's long-lost daughter. Maybe that was her original plan, and the network (with Disney now in the mix) got skittish about the ratings, probably blamed the AIDS story, and hit the brakes on other longer-range stories?
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It was an interesting interview. My teenage self would never in a million years have believed I would be typing this, but I'm glad they remained in daytime all these years. They both have clearly contributed a lot to the genre and, in hindsight, Richard got raked over the coals—including by me—for things at GH that clearly were beyond his control. (See also Riche, Wendy.)
It probably didn't even register for me at the time how creating a new daily show while head writing another one must have been impossible to do well. (I didn't appreciate that going to work in an office was actually...work.) I wonder who at ABC was so adamant about the Cullitons helming the spinoff, and how anyone would think that such an arrangement would turn out well for either show. I was rooting for Claire Labine's spinoff and, by the time PC premiered, would have been happy to see A Daytime to Remember become a permanent fixture. If anything, though, the network should have recruited Carolyn for PC to ensure the head writers of both shows would get along, and paired her with someone who had been on the GH team and had a history writing the crossover characters, like Michele val Jean or Karen Harris.
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I interpreted what Curlee said about the decision(s) to kill Maureen as partly declining to point fingers, for sure, but I'll buy that she was the one who committed to going all-in for realism. That seemed to be her calling card. I'm actually not sure JFP would have cared so much about making the death irreversible. I agree the off-the-cuff story idea Curlee threw out about Roger wouldn't have worked for reasons discussed above, and I doubt Maureen being alive off-camera would have minimized the backlash anyway. And I'm not sure anyone would have given their all to that story if it were just a typical soap opera "death" - including Curlee herself, based on what she said about the writing being influenced by her mother having died a few years before, which I had not heard her say before.
I do wish Curlee had spoken more about her thoughts on McKinsey's reasons for leaving while she was away, but I can see why she declined with her husband and co–head writer sitting there. What would she have pushed back on as far as the Alex/Mindy dynamic, and/or how might she have blunted the impact on Alex's character?
The GH tidbit is fascinating. Not only would their hiring have presumably meant a radically different direction for GH itself than the one in which it ended up going as 1996 wore on, but that year also seems like such a turning point for soaps as a whole in hindsight.
Essentially all the soaps, or at least the non–creator owned ones, were in creative turmoil by year-end, and at the time that could realistically be blamed on the head writer turnover that was also happening across the board. I can't help but wonder what would have happened if there had been a few more seasoned head writers in charge by midyear who were willing to go to the mat for their vision, back in those early days of Disney owning ABC (and the new guard at P&G, for that matter) when everyone was still figuring out how to work together.
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Yes, Seneca was a controlling husband; and yes, John Gabriel was charming and sexy as hell in the role. I completely bought both Nell and Jill getting involved with him against their better judgment. I draw the line at his involvement with Kim—her judgment or lack thereof notwithstanding, that pairing made no sense—although I appreciate KM's heartfelt, self-effacing post.
Agreed that Nell and Seneca were a high point in the show's first year, likely at least in part because their story were the least affected by the change in plans vis-a-vis Frank dying - but also because they were both so talented and worked well together. They were supposed to last longer (DvD left for medical reasons) and I could have seen them being a tempestuous but tentpole couple on the hospital side of the show, a la Alan and Monica Quartermaine. But the euthanasia story was a stellar ending.
Anyway, RIP to a terrific actor.
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My inner child will always love that "You Take Me Away to Another World" opening, although I cannot deny the lyrics are completely insipid. It is remarkable that it lasted so long—the visuals at least were probably half-dated by the time it premiered in 1987—but I wonder why Laibson or somebody pre-JFP never tried to revamp it. I feel like with new orchestrations, the song could have fit in with the late '80s/early '90s soft-rock trend, and a new font and non-stylized photos of the cast would have been a relatively quick fix (and easier to update).
I'm also not sure how you could have come up with much better lyrics for a song named after the show, because every explanation I've heard put forward for what the show's title was supposed to mean—dare I say, even Lemay and Phillips'—sounds cliched and/or pretentious. I suspect that's because the name was really coined by ad execs who decided they wanted "Another (As the) World (Turns)." In hindsight, that probably made it the worst choice of all the soaps to have theme songs with lyrics that included the title of the show—along with Loving, which oddly enough I believe had the only other lyrical soap theme by the mid-'90s.
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I'm still trying to get through 1991-92, but skipped ahead and watched some of that September 1994 episode. I've also caught bits and pieces of what there is on YouTube from that "sequel" a few years later with Mattson's Janet pretending to be someone else in order to once again marry Trevor.
I say sequel intentionally, because it really has the vibe of one of the sequels to summer blockbusters from that era that were paint-by-numbers retreads of originals, which—love them or hate them—had real talent involved and were genuinely beloved by many, e.g., Home Alone 2, Addams Family Values, the many Jurassic Park sequels, etc. Especially with that actress who played Janet and Natalie's mother, whom I feel like I saw in so many things in the '90s. And I know Harold the Dog had an even more far-fetched arc, which I kind of wish I could find on YouTube.
And like those movie sequels, that story seemingly hinged on nobody having learned anything the first time. Did they even try to explain why someone who had committed Janet's particular crimes would have ever been chosen for such an experiment, or why nobody knew Janet was out of jail and had a new face?
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In general I would say Nancy Curlee's team wrote the hell out of so many of JFP's questionable casting choices. The writing was mostly intelligent and—in stark contrast to JFP's later work—they tried to fit new characters/characterizations into the canvas in logical ways, at least until the wheels came off with Tangie. As far as Alex's reintroduction scene, specifically, I think it made sense pre-internet that Alex wouldn't have necessarily gleaned from the headlines during a layover that her company had been taken over in her absence. If none of the articles happened to say "Roger Thorpe and Jenna Bradshaw, who earlier this year won control of Spaulding Enterprises in a lawsuit..." Alex might have just seen that the stock prices were down or whatever and resigned herself to deal with that once she got home, because she was unable to go down a clickhole.
And I don't think Marj Dusay was inherently a bad recast Alex. By that point, in hindsight, the cast overall had just been so gutted and she was yet another new face with a familiar name who couldn't replicate what came before. (Alongside potentially familiar faces playing new characters, of course.) I enjoyed some of Dusay's work on GL I saw over the years, and especially much of that early material, but of course she couldn't have replaced McKinsey. I really doubt any of the other actresses mentioned could have either.
As far as persuading McKinsey to come back just long enough for the battle for Spaulding, I actually wonder if that story ever would have happened if she were still on the show. It was implied that the reason Jenna and Roger were able to get away with it was because of Alex's absence and Alan-Michael's screwups (one of the best scenes from that time, after truth be told it had been a little hard to swallow 20-something A-M a serious contender for the presidency, was when he acknowledged to Vanessa that he was never qualified to challenge her for the position and essentially apologized for being an entitled brat to her).
I feel like the writers scrambled with Alex abruptly gone from the canvas, and ended up giving the Spauldings some of the same materials/beats they had planned for the Bauers after Maureen's death. Of course, going by Ellen Parker's telling of how she learned the news that she was fired (on opening night of the play she was doing, which the NY Times said was in November of 1992), it wouldn't have been too late to reverse course on killing off Maureen once McKinsey quit, or at least postpone it. Whatever else I may think of the decision to write Maureen off, failing to reevaluate in the wake of what would otherwise have been the show's most shocking departure in a decade or more really sealed the deal.
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On 3/7/2021 at 3:09 AM, ghfan89 said:
All here
https://archive.org/details/AllMyChildren1987Jan-jul
https://archive.org/details/AllMyChildren1987Aug-Dec
https://archive.org/details/AllMyChildren1988JanThruMay10gb
https://archive.org/details/AllMyChildren1988JunThruDec7.9Gb
https://archive.org/details/AllMyChildren1989JanThruAug1421.6Gb
https://archive.org/details/AllMyChildren19892AugThruDec18.5Gb
https://archive.org/details/AllMyChildren19901Jan02ThruAugust14-16.9Gb
https://archive.org/details/AllMyChildren19902Aug14ThruDec3116.9Gb
https://archive.org/details/AllMyChildren19911JanuaryThruJune
https://archive.org/details/AllMyChildren19912JulyThruDecember21.5Gb
https://archive.org/details/AllMyChildren199201JanThruMay16.8Gb
Thank you!
On 3/8/2021 at 11:06 AM, FrenchBug82 said:For someone for whom this is a bit earlier than what I am familiar with, what drama are we talking about? And how do you see it spilling on-screen?
Wisner Washam and Lorraine Broderick were at the top of the writing credits (after Agnes Nixon) for most of 1991, so the de facto co–head writers, and Megan McTavish was an associate writer at that point. Washam has since made very pointed comments about working with McTavish and implied the network pushed him out once and for all because they sided with her. Broderick left AMC for several years around this same time, and McTavish subsequently became head writer. McTavish has been unofficially credited with the Janet/Natalie story—and seemed to enjoy revisiting that history during her head-writing stints—although Broderick and Washam (and Nixon) were still credited above McTavish throughout Natalie being trapped in the well and Janet's capture. In that same interview, Washam called himself a "realist," at least in comparison to Nixon, whom I have to assume generally favored more down-to-earth storytelling than McTavish.
I got the distinct impression that someone who was still officially in charge was openly making fun of the Janet story in the scripts from the summer of 1991. The best example was when Janet laughed off Natalie's claim that that homeless guy had found her and was going to come back and get her out any time now. Janet joked that if anyone was going to have some random man ride in on his white horse to save her, it would be Natalie given her history, and then Dimitri showed up in the very same episode to do just that. There were other self-referential touches in Hayley and Brian's dialogue.
At the same time, there were humanizing details to how other characters began to tell Janet and Natalie apart, unlike in other evil-twin plots I've seen, including from later in McTavish's career. Not to mention, there were more realistic stories happening in parallel—in one of the climactic episodes of the Janet story, Phoebe and Opal (and Enid Nelson!) were meanwhile discussing the Environmental Protection Agency's drinking water regulations.
My guess is McTavish pitched the Natalie-in-the-Well story and it either got greenlit over Washam (and Broderick's) objections, or they initially agreed to it but one or more grew to regret it as it played out/overtook the show. In any case, they were all—not to mention Agnes Nixon, to whatever extent she was involved day to day—executing the story as a team, and it certainly gelled. I can see why the show was successful, ratings-wise, and it was definitely more compelling to me than what I've seen of McTavish's official tenure(s).
I said before I could see how this wouldn't be sustainable for long, but I hadn't realized how quickly it came to an end until watching the subsequent episode that ghfan89 kindly linked—within weeks of Natalie being revealed to be alive, McTavish and Richard Culliton were now credited equal to Broderick (after Nixon), and Washam's name was completely gone. I never realized Broderick and McTavish ever co–head wrote a show together, although I know Broderick joined GL's writing team within 3 months so that didn't last long either. And I hadn't realized Culliton, who was not in the credits at all previously, was hired specifically to work with McTavish.
It's also interesting that Gloria and the Steven Hamill character both debuted within days of McTavish's apparent promotion.0 -
23 hours ago, Chris B said:
There was a Youtube channel I had found with playlists for 87 through at least 90 with a good number of episodes per year and Youtube deleted it! I was just at an episode in 88 where there was an explosion at a party. I literally watched maybe a month and it was getting so good before Youtube deleted it!
That channel went up to 1992...I know, because I had been binging the Natalie-in-the-well story in recent weeks, for the first time.
I found this period fascinating, in part because the backstage drama I've read about was so obviously spilling over onscreen. The show was clearly shifting its focus, but there were still elements of Pine Valley being a community where people had to deal with real/mundane day-to-day things amid the melodrama. It was clearly not going to be sustainable, but it made for compelling viewing while it lasted, and the Natalie story was the over-the-top, garish centerpiece of all that.In some ways, this was both the smartest and dumbest evil twin story I've ever seen on soaps. On the one hand, Janet and Natalie weren't even actually twins, but unlike other stories involving long-lost, never-explained doubles, Janet didn't even have the element of surprise. On the other hand, at times the scripts were overtly making fun of the plot holes. I couldn't help but think of Wisner Washam's very candid comments about Megan McTavish some years back—I can only assume there were factions of the writing team who hated the direction this story represented for the show, but some of those writers were still officially in charge, so I guess they managed to get their digs in via the dialogue.
I also recall reading that Collins and Kiberd allegedly did not get along off camera, which also came to mind watching this because some of those scenes between Trevor and "Natalie" were frankly uncomfortable to watch. But I have to admit part of that discomfort was due to watching this almost a year into COVID, especially with that chickenpox plot device. In some ways, right now we are all Trevor and Janet, at once getting the sense that our loved ones have been replaced by hateful doppelgangers while resenting the universe for sending us a contagious disease on top of everything else. So they sort of tapped into something more emotionally real than many soap "newlyweds" have managed to reflect...
Does anyone know if Nader was intended to be paired with Lucci all along, or was the show actually trying to make Dimitri and Natalie happen in order to move her and Trevor out of each others' orbits permanently? Unfortunately if that was the intent, I can't say Natalie and Dimitri and Helga at WildWind made for compelling viewing (I wished I'd skipped ahead to Janet's exposure or Will's murder). Those scenes also were like a parody of a soap opera, much like the evil twin trope, except there wasn't a character like Janet or Hayley around to provide MST3K-esque commentary.
And speaking of Hayley, I dare say unlike any time I can recall in decades of watching various soaps—including when I was a teenager myself, eons ago—I actually found myself looking forward to a teen character showing up. Whatever it says about the storyline, Hayley was officially the smartest character living in that house, and she was actually fun. It's too bad most of what I saw of the way Hayley was written as an adult was so spiritless—clearly someone at ABC remembered that Ripa could do humor, so I don't know what happened there.0 -
On 1/31/2021 at 7:38 PM, safe said:
Here is the entire article
Thank you.
On 1/29/2021 at 5:40 PM, Sean said:You make a very fair point, and from what I've read the ratings in 1982 can only be considered disappointing in light of how well the show was doing during the summer and fall of 1981. ABC's disappointment in the ratings and itchiness behind the scenes is understandable only in that context. It does make a certain kind of perverse sense that they'd begin to feel that Claire Labine was replaceable given the success of the show under the scabs.
A while back, the monthly ratings reports from Daytime TV were posted in this thread. They're not always the most reliable indicator as (1) the reports seem to be linked to specific weeks rather than specific months and (2) they were published a few months behind and not consistently so—based on the specific shows that are listed, some are only 2 months behind and some are up to 4 months behind.
With those caveats out of the way, in the Daytime TV ratings reports Ryan's Hope seems to peak around August 1981, when it ranks in fourth place with a 7.8 rating—that's the last month of the strike, around the time Kim gave birth to Arley and the Monte Carlo Room opened at the Crystal Palace. For the remainder of 1981, the show is consistently ranking in either fifth or sixth place. Somewhere in that thread there's a separate breakdown of the key demos for the fourth quarter of 1981, and Ryan's Hope was also in the top 5 for that report. I have to imagine ABC was pretty happy with that performance, given that the ratings had been stagnating a bit around 1979-80.
By the time you get to early 1982, the show dips down to seventh and eighth place, with a small bump back up to sixth place for May/June 1982. So by the time Labine is dumped in favor of Munisteri, the show is down compared to 1981 but basically back to where it was in 1979 and 1980. ABC's decision to make this change in writers really only makes sense in the context of the ratings drop relative to the strike material, as well as the tumultuous relationship that Labine acknowledges she had with the ABC brass at the time.
Of course, by the end of Munisteri's brief time as HW the show has dropped even more, with ratings now in the 5s and dropping to ninth place. The ratings don't seem to move at all throughout Labine & Mayer's 1983 return, with the show consistently ranking either in ninth or tenth place and sometimes dipping into the 4s. Under Pat Falken Smith that ranking remains unchanged and the ratings continue to atrophy until the show ends up at the bottom of the ratings basement with The Edge of Night and Search for Tomorrow after the timeslot change.
As to why ABC allowed PFS to go more than a year as headwriter when they were so willing to make quick changes in the writers' room in 1982 and 1983, I assume that they were giving her a wider berth given her track record at General Hospital and given the degree to which the show's character was altered. It may also be that they were becoming less invested, particularly with the timeslot change.
Oh yeah, I can see why the network gave PFS more latitude than Munsteri. If anything, I'm just more surprised that they (temporarily) abandoned the idea of turning RH into a more generic show at all after the brief Kirkland era, as opposed to scapegoating Munisteri for the poor showing and immediately replacing her with a more established head writer from one of the more popular shows of the era.
In fact, seeing those early '80s ratings—thank you for sharing those—and how GL was the highest rated non-ABC soap that one month when RH rode GH's coattails to the top four made me wonder... What might have been if ABC had hired Doug Marland as RH's head writer around that time? He was after all the one who first youthified GH and took it to the top of the ratings, and despite the fact that he apparently parted on not the best terms, he did come back into the ABC orbit not long afterward (to create Loving, because of course everything in the soap biz is connected). And his rate at that time must have been comparable to what PFS commanded.
I feel less guilty suggesting this because Labine herself said later in life that she wished she'd taken a year or two off in the early '80s because she was burnt out: Marland is about the only writer from that period I can think of who could have maybe successfully integrated some of the elements ABC was looking for at the time, while juggling the Ryans and Coleridges as well. And perhaps he would have left behind fodder that Labine and/or Mayer might have enjoyed exploring when they inevitably returned.On 1/29/2021 at 5:40 PM, Sean said:To be fair, I feel like by 1986 you really had no choice but to make Little John college-aged, given that LJ was always a few years older than Ryan and that they'd already aged up and married off (!!) Ryan by the time Jason Adams was cast in the role. Of course, no need to make Frank and Delia grandparents!
I know, it would be almost as unbelievable to watch Ryan aged to be older than Little John. Especially remembering that he was (indirectly) the cause of the two biggest fights that led to the breakup of Jack and Mary's first marriage while she was pregnant with Ryan. But maybe they could have at least cast someone who seemed less mature for his age, whereas Adams came across as a grown man, no way around it.
Also, Ilene's return was intentionally timed with Jonno, Lizzie, and Owen's introduction, which just drew attention to the ridiculousness of him being her son at that point. Unlike so many soap relatives in recent years who rarely remember they're family because of lazy writing, I dare say that Delia and Little John barely crossing paths with each other once he grew up actually could have been justifiable, with the added benefit of helping downplay the age issues. Delia was never a good mother, and her son had plenty of reasons not to be that attached to her (or Frank, for that matter).
That said, I do think what the Labines did with Delia and Jonno's relationship after they (re-)took the head writing reins—and inherited a canvas that included both characters very much involved in each others' lives—was interesting, and also represented an alternative direction in which their relationship could have belieavably gone. (In other words, Delia putting her manipulative tendencies to work to help her son, while conveniently going after someone she also had reason to dislike, i.e., Maggie and Jill's brother.)
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Ryan's Hope Discussion Thread
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Thanks for the tag - looking forward to reading it.