DeliaIrisFan

Did Amy Carlson's Josie have many scenes with Carmen Duncan's Iris?  They couldn't have overlapped even for a year, so I was a little surprised when I saw Amy in the photo Linda Dano posted from Carmen's "memorial."  I initially assumed they shared a dressing room or something and thought it was lovely that they stayed in touch over the years, but then I was even more surprised when Amy commented on the reunion video on how different Carmen was from her character (not that Carmen was unlike Iris, but that Amy would have known one way or the other).

I seem to vaguely recall Iris appearing for a nanosecond in a promo for Josie's return at some formal/masquerade party.  Years later, I remember seeing the Snowflake Ball scenes for the first time on SoapNet, and wishing that Iris/Josie dynamic had continued when Josie returned in the form of AC...until I saw Josie's behavior with Iris and Lucas later on in that arc, and was not so disappointed they dropped that.

On 1/2/2020 at 1:57 AM, SFK said:

@DeliaIrisFan So nice to see you posting again!

Thanks, @SFK!

I have just gotten up to Buzz's debut in 1993 on YouTube.  I had never seen his very first episodes and in some ways I was dreading them even more than Maureen's death.  I did like his character back in the '90s and remember enjoying him with FH's Jenna, but I had heard that his fake accent, etc. made for a bumpy start.  I also anticipated that I would not be able to separate what played out on-screen from what I have since read of the backstage dynamics, i.e., the initial decision to kill Maureen was meant to free up money in the budget to hire a soap veteran.  (Whatever else, I will say again they should have taken another look at that budget after Beverlee McKinsey quit...and they probably would have found the money.)

Buzz's intro has been...pretty much as I expected, although it's not making me hate everything surrounding him as I feared.  One thing I have to point out, though, that I've never heard before: Justin Deas's first (full) episode was like a reunion of Phelps's so-called "Friends of Jill" that defied the time-space continuum.  The actress who had a bit part as the woman Buzz was living with (before he learned Nadine was married to an oil magnate and took off to bilk money from her) looked vaguely familiar to me, so I looked her up on IMDB.  JFP would go on to hire her as a love interest of Tim Gibbs's character on Another World, although the character lasted a few months before being murdered by the same serial killer who killed Frankie Frame.  And, the actor who played said serial killer was also credited as a guest star in this very same episode of GL (playing the DA who replaced Ross after he resigned to be a senator).

I suspect the part of Buzz's love interest was written as a woman of a certain age — it was insinuated that he met her while she was working at a VA hospital when he first came home from Vietnam — but the actress was clearly much younger than that backstory would suggest...

I am just about a year behind in those early '90s episodes on YouTube - well, slightly less now, after I binged the episodes surrounding Maureen's death today.  All of the cast turnover in 1992 had definitely taken its toll, although unlike some on this board, I always loved Liz Keifer as Blake and have enjoyed seeing her first months on the show.  I know Ellen Parker's departure will only add to the bleeding of talent, but I must admit I'm also glad to get to see a year or so with Nancy Curlee back at the helm of the writing team.

Watching full episodes now, I can totally see why Beverlee McKinsey singled Curlee out with praise in her exit interview.  There was plenty of high-stakes drama as 1992 drew to a close - and I am inclined to credit Stephen Demorest, Lorraine Broderick, and Wisner Washam, not to mention the dialogue writers for staying (mostly) true to the overall tone that Curlee and Co. had previously set.  But the intelligence in the writing declined noticeably throughout the year that Curlee was gone, while cliched soap opera plot devices and glimpses of the kind of misogyny I have come to associate with several of their collaborators in the decades since were cropping up more and more in the writing.  The 1991 episodes were just sooo much better, IMO, and despite the loss of some major talent while Curlee was on leave, I recall there is a lot of good stuff still to come in 1993.

Speaking of the writing credits, I started Googling Bill Elverman, who was credited with the other dialogue writers, several months ago.  I was intrigued by several of the episodes he scripted (including the Alex/Mindy hair-pulling episode, and several others with strong material for Vanessa, Maureen, etc.) and didn't recognize his name from other work in the soap biz.  He was on the writing team for at least a year, apparently right up until he died in 1992 - of AIDS, at 40 years old. He wrote an off-Broadway play that was reviewed by Frank Rich in the New York Times (not favorably, but this was a good ten years before his work on GL and I tend to think he honed his craft in the interim), as well as several other plays that sound interesting - what a loss.  The recent discussion in this thread of Beverlee McKinsey doing a cameo on GH to keep her union insurance makes me wonder (hope) that someone working at GL helped Elverman get some work that would ensure he had coverage.

I have now watched all of Ellen Holly's interview, and I'm in awe. It is daytime's — and viewers' — loss that this remarkable woman and actress was not on OLTL and/or another soap up until the very last episode, but it's pretty clear the industry didn't deserve her in the first place. And just about every step forward that any of these shows has taken since then in terms of diversity or social relevance was ultimately wiped away, just like Carla's legacy on OLTL.

I'm so glad Holly is alive and well (and clearly still well-versed in the details of everything that happened to her) so that she could say her peace and have it captured for posterity. The Rauch stuff is of course the most outrageous; while much of it has been printed before, it was still powerful to get to see and hear her tell her story in her own words. But the parts about Agnes Nixon and other sometime-allies were most revealing. There was clearly a ton of blame to go around, and a lot to chew on for white people such as myself who like to tell ourselves we try to do better. I will be thinking about EH's words for a long time to come.

I don't think it's quite fair to say that the writers intentionally had Delia (or any character on RH, really) stagnate/regress to generate plot for other characters.  And I completely disagree with the notion that Ilene intentionally played against the scripts to keep Delia from growing.  On the contrary, she was reportedly exhausted from playing Delia as she was originally written — she has said in print that was why she left the first time.  But, yes, when she was playing Delia, Ilene went all in, including when the character went to some ugly places.  Love her or hate her, to me Ilene's indelible mark on the role was largely what set the character apart from countless other soap villainesses.

As far as the writing, I would say that RH — at its best — was more focused on characters evolving and changing than just about any other soap opera in history.   In the first few years of the show, it seemed clear that Delia was doomed to eventually alienate the Ryans and have to stand on her own, and there were hints that she would be able to survive — thrive — without them.  I think getting her to that place was treated as at least as important as the havoc she caused for everyone else along the way, and as far I'm concerned they delivered the payoff.

That said, aside from jarring recasts and/or network pressure, I think Delia and other characters on RH tended to evolve while maintaining some core of who they essentially were as characters.  And yes, when the new lives they had built for themselves were threatened, they sometimes regressed back to some of the bad habits they thought they had outgrown.  How very human...

To me, though, Randall Edwards was one of those jarring recasts.  Unlike some of the others, she was a good actress, with lots of charisma and screen presence, and often one of the brights spot during her time on the show, but I had to accept that she was essentially playing a different character.  Not only was it impossible for me to believe that her Delia had done some of the worst things in the character's past, but I never bought that she even grew up in New York let alone in abject poverty, with no exposure to much of anything that she could aspire to beyond what the Ryans and Coleridges had.  Delia discovering a knack for commodities and (later) running an upscale but niche boutique as she became more worldly were plausible enough, but owning (a thinly veiled version of) the Tavern on the Green, the premier restaurant in NY?  This wasn't the Mona Lisa in Oakdale — I never believed the real upper crust of NY high society would have dined in Delia's establishment, or that she ever would have wanted to spend her time sucking up to people 100 times more snobbish than the Coleridge sisters at their worst.

When Ilene reprised the role and the shows' creators returned with a (short-lived) mandate to bring the show back to basics, I think there was a certain logic in having Delia lose everything and seek solace from the Ryans, and temporarily get caught up in old patterns.   But based on everything that's available of 1983 on YouTube, this didn't actually move anyone else's stories forward — by this time, Frank and Jill were facing an even bigger threat.  Delia having Frank on the brain again at this time actually led to one of my all-time favorite scenes of hers, though, when she first met Charlotte Greer — who knew all about Delia's (legitimate) grievances against Frank and appeared to be pushing all the right buttons in an attempt to get Delia to believe that Frank had also married and jilted Charlotte.  Lo and behold, though, Delia saw right through Charlotte.  She also seemed to see something of herself and the toxic obsession that she had where the Ryans were concerned for so long, and was visibly horrified; not long after that, she gave up the ghost where Frank was concerned. 

Alas, this coincided with Ilene's illness and what has been reported about the networks' desire to push her out because of that, so very soon thereafter she just faded into the background.  But I really doubt that was the intention on the writers' part, let alone the actress's.  Fortunately, Ilene came back again and the show mostly did right by Delia by the time it wrapped.

4 hours ago, DRW50 said:

 

I thought the abuse plot felt so grafted onto Sharlene and really made her more generic. A lot of Swajeski's AW felt generic.

I don't think the revelation that Sharlene had been abused was generic, per se — I don't know that too many other shows had gone there by that time and, if I'm not mistaken, Sharlene's story was probably the first time the issue of child trafficking was addressed on a soap. But generic is a perfect description of virtually everything that came afterward. Of course, Sharlene's abuse resulted in a split personality, and of course the psychiatrist she visited to treat that became obsessed with Sharlene's husband, and then she was presumed dead when the psychiatrist tried to killer her and the trauma from that resulted in a whole new personality...

On 3/23/2018 at 6:19 AM, adrnyc said:

Thanks so much for sharing that!! Wow - that video takes me back! I couldn't watch it all as I'm currently watching 1989 and it was just too strange to skip ahead like that. If I remember correctly, at this point, the wonderful Sharlene/Sharly story had been used to death and this was just rehashing the same storyline in a very tired manner. I fast forwarded through the rest of it. It was so strange seeing Grayson as Cass' brother. I never liked him in that role although I floved him as Dusty on ATWT. The Matt/Donna pairing I never got - although seeing him in a towel is never a bad thing!  This was the point of AW where I started to fade away. College was over and Swajeski was gone. From my perspective, only having started watching the show in 1987, this was when AW started going downhill. (I know that, for many others, the downhill spiral had started LONG before I even started watching!)

I thought Matt and Donna were great together. (That was also just about the only time I had much use for Matt's character, incidentally.) Anna Stuart is a treasure and still imbued Donna with such vitality...she had been through so much and deserved a man who could keep up with her.

Watching the reruns on SoapNet many years later, it was clear that Swajeski could tell a story that had momentum and ultimately led somewhere, although Sharlene's personalities was one of many, especially as her tenure went on, that I found too cliche-ridden. The biggest problem with Swajeski, from my perspective, was that she could seemingly manage only one three-dimensional female lead organically growing and evolving as a character at a time (usually she was played by Anne Heche). Nearly everyone else acted solely to move the plot forward.

After Swajeski left, there was some lovely, character-driven material for Donna, Rachel, Felicia, etc., who had all foundered under Swajeski. Iris's relationship with Steve Fletcher's character was an attempt at this, and on paper it should have worked because both actors were so talented. However, the show was seemingly so desperate for an engaging narrative that by this point they were dusting off Swajeski's old stories, e.g., Sharly and Evan Bates. I will never understand why Lorraine Broderick, who had more experience than head writer Peggy Sloane, was playing second fiddle to her at this time. I am certain if it were an equal head writing partnership, Broderick would have at least developed some big umbrella story to complement the quieter material some actresses were finally getting to play.

Other than Matt in a towel, about the only good things in this episode were Iris's decanter and creamsicle suit. I remember that outfit...in hindsight, probably a knockoff Chanel, but still fabulous and totally apropos of its time. I hated how this story ended for Iris, and the OJ Simpson trial playing out in real life at the same time only underscored how poorly researched her (fictional) legal troubles were, but on the plus side we got to see more of Iris and her still decadent lifestyle that summer than we had in years.

Once Iris was gone that fall, the show started going darker and darker, and Carmen Duncan's Iris being discarded and never heard from again proved to be the canary in the coalmine. Characters/actors over 40 who had been there for any number of years were increasingly treated as disposable over the next five years.

I'm way behind on these 1991-92 episodes, but I have really liked what I've seen of Samantha so far — I barely remember her from what I saw in the '90s — and it occurs to me that Sam could have easily stuck around and played Julie's role in the "youth" story.  And it would have been much richer:

Ross's history with Roger went back much further than Mallet's, and it would have been way more interesting to see him grapple with his ward dating Roger's son than Mallet raging. Of course, Sam was established as an adult by this time and I couldn't see Ross "forbidding" her to see Hart even if he could legally stop her, but there were other, subtler ways that Ross's objections could have caused friction. Really, the whole dynamic with Hart would have been different for Sam vs. Julie, but I dare say I wouldn't have missed the whole naive ingenue angle. This also would have directly linked the  younger crowd to the Jean Wetherill mystery, etc. And, Sam had a history with Dylan that would have added some more texture a bit further down the road.

Awww...Leslie Charleson was the subject of a question on tonight's episode of Jeopardy. ("Leslie Charleson has played a doctor on this show for 40 years.")

On 7/25/2017 at 9:57 AM, adrnyc said:

Okay, Ryan's Hope is losing me. I don't like Barry Ryan - I don't understand his purpose on the show. He's a cad. He's a pretty rotten human being - just look at how he treated his ex wife! Why are we, as the audience, expected to care about him? Just because he's a Chicago Ryan? Even the New York Ryans don't like him! Please get him off my screen.

 

Ken George Jones - again - what is the purpose? Frank and Jill have NEVER BEEN HAPPY TOGETHER! It's been 5 years. Why can't the writers actually let them be happy and get married? It's too long. I have now officially given up on Frank and Jill. I used to like Jill but going to bed with KGJ so quickly??? I just don't understand that. I can understand being completely enamored with him - he's a singer. We all fall in love with singers/actors, etc. especially when we see them work. But she used to be a rational woman. Jill sleeping with KGJ yet still expecting to marry Frank? What are these writers doing?

 

Were other people annoyed at this point? Does anyone know the history of what was going on with the writers? with ABC? This is just ridiculous. I am not enjoying the summer of 1980.

ABC had just bought the show, and their other soaps were enjoying record ratings featuring characters/stories that were not very Ryan's Hope-esque.  They seemed to be pushing the types of things that worked on those shows onto RH.  Also, co-creator Claire Labine said in interviews later on that she was burnt out at this point, and in hindsight wished she had told ABC she wanted to take a year off.  However, she was afraid they would further upend the core of the show in her absence to make it more consistent with the rest of their lineup...and later in the decade the network demonstrated that her fears were not unjustified.  It sounds like it was a vicious cycle.

From what I remember of Barry on the SoapNet run, he didn't bother me, but he wasn't exactly a classic, beloved character, either - in fact, I barely remember some of his stories.  Honestly, the only thing I recall about his wife was that I read at the time those episodes were reaired that she was played by the actress who had sung "Dance Ten, Looks Three" on the original cast recording of A Chorus Line.  I can see why they might have felt a need to expand the stories beyond the original core ensemble of characters, and at least Barry was distantly related to the main family, but...

Would it have been considered slumming it at the time for an established, in-demand soap actor to join a new show as a recast, because if Phelps really wanted Marcy Walker on GL, it seems like it would have been a no-brainer to bring her on as Mindy? Or were they that gung ho about pairing her with Robert Newman, so she couldn't have played Josh's niece?

If the latter, I also wonder if she was already taping (as Tangie) when Jordan Clarke left, because especially if the writing was on the wall that Billy was going to be written out, they should have scrapped the idea of hanging this new hire they were so invested in on a pairing with Josh and gone with Josh and Vanessa instead. I didn't typically care for his character, but that might have actually been worth watching. And, again, Walker could have just played Mindy.

The Ann Gillespie video was fascinating.  By the time we got to 1981 on SoapNet, I can't say I enjoyed Siobhan, but I'm not sure how any actress could have done a better job playing the character as she was being written/directed, especially during the writers' strike.  Alas, there was no other soap heroine like Sarah Felder's Siobhan, and I suspect there was a mandate to water her down.

That said, I don't think I even realized AG was the same actress who had played Kelly's mother on 90210, and I will say she created a completely different -- and very memorable character -- there (I even went back and watched her big episode on Hulu).  And she didn't seem to be playing herself in either role.  So, clearly, she's a phenomenal actress.

These clips are so great to see, having loved so much of what was to come shortly after this.

Based on these scenes, I have little doubt they were testing the waters for Mallet and Mindy, or that Phelps was responsible for quickly moving him out of her orbit to make way for Nick (was there anyone else on canvas remotely in his age range who had been on the show during Lujack's run?).  While I can't say I'm a fan of her overall career as a producer, I'm actually not outraged at this point.  I did like Harley and Mallet together a lot in the '90s, and I think it's interesting in hindsight that Phelps not only kept him around and gave him a frontburner story with another leading lady, but he ultimately became as good a "friend of Jill" as just about anyone.  It's not exactly what I might have expected, based on the worst horror stories about her.  Granted, especially back when there was so much more money to go around in soap budgets, I doubt there was network pressure to sacrifice on 20/30-something white, male lead to make room for another...but still, it's interesting.

I also wonder if Mallet and Mindy were originally supposed to get together after Mindy/Roger and Francesca/Mallet inevitably ended badly, or what.  I seemed to recall when Derwin gave that aforementioned speech at the Soap Opera Digest Awards years later, the announcer said that he'd been nominated before for "hottest couple" or whatever it was called with Francesca, and IMDB confirms this.  I can't imagine they were that popular as a couple, based on what I've seen, and I do recall Digest always tried to be "fair" by giving an equal number of noms to each show.  But still, that suggests the show was promoting them heavily as a couple, at least at one point?

And, if Francesca had stuck around (and Nick never existed), where would that have left Mindy?  Were Roger and Mindy ever presented as a viable "love story," even before Curlee, et al took over?

On 12/10/2016 at 11:22 AM, adrnyc said:

This week in my original RH journey was eps 1146-1150

 

A lot about Kimberly deciding on whether or not to do nudity in the Off Off Broadway play.  I, personally, find this storyline interesting as I'm an actor myself (25 years and counting) and nudity is always an interesting and lively conversation to have. I'm intrigued to see how the storyline plays out.  Since it's Off Off (Off Off Off Off Off) Broadway, this director could turn out to be a total sleaze.  Anytime it's a case of only the women being naked - or, if the director is gay and only the men are naked - that is a MAJOR sign to me that it isn't for artistic purposes.

I remember when these episodes first aired on SoapNet that I also thought this was an interesting subject matter — one which couldn't have realistically taken place on just about any other soap. Unfortunately, I had absolutely no interest in Kim, and couldn't really take seriously a story that featured a parade of day players going on about what a great actress she was...

On a related note, I have often thought over the years about how RH might have successfully managed to branch out beyond 1-2 core families by tapping into the theatre and other aspects of the show's New York setting. Reading in the interview above that Eleanor Labine-Mancusi's life inspired some of Ryan's stories in the show's later years was interesting, because I always thought Ryan should have foundered between the kinds of careers that Eleanor mentioned she had worked in before going back to the family business, as it were. An art gallery would have been an obvious choice, perhaps leading to various characters getting involved in an adventure involving a theft of a famous painting or some such thing, although a karate studio would have been so hilariously '80s (but that probably would have led to accusations that RH was borrowing from popular movies again, in the era of The Karate Kid). I'm not sure if Ryan as a conduit to more escapist stories on the "other" side of town would have ultimately worked much better than it did with Kim, but it was a thought.

10 hours ago, DRW50 said:

A belated article in honor of Claire Labine...

 

January 1987 Daytime TV

How lovely. Thank you for posting.

I hadn't realized that Eleanor was quite so young when she started writing for Ryan's Hope, or that it was public knowledge at the time that Claire was consulting before returning full-time as head writer. I still wonder how that arrangement came about, given how far off the show was from her and Paul Mayer's vision at the time, from what I've seen. I don't understand why ABC bothered — kind of like when Harding Lemay consulted at Another World for a nanosecond a decade or so later, with virtually no evidence onscreen of his involvement. (Ah, the days when even the lowest-rated soaps had consulting budgets that would seemingly have rivaled the total set design budgets for today's shows.) Then again, maybe the network actually thought RH was returning to its roots after the Pat Falken Smith regime — which I suppose it was, comparatively speaking, but...

Would it be ghoulish to speculate as to whether the "Terry the Tumor" story was the byproduct of Claire and Paul and the oxygen tank's writing session? She did say they were struggling to come up with a story for Pat and Faith in that situation, after all...

It's so bizarre how soaps keep cropping up in the coverage of this surreal election:

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/16/nyregion/trump-won-the-election-but-3-manhattan-buildings-will-lose-his-name.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=second-column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=0

"Linda Gottlieb, a resident who started the petition, was elated. 'We won,' Ms. Gottlieb, a film and television producer, said. 'We used the power of protest to say that we don’t have to accept the spread of the man’s influence into our very homes. To me, it feels like a cleansing of the place where I live.'”

I'm glad to see Trump's "brand" already becoming a liability in business (not that it matters, as he's now guaranteed a pension that will be even further above and beyond the resources that most of us will have in our golden years, after he and the congressional Republicans get through with Social Security and Medicare).  But I couldn't imagine wanting to live in a Trump building at any point since he started slapping his name on things, based on the reputation he's had for decades, and I think a lot of people are going to have to deal with a lot worse under a Trump presidency.  We all have to come to grieve/protest in our own way, though.

Per my earlier post, the obit said that Claire Labine passed away on Election Day, not a few days later as was earlier reported.  I choose to believe that she went to the polls and voted for a female president, came home to take a nap, and passed peacefully in her sleep before any returns came in.

Pardon the intrusion, as I'm not sure where else I could possibly express this that anyone would begin to understand the connection...and I gather that this post would be deleted anywhere else on this site.  Reading news today that former head writer Claire Labine has passed — after not thinking about our old soaps in days — was kind of the exclamation point (at least, I sure hope it wasn't another comma) at the end of a truly miserable week.  My 16 year-old self would be crying out in horror, "Sweet jesus, not Claire!" upon learning that the writer who brought us the stories and characters that she did is no longer with us just after Donald Trump was elected president.  My allegedly grown-up self isn't taking all of this too much better.

Watching Ryan's Hope in reruns on SoapNet as a young adult after I'd all but given up on the soaps that were on the air at the time brought me some welcome escape in those early years of the Bush administration.  It was a small comfort, but this news quite viscerally took me back to those dark days.  I hope it's not presumptuous (Ms. Labine did make her political persuasions fairly explicit in the press, and I think they were somewhat implicit in much of her writing) to say that I hope she was able to cast a ballot this week.  I'd just rather not think about this strong, intelligent, trailblazing woman presumably(?) learning about the outcome of this election in what would be her final days, though.

As I posted in the main thread about this news, RIP.

I kind of loved when she said that, though...

I think FMB, like so many others who came and went from various soaps in that period, had experience that could have benefited these shows, but wasn't empowered to effect lasting change. She had her strengths and weaknesses, like anyone else, but I'd have rather seen her (and her initial writing team's - Stephen Demorest and Addie Walsh were no slouches) actual vision for ATWT have played out for a reasonably measurable period of time than what followed.

In hindsight, 1996 is often talked about as a markedly bad year for daytime, but it wasn't until 1997 when it (should have) become apparent that the solutions that had worked in the past were failing across the board to improve soaps that were struggling creatively. I remember at the time Logan and the handful of other serious soap commentators would run these messiah-narrative pieces about newly hired figureheads periodically, and then within weeks or months they would be harshly critiquing those same folks' work (often fairly). This MADD interview is actually not too far off from the (also very fascinating) interview that Logan ran with Jill Farren Phelps just a few years back, when she took over Y&R.

But, to my knowledge, nobody ever analyzed collectively/longitudinally how it could be that hiring new writers and/or producers failed repeatedly to fix the fundamental problems plaguing most/all of these shows over the long haul. In retrospect, the problems had to be higher up, and I don't know if the soap press had gotten to the bottom of it and called it out, some of these shows might have at least gone out with some dignity, instead of a race to the bottom.

I'm not totally sure where to post this, but those early 1997 episodes on YouTube and the subsequent discussion about Felicia Minei Behr in this thread were what got me thinking about it. At the time, I was so intrigued by the new golden era that not only ATWT - but the P&G lineup as a whole - was supposedly ushering in that I saved this transcript of an interview that Michael Logan conducted with newly hired executive in charge of production, Mary Alice Dwyer-Dobbin, for TV Guide. (I think this was when the traditional media was even more baffled about how to deal with the internet than they are today, and a lot of the soap press was actually publishing longer, unedited transcripts of interviews online - for free - than would fit in the print publications that you actually had to buy.)

Of course, MADD's (and Behr's) fall from grace in the eyes of those of us who knew any of these people's names was already in process by the time this interview went live. The momentum of the stories hyped in this interview quickly petered out, the aforementioned Connor recast was in the works and, of course, within a few months GL's Michael Zaslow was fired and MADD used the phrase "wizened old man" in a quote in the press release. Despite the many mistakes she made - and as furious as that statement still makes me, even more so having lost a family member to ALS since then - as a soap fan, I can't help but wonder what might have been if MADD had been able to deliver one tenth of the things that this interview foretold for these shows. This was only just past the point in time when a new head writer and/or executive producer with a strong vision could turn a soap around. Those of us who were following these behind-the-scenes developments on the early internet hadn't yet been disappointed enough times to realize that had necessarily changed, and MADD had assembled a very interesting team...

In a remarkable renaissance -- oh, heck,
let's call it what it really is: a miracle --
former ABC big cheese Mary Alice
Dwyer-Dobbin (aka Mickey) has taken
command of the faltering Procter &
Gamble soaps and turned them into the
talk of the industry. As the World Turns is
skyrocketing in the ratings and once again
is a riveting, must-see show. Guiding
Light, which has been in a funk for eons,
also is showing great signs of improvement
(so much so that cancellation talk has
temporarily ebbed). And Another World, which recently hired the
revered, Emmy-winning scribe Michael Malone, seems destined for
the same re-energization. This MADD-woman rocks!

 

Well, whatever they're paying ya, it's not enough!

 

[She laughs uproariously.]

 

Seriously, congratulations, Mickey! You've got everybody so
excited.

Well, thank you -- but the work is only beginning.

 

I was recently having a discussion about the state of soaps with
a highly respected, well-credentialed daytime actress -- whom
you know, so she shall remain nameless -- and this actress said
something very interesting. She said most of the female
executives running daytime TV are afraid to be forceful
because their primary concern is being liked. I myself have
seen evidence of this. This actress feels that you, on the other
hand, move quickly and with great power because you don't
give a damn what people think.

 

Oh. [Long pause, then she laughs.] Well. [Another pause.] I
wouldn't say I don't give a damn what people think because I care
very much what they think. I care about people. Yes, I've moved fast.
That was my mandate. But I've tried not to move without sensitivity.
Look, it's not an easy job.

 

But your moves have been very bold, very sweeping in all
capacities -- new exec producers, new head writers, improved
production values, some very controversial cast changes.
You've even brought a new PR philosophy to P&G.

 

But [these things] haven't been without design and they haven't been
done without a great deal of thought -- even though it has been fast
thought. Nothing has been done precipitously. Nothing has been done
just for the sake of doing it. In fact, in some instances, I've moved
more slowly because I haven't had the right pieces in place to make
certain moves.

 

But you do not show fear. You are not a pantywaist.

 

No. I'm not afraid. Look, I know what I'm doing. I know what needs
to be done and I know how to help get it done. I've been doing this a
long time. I've been there, done that. I'm really out to save these three
shows and make them better. That's what I care about. And time is
of the essence with these shows, because each one is in a precarious
position. So, for the life of these shows, I could not be fainthearted.

 

What you say makes total sense -- so why, then, is there such
fear and/or reluctance to be forceful in this
decision-by-committee industry? With the audience eroding, we
do not have a luxury of time here. Reflect, if you will, on the
state of decision-making in daytime drama. What is the biggest
problem?

 

The biggest [picking the word carefully] challenge is this: As
lifestyles evolve, and target viewers have more and more demands on
their time, we have to provide daytime drama that makes the audience
want to give up some of the [diminishing] leisure time they have left.
We must give them enjoyment, fun, fantasy and relaxation with
characters that are engaging. The challenge is also to tell the kind of
stories the woman at home wants.

 

We frequently hear cable is chipping away at the audience. We
can all agree on the lifestyle thing -- our world and the
workplace have changed and we don't have the same volume of
women at home watching TV during the day that we used to,
yadda, yadda, yadda. But this cable excuse seems like a bunch
of b.s. Are there any statistics proving this is a real threat? I
don't know anybody who has given up a soap to watch The
Discovery Channel.

 

There is a statistic that shows daytime cable viewing is going up. More
and more women can find movies [there] -- whether on free cable or
pay cable. There's always a movie to turn to.

 

But is cable really the problem? If the soaps were holding the
viewers, they wouldn't be tempted to go somewhere else.

 

The programs aren't good enough to hold them. The viewers have
other choices and they make them -- for all sorts of reasons. They can
get an instant fix with a movie rather than devote five hours a week to
a soap. Or they can go do something else entirely. [The viewers]
learned during the O.J. trial that there were more things to life, you
know? They also learned what life and death stakes are really all
about -- O.J. was real. Look at the shows that are working -- Days
of Our Lives, The Young and the Restless, General Hospital --
where the stakes are all very high. The characters are all very
compelling. The stories are all well told.

 

Well, we're certainly seeing that same thing these days on As
the World Turns. We've seen a vast improvement in quality
and a big rise in the ratings -- and better still, you've done it
surprisingly quickly.

 

Knock on wood. [Laughs.] We're very gratified.

 

So how come every time a show is in trouble, network execs
start spouting that cop-out analogy about how soaps are like a
big luxury liner and you can't turn 'em around quickly? What's
the secret you're not sharing?

 

You know what the ATWT [turnaround] says to me? It says that this
show had a wonderfully loyal group of fans who had not given up
hope. They were still hanging in, hoping this show would once again
deliver the things they used to love. We were able to get on track real
fast and [take advantage of that]. Now we're going to struggle to stay
on track and get even better. You know, we're not there yet. We've
got two stories that are working right now, but we're not there. We
have a long way to go. I'm just very grateful that the fans checked us
out, liked what they saw and are sticking around.

 

The Lily/Diego wedding and the murder worked so well -- this
seems to me to be an example of being handed lemons and
making lemonade. Some pretty bad planning has resulted in a
very good story. We're seeing the same thing on All My
Children right now. They had Maria and Dimitri sleep
together, which made no sense whatsoever and royally pissed
off the fans, but it has now been turned into the best plot
they've had in a year -- and the only reason to watch the show.
Is this some new trend -- making crap work?

 

It doesn't always work that way. We lucked out. We saw a way to
clarify a character -- Diego -- who wasn't working and put him at the
center as the villain of the piece. I credit our writers for seeing the
opportunity for this umbrella story, which is one of the things Doug
Marland always did so effectively. He would get the entire cast of
characters involved in one story. We've got three writers at ATWT
who had the foresight and the vision to see how this could work again.
But it doesn't always work that way. So, yeah, we were lucky. And
this show has a different set of circumstances than Guiding Light or
Another World. Every show has to do different things to get its house
in order.

 

Does the Kim storyline have long-term ramifications or was
this a short, fast, punchy story arc to get the veterans back in
focus?

 

The effect of Kim's heart condition is meant to play out over time, sort
of as a midlife crisis. What do you do when you start to question your
entire life and how long it's going to last? It's meant to be a slower
story told over time. Is this leading to another big event? Not yet. But
stay tuned.

 

I ask because this seems an excellent example of a successful
fast fix. It brought back a group of beloved actors in a sudden,
very emotional crisis that caught our interest big time. Other
soaps -- most of which have similarly beloved people on the
back burner -- might learn from this.

 

We needed to get those older characters active with something that
could be played in their own arena. It's all a balancing act. Every story
doesn't have to be high, high drama. They do need to be operatic, but
some operatic melodies are gentler than others.

 

What about the Snyders? We want to see them all come back.
Is that realistic?

 

You're going to see some Snyders come back.

 

Are we going to see Lisa Brown return as Iva?

 

No.

 

No?

 

Lisa Brown is on another show!

 

Yeah, but they ain't doing anything with her! Besides, you're in
charge of that show, too. Move her!

 

But we have new writers starting on that other show. Let's see what
they want to do with their canvas.

 

Then what Snyders will we see?

 

Well, we're going to see a cousin of Holden's. Then we may see that
cousin's father and then we may see some others.

 

What about Julie Snyder? Are you familiar with that part?

 

No, who is she?

 

She was the town tart who married Caleb, another great Snyder
who was also written out a while back. We need all these
people back. The Snyders were Doug Marland's greatest
achievement on ATWT -- a wholesome, corn-fed family that
was ridiculously dysfunctional and the fodder for endless story.
It was really good stuff.

 

Well, we hope to continue in Doug's spirit.

 

What do you want to say about the switch in Connors?

 

I want to say that we're taking the character in a different direction.

 

Uh-huh -- but everybody says that, so be more specific.

 

Well... um... how? How do you want me to be more specific?

 

Well, what do you see in Susan Batten that you did not see in
Allyson Rice-Taylor? People use the old "we're taking the
character in a different direction" thing because it's the
politically correct thing to say to avoid hurting somebody's
feelings.

 

You're right.

 

But let's face it, the girl doesn't have her job anymore -- you
can't be much more hurt than that. Let's put it this way: What
surprised me about this decision was that you saw so much
value in the Mark-Connor relationship. I always thought
Allyson Rice-Taylor was pretty uninteresting and the other guy
can't act. So I find it really surprising that you've made this
bold move with two characters who could quite easily have been
written off and nobody would have noticed. Susan Batten is
obviously a unique, quirky, very good actress and that says you
want to accomplish something here.

 

The challenge on this show, Michael -- I'm going to be real honest
here -- is that we have only one effective young heroine, and that's
Lily. We have one big romance -- Lily and Holden. They have been
destined for each other for a long time. We had to do a little
housekeeping when we started refreshing the show, and that left us
with not many other people we could get involved in romance. We'd
been trying to figure out what to do with Connor and Mark and, quite
honestly, they're the only other couple where we have an opportunity
for romance. We needed to see a Connor who was more emotionally
involved. We tried to find it in the current actress and we couldn't. So
we saw an opportunity. We felt the character of Connor has a lot of
history on the show and Mark has some history and rather than
bringing in two new characters with no history, we thought that a
recast -- although we understand it is a risk -- would be the better
risk to take at this time.

 

There continues to be widespread
concern -- despite widespread denials
-- that NBC is determined to make
Another World a Days of Our Lives
clone. I don't want to believe it, but
when I see Vicky Wyndham getting pregnant at age 103, it's
hard not to.

 

First of all, Vicky Wyndham is not 103!

 

OK, so I exaggerate. But c'mon, this is silly, Mickey.

 

And you'll be happy to know that we just did focus groups across the
country...

 

[Groaning.] Puh-leeze don't start talking to me about focus
groups....

 

[Pressing on] ... and I can't tell you how many women like this story.
In fact, one woman yesterday in a focus group in Boise, ID, said,
"You know, I love this story because I'm 43 and I'm pregnant, and it's
wonderful to see something like this happening on my soap."

 

Well, what about the other Days-like things going on?

 

Like what?

 

Oh, gee, like how about the twin for Jake that they
conveniently brought in to pull that story off?

 

It wasn't a twin!

 

OK, then, a look-alike.

 

He had a mask on!

 

Well, whatever the hell it was, it was preposterous! Has this
ever happened in your life? Has someone in a latex mask ever
pretended to be you? I want more realism, not less.

 

Well, it hasn't happened to me, but I'm sure it has happened to
someone somewhere. Haven't you ever been to a costume party with
people who look like famous people and you say, "How did he get
here?"

 

No. But then, I never get invited to costume parties like
everybody on a soap does, either. OK, forget that. What about
the ghost of Ryan coming back? Vicky's trip to the afterlife?

 

That was gentle. It was not outrageous. Many shows have gone to the
afterlife. [Getting serious.] Let me answer your question: NBC fully
recognizes -- in conversations that I've had with them -- that AW is
not Days. Nor do they want it to be Days. But what we're doing [on
AW] is what I meant when I spoke [in part one] about raising the
stakes and making the storytelling more operatic. We are trying to up
the ante here. AW is far from being in place. It is far from being set on
its course. We all acknowledge that. They have been doing some
wonderful things but we still have a lot of work to do.

 

In my Q&A with Tom Eplin a few weeks back, he strongly
believed that AW can succeed as a hybrid -- part gutsy,
down-to-earth Bay City realism, part over-the-top Salem
outrageousness. Is it possible to have it all?

 

You tell me. Because the Ryan ghost story was an attempt to do that.
Did it work?

 

On one level, I would say yes, because it was fun and highly
romantic -- though don't get me started on the costume and set
design. On another level, I think it only served to point up that
the Bobby-Vicky thing is not as strong as the show would like
us to think it is. The purpose of Ryan's return, as I understood
it, was to free Vicky to get on with her love life. But by joining
them in the afterlife, you defeated that purpose. Now you can't
put Jensen Buchanan and Robert Kelker-Kelly together and
get some big supercouple thing happening because we've been
rereminded how great the Vicky-Ryan chemistry was. It's not
that Buchanan and RKK have no chemistry. But they ain't no
Luke and Laura or Bo and Hope or Roger and Holly waiting to
happen. It seems manufactured. It's exactly the same thing GH
is doing right now with Stephen Nichols and Mary Beth Evans.
There's no good reason to put them together. There are no
sparks. There's no nada.

 

OK, let me say this about AW: We've been struggling with the writing.
Some of this is not the fault of the [writing team's] intentions, it may be
the fault of the realization of the intentions. And that's why I say we
still have a lot of work to do on the show. Everybody has hits and
misses. Just because [every story] doesn't get an A-plus doesn't mean
we're doing the wrong thing here. We've been struggling with the
writing for a long time.

 

So what, in your mind, will Michael Malone bring to this mix?

 

Malone brings a wonderful sensitivity of characters and storytelling.
He knows how to tell a good story and how to write wonderful
characters and give them a fullness of life. That's what I'm looking
forward to seeing from Michael.

 

Why has Linda Dano appeared to have fallen out of favor?

 

I don't think she's fallen out of favor. It's a question of the bigger
picture, a question of trying to get all your ducks in a row and what
ducks you want in the row first.

 

What about Guiding Light? Rumors are flying on the Internet
that 10 to 15 people are being let go.

 

[Laughs hysterically.] You can write down that I laughed
hysterically. There is no intention to get rid of anybody at the moment.

 

On the surface, it seemed to me that taking Paul Rauch -- who
exercised some pretty severe misjudgment and shockingly bad
taste when he was the final exec producer on Santa Barbara --
and two head writers from The City -- who created a
storyline-free soap opera for ABC -- and putting them on the
very troubled GL was the equivalent of pounding the last nail in
the coffin.

 

Well, what do you think about what Paul has accomplished so far?

 

I think there is some excellent stuff happening again. But this
has much more to do with the playing out of the twins storyline
-- Ross's reaction, Abby's reaction -- and the reteaming of
Hutchison and Deas, Zimmer and Newman, Zaslow and
Garrett.

 

So he's moving in the right direction.

 

I see the show on the mend, but frankly, I credit great
chemistry among the stars mentioned and a great story which
was created by the McTavish regime more than I would credit
Rauch. Maybe I'm being unfair, but any one of us fans could --
and has -- said, "This Reva and Buzz crap isn't working -- put
Reva and Josh back together." It doesn't take a rocket
scientist. The same with Roger and Holly and Jenna and Buzz.
We can all do that.

 

Oh, yeah?

 

Yeah, look on the Internet. The fans have been screaming for
this stuff for months, years.

 

Well, why didn't it happen before?

 

Well, how the hell do I know? Because the inmates were
running the asylum, I guess.

 

I see. Well, let me just say this: First of all...

 

Let me clear this up: I have the utmost appreciation and
respect for what's going on at GL and I pray it will continue, but
as right as picking Felicia Behr for ATWT seemed to be, this
Rauch decision made me say, "What the hell is Mickey
thinking?"

 

Look, Paul is a superb producer. He really has wonderful taste. I
didn't watch Santa Barbara during its last few years, so I can't speak
to that. I just know that we are very blessed with a network that
knows what it wants us to accomplish. CBS sat down with us at the
outset and together we identified our goals and our strategies, both
short-term and long-term. The first thing P&G needed to do was
show the network there was still life in GL, so that we could get past
the sword that was hanging over our heads. Luckily, we have been
able to do that. We had some stories in place that we had to write
ourselves out of. And some of what we're telling right now is still a
part of those stories that started a while back. But I have the utmost
confidence in Paul as an executive producer. We here -- you tell me if
I'm wrong -- we here are thrilled with the improvement in the
production values on GL. We believe we have some good story in
place but we need more -- and we need it better, further, faster.
Barbara Esensten and Jim Brown both know GL. They started their
daytime careers on this show. They were responsible way back when
for writing the broad strokes of the Harley/Mallet love story, which
was so effective. They were scriptwriters at the time and did not
ultimately see that story through, but they know the show, they are
talented, and we are convinced that they can help us get back some of
our fallen-away viewers and attract new audience.

 

Cool. Now let's talk specifically about a couple of people. The
writing-out of Alexandra Spaulding has caused a furor.

 

Marj Dusay is a wonderful actress and wonderful in the part.
Unfortunately, the politically correct [statement] that there is no more
story is really the reason. We had so many Spauldings on the canvas
that we had to make a very difficult decision.

 

But this is so bizarre. Five years ago, no one would have ever
believed that Alexandra Spaulding -- who was the hub from
which every spoke in Springfield emanated -- would come to the
end of story. That's like saying Erica Kane or Victor Newman
or Luke Spencer has come to the end of story. It's... it's...
heresy. It's inconceivable. I mean, looking back we can see
how it happened because of the way the character gradually
became so watered down, so unimportant in the writing, but
still.

 

That's the problem. Over the last four or five years, the show evolved
in such a way that suddenly we did come to that point. I feel very
badly about that. I know what a beloved character Alexandra is and I
know what a fine actress Marj is, and I'm truly sorry. It's a tough
decision.

 

Well, I guess my question really is, of all the things that could
be fixed, the character of Alexandra -- because it has clearly
been so invaluable in the past -- would seem to be at the
absolute top of the list. As opposed to writing her out, why not
fix her?

 

Umm... there was nothing wrong with the character. It was the
position the character was in.

 

Is it true you have approached Beverlee McKinsey and offered
her back the part?

 

[Laughs.]

 

Did she take your call?

 

[Still laughing.] No, it's not true.

 

Really?

 

It's not true.

 

Hmmm... how do these rumors get started? Is Ron Raines
being fired?

 

No.

 

What about all this talk of a contract for Beth Ehlers?

 

No, no truth to that.

 

Jordan Clarke?

 

No truth to that.

 

So we won't see them back?

 

Never say never -- but not in contract roles at the moment.

 

How long is a moment?

 

[Growing impatient.] Who knows?

 

Well, like a couple of months at least?

 

I don't know! Look, we have two new head writers. Certainly they
know the Harley character. They feel they created the Harley
character. So who knows? The character of Billy is very popular and
when Jordan Clarke visited, the audience was thrilled to see him. He
caused a stir, but I don't see [a return] in the near future. He may
come back for periodic visits as story dictates.

 

OK, answer this -- because this has puzzled a lot of people --
why, with all the 60th anniversary hoo-hah and the big GL ball
and whatnot, did CBS and/or P&G choose not to use
flashbacks?

 

I think we felt like... it was not a conscious decision like, "We're not
doing flashbacks." It was a conscious decision to try to move the
show forward. It is 60 years old. We don't want to keep reminding
the audience of that.

 

[Laughing.] Yeah, that is kinda dangerous in this demo age, I
guess. So can we breathe a sigh of relief with CBS here? Is the
GL contract going to be renewed? And please don't tell me to
ask [CBS Daytime honcho] Lucy Johnson like you did the last
time I asked you this question!

 

[Laughing.] Go ask Lucy Johnson! They haven't opened negotiations
yet, but I know they're very happy with what's happening.

 

Mickey, you have a lot of people breathing a sigh of relief.
Everybody's always going to have a problem with something --
myself included -- be it writing, producing, acting, recasting,
whatever. But there are a lot of really excited fans. You've
showed us miracles can happen.

 

Well, thank you. I have this to say, though: What has been done so far
is the easy part. The hard part is just beginning. These shows don't
turn around overnight. Thank God we've been able to breathe a little
life into them with everyone's combined cooperation and creative
artistry. Bringing in new executive producers is never easy. Those
transitions always take time to settle into place. But we have had a
wonderful spirit of cooperation and energy from the writers, the
actors, the production crews.

 

Even [The Young and the Restless and The Bold and the
Beautiful creator] Bill Bell, who probably stands the most to
gain by one of the CBS/P&G shows going bye-bye, said to me
the other day that he was extremely thrilled to see what's
happening with ATWT. And he really, really meant it.

 

Don't forget Bill has a history with P&G, too. He was here once upon
a time when they started. We in the daytime drama industry are all in
this together.

 

Thanks for your time and candor and patience, Mickey. You're
the best!

Claire Labine's ATWT at the time that she was being recruited by P&G (late 1996-early 1997) probably would have been much the same as her OLTL ended up being, as the backstage environments at both the P&G and ABC soaps seemed to be much the same by then. (Namely, writers were seemingly no longer empowered to tell long-term stories that were planned in advance and depended on characters acting consistently throughout.) I'm sure she would have successfully lobbied for quite a few beloved vets to be featured prominently, some of whom would have probably had some of their best scenes in years — much like I would argue she did at OLTL — but I suspect under the circumstances the sum would not have been no more than the sum of the parts. (Not that any other daytime writer did objectively better for any length of time at any time since then, I would argue.) And, with soap budgets already beginning to tighten, she likely would not have been allowed to showcase the entire cast as they should have been, which would have fostered resentment (rightfully so) among fans of the neglected popular characters, who would have been especially critical of the flaws in the show that would have almost certainly been there.

As far as Labine's time at GL, I can only imagine that must have been like Whoopi Goldberg's head writer character's experience in Soapdish, right down to half of the soap opera's stories being inexplicably uprooted to a fictitious Caribbean island. I don't see how any writer could have integrated the tropical royalty and the cartoonish mob family and what had been the core of GL into a coherent, entertaining show, but Rauch — like the Robert Downey, Jr. producer character — was reportedly unwilling to give up the ghost at that point. I have no doubt the Labines would have written a far more watchable ATWT, especially five years or so earlier.

A more interesting what-if for me than either of those scenarios, though, would have been the Labines going to ATWT a few years earlier — right after Doug Marland passed away, instead of taking the job at GH. I loved what they did at GH so much, but knowing what I know about the behind-the-scenes stuff now, it was one of the least likely shows for her to have gone to; in hindsight, ATWT was more up Labine's alley, and I could see many of the types of stories that she told at GH playing out in the ATWT universe. I believe at the time there was still enough creative license at P&G for an experienced head writer to execute a long-range vision and, whereas the decline of ABC soaps can be traced back to Disney buying the network, I feel like P&G writers lost power more gradually, and not necessarily due to any one unavoidable, external factor. A strong, veteran head writer with a proven track record advocating for creative autonomy, much like I imagine Marland did while he was still alive, might have stemmed the tide at least for a little bit longer.

In both cases, I'm still trying to imagine what kind of attention, if any, a BM/Iris return would have garnered at the time, and whether it would have been in time to stop (let alone reverse) the ratings decline...

Awww...thanks Vetsoapfan.

As far as ratings, I actually think the fact that RH was one of the only soap to debut after 1973 to achieve even modestly successful ratings, relative to other soaps (for a few years there, at least) is a testament to its strengths. By the time RH premiered, women coming of age were not necessarily planning to be at home during the day, meaning the typical audience for a soap opera was already disappearing. From that point forward, most soaps were losing viewers, gradually but consistently. The only major variance in that trend, of course, was when a few shows in the early '80s attracted teen viewers for a relatively short time (and probably just as many other shows hastened their demise by trying unsuccessfully to copy that formula, RH arguably among them).

By and large, the soaps that survived the last quarter of the twentieth century (and into the current one) were the ones that already had a strong base of viewers before that shift began. RH was trying to build an audience when more women than ever before in American history were entering the (paid) workforce, and I don't know that anything could have made finding an audience when viewers increasingly were not home any less of an uphill battle. The only daytime soap that premiered after women started entering the workforce en masse to ever attain what might be considered commercial success long-term was B&B. And, from what I understand, it only first really achieved what one might call blockbuster ratings during a crossover storyline with its "sister show," Y&R, involving some of that show's most popular characters. I think it's fair to say that, if AMC's Jenny and Greg had ended up at Ryan's Bar when they ran away to New York City in the early '80s, RH's history might be very different — although I don't know that it would have been better in the long run.

RH's initial vision remained mostly intact, and the desperation that set in throughout the field when viewers really started dropping off in recent decades makes the various attempts that the network made to "fix" RH in its day pale by comparison. RH also went off at a time when the return of a soap's creators could fully restore the show to its former glory, at least in terms of quality, and I certainly cherish the episodes I've seen of YouTube from the last (two) returns of Labine and/or Mayer. Not to mention, the industry was still strong enough immediately after RH went off the air to provide work for more of its cast and crew than likely any soap that was canceled later on.

I personally found Ryan's Hope to be that much richer because nearly all of the characters were flawed and had significant blindspots where the characters they didn't get along with were concerned. It was so very human. I think most everyone can be off-putting to some people who come in contact with them. I watched the entire run on SoapNet essentially rooting for Delia, and thinking the Ryans could be extremely hypocritical. I also firmly believed that their rigid adherence to Catholic doctrine caused more of their problems than Delia and Rae combined, for that matter. Whether or not anyone behind the scenes shared those beliefs, just about everything that happened in those first few years made complete sense to me from that perspective.

Mary could indeed be insufferable toward Delia, and generally thought she knew everything about everything. She drove me crazy, but I have to say that each time I re-watched some of that material, always a few years older, I increasingly realized that I could be just as obliviously self-righteous at her age. And damn, if I couldn't relate to the issues that she and Jack dealt with so much more than the outlandish stories that keep most soap couples apart. I for one couldn't help but being emotionally invested, and the fact that I simultaneously took Delia's side when she and Mary faced off only made it more interesting.

As far as plotting, the stories did go off-the-rails by the end of the '70s, but I would argue that roughly the show's second and third year — once they righted the ship after deciding to keep Frank alive, and subsequently junked most of the initial story bible — was some of if not the best writing in soap history. Yes, as mentioned above, many individual scenes really raised the bar as far as what you could expect in a daytime soap script. But the long-term story itself was also tight, and just about everything that happened to a given character was integral to nearly every other main character. And the show consistently maintained a pace that I found consistently compelling without missing any beats. Whether Labine and Mayer burnt out after a while, or the multiple recasts muddied the inherent differences between the characters that were supposed to be fueling the conflicts between them, or network interference sank the show — and I think it's been fairly well established that it was some combination of all of those factors, with an emphasis on the latter — doesn't negate that, in my book.

PS: Speaking of Maeve and Mary's respective flaws, I can't help but think when I watch Orange is the New Black that Kate Mulgrew is essentially playing an only-slightly-more-twisted version of Maeve Ryan, and it makes me smile.