beebs

I do too. But "Victoria Lord Buchanan" is a bit out of date by 15+ years.

Didn't they change it to "Victoria Banks" on the poll??

why not? Jason has always been up there was one of the most popular characters on GH. His placement is no surprise at all

It surprises ME. I find it absolutely surprising that the one character I've always found the least interesting in the entire show is the most popular. There's no range of emotions in him, and no expressions EVER other then bored staring.

Mind you, I know that the problem is that the show isn't written for me or my enjoyment anymore. The ones who watch watch it for characters like him so...it SHOULDN'T surprise me, but it still does as I was HOPING the audience that GH has left had more love for those with actual personalities than that.

I remember the mini-controversy towards the end of the run when Brian Frons pointed to Carl & Rachel's popularity as symptomatic of what was wrong with AW.

Such a Frons thing to do. Criticize the public for enjoying something. Obviously NBC wasn't TRAINING their viewers the right way *wags finger*

The episodes end on 10/5/1992.. just before Donna Swajeski left as headwriter and replaced with the associate writer Peggy Sloane and some other guy. Since telenext stopped uploading episodes before the changing of the guard, I was wondering if there was a noticeable difference in tone, story, characters, etc after the changeover? For instance, was there any sudden storyline shifts, character departures, character changes, etc?

If I remember correctly, there is a YouTube user that posted a 100+ part series on Carl's redemption storyline that aired from about 1993 onward. That should give you at least SOME idea of the changes that happened under Sloane. IMO, the show became the televised equivalent of white bread about that time, decent, inoffensive but bland, and if you weren't already hooked during Swajeski's era, Sloane's era wasn't gonna hook you on at all.

One thing I DID leave off though! I firmly believe that Where The Heart Is should've been left alone to run in a midday block with LIAMST and Y&R. It would've absolutely become the backbone of CBS down the road from a demos POV. WTHI still comes across to me like the kind of soap that had was just a few years ahead of its time, and had CBS been able to handle the criticisms thrown at it, with Labine & Avila Meyer running the show it would've eventually become a monster.

Do you think if P&G had not insisted on the block lineup being rearranged in 1972 or 1973, the struggling shows would have lasted longer? The P&G shows might have too...

Absolutely. EDGE being the best example of this. If P&G had left well enough alone I'd say that Edge would still be on now and we wouldn't have an hour of LMAD to contend with. Some of the others I'm not so sure though. I don't think SFT, ATWT or GL sustained any real lasting damage from the moves. I think SFT's real damage was from the one-by-one hacking off of Jo's proverbial limbs in the 70s when they got rid of all of Jo's blood relatives, all in a desperate attempt to woo young viewers. I think SFT had problems, regardless. The "one woman's struggle" angle the show was stuck with hurt them in the long run. I honestly don't think that even under the best of circumstances that SFT would've lasted on CBS past the mid-90s. It was simply too narrow a focus for any soap in that day to really thrive while appealing to their base market, and by then the network would've been crying "younger younger!" at them until they were blue in the face. I don't believe it was possible in the 90s to have a soap focussing on an elderly woman. It would've been very interesting! But the networks wouldn't have gone for it.

That's interesting. I don't know a lot about Chuck and Patti.

I wonder if LOL might have thrived at another network, after CBS canceled it.

Considering how full ABC's schedule was at that time, the only option would've been NBC who were incapable of keeping the soaps they DID have from spiraling out of control (which spoke more to problems with the network than anything else). I think if they had chosen LOL, they would've put it in the 12:30 slot. I hypothesize that CBS would've canned SFT in '82 anyway, and as soon as Y&R moved into that 12:30 slot, any headway LOL would've made at NBC would've vanished and they'dve been off the air by 1984 at the latest. I don't think any amount of good story could've helped that show at NBC.

MAYBE at ABC if it were put back in the morning, but then it would've run into Price and I don't know that running opposite Price when they were pulling in ratings in the 8's would've been much help either.

CBS had a very strong lineup, but when the weaker pieces of that lineup were pulled away, you really saw how strong CBS was as a BLOCK, not necessarily the individual shows (with the obvious exceptions of Y&R, ATWT and GL).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AsM6x--1lYU

Though she clearly has no clue how to pronounce "wings" in french, it's still pretty epic, IMO.

Is TeleNext's Youtube channel going down too? I've been watching AW on there recently and they're up tp Oct 1992 right now.

Suddenly this promo makes a lot more sense (apologies if it's already been posted).

This show sounds absolutely brilliant, loving all the info you have on SS, this is brilliant stuff. Thanks so much for sharing with us all, Brent!

Then in 1991 talking about Daytime soaps they say only NBC is creating a brand new soap... Dunno what it would be.

Sounds to me like a possible replacement for either Generations or Santa Barbara? Though I remember hearing that SB's cancellation was a bit sudden. Can anyone confirm that for ignorant ol' me?

The is absolutely fascinating stuff. The Doctors was always a mystery to me, and as a fan of NBC soaps, I always was curious about this show. Fantastic to see so much information and history about this show.