beebs

It's a party up in hurr. Also, I also love Melba Moore's voice, and the 80s Kashif-style dance tracks, but Melba's voice really does NOT suit that kind of dance-pop music very well.

Wow, I'd always managed to avoid the scene where Sonny shot Carly in the head. I can't believe this ever made it past any censor.

Even in edited form, it's still one of the most vile things I've ever seen on television.

Rita Lloyd or RIta Bauer?

Rita stays on until summer 1981.

Rita Bauer. My bad. My knowledge of GL pre-83 is extremely tenuous, but I'm fascinated by the Dobsons and Marland's era. Reading over Roger's history from the 70s is just amazing and I'd kill to see more of it.

I loved that, also the 1979 episode he posted.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AGF7kCQDO9Q

Is this Rita's final episode or was there much more afterwards? I have to say, for not knowing much about the stories at this time, I'm really loving every minute of it. Just proves that strong writing and stronger actors really make all the difference.

I find it REALLY odd to see that ATWT was doing better than all NBC soaps in 18-34 women. RH was HUGE with young women! I never realized that. Really, the whole of ABC. Shocked that Price Is Right was doing so lousy around this time.

Interesting too, in the same batch is the final 90 minute episode:

Interesting to see how the 90 minute experiment finished off. The pacing improved a LOT by this point. WAY less padding, probably by setting up the Texas stuff.

Nor for me.

Frankly, those of us not old enough to remember anything prior to 1993 appreciate your input, Carl. But anyone else who was around for the rest, I'd LOVE to hear more as well.

RE: the 1999 episodes being put up, for some reason my mind just went completely blank on the whole Lumina storyline. It sounds like a vaguely more adult rip-off of a DAYS storyline of the era, but it's in this weird period where it's JUST too soon to have a lot of info on it online, and not early enough that people would be nostalgic over it, so i really can't judge. What was the whole point of it, and how far did they get into this Lumina stuff before the show ended?

It seems like a very sordid story, and one of many around this time which presented women as weak, pathetic, desperate.

You know, they complain that TODAY'S stories are misogynistic, but the more I read about late 80s NBC soaps, the more I realize how much of a common thread there is between Frons eras. Not to give him too much credit, but the amount of rape, slut shaming and 'damsel in distress' storylines in late 80s NBC soaps, more DAYS than AW, and the misogyny that's permeated ABC Daytime since Frons took over...there's, in my eyes, a very clear kinship there. Thoughts?

I can't believe that we were supposed to feel anything but disgust at Adam's reaction to MJ's past. Why was she just whisked out of town? Why couldn't we see her rise above this? THAT'S the main failing of this storyline to my eyes.

Speaking of "MJ is a whore": What in the hell kind of ending is that to their story? I assume it's been explained before, but I'd love to know the story that led up to the reveal and why on earth they thought this was a good idea? (having said this, this is Frons-era NBC, why am I not surprised?) Can anyone fill in my huge gaps?

Found this on Chandler Hill Harben's YouTube. Anyone know whenabouts this is from exactly?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V0T9OMInRyg&feature=related

EDIT: Didn't notice this had been up a full year on YouTube already. Apologies if someone already posted this.

This is my inner WoST coming out but is it just me or is the theme slightly different. I swear in later versions (not the remix) there is more instruments after the first section. I never heard this version.

Also its a nice touch that Roger is smiling. Though I love the picture of him looking towards the camera that I can still picture to this day.

Yea no, I remember watching pretty much every day from about 1993 on and the theme IS a bit different in the second section. More strings etc. May have been the quality of the recording that caused some of that to be subdued, but you're absolutely right. There is a marked difference.

Ratings for the two weeks ended Nov. 25, 1973.

10.1 AW - 33%

9.8 AMC - 34%

9.7 ATWT - 33%

9.1 GL - 29%

8.8 Doctors - 29%

8.7 Edge of Night 29%

8.2 GH 28%

7.7 Search 28%

7.1 RTPP 24%

I find this so bizarre that the ratings back at this time can plummet so dramatically so suddenly. DAYS in every single one of these is either #1 or #2 in the early-to-mid 70s, and yet this most recent posting, even RTPP is beating them. It's postively jarring, especially on a week where AW is #1.

I've only seen one other 90 minute episode (I guess more must be available if P&G ever releases them - don't they have everything for their soaps going back to 1979?) and the padding was a little better but not much. I think that was the episode where Joey was in court or something.

Didn't someone mention in either the GL or ATWT threads that they only have every episode from about 1989 onwards or something? It seems unbelievable that they're missing episodes that recent, but it might also be the case for AW (thus the 1987 start date on SoapNet).

How much farther in was the Joey in court episode, do you know?

RE: The 90-min episode.

All I can say is HOLY PADDING, BATMAN!

I get that they're trying to stall Maryanne but spending three minutes discussing how to break a $10 is absolutely absurd. No wonder the long episodes were such a disaster. I assume things got better as they got more accustomed to the format, but it just feels like too much time is going by without anything happening. It's frankly absurd that they allowed this to go ahead for anything more than a week of special episodes. They'dve been miles better off expanding The Doctors to an hour instead, frankly. Low(er) ratings be damned.

A slight digression, but what is it with the late 80s-early 90s and making EVERY BLACK WOMAN on TV look exactly like Whitney Houston? Poor Debbi always seems to be dressed up like her twin sister in every video and pic I see of her from that era, no matter which show, AMC or GEN, so I can't lay the blame at the feet of one single stylist. [/rant]

Sadly, even with the most talented writers and producers, SFT would still have been doomed on NBC due to the fact that many of that network's affiliates either did not air the soap at all, or refused to air it in the proper timeslot (12:30 P.M. Eastern). Also, by the mid-80's, P&G seemed to lose all interest in this classic soap.

Even if SFT had never been cancelled by CBS in 1982, network executives would have gladly canned this soap (barring a major ratings boost from where it was in 1981) for the almighty Bill Bell's B&B (in 1987). (And if SFT had stayed, then GL or ATWT would have been axed to make room for B&B.) The only silver lining is that had SFT remained on CBS, the ratings (and perhaps the quality as well) would not have fallen nearly as much as they did on NBC.

Having said this though, the ratings in its last year at CBS were up a half-point from where they'd been the previous year. I think viewers were just adjusting to the new timeslot the previous year, and likely in a year or two, the show probably would've been getting ratings in the 7s again with a stable writing/production team. It still strikes me as devastating how trigger-happy CBS had always been about cancelling their soaps needlessly. Granted, this is likely the reason why B&B has succeeded on the level it has, as it wasn't replacing anything especially low-rated and was in an optimal timeslot where viewers were already tuned in. But I can totally see what you mean about SFT being toast once B&B was ready, though I wonder if B&B would've happened at ALL if CBS had stuck it out with SFT.

I'm sure the no-name producer and HW's didn't instill confidence either. Of course, it seems like most, if not all, soaps get canceled at a point when no one who's any good will go near 'em, doesn't it? No one with a reputation as large as, say, Agnes Nixon's will step up and say, I might have won X amount of Emmys, put this many shows at or near the top of the ratings, etc.; but I am willing to stake my reputation and everything else on turning this failing show around, because losing just one soap is bad for all of us. If NBC or Colgate-Palmolive had taken a look at the landscape and decided to lure over a writer like Wisner Washam or an EP such as Michael Laibson, who knows what might have been accomplished. Would it have saved THE DOCTORS in the end? Hard to say. But perhaps it would have gone out on a high note.

I think most of the problem there was that NBC was interfering so much that no one with a name would touch the show anymore after Lemay was out. It said so much about the network's priorities and their level of patience (ie. little to none) for any character-based stories to build up that could've resuscitated the show's fortunes. Why bother risking your rep on a show that would dump you just as your stories were building up in earnest?

I definitely think the Doctors could have continued and lasted for much longer than it did. Like you said, a lot of it's core was still intact and there were characters to bring back and new families to develop.

I'm sure it's been established in 28 pages, but why did NBC axe The Doctors? Were the ratings terrible?

OHHH yea. They were getting a 1.6 in their last season and being pre-empted by so many stations (it was airing at 12PM Eastern at the time), it wasn't worth keeping AT ALL from a business perspective. NO soap had ever finished a season with ratings that low before. Unfortunately, I think it had way more to do with a terrible timeslot than anything to do with story.

Thank you for answering my question, as I never knew that NBC seriously considered expanding The Doctors to an hour. And while I knew about AW's trial-long 60-minute episode, I never knew that DOOL had one as well.

According to this one source I found (can't remember the name of it, but it's the one that compiled all of the network TV schedules over the years for Wikipedia), virtually every NBC soap in the mid-70s got its own 1hr special (save Somerset, which I guess was too far gone by then for them to bother with). Even How To Survive A Marriage got a trial 1-hr episode in '75, if I recall.

Also, Joe Stuart was on the Tomorrow Show episode about soaps that was on YouTube, which aired about a week after DAYS expanded to an hour, and he mentioned that NBC brought up the expansion for The Doctors just after AW had expanded. He said he was against it then, mostly because the logistics sounded horrendous (and using the production model they used at the time for 30-min episodes, I'm sure it would've been), but I think once DAYS had done it, the method had been refined, and at this point he was ready to make the leap to an hour, though at that point the network wasn't so sure.

AMC basically exploded from a bottom-rated soap to the middle of the pack in the seasonal ratings out of seemingly nowhere around '73, I think a lot of it would've been down to Erica's abortion and the fact it was essentially the only network programming on at 1:00pm at that point. By '73 they were competitive with the top-rated soaps. Interesting to see how EDGE was still able to pull out a big rating now and again, even though The Doctors' was in what would become their best-rated year. What were the stories that year that brought them those ratings, I'm curious?

The thing that stands out the most to me is just how volatile everything is. Even when EDGE was in the Top 5, some weeks it could fall below #10. Imagine the kind of panic the networks would have with things being like that now.

I think Eunice should've risen from the grave and slapped Suzi for being such a whiny twit.

+1

She was irritating me so much I almost had to turn it off, I couldn't take anymore.

They were well eager to get rid of Ann Williams in the 70s, weren't they? Seems bizarre since it essentially left Jo marooned in a familial sense.

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.