beebs

The ridiculous part is that this was all to eventually reveal that Dougie was Doug's biological son, but instead the promo discusses...taxes? Like...if I was to choose between Karen Wolek on OLTL (I THINK OLTL was still DAYS' timeslot competitor at the time) and this...it's an easy choice.

Watching the end credits of the 1966 episode just caught my eye: Elizabeth Harrower had what I can only assume was a small role on the show as an actress two years before her daughter, and 13 before she'd take over as head writer.

TBF maybe not in 1984 😂

Great find! Looks like the episode is mislabeled (this and the AW episode are actually April 14, 1993). But GREAT quality!

Okay, I've had a few drinks and I'm tired, but... A random aside, but considering how we were talking about them bungling Stefano's death storyline, I had to share this. I know some of y'all will definitely hate it, but...enh, I was young when I started writing this. I had planned to write for my DAYS fanfic (without going too deep into the weeds), that Kristen turns up pregnant, back in 2013-14 after she drugged and raped Eric. After a subsequent WTD involving Brady and Eric, the truth is revealed when Stefano, realizing Kristen is unhinged and her fixation on the baby is becoming obsessive and dangerous to the child, reveals that the baby is actually neither man's child, but actually Abby and EJ's baby from their tryst on Smith Island (requiring Abby leave town for a few months to "work for DiMera"). Kristen snaps, and, feeling betrayed begins to withhold Stefano's insulin, eventually causing him to go into diabetic shock, and dies. Kristen being the monster that Stefano created, being the one to kill him feels incredibly appropriate. After she's revealed as the killer, she's put into Bayview. Marlena is told of a "new experimental treatment" being developed by a new doctor there...turns out it's Rolf, using a pseudonym. He's used MK Ultra to "cure her psychotic depression". of course, knowing how MK Ultra works, it wipes Kristen's memory. When Marlena tours the facility to see what this new doctor's treatment involves, she realizes something funny is going on. After some digging, she realizes what's happening and blows the whistle on Rolf's experiments, ultimately leading to Bayview shutting down. In the aftermath of this, Kristen returns to Salem, and John, realizing that the old "evil" Kristen is gone, takes pity on her, and insists that she stay with him and Marlena at the micropenthouse. Brady, of course, backs John up on this, but Marlena is extremely reluctant, and can't see past the things Kristen's done, even though Kristen doesn't remember and is back to being "sweet, innocent" Kristen again. The tensions between them bleed into Marlena's relationship with John, of course, as well as with Brady. I'm probably explaining this horribly, but it just kickstarted my memory about that seed of an idea I had. One day I'll write it all out. That really is a big part of the problem, as well. I know that, ultimately, Gene Palumbo had wanted to tie John to the Alamains, as they were the big bads of the time, and they had just added Vivian to the cast to try to really solidify their place on the show, but considering he was out so quickly, and there was such a turnover in 1991-93 in terms of writers, nothing really could gel properly. In fact, I think Palumbo was brought back for a few weeks during Sheri Anderson's return in mid-1992 to wrap up some of his stories, as well? Oddly enough, his run wasn't THAT unpopular. He did manage to get the show back up into the Top 5 by the end of his run for a number of weeks, but, in retrospect, it was pretty damn messy, and inconsistent.

I still say Noah's secretly Rafe's, but then that would tie his smug ass to the canvas forever, and I just don't have the spoons for that. "Dr. Rolf somehow snuck into the underground passage and injected Rafe through the trap door in his big toe!" they discover years later as Rafe stands arm-in-arm with an also-not-dead Daniel Jonas. They are immediately thrown a ceremonial dinner and given keys to the city.

Apparently they were "hiding behind a makeshift bomb wall" that Shane had suggested via walky-talky, to try to protect them from the blast, so they were hiding behind the crappy IKEA couches, presumably, while Rafe professed his undying love to Carrie while tripping over rugs. If they survive Ken Corday's death, they MIGHT stand a chance, particularly if they move exclusively to Peacock (it's not the MOST unreasonable thing to surmise, Corday is 71), but...I won't hold my breath.

I distinctly remember this. I remember Stefano had locked Marlena, John, Rafe, Sami, Austin, Carrie...I'm NOT sure who else, in a cabin somewhere, and rigged the doors and windows, so that if they opened them to try to leave, the cabin would blow up. They spent the whole time panicking that they were all about to die, then about 10 seconds before the timer went off, Rafe tripped over the throw rug, and revealed a trap door, which all of them somehow managed to escape through before the bomb went off. It was...probably one of the most embarrassing things I've seen on this show, and that's saying something. ETA: Okay I'm not hallucinating. This actually happened. https://www.soapcentral.com/days-of-our-lives/recaps/2012/120507.php

MarDar's entire run seemed like they were perpetually "setting something up" and then having it unceremoniously dropped. Nothing ever built to a satisfying conclusion, and there seemed to be a lot of "much ado about nothing" to a lot of the stories. Remember when all the vets were trapped in a cabin that exploded, but two seconds before the bomb went off, they teleported through a trap door in the floor and everyone walked in from the side of the screen without so much as a scratch, nevermind any sign that there had just been an explosion? Or Will, Sonny, Gabi, and Chad being involved in that weird social media site that got hacked and turned into a gambling ring, which was suddenly dropped, recapped via heretofore-unseen flashbacks at the beginning of an episode, and wrapped up by the end of that episode? If ever a headwriting team got their stories interfered with, it was MarDar. Tomlin doing the DAYSaster seemed to be in his wheelhouse, considering his propensity for stunts like that in the past (SFT's flood being one that immediately comes to mind), but the only reason I would think it actually was TomSell's idea and not MarDar's lies entirely in the fact that I genuinely don't believe anything MarDar pitched ever aired as envisioned whatsoever.

Ugh, terribly. And you wonder why he got out of THAT profession.

Yeah, and did a bunch of blogs on here too, not to mention that "interview" with Harding Lemay that I still say was faked. Far be it for me to criticize someone for writing fanfic, of course, but he's hardly the benchmark of writing talent. Casey's infamous for brownnosing soap celeb types. He'd sell his first-born to Dena Higley if it got him attention from her. Nah, he's pressed. He may dress it up like he's joking, but this is just part of his pattern. I give him another six months in the job. Max.

Nearly just snorted my tea out my nose, @Khan 😂 Also, be careful, knowing Ron, he'll do that and then give "Trish" her alters back.

Yeah that story really REALLY dumbed Don (and half the staff at Bayview and UH, for that matter) down to make it work. Their voices aren't even the same. The real problem I would have with Chris and Sam is that Andrea Hall, in every clip I've seen, fumbles at least half her lines, to the point where I struggle to understand what she's even saying. I just can't see her working long-term as a regular character with anyone when she struggles so badly with her lines. I think, if they'd gone that route, they would have to go the David Canary route and have Dee Hall play both roles.

So, not only did Sam take over Marlena's life, but also tried to have her killed/threatened Marlena to her face shortly before Don rescued Marlena from Bayview. I would NEVER have forgiven so quickly, but, again, Ann Marcus and her lightning-fast plotty writing. The kidney story was Harrower, she took over from Marcus in March '79. Marlena was pregnant with DJ around the time Laura was going off the rails, and there were scenes up on YT of Dr. Jordan Barr and Don trying to talk Marlena out of giving the kidney up to Sam because of the risk.

IIRC Liz was married to an actor whose first name I forget (Rick?) and recognized Lee immediately as the woman she caught Rick in bed with in Paris, leading to their divorce. Shortly thereafter, Kellam called on Liz to come to Salem and help him on the campaign trail, which eventually led to Liz and Don's affair.

The thing is, as much as I know Tomlin did a lot of damage to DAYS during his last run as HW, he did know how to write a decent story arc, and he and Michele Poteet-Lisanti did a decent job stabilizing the show and creating some degree of interest again after whatever the hell Nina Laemmle was trying to write.

Huge. Harrower dropped the ball so many times with that storyline, and to have it end on such a clumsy note really was the nail in the coffin for me that she wasn't up to the job of writing the show.

At this rate, they should just go back to the title card on a blue background. Awful.

Moving LOL to 4:00 EST in 1979 felt really goofy to me, considering they could have easily moved LOL to 3:30 after GL and kept a lot of that audience after a highly successful show, and potentially ward off GH's increasing ratings at the time (and take advantage of AW's drop). One Day At A Time reruns felt like a bizarre thing to put in that slot instead, but I also suspect the move was more a design by CBS to force LOL into cancellation, and to try to force Bell's hand to expand Y&R to an hour while they were at it.

Just uploaded to YouTube, June 23, 1980. Rather poor quality, but always great to see more SFT online.

That had happened a few weeks before this. It is shocking viewing, and really could have set an interesting story in motion, but, of course, Harrower dropped the ball and that thread went nowhere also. There seemed to be pressure above Kenney's head to make sweeping changes, and I am curious to know where that came from. From what I've deduced, there was some major behind-the-scenes issues during 1978-79. Remember that fistfight allegation between SSH and Kaye Stevens, which led to Stevens' departure, Ann Marcus walking after having her story to give Chris a Vietnamese child vetoed (which she then brought to LOL), and SSH's issues with having her mother write the show, with her claiming everyone, Bill Hayes included, complaining to her about her mother's stories. I think things were pretty toxic on-set around then, and combined with stagnant ratings, this leads the dominoes to fall. First Harrower is fired, Kenney quits in protest, Rabin is brought in, and then the reports of a clearing out to usher out the, what was it, "culture of negativity" on set, thus leading to 1980 Massacre. Looking at the timelines, I think Rabin was mostly responsible for the firings, but that there was probably someone leaning on him/the show to clear house. I get the feeling that there was a LOT of bad blood, especially if bits of the drama were starting to spill out to the press at the time.

😂 You can really see why AMC and OLTL were trouncing them at the time.

Ahh, all these storylines Harrower set up that went absolutely nowhere.

Probably because they used all the money to use that John Legend song for Naniel to dance to once in the pub 😬

Yep. That's what I read. Probably a number of things (considering Broderick isn't exactly known as a camp queen), but that was, if nothing else, the last straw. Seeing years after the fact, how off-the-rails the show had become under Langan round 2000-01, makes me wonder how on Earth the show maintained the ratings it DID have around that time. I know the Last Blast squad had fans, but surely it couldn't make up for how awful a lot of the rest of the show was around then?