Jump to content

Ryan's Hope Discussion Thread


Recommended Posts

  • Members

Like many, I'm hooked on the SoapNet re-runs of this canceled soap. At its peak, it was perhaps that most realistic and gritty American soap to be produced. It had an exceptional core cast, add to that the fantastic writing from Claire Labine and Paul Avila Mayer during its golden years and you have a gem.

So, any other RH fans out there?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Replies 2.9k
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Top Posters In This Topic

Top Posters In This Topic

Posted Images

  • Members

I think it holds up very well, as least the first 5 years or so. The 1975-1980 period of this show WAS some of the best soap opera ever written. The show during this era was real and gritty. The New York backdrop and the "ethnic" vibe made it extremely atmospheric. When ABC bought the show from Labine and Mayer, the new writers began adding more and more fantasy elements, which really went against the show's grain. The 75-80 episodes would be among my "desert island" collection, along with the Harding LeMay years at AW, and some other select shows.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

RH was the last ABC soap I watched growing up since my mom wasn't a regular viewer so I hadn't originally seen the first 5 years until I got Soapnet. I loved how intimately this show delved into the family dynamics. I think Soapnet only has the rights for the first few years and then they rebroadcast it again from the beginning, but I would love to see the story that originally hooked me on RH: Charlotte Greer claiming she was Frank's first wife. Charlotte was played by Judith Chapman and I don't remember the full details, but she was somehow connected to Maeve and was out for revenge.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

If I remember correctly, Charlotte married Frank in order to carry out some vendetta that her parents had toward Maeve and Johnny. Her mother was played by ATWT's Kathleen Widdoes (Emma). The storyline was interesting and it played alongside a political storyline they had going at the time (with ATWT EP Chris Goutman playing a political advisor named Doug Waterman. Geez, the things that remain etched in the mind!) Labine and Mayer penned these stories after being rehired by ABC to write the show, but they weren't able to get the ratings up. These stories were dispensed with rather quickly when Pat Falken Smith took over as HW and turned the show into the "Max Dubujak Show."

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

It's the music rights that are an issue. In the early 80's they started using pop songs a lot more and the rights to rebroadcast that music is prohibitively expensive. I keep hoping that issue will be worked out one of these days so we can see the last 8 years or so.

I think Ryan's hope is very slow paced and that's why a lot of people find it boring. I always think of RH when people start saying they want more family scenes. RH was had such a strong family core, at least in the beginning. It's truly a character driven show. I wish there were room for another soap like it today, but I just don't see it. People expect a faster pace and more outrageous drama than shows like RH have. I find it so endearing because on RH a divorce was such a huge , scandalous thing and people actually believe you should be married forever. Now most main characters have been married 7 or 8 times, so things like affairs and divorce really don't create all that much drama.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

Some of the folks who have collections of the post 1981 episodes say that there's not a whole lot of music so that reason seems to be called into question. Also, if I remember, that was the reason/theory given by Claire Labine when she was asked by someone from the SoapNet board and only afterwards, it was what SN themselves claimed. There is also the question of why they told people that the reason for the previous rewind (the one before this one) was so that new fans could see the show from the beginning. In other words...if it's indeed the music rights, why was this never said until recently?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 5 weeks later...
  • Members

I love Ryan's Hope. It's too bad it's on so late at night now. My favorite stories were the earliest, with Jack/Mary, Pat/Delia/Frank/Jill and the first incarnation of Siobhan. She was great.

Did Labine write the Greer story line? I've always heard what a brilliant story that was.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 3 weeks later...
  • Members

Yeah, there isn't much compared to other soaps of the time, but, in the later years, there was usually music playing in the scenes set at Ryan's, which I suppose could be enough to make further airings cost prohibitive (One use of music I particularly remember involved Ryan Fenelli listening to Madonna's "Like a Virgin" as she considered losing her virginity to D.J. LaSalle).

Yep, the Greer saga was the focus of Labine & Mayer's brief stint in 1983, which won the show's sixth and final Emmy for Outstanding Writing. There are tons of clips of it on YouTube (for reference, the story ran from April 1983 to August 1983).

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

I watch this show and LOVE IT and wasn't even alive for most of its run. I discovered it on soapnet when my insomnia got bad (it plays at 5:00 am and 5:30 for godssake) and LOVE IT. Its my favorite soap of all time besides Sunset Beach which of course could not be any more different lol

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 3 weeks later...
  • 2 weeks later...
  • Members

Okay, I finally got SOAPnet a few days ago and last night, I forced myself to stay up to watch RH (no VCR/DVR on the TV...bummer) and I just fricken loved it. The two episodes focused mainly on the baptism and christening of Ryan, with some conflicts going on between Mary and Jack. I don't even know how to explain it...it was just good stuff. There was such a sense of family and togetherness, but at the same time, all of the soapy elements of the storylines still came through.

It's criminal that SOAPnet airs the show in such a suckass timieslot. Their schedule wouldn't be bad if they didn't double-play all of the teen dramas. "The OC" and "One Tree Hill" should only be one episode a day, and after some adjusting, that would easily free up two hours for late morning showings of "Dallas" and "Ryan's Hope." Hell, they could put RH in its two old ABC timeslots, 11am and 11:30am.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...
  • Members

RH was one of the few soaps I caught from episode one. I'll never forget Frank tumbling down those stair during the whole episode. I really loved that show. I loved Mary and Jack, Nell and Seneca, Jillian, and Bucky Carter (Later Keith Timmons on SB) Just a really well rounded soap with a great cast.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 1 month later...
  • Members

I started to DVR the show since Soapnet started airing it again and it holds up really well. A lot of young viewers might find it boring and very slow paced, but the writing is so much better than a lot of soaps today. (If you want to talk about slow paced, watch some old ATWT. My mom loved that show but the stories moved along slower than a snails pace). I grew up watching RH and Edge of Night and was sad when they went off the air.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Unfortunately, your content contains terms that we do not allow. Please edit your content to remove the highlighted words below.
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.



  • Recent Posts

    • 1976 Part 3 Peggy Brooks, the youngest Brooks daughter, upset over her parents’ recent marital trouble, has turned to her college teaching assistant for help with her studies, and then for emotional support. Jack Curtis is deeply attracted to her but tries to warn her not to get emotionally involved. But Peggy confesses she’s fallen in love with him, and he knows he returns her feelings. Jack, whose real name is Johnny Kryzynski, a name he feels is too difficult for professional use, is married to Joanne, a waitress at the Allegro, Leslie Elliot’s restaurant. Joanne, who is very overweight, is on another of her frequent reducing diets, hoping to regain Johnny’s love and attention. She is encouraged by Brock Reynolds, who manages the Allegro for Leslie. Sympathizing with her problem and her need for her husband’s love, Brock tells. her she must feel beautiful herself before other people can see it. One night, while discussing Joanne’s previous, fruitless attempts to diet, Jack asks her a question he’d never actually asked ‘before: Why had she gained all  that weight? Joanne painfully tells him that she found out a year after they were married that she was pregnant. When she sounded him out about children, he had made it clear they couldn’t have a child until he’d finished school, so she secretly had an abortion, which left her feeling so empty that she ate to fill the emptiness. For the first time in a long time, Jack put his arms around her and kisses her. Feeling that Johnny really cares now that he knows about the abortion, Joanne’s trying very hard'to stay on her diet. But Peggy, having lunch at the Allegro, confides in her friendly waitress that she’s in love, and the man’s name is Jack Curtis. Joanne is heartsick, not only for herself but for Peggy, who obviously has no idea that Jack is married. Knowing that Peg’s sister Chris Foster works for Legal Aid, Joanne consults Chris about a legal name change, explaining that her husband, Johnny Kryzynski, uses the name Jack Curtis professionally she may as well make it their legal name. Chris makes the connection and tells her father about it. Stuart confronts Jack, demanding to know how he could do this to his wife and to Peg, and what he is going to do about it. Jack asks for time to let Peg down easily. When Peg learns that her father has seen Jack, she furiously informs him to stay out of her relationship with Jack. Peg later apologizes for her angry words, but she and her father cross swords again over Jack, and, backed into a verbal corner, Stuart blurts out, ‘For’ God’s sake, he’s a married man!” Disbelieving, Peggy goes to Jack, who tries to explain he’s started to tell her many times but, not wanting to hurt her, kept hoping for a better time to do it. Peggy, in shock, goes to the Allegro to think this out. Seeing the pain Peggy’s suffering, Joanne goes over to her and gently tells Peg she understands the hurt she’s going through—they are both in love with the same man, because Jack Curtis is her husband. Jill, having decided she must have revenge on Kay, has liquor delivered to her daily. When this doesn’t drive Kay back to alcoholism, Jill embarks upon a campaign to'convince Kay that Phillip is still alive. Jill slips into the Chancellor house each evening, after Liz has left, and leads Kay into reliving incidents and conversations which occurred over a year ago, when Jill was Kay’s paid companion. In this way Jill shakes Kay’s acceptance of Phillip’s death and has her convinced that Phillip is only away on a business trip. But Liz and Brock discover Jill’s grisly charade and begin to help Kay back to reality. Faced with the enormity of what she’s been doing, Jill realizes how wrong this is and decides to end the hostilities.
    • Dallas, Dynasty, Falcon Crest, and Knots Landing episodes for the week of October 24, 1983.
    • I really don't want to see some old P&G actors on the show. To me Lindstrom and McLain have brought nothing special. The show needs to find new talent, so it has it's own identity,which overall they have. Timon, Tricia, Ambyr are breakouts. Most of the others are fine .We all know the exceptions.
    • I would wager that was because it was a new character for the likes of Devon, Lily and Nate to interact with. Watching the likes of Billy fall in love again-Phyllis, Chelsea,Lily and now Sally is repetitive, especially when he is no prize. Josh doesn't really do long term couples. So every year or so they swap partners. It diminishes them as characters as they don't seem to grow or learn from the past. We know those characters so well and they've been through just about everything, so the only solution is to involve them with new characters and have them react to the newbies drama. They tried with Ashland and the Rosales but Josh dumped the latter and wrote so badly for Ashland who could have been a long term antagonist. All we got was another short lived marriage for Victoria and another accidental killing. And Josh thinks having them sit in restaraunts for the whole episode talking business, mergers, takeovers and job switching is interestring. It's not. I feel sorry for the actors who must know they are serving shite.
    • If I were to cast a Soap Opera veteran as Jan.. I would have picked Krista Allen (of Days and B & B fame) since she did move to the Atlanta area in late 2023... and knows all there is about the Soap opera way of filming.  And I could see her playing Ashley's mom.
    • Is the set for Lulu's new house an updated version of the set used for the childhood home of Luke, Bobbie and Pat Spencer?
    • I feel like AMC would be the easiest of their soaps to revive but a reboot seems cursed at this point. I wish we had more insight on what was pitched for the primetime reboot as well as these movies. That would give us a better idea of why it keeps getting shot down.
    • Mansion of the Damned sure is a "talkative" horror movie.  In the past when I've watched those episodes, I was paying attention to The Edge of Night characters and not really zeroing in on the rehearsals/blocking/filming of the actual movie.  This time I've been following the plot of Mansion of the Damned pretty closely, and all I can say is Hester Atherton and Nicholas Harriman are about the most chit-chatty Witch and Devil I've ever heard in my life!     
    • Ashley and Derek have been so isolated that I need the show to develop something, anything to justify their presence. It's not that I think Joey being her father will be the greatest story ever told but at least it would be something and connect her to more characters. I just need the show to move forward with them. Out of all the characters, these are the only two with no storyline/development. We have recurring characters who are better used with less screentime. If the show is going to keep them on contract they need to do something with them.
    • I never thought I'd say it, but SC is B&B's best male actor - by far. SK is next. Has there ever been a US soap that has so much female talent surrounding by Himbos? KKL, JMW, HT, KB, AN, RB could be/have been leading ladies on any other soap. Even the secondary females are the ones who carry their scenes. It's been rare periods when B&B actually had a few solid male cast members. JMW really did a great job in the scenes with AN. Considering everything we've witnessed the past couple of years with Steffy/Hope, I thought reveal may ring hollow. JMW proved me wrong. No doubt this is Emmy material.
×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

By using this site, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy