Ryan's Hope Discussion Thread

[KMan101]

Ellen Barrett sounds like a *lovely* producer. LMAO. Lord.

[Paul Raven]

Wasn't Michael killed off during a writer's strike? So whoever was producer at the time made that decision.

Or maybe I've got that wrong.

[amybrickwallace]

 

I think you're right, because I read that Claire Labine was furious. She had other plans for Michael, though I don't know what they were.

[j swift]

You are correct.  The issue was discussed in prior pages.  At the time of the strike there was a newspaper article about scab soap writers that is cited here  http://ryansbaronline.tripod.com/labinetimes88.html

 

Labine lamented that the older woman/younger man story she created had resulted in an unplanned murder.  She didn't name the characters in the story but viewers would have easily understood the reference.

 

Worse yet, the scabs had written Kimberly into a corner.  Rae had pointed the gun at Michael, but dropped it when she couldn't shoot him.  Then, Kimberly shot Michael, but it wasn't initially fatal because, like Scrooge, he was visited three times before he died.  First, Tiso Navatny's (sp?) hit-man found Michael close to death, but not dead yet, and left the scene.  Later, Jack Fenneli (sp?) came to yell at Michael for screwing up his news story about the mob, but by that time Michael was dead and the police arrived at that very moment.  Clearly, Jack was going to be unfairly tried and Rae, who felt sorry for the now pregnant Kimberly, was going to confess to save her daughter.  Labine coarse corrected and somehow placed the blame on the mob, even though viewers clearly saw Kimberly shoot him, and she flashbacked to the shooting several times afterward.  If this board existed at the time, we would have been up in arms, but savvy viewers who were aware of the strike in 1981 were more forgiving.      

 

Kimberly's pregnancy resulted in a lot of good stories, but it was probably never part of Labine's original proposal.  But, that's what you get when hire a dude because he has smooth moves on the disco dance floor, rather than actual corporate experience.  Interestingly, a 1991 article on Corbett noted that he got his real estate license after being fired from RH, and given that forty years later he still reports on real estate for Extra, it may have been kismet. 

Edited October 7, 2020 by j swift

[Sean]

In terms of the specific timing, I believe Michael's death happened about a week into the strike in May 1981 - the writers' names had just disappeared from the closing credits.

 

I got SoapNet in 2003 in the middle of the strike material, and I found the murder investigation basically impossible to follow as a new viewer. It was evident that the scab writers were coming up with it on the fly, and that they were having to contort the whole plot in order to get Kim off the hook. The concurrent (and sometimes intersecting) storyline in which Joe ruins Jack's life was similarly convoluted, though Roscoe Born and Michael Levin were better able to sell that.

 

Speaking of Joe, over the summer I began re-watching episodes of the show on YouTube starting from June 1979 right before Richard Muenz shows up, and it's striking to think just what a strange signature coupling Joe and Siobhan turn out to be, particularly in terms of casting - by my accounting, no combination of actors playing Joe and Siobhan lasts more than a year before one or both of them is recast. Not to mention that initially Joe and Siobhan are very much an afterthought to the forbidden pairing of Jack and Siobhan, which the show spends much of Sarah Felder's run on the show building up. They really did an about-face when Roscoe Born shows up and suddenly they're endgame. 

[DRW50]

 

Yes. As @amybrickwallace said, Labine mentioned being very upset about his being killed off, as she seemed to have a high opinion of the triangle. Personally it all made me feel gross and I loathed Michael and Kimberly, but I guess most loved them, I don't know.

[Forever8]

What would you have done with Kimberly then to get her out of that gross triangle? 

[DRW50]

 

I would have paired her up with someone age-appropriate, like the drunk teenager Faith counseled who disappeared after the strike. (the strike people actually tried to give Faith something interesting to do...we couldn't have that!!!) Everything that Labine and Mayer gave Kim to do tended to gross me out. 

[Sean]

That felt like the direction the scab writers were going in with Craig (Paul Carlin), but that abruptly ended with the conclusion of the strike when Kim ran off with baby Arley. I think his last episode involved him encountering Kim at the Crystal Palace, and Kim then inviting him to come back to Ryan's to meet Arley (Kim was crashing with Johnny and Maeve by that point). Carlin was listed with the contract actors but made all of nine appearances before vanishing.

 

One of the (many, many) reasons I'd love to see more material from 1982 is that they do seem to try to move Kim into different territory - initially she continues to terrorize Seneca and Rae by staging a fake kidnapping and then engaging in a protracted custody battle over Arley, but her finding an actual father in the form of Kirk seems like a potentially rich development given her, ahem, daddy issues with Seneca. I'm also intrigued by the Kim/Pat/Amanda Kirkland triangle that Mary Ryan Munisteri developed, though perhaps that would have felt like a Delia/Pat/Faith redux if it had been allowed to continue.

Edited October 7, 2020 by Sean

[amybrickwallace]

Yes. I think playing up Kim with her father and his family more would have been a great move. It would have been great to see Kelli Maroney and Ariane Muenker go toe to toe. As a matter of fact, the two ladies are still friends today. ☺

[safe]

Probably having a columnist, still describing an actor who had been front burner for two years as a neophytes, didn't do Kelli any favors.  Rose Alaio (Rose) said the show didn't give Kelli help or encouragement as an actress. Ellen Barrett was unduly hard on her.

 

I thought they would have had Kim land a role on The Proud and The Passionate. 

[amybrickwallace]

 

That would have made a lot of sense. Kimberly was an aspiring actress, right?

[Chris 2]

I’ve heard multiple actors complain about Ellen Barrett, who took over after the much-respected Robert Costello left the show. But I don’t blame her for the departure of Sarah Felder - I believe ABC wanted her gone because she wasn’t glamorous enough. What an absolute shame, because Felder was a true original with great screen presence. She was the perfect younger leading lady to carry RH into the future after Kate Mulgrew left.

 

BTW, I COULD NOT STAND Kelli Maloney on this show.

[amybrickwallace]

 

I've always wondered why another soap never signed Sarah Felder.

[j swift]

While I wouldn't go as far as saying that I couldn't stand Kelli as Kim, it was remarkable that between Kelli's Kim, Randall Edwards' Delia, and Cali Timmons' Maggie, Roger Coleridge certainly has a type (lol). They were each schemers with a strong sense of family, always looking out for number one, driven to distraction by romantic fantasies, and always underestimated by their foes.  Roger is truly a character that one would never see on a soap today because (a) his age (and his hairline) would be considered too niche, (b) his caddish nature would be considered undesirable, and (c) his complexity would never have been given time to develop.

 

As far as the Proud and the Passionate, to me, there was always a funny through line about the character of Kim that she wanted fame, but she was not a gifted actress.  She was always forced to seduce directors, or undermine the lead actors, to get parts because she wasn't very good.  Even her own mother was never impressed by her skills on the stage.

Edited October 8, 2020 by j swift