Ryan's Hope Discussion Thread

[safe]

Malcolm Groome (Pat #1) at SOMAFest (The Somatic Movement Arts Festival) in September 2014

He comes in at approx. 2:18 and his “solo” is at approx. 4:36

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Edited November 23, 2014 by safe

[amybrickwallace]

He seems to be leading a happy and healthy life away from the show biz arena.

[safe]

Yes, he does- while still doing a little bit of performing on occasion.

[amybrickwallace]

Yup - glad he hasn't left acting completely behind.

[DRW50]

Soap Opera Stars August 1982

[saynotoursoap]

The last month of the series is online at YouTube under the title HopeNet. You should rewatch because Maeve most certainly did realize that Grace was Pat's child. In the scene in which Faith is first shown to return, Maeve watches Pat holding Grace, and it is then that the penny drops. For once, she had enough sense to keep her realization to herself instead of upsetting Pat and Concetta, though Pat later comes to the same realization and confronts Faith in final scene of the series.

I agree with you, amybrickwallace. I liked KMG, too, even though I can understand why her detractors found her annoying. Personally I felt that much of the problem was down to the writing of the character. The writers never seemed to have a clear vision of Faith with the exception of the period in which Catherine Hicks played her. And as much as I enjoyed the performances of all those involved, Faith and Jill often came across as a pair of sanctmonious hypocrites to me, which in a small way soured what otherwise would have been fantastic characters. Claire Labne seemed to write all of the characters with more depth in her third stint. The last few years of RH were glorious to me. I wish we could have seen them on SoapNet.

[saynotoursoap]

Knitting was very "in" during that era. I married the same year as your parents, and we received a hand-knitted afghan from a friend. It was tres 70s with orange, yellow, and brown thread. It now resides with my ex-wife and her second husband. My husband and I are delighted to let them have custody of it, but yes, it continues to endure after 40 years!

[DRW50]

I think the show struggled with how to translate Faith and Jill to the average viewer. The Jill/Frank/Delia triangle consisted of a successful, wealthy lawyer loved by most of the people around her, and a childish housewife who'd never really known love or affection due to her husband never wanting to be with her in the first place and proceeding to cheat on her for years. I remember reading some article where Ilene Kristen said she'd expected to get a ton of fan hate, and instead viewers tended to sympathize with her. It's not that hard to see why. Once they moved Jill into material that was less about contrasting her with Delia (like her complex relationship with Seneca), I think she became more solid as a character.

Faith's early material was just very messy to me - clearly we were supposed to see Pat as a cad and root for him to fall in love with Faith for real, but I couldn't stop cringing any time she was near him. It didn't help that Malcolm Groome IMO had more chemistry with Ilene than with Faith Catlin. The Kenneth Castle story also seemed so jarringly off with the type of soap Ryan's Hope wanted to be.

I tend to see Hicks as another character, not as Faith.

KMG mostly played a passive victim until the drunk story, which I thought she did a great job with, but what bothered me was they never wanted to have the character face up to any moments where she made bad choices or behaved badly. For instance, as Delia once suggested when Faith boozed it up and treated a sick Little John (nearly killing him) - they all but threw her a parade, whereas Delia was damned no matter what. My breaking point was when she went on and on and on some more about Frank breaking up with her because of his feelings for Jill. Few characters dared to tell her it was her own fault for getting involved with Frank. Few characters were bothered when she called Jill a "thing" who had crawled into the Coleridge home and taken her mother from her. The character got a free pass for endless verbal abuse. And this was a big retcon, as it had been said time and again in the show's early years that Mrs. Coleridge resented Jill and never gave her the time of day. They gave me no reason to feel anything for Faith other than white hot rage.

I think the show always had a certain tin ear about the Coleridge family and just how "good" they truly were, or what the idea of "good" was supposed to be. Or how "good" people should behave. For instance, the show's choice to make Roger a "good" character in 1980 and 1981, and go around lecturing Delia all the live long day, made me actively despise him.

[danfling]

I never cared for the character of Roger.

I liked Jillian, and I loved Faith.

I hated the actor who played their father.

[John]

Can u link us

[saynotoursoap]

I have never learned how to embed in these threads, but the url appears to be

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=S4SOc27q_NE

If that does not work, you can just Google "RH 1-9-89". The user is Freeflyur, and he has a significant amount of post 1982 RH videos.

[DRW50]

April 1977 Daytimers

[John]

Nancy Barrett did not play Jill. LOL

[robbwolff]

In the article Carl posted on the Lovers and Friends board, it mentions that Johnny Ryan was almost killed off early in RH's run. Is that true? I've never heard this before. I've always heard it was Frank Ryan that was slated to be killed off.

[John]

it was Frank. He was supposed to die from the fall Delia caused him in episode 1