Jump to content

Recommended Posts

  • Replies 3.8k
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Top Posters In This Topic

Top Posters In This Topic

Posted Images

  • Members
Posted

i really liked Alimi. He really did look like an older version of the child actor who played Frankie. Did they ever have some dialogue about Frankie's switch from film school to med school? I guess that would have been during the Jason Olive years.

Wow, that saxophone really takes me back. Where have all the soap saxophones gone?

  • Members
Posted (edited)

She also looks and reacts a lot like Barbara Luna in that ad.

She never looks the same in any two shots. And wow she was a stunningly beautiful woman.

She's a little exotic compared to Lisa Peluso - it's not the same, clearly, but I wonder if they got any criticism similar to OLTL with the Mia/Kassie switch. Probably not.

I can't remember. Didn't Frankie say something during Olive's run about how he was filming someone for a documentary, he was filming an ambulance or something, and he saw a person dying, and he wished that he had been able to save the man's life (which led him to become a doctor)? Didn't this have to do with some relative of Simone's or Mia's? Or am I making that up?

Edited by CarlD2
  • Members
Posted

That's an interesting explanation, makes sense. Yeah, I really wasn't watching much then, I missed a lot of the stuff with Frankie, Mia, and Simone, I think I was still very busy with college. That was probably around '02/'03.

Yeah, I doubt people made a fuss about that Roya to Lisa transition at least in terms of looks. Kim on One Life has a times reminded me of Roya in the exotic looks department. And I titally see the BarBara Luna thing. BTW, that's probably a pretty rare shot of Patty Lotz in that recap you posted.

  • Members
Posted

:lol: :lol: :lol:

I'd like to see some of Patty, wasn't she a welder like on Flashdance or something? It sounds like Roya got all of the '80s greed and avarice type stuff.

  • Members
Posted

4/10/84 Digest. John Kelly Genovese reviews Loving.

When word leaked out last year that Agnes Nixon and Douglas Marland had collaborated on a daytime serial which Joe Stuart was to produce, we knew we were in for a winner.

Over the past few years, much of soapdom turned to hyped-up ersatz. The two notable exceptions were "All My Children", under the creative helm of Mrs. Nixon, and "Guiding Light," which was penned by Marland. Add to this team producer Stuart, a keen, sensitive perfectionist, and the result is a collaboration of rare creative dignity. And "Loving" has dignity.

To round out the other vital facets of production are two imaginative, energetic young directors with glowing track records on other serials - Andy Weyman, previously of "Edge of Night," "Another World" and "Texas," and Bob Scinto, who squeezed unimaginable life out of the trite dying days of both "Love of Life" and "The Doctors." Boyd Dumrose was hired to design believable, often downright breathtaking sets.

The early castings were dynamic for the most part. As "old money" family heads Cabot and Isabelle Alden, Wesley Addy and Augusta Dabney, display a grace and understated believability which is all too rare among TV patriarchs and matriarchs. Other standouts are Susan Walters, who has grown magnificently as scheming but scared young Lorna Forbes; Perry Stephens, who as hero Jack Forbes is emerging as possibly the best new male lead of the season; Pamela Blair and Tom Ligon as Rita Mae and Billy Bristow, the crackerbarrel southern couple dealing with Rita Mae's alternately riotous and touching search for an identity; and Marilyn McIntyre and James Kiberd's heartbreaking portrayals of Noreen and Mike Donovan, a "loving" couple torn apart by Mike's refusal to get professional help for Vietnam-induced nightmares and hallucinations.

It is highly unfortunate, however, that the show saw fit to dismiss such sterling talent as Shannon Eubanks (Ann Forbes), Patricia Kalember (Merill Vochek), Jennifer Ashe (Lily Slater) and Ann Williams (June Slater), especially since they constituted the two front-burning storylines for the show's first six months.

Many serials have splashy production values and exciting performers to hook viewers. "Loving" is especially lucky - it also happens to have an intelligent, satisfying story.

Take Mike Donovan's nightmares. So many hacks have used shell shock as an excuse to bring presumed-dead heroes back as twisted evildoers. Nixon and Marland could easily have fallen into this trap. Instead, they carefully depicted the gradual breakup of Mike's basically happy marriage, and his imaginary confrontations with his dead Army buddy, even while he continued to function as brother, friend and policeman.

The split-personality of incest victim Lily Slater (Jennifer Ashe) was admittedly melodramatic at times. How much longer could Lily's personality change every time Curtis (Christopher Marcantel) walked in the room? What saved the story, however - outside of some dynamite acting by Ms. Ashe and her on-screen parents, John Cunningham and Ann Williams - was the natural intensification of the Jack vs. Curtis conflict, Marland's skillful use of the two personalities in the murder of demented daddy Garth and the simple fact that this was one of the few split personality stories ever done in soaps which was sufficiently motivated. (Parental abuse is almost always the determining factor in split personality cases.)

This is not to imply that "Loving" is all eerie psychodrama, however, for it lives up to its simple title very well. The explosive love affair of Merrill Vochek and Roger Forbes (John Shearin, Peter Brown) was not only realistically handled in terms of Roger's confusion between Merrill and wife Ann (played to perfection by the beautiful Eubanks) but it had an exciting ripple effect on every other character in the show through Merrill's engagement to childhood sweetheart Douglas Donovan (Bryan Cranston). The triangle involving Lorna, hardworking Tony Perelli (Richard McWilliams) and down-to-earth Stacey Donovan (Lauren-Marie Taylor) promises to be more fun than the majority of teen triangles on today's soaps. And the confusion of Father Jim Vochek (Peter Davies) upon unexpectedly meeting up with a former flame, Cabot's illegitimate daughter Shana Sloane (Susan Keith), is one of the most human and innovative sequences seen on daytime in years.

In short, "Loving" is not only a tasty production, it is an honest, intricately woven story which evolves form a group of people who truly care about each other.

Who could ask for anything more?

  • 2 weeks later...
  • Members
Posted (edited)

The below is a quote that Eric made in the now-locked "AMC & OLTL Will Move Online" thread. (The context of the quote was that I originally stated that when compared to AMC & GH, the P&G soaps failed to get decent recognition for their "socially relevant" storylines. I'm sorry that I took so long to respond to Eric's reply; it's just that the news of the PP venture collapsing came shortly after Eric made this response.)

Eric, on one matter, I have to disagree with you: I actually think that the AW abortion was a bigger deal than Erica's abortion, given that the former abortion was actually illegal.

I stand corrected regarding the AIDS storyline; honestly, I read in one of the AW books that it was the first soap to do an AIDS storyline. I'm guessing that the author was completely unaware of the AIDS storyline on Loving. It's sad that Loving--much like the P&G soaps--was completely ignored for its socially relevant storylines. (Loving also may have been the first soap to have a storyline with a character in a wheelchair.)

When the ABC soaps get acclaim for socially relevant storylines, the only two soaps that are usually being referred to are AMC & GH. The fact that Loving, RH, and (much of the time) OLTL are ignored by the soap elites is just as perplexing to me as the fact that few recognize the P&G soaps for their forward-thinking stories.

Edited by Max
  • Members
Posted

^^How dare folks get indignant when we talk about crazy soap fans? :lol: Thanks for sharing that Carl, she was so beautiful. And incredibly lucky! When she turned down mystery role/Felicia(?), that could have easily been the end of it. Interesting to see that there really was a Tina connection, as I've said, her Ava felt like a bit of an Erica/Tina hybrid. They probably would have made her dye her hair.

I always thought it was pronounced "Mehn-yo".

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

    • I dont think he knew Leslie was staying there. I know this is all for the drama and mess which Im here for, but Vernon really could have easily rented a small studio space where he and Sharon could practice lol.
    • I understand that no one could ever replace Bernau, but Ron Raines is somewhat of a different beast. Still great (to me) though. He spent his entire TV run in one role, that was impossible to do justice correctly. 
    • Again, Bernau's illness impacted that. It's pretty obvious Pilon was always meant to be temporary. I read an article from that period that said he was working on both Ryan's Hope and GL at the same time. So he wasn't on contract for either show. (Maybe that explains somewhat why his performance was so low energy, because he was overworked doing two soaps). Later, they put him in the opening and in commercials for the show. That must have been because they were certain Bernau was not returning. Around that time, they approached Zaslow about being the permanent replacement for Bernau. He turned them down and suggested coming back as Roger. Pilon stayed so they could re-introduce Roger and write an exit for Alan. I'm guessing if MZ had not wanted to come back, they would have had no choice but to keep Pilon (which I don't think they wanted, or maybe Pilon wasn't interested) or send out a casting call for a new Alan. I think they wanted to avoid that because they were really determined not to let the nature of Bernau's illness to become public knowledge. At this point, they were still keepin up the fiction that he was going to return even while this stuff was happening BTS.   Yeah, it seems crazy now, but people forget how stigmatized AIDS was back then. I'm convinced the idea to ask Zaslow to take the role came about so they could replace Bernau as quietly as possible. Everyone would have been so surprised it would have taken the focus off Bernau not returning. It makes a kind of twisted sense. Still, thank goodness Zazlow said no and they said yes to his suggestion to return as Roger. The way everything worked out gave GL a few more strong years. I guess it's the nature of soaps, you never know what things in real life will end up strongly impacting the show, both negatively and positively. (Something just occurred to me. If Zazlow HAD said yes to playing Alan...he would have had to play being in love with Reva.

      Please register in order to view this content

      )
    • I truly do not understand why this has not happened. It's so un-Carly-like not have confronted Joss already. 
    • He definitely had it going on back in the day
    • I have long given up on logic and Mayor Laura Collins! It makes about as much sense as Luke being elected mayor over Lee Baldwin in the 80’s, maybe even less sense. She committed manslaughter as a teenager, was involved with a mobster (I guess credit for them taking Smith down), had a shoot out in her home and killed another mobster in self defense, thought she bludgeoned her stepfather to death, then was catatonic for years. Her current husband had a twin that was a serial killer, had his own breakdown that threatened lives, and most recently hid his brother for treatment and that allowed Ryan to escape and kill again. And had hook killer Esme as a houseguest and is raising her child. I don’t care for Sonny anymore but their relationship is just another thing that involves suspension of belief to watch the show. I wish someone on this show would remind these adults that they used to pull way worse stuff than this! I would love a scene where Laura is sitting with Lulu and tells her while she is not happy this is nothing compared to what she got up to when she was young, and maybe even some understanding that she would also do stupid stuff if she believed in the cause. Olivia reminding Dante that he was wild as a teen and this isn’t that. Felicia reminding Anna that they were being shot at when pretty close to Emma’s age. These characterizations are just so basic. Have some fun with the actual history of the show. That kind of wink would mean more to me than just name dropping some random fact.
    • There are no dumb questions here, we've all known each other long enough to fill in information without shaming each other.  We want you to be happy @carolineg.  Your POV as one of the few women here is vital. So, please, I hope you never feel as if any question, idea, or opinion is ever silly or stupid.  Your daily reminders about the realities of manicure and menstrual management has become a part of the personality of this thread. As for Hank, while I'm confident there's a plan in place.  It is frustrating that they announce these casting so far in advance that it is tough as an audience and wait it out until the thing happens.  I'm happy they didn't blow it the second Mike was in town, a week after meeting Liam. So, it is a slow burn. And, conveniently, he lets us know when his episodes air. 

      Please register in order to view this content

        Speaking of silly stuff, is anyone bothered by the placement of Tony's pocket on his shirt?  It is so odd that whatever bargain bin they found it, would choose to place a huge black pocket over the floral design?
    • I think his full name is Chadwick.  I remember, back when the previous actor was playing him, someone called him Chadwick a couple of times.  It may have been Stefano.  
×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

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