Loving/The City Discussion Thread

[DRW50]

Thanks.

I guess they knew most fans weren't going to pay attention, even in the VCR era. 

[Contessa Donatella]

1. I never knew any of this which makes sense. I only watched a bit of Loving to get ready for The City. 2. This is hilarious.  3. How creative! 4. Fans are the best!

[dc11786]

I think the best crossover was Ceara's in October-November, 1991. The show very smartly tied Ceara's story to Matt's story as Matt had been falsely accused of raping a young woman that had actually had been raped by his preacher stepfather. Ceara and Jeremy were on the outs because of Ceara's fear of telling Jeremy about the incest that occured when she was younger brought about by her late father. The bond between Ceara and Matt was sweet; Francis and Wooddall had nice chemistry (big sister/little brother). The chemistry worked because Ally assumed Ceara wanted Matt and locked Ceara and Jeremy together so that Ceara would stay away from Matt. In the meantime, Jeremy had been Trisha's shoulder to cry on when she learned Trucker and Dinahlee had slept together while she was heavily pregnant. 

Pure speculation, I think the original plan for Jeremy's 1992 return was for Jeremy / Trisha. Jeremy / Stacey feels so underdeveloped. I think Jeremy arrives just as Richard Cox has been dumped as Giff Bowman and it was recently announced that Noelle Beck was leaving the show. 

Phoebe's 1993 crossover wasn't terrible as it was superficial and was slightly better than creating some snobby society character that wasn't revisited (though I did enjoy Susan Pratt's Elizabeth Barnes a year later). 

[Kane]

I'm currently working on recaps for episodes about a month into Jeremy's return and I feel like they're testing Jeremy with Dinah Lee, possibly with the intention of going into a Clay/Dinah Lee/Jeremy/Stacey quad. If that was being planned, it got scrapped with the HW change, as Taggart and Guza burned through the gaslighting story in order to end it as quickly as possible and move everyone on. I don't blame them for that, even though things ended up getting pretty cartoonish, with Isabelle taking the blame for Clay's actions and then faking a brain tumor in order to evade being held accountable herself. The story basically ended with a throwaway line of dialogue about Isabelle's medical records being lost in a suspicious offscreen fire so that it couldn't be proved one way or another whether she actually had a brain tumor.

The show was pretty much all in on Trisha and Trucker from the summer of '92 until Beck left in April '93. I recall a short interview from around the time Taggart and Guza came on where she gave hints about their intentions for the characters and she said that their plan was to keep Trisha and Trucker together and have them be involved in every storyline (which sounds a lot like them having no story of their own).

I always wonder how LeClerc felt about his time on Loving because so many things seemed to just fizzle out where Jeremy was concerned. They tried him with Stacey only for it to peter out after he was cleared of having an inappropriate relationship with Hannah; he and Tess had a bit of a build up during the Dante story only for her to suddenly drop him the minute she thought Dante was dead; he and Ava had a long build up and then finally got together only for Alex to return literally a week later; and he and Gwyneth always felt like a bit of an afterthought.

[Khan]

You know, I wonder if Agnes Nixon only brought Jean LeClerc/Jeremy to LOVING until she could figure out a way to get him back on AMC.

[dc11786]

1992 is such a mess of a year. Addie Walsh seemed to be testing out a long tease of Trucker / Stacey in the spring of 1992 and then someone revived that in October when Trucker had amnesia and thought he loved Stacey. Beck's contract should have been up around December, unless it was extended due to maternity leaves. I know Beck agreed to stay on so that Taggart had time to properly write her out. I thought the show was planning on going Stacey / Trucker / Trisha / Giff. 

Who wrote the second half of 1992 is a bit of a question. Walsh (and Ryder, I believe) are credied, but Paul Anthony Stewart stated to the press they had no headwriter in the summer of 1992. There was a wiki article about Haidee Granger, I believe, that stated Granger and Walsh had butted heads and that Walsh left in mid-1992, but that's not reflected in the credits. I am pretty positive that if Granger/Walsh did come to blows, it was over the Cooper / Selina story. 

You are probably right about the direction being Dinahlee / Clay / Stacey / Jeremy. I never would have considered Jeremy / Dinahlee because Dinahlee / Giff had such a strong (non-romantic) friendship that I just assumed they were crossing out Giff's names from scripts at that point and inserting Jeremy's name in (not ltierally of course). Dinahlee and Ava were both present, if I recall, at the airport when the Ceara wig was murdered. 

The gaslighting story was one of my least favorites, though I felt the ending was much more interesting than it had right to be. Parlato was a saving grace and made so much of the material more engaging than it should have been. This was humorous to me because Larkin Malloy stated he took the job as Clay because Walsh was writing and she had written so well for him as Kyle on "Guiding Light." Malloy's Clay never seemed to be able to figure out a personality that worked best for him. 

None of Jeremy's stories worked well for me. The best situation he had was under Nixon where he owned the ad agency and was dating Gwyn, though this was hardly Gwyn's best situation. Jeremy could easily have been replaced by someone who cost less money than LeClerc. The Tess / Jeremy stuff seemed to be abandoned when Nixon abandoned the Clay / Gwyn reunion in favor of Clay / Steffi / Cooper / Tess with Jeremy and Gwyn off on an island for a bit.  

Was LeClerc that much of a draw, though? I got the sense that LeClerc wasn't getting much work in his final year or so of "All My Children" and that he seemed happy to jump ship. His comments in 1991 were that he liked being on the "Loving" set because of the faster pace of filming a half hour. I think he also may have alluded to onset tensions at AMC, but I may have misintrepreted what he meant. 

Genie Francis was definitely a name and sending her to Corinth to work in the office at Alden University made sense because Fran Sears had arrived in the summer with the plan of refocusing AU. The first stage involved the arrival of Giff Bowman and the art studio where Dinahlee worked as a model while Trisha managed the Alden family art collection. Cox was a treasure and its a shame what they did to Giff within the span of a year. I still think Cox's Giff was sacrificed for LeClerc.

[Khan]

By the time he jumped to LOVING?  No.  Jeremy had long been relegated to the same back-burner where so many other, once-popular longtime characters on AMC had been relegated to, especially because (I think) it got tiresome watching a man with a vague, European accent always fall for some damsel in distress, only to lose interest in her once she's stable.

Nevertheless, I do suspect LeClerc/Jeremy, with his dashing, European air and aura of romantic mystery, remained very close to Nixon's heart.  (Personally, I would've killed him off AMC - maybe during his and Ceara's wedding - and sent Richard Shoberg/Tom Cudahy over to Corinth instead).

[dc11786]

I'm not super knowledgeable about the details of "All My Children," but didn't Dimitri Marick basically usurp that role (sans the accent)? I've never liked Jeremy on "Loving" mostly because he just seems to be so extra, but also because he seems to replace Giff, who was intially such a vibrant character before Addie Walsh got a hold of him. 

Killing off Jeremy would have been wonderful. What would you like to have seen done with Tom?

[Khan]

Basically, yeah.  I mean, you could argue that Dimitri was a more Gothic character - what, with the castle, and the secret, comatose wife that was straight outta Bronte - but he definitely took over Jeremy's function as the dashing romantic hero who always comes to the ladies' aid.

[Khan]

Well, for starters, I would have had Tom Cudahy relocate to Corinth with his wife, attorney Livia Frye Cudahy, with Livia opening a new law practice there, and eventually becoming District Attorney.  (Ideally, they would've relocated after gaining custody of Jamal, but I can't remember whether LOVING had morphed into THE CITY by that point, so maybe not, lol.)

Tom was an entrepreneur, owning and managing a restaurant (The Goalpost), followed by a health club, so I could see him doing the same in Corinth.  As a matter of fact, since Corinth was supposed to be a "college town," he could've opened or taken over a coffeehouse/performance venue located not far from AU, while, at the same time, working in some capacity with the university's football program, since Tom was also a former professional football player.

Derek and Mimi Frye would make appearances from time to time, since, after all, they were related to Livia - and I would hope that, while all this is happening, Angie and Frankie Hubbard are getting established in Corinth as well.  Terrence Frye would have to be on the show at some point, and maybe involved a love triangle with Frankie and an African-American or even Caucasian female.  (A white girl torn between two black men?  Oh, I can just hear the viewer complaints now, lol!)

But one story I'd REALLY want to tell would involve Tom's ne'er-do-well brother, Sean, who comes to Corinth at a low point in his life, almost immediately sets his sights on someone like Trisha (or some female on the show with money) and learns that, thanks to a long-ago one night stand, he's got a long-lost son or daughter running around Corinth!

[DRW50]

Loving was still on when the Jamal custody story ended.

Those are great ideas, especially bringing Sean back. Maybe he could have been revealed as Steffi's secret father. 

[dc11786]

I think Tom as a coffee house owner would have worked. The show was missing that sort of common setting where characters could frequent that wasn't the classroom. There was 35 Maple Street that acted as a defacto dorm / community center, but something more traditional makes sense. The bowling alley was a great set, but it didn't scream college crowd the way I think the show tried to claim it did.

Taggart and Guza played some Steffi / Frankie material to suggest that they might go there in the fall of 1993, but with several episodes Nixon had taken over the writing. 

I always wanted Steffi's secret father to be Dane Hammond because I felt that would have caused havoc. I think Sean could have been Matt Ford's father if they had kept him around long enough. The Reverend had been his stepfather so his biological father was a story thread that could have been explored.