39 minutes ago, EricMontreal22 said:

Hrmm, if Morgan Fairchild was only gonna stay for six months (I think?) anyway, why NOT have Susan Lucci as Erica launch the show as was half suggested above? I mean... it's not a terrible idea?

We have talked this idea before (Erica literally replacing Sydney Chase for a year or more), and it's a very intriguing one. I think it would've been very bold to do and could've worked, but it also would have altered the balance and likely fate of AMC far too much. I can't see Agnes or the network allowing it.

‘Loving’ Not Living Up To Expectations by Connie Passalacqua

ABC premiered “ Loving" last June with every hope that the show, created and controlled by a triumvirate of top daytime production talents, would quickly gain the high ratings associated with their past triumphs. Nine months later, however, the show languishes near the bottom of the ratings. This has been a great disappointment to the admirers of co-creator Agnes Nixon (headwriter of “ All My Children”), co-creator and headwriter Doug Marland (former headwriter of "Guiding Light”) and producer Joe Stuart (who previously produced “One Life to Live"). The show's key problem since the beginning is its lack of original story lines — just what you wouldn’t expect from Marland and Miss Nixon, who in the past have' proven to be the two most innovative storytellers in the soap business.

Many of Loving's" plot lines have been recycled from the writers' past shows. For example, the story centering on the split personality of Lily Slater (Jennifer Ashe) resembled Miss Nixon’s Vicki/Nicki plot line on “One Life to Live" of more than a decade ago The current love triangle between Stacey Donovan (Lauren-Marie Taylor), Tony Pirelli (Richard McWilliams) and Lorna Forbes (Susan Walters), in which a pregnant Loma has separated the other two (true) lovers is reminiscent of Marland’s Morgan-Kelly-Nola triangle on “Guiding Light” three years ago.

Despite this major handicap. “ Loving’ has many commendable aspects. The production values are first-rate Its costumes, designed by Bob Anton and its sets, designed by Boyd Dumbrose are the best of all the daytime shows. The show has brought to public attention the work of several excellent actors new to both soaps and television James Kiberd’s portrayal of Mike Donovan is reminiscent of the work of the early Marlon Brando. Perry Stephens has grown in his role as Lily ’s confused boyfriend. Jack Forbes. It’s too bad, however, that the show saw fit to dismiss its two most talented actresses — Shannon Eubans. who played the classy Ann Forbes, and Patricia Kalember. who played the intelligent Merrill Vochek — because of supposed lack of story line for each actor

16 hours ago, dc11786 said:

It's funny. I will have to rewatch that interview because I could have sworn Marcantel complained about the 1993-1995 period saying that things felt so much more plot driven than it had in the 1980s.

"It's funny. I will have to rewatch that interview because I could have sworn Marcantel complained about the 1993-1995 period saying that things felt so much more plot driven than it had in the 1980s. Maybe he enjoyed the Curtis in the cage stuff and I blocked it out lol. I remember because I was disappointed he felt that way because I found the Nixon period mostly enjoyable, but, in reflecting, a lot of Curtis' material in that period is bizarre. When I was looking for those end credits from August, 1994, yesterday, there was Marcantel's Curtis at the crash site dowsing the plane in gasoline, and I'm like ok I get it."

Is it still online? I VERY VERY well might be misremembering--also during that time and since I've had a few FB conversations with him asking him about any Agnes Nixon stuff, so he may have said something different to me then (or at least that gave me that impression.)

You're completely right that they should have just recast Trisha--it does feel like such an odd stop-gap storyline like "hey we remember that this storyline is still open and dangling, but we can't tie it up yet."

I stand by my statement that the characters seem to interact in each other's storylines better than they did in (many of the) previous eras, and I don't mean specifically having characters like Egypt and Minnie return, I mean the core cast. Even making casual references to what's going on (in an episode I just watched the other day, in the midst of his own storyline, Trucker asks what the Hell is going on with Angie is she missing in Boston still, etc.)

"I thought Casey's mental health crisis / drug addiction under McCarthy and Walsh was one of their strongest stories."

Agreed.

I guess we will never know, but I do wonder how much attention Nixon paid to what was going on, on Loving when she was less involved. Was she always still looking at story outlines? Babbin talked about doing the show as a favour to Nixon, etc... I mostly wonder because I'm curious when she officially took over as HW if she had to a do a catch up with the characters or not (I'm gonna guess, not--but the fact that her memoir doesn't even mention the show, of course, doesn't help. Of course that book has a lot of errors, partly due to Nixon's health and the fact that her editor was her son who appreciated her legacy, but never watched the shows himself... And you can expect too that the last thing Nixon would want to talk about is the fact that she could never make Loving a success.)

"There are definitely parallels between Jeremy / Gilbert and Jonathan / Keith. When discussing this with you yesterday, it dawned on me that Nixon / Walsh / McCarthy basically are overseeing the show for most of late 1993 to early 1995. While we usually see Marland's name for 1983-1985, we also have more documentation to suggest that it would be more accurate to say Doug Marland & Agnes Nixon for 1983-1985 as we have outlines like the Jonathan story that start during the period preceding Marland's departure."

Right! And Mulcahey talking about how each of his scripts had (too many) notes from Nixon also plays into this.

I will disagree with you--I thought that LeClerc/Jeremy worked on Loving and he was played out on AMC. Maybe this is just my nostalgia for the AMC that made me a fan and got me into Loving as a 12-13 year old, but I also thought being a prof at the university was the best fit for Jeremy (I guess he coulda become a prof at Pine Valley U but that university was even less defined than Alden U or whatever...)

"I didn't necessarily see where they were going to go with Trucker and Angie nor was I overly interested. I was curious about Frankie and Steffi."

I get that. On rewatch I think they did have chemistry and not just because each character had lost their "true loves" but maybe Nixon did put the botch on that (after all it hadn't worked on AMC when she tried to pair Angie and Cliff under similar "supercouples without their other" interracial storyline on AMC which wasn't SO long ago when this story happened.) I would have liked a Frankie/Steffi pairing, although I admit at the time I was firmly onboard with Steffi/Cooper.

For those interested, here's the video edit of a bunch of Angie/Trucker scenes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ca-RIr9Akhc

26 minutes ago, Vee said:

We have talked this idea before (Erica literally replacing Sydney Chase for a year or more), and it's a very intriguing one. I think it would've been very bold to do and could've worked, but it also would have altered the balance and likely fate of AMC far too much. I can't see Agnes or the network allowing it.

Right--Susan probably would have been resistant to it as well (although it would obviously have been temporary--not a downgrade, something like when Nixon offered Hayman and Holly a chance to continue their OLTL roles on Loving...)

Morgan Fairchild did get The City some press (I think a TVGuide cover?) but surely launching a soap with Susan Lucci/Erica Kane would have as well?

26 minutes ago, Paul Raven said:

‘Loving’ Not Living Up To Expectations by Connie Passalacqua

ABC premiered “ Loving" last June with every hope that the show, created and controlled by a triumvirate of top daytime production talents, would quickly gain the high ratings associated with their past triumphs. Nine months later, however, the show languishes near the bottom of the ratings. This has been a great disappointment to the admirers of co-creator Agnes Nixon (headwriter of “ All My Children”), co-creator and headwriter Doug Marland (former headwriter of "Guiding Light”) and producer Joe Stuart (who previously produced “One Life to Live"). The show's key problem since the beginning is its lack of original story lines — just what you wouldn’t expect from Marland and Miss Nixon, who in the past have' proven to be the two most innovative storytellers in the soap business.

Many of Loving's" plot lines have been recycled from the writers' past shows. For example, the story centering on the split personality of Lily Slater (Jennifer Ashe) resembled Miss Nixon’s Vicki/Nicki plot line on “One Life to Live" of more than a decade ago The current love triangle between Stacey Donovan (Lauren-Marie Taylor), Tony Pirelli (Richard McWilliams) and Lorna Forbes (Susan Walters), in which a pregnant Loma has separated the other two (true) lovers is reminiscent of Marland’s Morgan-Kelly-Nola triangle on “Guiding Light” three years ago.

Despite this major handicap. “ Loving’ has many commendable aspects. The production values are first-rate Its costumes, designed by Bob Anton and its sets, designed by Boyd Dumbrose are the best of all the daytime shows. The show has brought to public attention the work of several excellent actors new to both soaps and television James Kiberd’s portrayal of Mike Donovan is reminiscent of the work of the early Marlon Brando. Perry Stephens has grown in his role as Lily ’s confused boyfriend. Jack Forbes. It’s too bad, however, that the show saw fit to dismiss its two most talented actresses — Shannon Eubans. who played the classy Ann Forbes, and Patricia Kalember. who played the intelligent Merrill Vochek — because of supposed lack of story line for each actor

Rome, 1976

33 minutes ago, Paul Raven said:

‘Loving’ Not Living Up To Expectations by Connie Passalacqua

Thanks for this! Over the past few years I've become good friends with Connie (I'm working with her right now on something and was Zooming a while back) and she seems to have no memory of having written anything about Loving and I think is curious about my love for the show lol

16 hours ago, dc11786 said:

It means something, but I am not entirely sure what. I have a script from a month earlier and its the same credits you posted. I went and checked yesterday before I posted about the August date again because I wasn't sure if I had just missed Nixon's name earlier. But the credits read as I've stated for August 30: Written by McCarthy and Walsh with Story Consultant: Agnes Nixon. I'll get a screen shot for you in a little bit.

Loving's writing credits are hard to pin down at times. We have Paul Anthony Stewart claiming there was no headwriter in the summer of 1992, but that is not reflected onscreen. I would be curious to see if anyone has a script with just Walsh and McCarthy listed without Nixon's name anywhere on it.

Right--I think it DOES show that Nixon was still leading, or co-leading, story though when her name is on the scripts. But maybe that's my bias--I just suspect it was a situation where officially for the credits she had relinquished control, but when they were still actually writing the scripts, the credit remains for how they were (I need to get a photo of a November script I have which DOESN'T have her name on it (not even as a consultant--not sure if that credit would be on a script anyway.)

Soap opera writing credits, when you get down to it, ARE hard to pin down in general, but they do seem especially hard with Loving. Slightly connected, but I wondered why Agnes Nixon was always listed in the Emmy and Writer's Guild nominees when AMC would be up for an award in the 1990s even when she was no longer in the credits--when I asked Corley about this he said it was because of her "executive head writer" status (and he also said that all the time he was at AMC, which included during McTavish's first run and Broderick's run, as well as his interim run, she was still extremely involved, including regular phone calls in the middle of the night with story ideas/changes.)

@EricMontreal22 Now that is interesting! I;m sure Connie would have heaps of backstage stories to share. Are you able to share anything of this project? (completely understand if you can't)

14 hours ago, CrazySexyQ said:

The 1994 Cooper/Steffi romance is one of my favorites. It was well written, acted, and paced. The chemistry is sparkling and whimsical, as with Trucker and Dinah Lee. I suppose it's helpful when you're dating in real life. Although both couples divorced, I digress.

Steffi and Cooper's Loving ending leaves a lot to be desired, with Cooper leaving for Paris solo and then dumping her. But at least The City salvages the relationship but AH should've just left with MW. Ally/LW was more than capable of being the young lead.

Re: your Frankie comment, I agree. I wish they would've done more with the character. He and Janie had potential. Janie had so much potential.

I'm so glad you mentioned this. I'm pausing my NCIS binge to watch 1994 Loving, and I just had to roll my eyes at an April episode of Dinah Lee visiting Trisha's (misspelled) grave. @Kane your site is the best with its commentary

I'm glad we agree completely about Cooper/Steffi--I liked it at the time but wondered if it was just being a teen, etc (although really the only other young couple on a soap I liked in the 90s was Brian and Hayley when I started watching AMC so :P ) but I think it holds up

And let me echo the praise for @Kane and their amazing site!

10 hours ago, DRW50 said:

I am surprised they even teased Tucker/Angie - no other interracial relationships on ABC up to that point had involved the leading man, from what I remember.

Would Tom and Livia on AMC count? (they were one of the storylines when I started watching AMC so always stick out in my memory--also I am fond of both actors and characters--although it's true that by then Tom was no longer really a leading man on AMC...)

18 minutes ago, Paul Raven said:

@EricMontreal22 Now that is interesting! I;m sure Connie would have heaps of backstage stories to share. Are you able to share anything of this project? (completely understand if you can't)

Not yet, but I will do! I think she'd be fine with me sharing though how frustrating she finds working with the soap world now. She has a couple of fairly high profile actor interviews lined up, but they weren't easy to get (and apparently a lot of the remaining soap "press" like SOD seem to actually pay to have interviews, etc.)