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.)

11 minutes ago, EricMontreal22 said:

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...)

Tom was important to AMC but by that time I wouldn't say he was a lead, similar to GH with Tom/Simon and OLTL with Kevin/Rachel.

At least The City did pair Nick and Lorraine in its final months, even as the network had been phasing out black/white relationships on their other soaps. They had good chemistry. The only downside is bringing Lorraine in meant that Charles had a completely miserable ending, which he didn't deserve.

Edited Sunday at 07:02 AM2 days by DRW50

4 minutes ago, DRW50 said:

Tom was important to AMC but by that time I wouldn't say he was a lead, similar to GH with Tom/Simon and OLTL with Kevin/Rachel.

At least The City did pair Nick and Lorraine in its final months, even as the network had been phasing out black/white relationships on their other soaps. They had good chemistry. The only downside is bringing Lorraine in meant that Charles had a completely miserable ending, which he didn't deserve.

Agreed about the off camera repercussions to Charles, but I really did love Nick and Lorraine. (And Roscoe was great in that role I think--I assume when he broke his contract with AMC it was partly being upset because he assumed he would be playing another potential romantic lead--and not another out and out villain. Not that that sopped him from reprising Mitch on OLTL.)

20 hours ago, CrazySexyQ said:

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.

I can see why they would want to keep Amelia Heinle around, but, as you said, without Cooper, there really isn't much to do. I don't have any use really for what I've seen of Steffi in the final months of Loving or the beginning of The City. Her role in Gwyn's demise is poignant and I'm not sure anyone else on the show could have sold that as well as Heinle does (I think even Noelle Beck would have been a hard sell though it would have been interesting to see).

The one-two punch of losing Cooper and Casey in the span of two months was a brutal final blow. The replacement crew for young men were very green or playing characters who were so disgusting it was really hard to connect to.

20 hours ago, CrazySexyQ said:

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.

In my mind, Janie was poised to be the next Ava Rescott / Erica Kane / Rachel Davis. I felt like Nixon was finally getting to do what she had been rumored to want to do with Ava when Roya Megnot was in the role and combine the Erica storyline and the Carla storyline. Elise Neal had charm and played well against everyone on the canvas she interacted with. I would have loved to seen how she would have proceeded.

As has been stated, Janie's death seems to be used to propel the Curtis story when they decided they weren't killing off Dinahlee. And this was a huge mistake. As has been mentioned, people cared about Jessica Collins, not Dinahlee. The best modern day comparison I can make is to Ariane Zuker on Days of our Lives, who played a character who was sorta all over the place in terms of stories (often bad) but made the character work. Elizabeth Mitchell was too dry to sell the character.

20 hours ago, CrazySexyQ said:

I generally like Trish since she's the classic heroine, but the importance that Phantom Trisha is given on this show is exhausting. It's an endless deification. The canvas is held hostage for a character who wasn't even there in the show's last years.

By 1993, Trisha was a cornerstone character with so many of the shows characters tied to hers. Her parents were present, her grandmother, her husband, her brother, and her best friends. On a half-hour show, that's such a significant chunk of the canvas. Her absence was going to be such a glaring part of the canvas. I would argue characters like Phillip Spaulding and Bo Brady had similar impacts on their families/shows when they were gone in the 2000s and 2010s.

With that said, they should have acted sooner to replace her either literally or metaphorically. My suggestion would be to bring back Lorna Forbes to fill the role of the Alden granddaughter female lead. I would have cast Cali Timmins in the role and had her swope into town freshly divorced from Zach Conway ready to take on the world. Lorna going after Jeremy might have worked on several levels and leaned into a dynamic that was already complicated between Ava and Lorna. Gwyn could have mothered Ann's daughter, and Curtis could have used an ally.

16 hours ago, DRW50 said:

I do wonder how much of the hostage-holding was, as mentioned, down to Robert Tyler wanting to leave and Jessica Collins actually leaving. Up to that point they did have Tucker moving on (didn't he ask Angie on a date only a few months after Trisha died?).

Did Trucker cite his grand love for Trisha as the reason he couldn't move on with Tess? Or was it just because she was a lying manipulator who was off limits once a bunch of her schemes were revealed?

I think what made the Trisha stuff tedious (at times) was that we knew Trisha was alive and off canvas. A person struggling with the death of their spouse as an obstacle for a new romance is the framework for great character driven writing, but the preponderance of story threads involved made it a bit much. The gaslighting, the near misses in Rome, and the general overall ongoing mourning were too much combined.

16 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. If that relationship had gone forward it would have been interesting, a world away from anything with Tucker and Dinah Lee. I don't know what they would have done, beyond the basics (presumably he would have had conflict with Frankie

Didn't they try Angie and Cliff briefly on All My Children? Or was Cliff no longer a lead by that point?

As I am thinking about all of this, I could see potential conflict with the Angie / Trucker dynamic regarding Frankie, Christopher, and the Aldens. If Frankie continue his Jesse, Jr., act and became involved in more trouble, Christopher could have been caught up in the crossfire (not literal, but maybe Frankie does something that leads to Christopher getting hurt in something like a car accident) and the Aldens want to swope in a take away custody of Christopher. Or if they had continued the initial AIDS story replay and had Angie worried about being infected after the needle stick, and someone within the Alden clan being judgemental and worrying about the impact that would have on Christopher.

16 hours ago, DRW50 said:

What you mention about Trisha is why I think she could have potentially found a home in The City, as her lack of memory was a blank slate. One story I thought about was if Trucker and Dinah Lee died and she had to raise Christopher, who had no memory of her as she had no memories of him, and they would learn to love each other, but you may also see glimpses of Trisha unknowingly making some of the same mistakes Gwyn and Clay made as parents.

I might put her in a pairing with Danny too, as he schemes to get her money but then falls for her.

All of this is a million times more compelling than anything I saw on The City. My main problem with The City is the lack of humanity. So many of the characters are so harsh constantly fighting with one another with few moments of quiet intimacy. I know there were friendships among the characters, but everything surrounding the story was so bleak, even in the final months where the show was stronger.

I think the idea of taking Christopher McKenzie, who would have essentially be a country boy by the time Trisha would get him in the late 1990s, would be struggle being in the big city and that perspective would be compelling for a younger character. I could see Christopher just running all over the city like he would have in Maine and have no sense of any of the dangers. I would have paired him in a brotherly relationship with Tommy Domeq, who's mother Abril would be tied to the modeling agency.

Christopher's arrival would also cause conflict for Tess and Buck as Buck could struggle with his brother's death. Down the line, Trisha could wnat to keep Christopher away from Tess and Buck when she discovered some of her past with her brother Curtis. Or Trisha struggling to maintain control of Christopher when he was more ideologically alligned with Uncle Buck. This could bring out that bitchier side that we saw on occassion, and play into the idea of Trisha replaying the Clay/Gwyn parenting dynamic.

The Trisha / Danny angle would have been intriguing as it would have also provided conflict for Alex / Jocelyn. Trisha's imposter father and Danny's lawyer sister would either have a united front against Danny or Jocelyn could have some resentment towards Trisha as she could end up taking time away from Jocelyn when Alex would rush to his daughter's aid. I would take the opportunity to explore the fact that Alex and Jocelyn were made up of a sexual abuse surivor and an older man, unitnetionally replaying a bit of the trauma dynamic that Jocelyn had endured when her father handed her off to his friends.

I also just like the idea that Trisha could end up with the loft which was originally the Alden mansion, correct?