Loving/The City Discussion Thread

[EricMontreal22]

I think I would have loved Lemay's AW--I love what I've seen--and I'm DIEING to see some of his own series Friends and Lovers, and I love his book, 8 Years in Another World. That said, when he was consultant for ABC Daytime none of his suggestions that I have heard seemed to be all that good, and if he did offer good advice they never listened to it. His complaints about City come off to me like an old fuddy duddy. In theory I agree with him that soaps are about family, but at least by the time Tracy came to the City I think they did a really good job of making the friends and building feel like a family and even of maintaning a small community feel that still felt believably like it was in a big city like Manhattan which is damn hard to do (one prob I have with, for example, AMC right now is everyone in Pine Valley is so rich apparently and into big business yet they almsot exclusively itneract only with each other like a tiny town, it feels at odds with itself to me).

Deb was on The City? Or am I confused with what you mean?

I had completely forgotten abotu Jared, he was kinda a non character for me IMHO. I liked Richard more later on when he was with Zoe (their relationship probs actually felt real to me--I loved the Zoe actress who seems to have disappeared along with Amy Van Horne) and Sidney had left (i loved Morgan on the show but I never felt they fit her character or type of character into the others well). (Richard was part of ABC Daytime's AUssie Hunk explosion at the time, I think whathisname had just joined GH, and of course they brought in Tanner disastrously on AMC--the actor who played Tanner and the one who played Richard were both from my fave Aussie teen soap Heartbreak High).

(why can't I remember who Kayla was lol)

*edit* too funny I just realized that the actor who played Jared has played Barry SHire on AMC most of the past decade.

[EricMontreal22]

Damn why can't I find it anymore--any luck? I need to save more faves on youtube

[SFK]

Kayla was the little girl Angie and Jacob tried to adopt but it didn't go through.

I remember the casting blurbs in SOD about Jared, they wanted a Charlton Heston type, and they did manage to get themselves a Dynasty alum. Joel Fabiani subbed for him on GL, but a Michael Zaslow would have been a much better Jared Chase imho (he was still well and on GL at this time, if memory serves).

I agree that I have much respect for Lemay and I would LOVE to see FRFP/L&F, but I don't think his ideas/remarks really served what The City was all about. Sure, they could have incorporated a stronger family element, but as you intimated, a lot of people in the city create a family support system for themselves. The show didn't *really* go there besides Zoe and Azure, but there are a lot of people who run to Manhattan to be themselves, to BREATHE. They make their own family, and that is a very valid concept the show could have even gone further with.

Deborah didn't do many episodes, but I have a Christmas episode I'll upload with her in it. She was visiting the girls who shared the loft.

[SFK]

It's been removed by the user.

[EricMontreal22]

*CRY* I shoulda saved it I wonder why it was...

Joel Fabiani was on Dynasty? lol I know nothing...

Forgot all about Azure (the first transgendered character on soaps, right? though they had no idea what to dow ith her and her bf). When did Steffi leave? And was it announced then that Deb had the Alden mansion? I don't remember any of that. Can't wait to see the episode.

[SFK]

Yeah, I don't know why he/she took it down, I really doubt there would have been a copyright complaint. I loved how it was narrated by Ernie Anderson, the voice of ABC during the '80s ("From the Emmy Award-winning creator of All My Children...").

Joel played King Galen of Moldavia, he and Alexis had a thing.

Yeah, Azure C. and Bernardo. I don't want to say that she was a snooze, she was a perfectly fine character (better than say Randi on AMC), but Azure never did anything too exciting or special that I can rememeber. Then the transgendered stuff came out, and whoosh, she and Bernardo were out of there.

Deborah and Coop both visited in those early days of The City, I don't remember exactly when Steffi left, first six months or so? But it was established that Deborah won the lottery and bought her precious Clay's family home early in The City's run, if my ep is from Christmas, the show had only been on a little over a month ("Morgan Fairchild is coming to The City premiering November 13th...").

[DRW50]

Was that EdgeofLlanview? I think he took his clips down because of the quality of them, or something like that. Then he said he was going to start putting them back up.

[EricMontreal22]

On Agnesnixon.com in the second Paley Series interview (anyone with the free time I've had the past two days into Agnes or soaps owes it to themselves to watch these--fantastic stuff) in the third part Agnes answers some questions about Loving--like if she thinks it willbe as big as AMC and OLTL (It was almost 5 years old at the time) and then some questions about the Sowelsky's (the actor who played Harry had just left for 6 months to be on the new Mary Tyler Moore show), if she'd recast a role, etc. She does stress that there was a desire by her to have a show finally with a college campus on it as on her other shows it had proved difficult to have the characters leave for college (I guess this was before OLTL or AMC had their made up colleges)

[Y&RWorldTurner]

I think Lemay's complaint was that The City lacked a multi-generational aspect and there were too many characters in the same age group that had very little connection to one another on the surface, and I think he was right in that critique.

His exact quote was:

I think the overall premise for The City would have worked better as a primetime soap than one in daytime, to be honest...

Edited January 7, 2010 by Y&RWorldTurner

[EricMontreal22]

I have a good friend from South Africa and somehow we got talking about American soaps--he said as of this year the ones they had were DAYS, B&B, Y&R, and AMC. Then he asked me about Loving and said it was such a huge show there--everyone knew about Ava and talked about her, he was shocked to find out it was never a hit here. Funny as I had read elsewhere it was big in South Africa, but kinda didn't believe it

[Sylph]

So did Agnes hate Douglas?

[EricMontreal22]

SHe may have been mad he left when he did--in the LONG youtube interview (3 hours or whatever) with her she of course has only ncie things to say abou tanyone, or else she kinda politely declines to answer--re Douglas she basically says she has great respect for his talents, etc. I believe it was him who asked that his name be removed from the created by credit

[Soaplovers]

So Loving was basically about the going ons at a university when it started, am I right? When did the show first start to veer away from this premise? From what I've read about the show, it seemed to focus on the Aldens and a revolving cast of young people. Perhaps, having a soap set in a college was just asking to fail. Think about it, people go to college, graduate, then move away. It is a constant revolving door.

[EricMontreal22]

Agnes actually mentioned that prob about a college based show--to be fair the Aldens were key players from the start (and were connected to the college)--I think the first two years stuck fairly closely to a college background--then it didn't come back till '92 or so. They DID have tent pole "older' characters--Ava's mom (think Mona Kane), Isabelle Alden, etc, but I think your point is valid.

[SFK]

I dunno, see, I like the whole college town angle. And I guess it depends on where you're college town is. For instance, I live in a neighboring town of where I went to college outside of New York City. I always liked it here, and it's where I happened to find work and relationship. And although most of my friends are in the city or other states, there is still a very warm energy for me here, lots of great memories, so I'm sort of attached to the area.

What I would do is take it a step further with alomost a Degrassi-like approach and introduce the local high (eventually, maybe even junior high) school for my teen stories, and have those kids (the more popular characters) feed into the college. Then there are little things you do to ensure longevity like having a rich snooty kid who wants to go to school in California or somewhere Ivy League but her parents force her to go to the local college which was founded by her great-great grandfather and where she'll get a full ride. So she always has ties to her family on the show. Or the lower middle class local who works part-time at the college while putting herself through it, gets her master's there as well, and ends up teaching there.