Loving/The City Discussion Thread

[SFK]

The City had great TV promos, damn, I was so excited. I actually had a couple of them downloaded from AOL's ABC site back in the day, long gone now. This of course was LONG before YouTube and wireless connections when you waited an hour to download OLTL's birds flying opening credits.

[DRW50]

And everything was so grainy.

[SFK]

Yeah, the quality really varied. Like, I had all of the new OLTL bumpers and such when they debuted the new "blue" opening, and those were pretty crystal clear, but the Peabo openings were so grainy and pixelated. I really wish I still had those Morgan Fairchild/Darnell Williams promos, and the one with the little old delivery guy giving the rundown on everyone in the building.

[DRW50]

I think I remember the one with the delivery guy.

I wish those were available.

Back when you were excited to get to see what would happen on a soap...

[SFK]

Totally. Not to completely romanticize TC or anything, it had its faults. Well, it always *looked* great, but it could be a little slow, like, if someone asked me, "What happened today?" I'd probably be like, "Ummmm, hmm, I dunno, a litle bit of this, a little bit of that... Angie and that little girl, Tess was pissed about something..."

[bellcurve]

I was watching clips of The City the other night on YouTube(Tracy Q stuff) and Jane Elliot's chemistry with everyone, especially Amy Van Horne, was off the damn charts. They should have given this show at LEAST three more years to find an audience.

The background scores(by Scott Schreer) were great, some albeit cheesy in retrospect. I loved all the "intrigue" cues.

The directing on that show was incredibly beautiful and the cameras were fluid. It's not difficult to see why other shows were so jealous and tried to mimick what The City was doing. Even their outdoor stuff was pretty cool.

[SFK]

They definitely could have used at least one more year. Tracy was *just* starting to get things rolling, she's that bulldozer type of woman that folks associate with a strong New York broad.

It kind of pisses me off in hindsight how they were so quick to ditch it and try something else that ultimately failed, especially looking at the current landscape of daytime.

[DRW50]

I wonder if The View also came into their mind -- didn't they use some of the show's sets for The View?

I think The City needed an overhaul (I would have kept Carla, Tracy, Lorraine, Angie, Jacob, and seriously considered writing many others out), but it was in decent shape and had potential for more. They replaced it with PC, which was always too unstable to ever find footing, in spite of 6 years on the air. I remember at the time they said they were bringing PC in because GH was such a success. They didn't realize what happens when the successful mother show gets a time-consuming spinoff -- ask AW/Texas.

[Cheap21]

I hate that Soapnet never aired repeats of Loving/The City. It seemed so obvious especially when the network first launched and they didnt have much content

[Quent]

Does anyone know if it's possible to view or purchase the pilot for "Loving"? The pilot was given a prime-time slot, and had guest stars Lloyd Bridges and Geraldine Fitzgerald. I'm most interested in the actor John Shearin , who played Roger. Any info appreciated!

[SFK]

It's definitely out there, I saw it on WoST a few years back. Perhaps you want to check with the person who created this site: http://lovingpilot.tripod.com/actone.htm

(oh, and click the headings in blue for pictures)

[Sedrick]

THE VIEW took over THE CITY's studio. When the talk show launched, to save money they used loft penthouse set from THE CITY (which actually was the Alden mansion from LOVING, a set that dated back to the debut in 1983)

[bellcurve]

Did they really recycle the Alden Mansion for Sydney's Penthouse?! That's a cool bit of trivia!

I'm hoping they upload The City to HuluPlus, so they can monetize it.

Edited October 7, 2010 by bellcurve

[SFK]

I knew about Sydney's PH (actually, to be accurate, it was Tracy's PH at that point, they'd even redecorated it for Tracy like a month before the show went off the air) becoming The View's original set (even the dining room chairs) but I never read anything about the Alden mansion being the skeleton of that set, which makes total sense. The Alden mansion was a very nice, expensive set with an upper level so I can see how they pulled that one off. But beyond having an upper level, there was a MAJOR overhaul.

I wish!

Edited October 7, 2010 by SFK

[Sylph]

Are there any Sydney Chase clips out there? Anywhere? Because I can't find any... A shame.