Loving/The City Discussion Thread

[dc11786]

@EricMontreal22, glad to see you popped back in. Agnes Nixon's 1993-1994 stint seems incredibly strong from everything I've seen and read. It seems much stronger than her 1985-1986 work post-Doug Marland. I like that she doesn't really dump a whole bunch of characters immediately the way so many other new writers / producers do when they first appear at "Loving." I admire that she really tries to make everything work even when it clearly doesn't (the Dante stuff always sounds cheesy to me). 

 

The writing credits for Loving are always so messy. Feel free to submit edits, but I think the latest is as I know it:

 

Doug Marland (6/1983 - summer 1985)

Agnes Nixon (summer 1985 - late 1985/ early 1986)

Bill Levinson (1986)

Ralph Ellis (1987 - spring 1988)

Writer's Strike (spring - early fall 1988)

Tom King & Millee Taggart (fall 1988 - April 1991)

Millee Taggart (April 1991 - late summer 1991)

Mary Ryan Munisteri (late summer / early fall 1991 - January 1992)

Addie Walsh (January 1992 - summer 1992)

Haidee Granger (defacto) (summer 1992 - late 1992)

Robert Guza & Millee Taggart (late 1992/early 1993 - 1993)

Millee Taggart (1993- fall 1993))

Agnes Nixon (c. October 1993 - September 1994)

Addie Walsh & Laurie McCarthy (c. October 1994 - January 1995)

James Harmon Brown & Barbara Essensten (c. February - November 1995) 

 

Episodes have finally appeared on trading circuits and I have most of November 1991 - September 1992. I'll be honest, I know the college kids era is well loved, but after watching the climax of the Matt Ford story, I cannot believe that the show allowed Eric Woodall slip through their fingers and the bits of the college stuff I've seen so far seems so tedious. I absolutely adore Mary Ryan Munisteri's work, flaws and all. It's been really hard to even start watching the show become louder in either Munisteri's final days or Addie Walsh's opening episodes (the credits are rare in what I have). In the stuff I've seen, Walsh centers a lot of story around Dinahlee, which is probably due to Noelle Beck's maternity leave, but it still is rather sudden. The characterizations change wildly from Munisteri to Walsh with Dinahlee seeming as a more traditional heroine, Giff losing the fun and carefree demeanor he exhibited upon his arrival, and Isabelle seems less driven by Cabot's history of infidelity and becoming a more traditional heavy. To be fair, I have only watched scattered episodes after January 1992 so my assessment may change. 

 

[DRW50]

 

Bumping this since @EricMontreal22 asked about reviews for the show (sorry if this isn't the type you meant).

 

Bumping this since @EricMontreal22 asked about reviews for the show (sorry if this wasn't what you meant).

[EricMontreal22]

Thanks for those--that's exactly what I want! 

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Isn't it odd that Hinsey doesn't mention Agnes Nixon returning as part of that new creative team she mentions?

That looks about right to me, though I think Agnes Nixon might have actually been there a bit longer after Marland in the first run.  I noticed that a lot of 1991-92, as you say, has recently suddenly picked up (I guess I didn't become a fulltime viewer until sometime in 92 with the Carter Jones/AMC crossover).  How dare you insult the Dante/caged "pet" story But that's pretty much how I feel--Nixon did as good a job as possible I think trying to make the show truly cohesive, etc (interestingly the review from Hinsey posted below seems to have been done just at the start of her run).

[j swift]

I'm following the classic SOD recaps on Tumblr and we are currently at the Rick Alden murder.  There is also a story about Jacqueline Babbin, who came on as headwriter with a love for writing mystery.  I've totally forgotten the outcome, but so far it is a delightfully constructed story.  Stacy has been set up as a pawn, but she is not doing anything out of character.  The murder brings about the introduction of great side characters like Norma and Paul.  It is exciting that there are so many plausible solutions, even though SOD immediately pokes holes in it by revealing the actor's contracts for key suspects.  What I really appreciate is the "EON-style" of soap mystery wherein the main mystery is exciting, but there are also secrets that will come out at trial, romances that blossom while trying to solve the mystery, and the story propels the plot forward by resolving the Rick/Stacy/Jack triangle rather than being resolved and forgotten.

 

I must have stopped watching during the Rick Alden years because I have no memory of the character or the portrayal.  As I've mentioned before, to me he is conflated with Tony, (Jack's roommate, not the later mob character), Curtis, and Dinah-Lee's brother.  Loving always seemed to have a spoiled bad guy character over the years.

 

Side note: 1989-1990 was a mess of a year for the soaps.  All of the ABC soaps changed executives.  Major characters like Max (OLTL) and Reva (GL) left their shows.  New characters like Dawn (GH) are being recast right and left.  The Daytime Emmys weren't broadcast.  Writers are quitting and then giving very gossipy exit interviews.   It's four years before the OJ trial and the soaps were already in major trouble.

Edited October 5, 2018 by j swift

[DRW50]

There are a number of episodes and clips on Youtube with Rick.

[EricMontreal22]

Was Jacqueline Babbin *writing?  She was the EP--I remember one article that I seem to have lost about her hiring where she talks about all the changes she'll make but unfortunately she was only given a year (I love her time at AMC--Wisner Washam said it was she who insisted on a gay storyline with the short lived lesbian story since she was a lesbian).  She could have suggested a mystery to the writer of course...

Yeah the late 80s were a hard time for ABC--all their soap ratings were dropping so they did a lot of surgery--with AMC/OLTL/GH it (at least till the mid 90s) seems to have worked, though.

[Paul Raven]

Jackie Babbin loved a murder mystery (she went on to write a few mystery novels) so certain she would have requested one to create interest.

[~bl~]

Have you read any of her books? Are they worth it?

[Paul Raven]

Publisher's Weekly review

Bloody Soaps: A Tale of Love and Death in the Afternoon

Jacqueline Babbin, Author 

abbin, who once produced All My Children , calls on her extensive backstage knowledge of daytime soap operas to enrich this lively, tartly witty murder mystery. The cast and crew of a TV soap opera called The Key to Life are shaken when their producer, obnoxious Wally Krog, is found in the studio with a knitting needle thrust through his neck. New York homicide detective Clovis Kelley, whose girlfriend Yancey Howland acts on Key , quickly learns that nearly everyone associated with the program resented the dead man. In fact, Wally's bullying and taunting infuriated so many people that Clovis is hard put to identify a prime suspect. To gain additional insight, he questions Key stars, writers, executives and staffers. What emerges is a tangled tale of behind-the-scenes backbiting and tenuous alliances just as titillating as the show itself. Then a second murder complicates things even further in this overpopulated piece of light, entertaining fiction. (July)

[EricMontreal22]

Depending on her prose quality, sounds potentially fun.  I never got why she was replaced at AMC--did she leave on her own?

[j swift]

It's amusing to note that both Babbin and Sleasar wrote mysteries about killing producers on soap sets; a bit of hiding in plain sight. 

Edited October 6, 2018 by j swift

[EricMontreal22]

Ha!  I\m trying to find a file I have saved from Babbin about being an openly gay woman in the industry, she pulls no punches!

[j swift]

That's an interesting perspective that I would like to read.  So many male actors had weird relationships with female producers, as evidenced by their exit interviews.  They were either kind mothers or brutal bitches.  It would be delightful to hear how an openly gay woman would navigate that territory.  

 

Not to go off on a tangent, but I am fascinated by lesbian soap actresses, like Maureen Garrett, and their time on the shows.  Soap fans are constantly trying to suss out the sexuality of male stars however, nobody ever talks about any falsehood in the chemistry between Holly and Roger.  She must have worked hard to establish and maintain a sensuality that would be appealing to daytime viewers. 

 

I maintain that part of the dropoff in LGBT soap viewership is that fans of my generation were willing to watch "approximate gay characters",  (like Ava Rescott, who faced many of the same issues as LGBT fans: i.e. family acceptance, feeling different, and liking some sparkle, but weren't actually gay), whereas today we have the choice to watch more accurate representations.  When Tim Gunn got his job on ABC daytime and revealed that he hadn't had sex in 20 years, I joked that made him the perfect guy for a network that created gay characters; just as long as they never actually had sex or expected to find love.

[j swift]

I went watched and read up on the Rick Alden stuff today.  I hadn't realized he was recast from Ron Nummi to Bryan Fitzpatrick right before he was murdered.  Loving had a tremendous amount of recasts, and usually not for the better.  Given the number of characters, one would think that they could simply replace rather than recast, but that seemed to be the ethos of that period.  

 

 

In my book, both Ricks were too old to be Clay's son.  Part of the issue is that he was constantly costumed in suits, but he seemed to also be a maturational peer to his father.  I know Clay and Gweneth were teens when they had Rick but he still appeared much older than Curtis or Trisha .  It also doesn't help that both Gweneth and Clay take multiple lovers who seem to be even younger than Rick.  I think it was easier to kill him off because of these discrepancies.  Also, at the end, Gweneth is so upset that Trisha might be dead, or just won't talk to her, but I don't recall her even mentioning that Rick was murdered.        

 

[dc11786]

 

As mentioned, Babbin was EP, but she talked about having a heavy hand in the writing. King and Taggert were there for several years, but their writing seems better under Babbin than Hardy or Bunim. 

 

Its fs a shame it was Rick, not Curtis, in a triangle with Stacey and Jack. There was much more history there with Lilly and Ava.

 

I assume by Dinah Lee's brother you mean Todd Jones, Egypt's brother? I'm watching early Addie Walsh episodes now and she does have Dinah Lee mention her desire to bring her family to town, but it's only her ingenue sister Hannah who should be appearing in the next few episodes. 

 

Most of the actors playing Clay and Gwyn were too young to have children at the age they were at. I'm watching material from Clays return which is in the earliest of Addie Walsh episodes. Immediately, they hint that Clay is not an Alden in the last of Wesley Addy's appearances as Cabot's ghost. Walsh also torpedoes Gwyn and Gifford in order to play Gwyn and Clay tension despite the fact that a Giff / Dinah Lee / Clay / Gwyn story would tell itself.