Loving/The City Discussion Thread

[j swift]

As I recall it was very slow start from a plotline perspective.

 

Of course, Geraldine Page and Lloyd Bridges' characters were never seen or heard from again after the pilot.  So the fun and promise of the melodrama from the first episode didn't translate into the first weeks/months.

 

And Lily and Jack storyline with her abusive father didn't start until closer to the summer months.  So, there was a lot of introductions and exposition to get through in the first few weeks.  

Edited October 20, 2019 by j swift

[Contessa Donatella]

That  4.9/18 was great!  To bad the bottom dropped right out of it. Was Mimi Rogers in it?

[Franko]

In hindsight, it seems like a mistake to burn through a TV-movie's worth of storylines. That could have carried the show for a good couple of months. Also, Roger comes across as a total horndog, reuniting with Ann and then ending up with Merrill in less than two hours.

[Contessa Donatella]

I loved The City and I loved PC ... I even loved A Daytime to Remember. I just missed out on Loving except for the last 3 weeks of it - the murder.

[victoria foxton]

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Loving (May 5, 1994)

[soapfan770]

 

I know this is several months late, but thank you so much for sharing @dc11786!!!! I remember enjoying what I saw of Loving there in the early 90s.

 

Lol I remember poor Jeff to give him *some* credit, he did try to call the family to tell them Trisha was alive, but nobody was home to answer the phone!  The next time we saw Jeff was when Shana and Leo moved to Rome, except all we saw of Trisha at that point was just her backside. 

 

I enjoyed Ava, Egypt(played by the very underrated soap hopper Linda Cook), Shana, and Dinahlee, a nice batch of leading ladies well suited for a quirky little soap. 

 

 

As for Ally/Casey/Stephanie/Cooper, if I recall right Ally and Casey fell madly in love with each other and became the show's "supercouple". Ally and Cooper spent the night together (once) when they went to New York (Ally to see Carley and Cooper to surprise Hannah). Cooper was the one that was surprised, when he saw Hannah, getting out from the shower at her piano tutor's house, thanking the tutor for "last night" and how it was as wonderful as he said it would be. Cooper, of course, thought sex, and never let Hannah explain that she was talking about a piano duet.) Hurt and feeling betrayed, Cooper turned to Ally, who herself felt betrayed by Casey. So the two slept together. Ally got pregnant. Ally was worried about money and stuff. The three got together and agreed that Ally and Cooper would get married so the baby would have health coverage during delivery and would get a trust fund. Then Cooper and Ally would get divorced. So, Ally and Cooper got married just before the baby was born. Casey ended up being with Ally when the baby was delivered, which was good since he had been to all of the Lamaze classes with Ally. Cooper fell in love with Ally but Ally didn't really love Cooper, as she still  was in love with Casey. Cooper was being very manipulative, and I don't care for him much. He arranged with his Aunt Isabel for her to "disown" him. He followed Ally when she moved out of the mansion. He hasn't really lost his trust fund, and Tyler will always have money. He is now using this incident with Tyler to guilt Ally into staying with him. Casey found out, and Cooper, through the goodness of his heart, finally gave up on Ally. Casey and Ally then married.

[dc11786]

Jeff's Rome return is interesting. When Shana and Leo are leaving in June, they run into Jeff in Rome. Back in Corinth, it has just been revealed that Curtis has been lying about Trisha being in alive. He was leaving signs for Trucker to find to think Trisha has returned to keep Trucker from Curtis' own wife, Dinahlee. This was during the final months of Nixon's return and things seem to start to switch gears. It looks like they were going to write out Dinahlee in the plane crash in August, 1994, when Jessica Collins' contract was up. I wonder if they were seriously considering bringing Trisha back at that point. Otherwise, Jeff's return mostly seems to be an Easter egg/red herring for fans to remind them that Trisha was alive. 

 

Lisa Peluso is a trooper. I've been switching between 1980s "Search for Tomorrow" and 1990s "Loving" and its great to see her change. I like Ava with Paul. The stuff I've seen of Leo and Ava is mixed. Ava being Leo's school crush is a bit silly, but Leo and Ava scheming has a lot of untapped potential. The triangle with Shana is some of the best work I've seen from Susan Keith because Shana's seems to spend a good chunk of the 1990s being the town lawyer. I have no use for Jeremy and Ava.

 

Jessica Collins' Dinahlee reminds me of Arianne Zucker's Nicole Walker in many ways. She plays a sort of scheming character who is softened and has few good stories. The initial Dinahlee / Trucker affair is great. Dinahlee and Clay eat the show alive in 1992. Dinahlee / Curtis are iffy. Patrick Johnson's Curtis is such a different iteration of the character. Curtis the war hero rarely comes across that way, which is strange as Millee Taggert wrote him out in 1991 and brought him back in 1993. Michael Lord's Curtis is very theatrical and begins to play the unhinged version of Curtis that continues until the end of the show. Dinahlee / Michael Lord's Curtis/ Dennis Parlato's Clay is an interesting short-lived grouping. 

 

Lauren Marie Taylor's Stacey is a great character, but the story is rarely there to suit her. I like the little we see of Stacey from the early fall of 1991 after Taylor returned from maternity leave and Stacey is dealing with the Dinahlee seduction. The show spends a good part of 1992 setting up the Trucker / Stacey romance, but abandons the idea after actually going through with it. Stacey and Clay is such a bad idea with some very interesting moments. The gaslighting is such a trainwreck that I cannot look away. The ending with Jeremy, Stacey, and Dinahlee turning the tables on Clay is very good. I do think Buck and Stacey have a lighthearted quality, but I don't see that having legs longterm. I am fascinated by the potential Curtis / Stacey pairing that Harmon Brown and Essensten used to write out Stacey. I think Jack returning to Stacey and Curtis married would have been interesting. 

 

I've seen a lot of the 1992-1993 Casey / Ally / Cooper material. Once they switch out Hannah for Steffy, that entire grouping is killer. You've covered most of the significant Cooper / Ally / Casey material. In the previous summer, Ally is going hard to get Cooper. She and Cooper end up in a car accident and she fakes headaches in order to stay at the Alden mansion. Ava calls her out on her scheming. Meanwhile, Casey develops a crush on Ava, but ends up making out with Ally. Cooper is all about Hannah until Taggart and Guza arrive. Cooper is completely for Casey and Ally raising the baby until he manages to get a DUI and Clay convinces him that having a child will change Cooper's life. I think Isabelle Alden initially pays down on her luck Steffy to seduce Casey. I really like Steffy and Casey as a bump in the road. 

[OzFrog]

So almost completely by accident, I ended up binge watching a lot of 1991 Loving on YT. I never realised just how enthralling some of it actually is!

 

Lisa Peluso is just mind blowingly amazing. I had also binge watched quite a bit of SFT a few months ago, and watching her in this was like watching Wendi Wilkens all over again. Although I will say that it was intriguing to watch the totally different mother/daughter dynamics at play - the Kate/Ava dynamic on Loving as opposed to the Stephanie/Wendi dynamic on SFT. One mother being controlling and overdemanding and the other being overly patient and almost at her wits end.

 

And yet Lisa maintained this air of being her own self-sabotaging worst enemy the entire time in both roles. Kudos to her for pulling that off.

 

And one other pleasant surprise that I had not expected to see *at all* in those episodes - Anthony Herrera and Ilene Kristen playing comedy off each other. Two names I never thought I would type in the same sentence. But somehow that combo worked REALLY well and they entertained big time. So a massive delight to see those two.

 

This was also the time that Elizabeth Savage was filling in as Gwyn for Christine Tudor. I actually prefer Savage and hoped she would have stayed longer. Her Gwyn is perfect for all the storylines occurring at that moment. I almost wonder what it would have been like if Savage had stayed for the final serial killer storyline.

 

All in all, a marvellous way to be entertained over the Xmas period!

[DRW50]

A news reporter put up various behind the scenes clips of trips to AMC and Loving. The Loving material, which includes short interviews with John Gabriel ( @safe ) and Roya Megnot ( @SFK ) airs starting about 16 or 17 minutes in. 

 

@dc11786

 

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[SFK]

 

Thanks, looking forward to watching this!

Do we know why Roya left Loving? I assume on good terms as she came back to fill in for Lisa. I don't remember, what was the span of time between Roya and Lisa? Did Ava go away for a while or was it rather immediate?

[DRW50]

 

I'm not sure why she left...I think Ava left for a little while after Egypt arrived? Maybe a few months? I'm not sure. The 1988 episodes are so hard to find. 

[Khan]

Looking at Susan Lucci, it's pretty clear (at least, to me) that Agnes Nixon never saw Roya Megnot or Ava as anything more than a less polished version of Erica.

[DRW50]

 

I wonder how much input Agnes had on the early, factory girl version of the character.

[You're Soaking in it]

 

I watched at the time, and I recall it being pretty quick... days or weeks in between. It was when the Clay-is-Alex charade really began to unravel.

Edited January 14, 2020 by You're Soaking in it

[SFK]

Yes, that jiggles the handle of my memory. I remember watching with my mother as she tried to explain to me how Clay was no longer Clay.

 

In that second interview, Susan is saying without saying that they were looking for someone who looked like AW's Rachel. Of course they wouldn't mention this at an audition. I forget which poster said this years ago, and it may have been at WoST, but he said that some of Susan's early performances were so close in terms of mannerisms and delivery to Robin Strasser that he wondered if she'd been encouraged to watch her on AW.