Loving/The City Discussion Thread

[dc11786]

I've made this argument in a slightly different form over the years. The Aldens needed an antagonist that was on their level in terms of money and power. Dane Hammond got there and should have stayed there. The idea of the nouveau riche Dane ending up going toe to toe on a regular basis with Cabot Alden would have kept the "Dynasty" angle the show wanted so badly by the late 1980s more viable. To me, Dane was a viable longterm character as Jack's natural father, Ann's ex-husband, Shana's former partner in crime, Cabot's former employee turned rival, and a series of other relationships (Ava, Gwyn, Lorna, etc.)

Similarly, I think there was a realization early on that Roger need a rival in one form or another. Johnny Forbes was originally conceived as Joe Kennedy type, but with much more pronounced ties to the mob. He was going to be behind the prostitution ring and would end up dead by his own hand in the pilot film. Johnny could have stayed as the man behind the man. Johnny as sort of the new moneyed heavy might have worked. There is an attempt to make Garth Slater that character, but that couldn't have been longterm for obvious reasons. Finally, the show introduced Warren Hodges, the district attorney, as that character before just abandoning Roger all together.

I think Roger should have returned, but there was a difference between him and Clay. Clay was more arrogant than Roger, more dapper, and more polished. Roger wasn't raised in the circles that Clay was from what I have gathered. There is also a confidence that Clay only pretended to have, but it was rarely more than a facade. 

A lot of the mid to late 1980s attempts were such vile characters they could only last a single story cycle. Nick Diantos owned the casino and was pumping Trisha with drugs. Hunter Belden was a wealthy playboy convincing Dolly he had sold her daughter into child pornography.  

Janie's death was a waste. If I had been in charge, I would have had Janie marry Curtis when he was locked in Dunellyn and taken control of his interest in things and made all the Aldens squirm. Buck's daughter married to Curtis while Curtis was building something with Stacey just seemed to work well with Janie trying to ignore that she had feelings for Frankie. 

Janie isn't in town when the prediction is initially made in April. I think the original plan was to kill off Jeremy. During the second round, when Ava brings back the same psychic Gwyn used to help find Trisha, it was revealed that the person who would die had a name start with the letter J. It probably was still going to be GIlbert, masquerading as Jeremy, but the initial masquerade story is so dumb. Gwyn must hold the record for sleeping with three different men who were not who she thought they were because they were either a twin (Jonathan / Gilbert) or an imposter (Alex). 

Addie Walsh and Laurie McCarthy's run is stronger than Walsh's 1992 run, but they squandered so much potential and wrapped up too much too quickly. Ava taking control of AE should have played out for at least a year if not more. 

Regarding Isabelle and Ally, I think the show was briefly attempting to paint the idea that Isabelle saw Ally as a Gwyn type someone who was lower class but valued family and would chose the Aldens over their own. 

Stacey was originally a tomboy type. She was a swimmer for AU and was working with Billy Bristow as her coach. In the original bible, there was a suggestion that Stacey and Curtis would end up together for a stretch and that Stacey might even be a bit more manipulative than she ever appeared onscreen. 

In what I've seen more recently of 1985, Marland did a lot of work on the character of Stacey to give her those layers and dimensions that you are speaking about. Stacey carrying on an affair with Jack while he was married to Ava was a very interesting story choice for the show's heroine especially given her strict Catholic upbringing. There were some very well done scenes of Stacey agonizing over her and Jack's infidelity and how her parents would react to this. When Ava had Stacey served with a subpoena as a correspondent in Jack and Ava's divorce case, Stacey's parents were present. This all seemed to be taken from the original plot projection for Merrill Vochek with the exception that Merrill didn't seem to have that many qualms about sleeping with a married man. 

The story for Jack and Stacey, after Jack secured the divorce from Ava, should have been about Jack constantly putting Stacey in situations that made her question the values her family had instilled in her since birth. To me, the custody of baby Johnny Forbes should have prevented Jack and Stacey from marrying. Jack should have been determined to keep Johnny at any cost and when Stacey refused to marry Jack so that he could take Johnny away from Tug and Sheri, Jack might have even considered returning to Ava. When Jack and Lily had their affair, Stacey's decision to divorce Jack should have riled up the Donovans as even Mike and Noreen didn't divorce in the end, if I recall correctly. 

However, if this was the route the show was going to maintain, you needed to have the Donovan family around in some form to represent the value system that Stacey was working to maintain. Rose and Patrick should have been kept around in a recurring capacity. Mike and Doug could have dipped in and out of the story when their position seemed to fit. Doug and Lily Slater may have been an interesting angle to go circa 1988.

In the 1990s though, Stacey was presented as a soccer mom/Everywoman type and I think that worked. The problem was the powers that be went for intense melodrama with the gaslighting plot rather than exploring the potentially more meaningful tale of a woman who married her first love in the previous decade, now single with two kids in the era of AIDS and an evolving stance on sexuality. Stacey should have gone on speed dating or video dating. She should have fallen for a man who only wanted to have sex with her. She should have struggled balancing work, family, social life, and personal life. Then, cowboy Buck could have ended up drunk on her front porch.   

Dr. Ron Turner, Jr. (Jeffrey D. Sams) was Cooper Alden's therapist during the aborted childhood sexual abuse storyline. Addie Walsh had crafted Cooper's sexual abuse story when Fran Sears was executive producer as it seemed to be intentionally mirroring the original Lily Slater story, but with a male in the role of Lily. I would even speculate that they may have considered a multiple personality storyline for Cooper as I seem to recall some scenes in May 1992 where Cooper seemed very different in one set of scenes than another. Like Ally saying he was such a different person when they were alone, but it may have just meant to mean that Cooper was more honest. It would seem that when Haidee Granger arrived, she killed the story. Given that Paul Anthony Stewart stated to the press that Walsh had left mid-1992 over a story dispute, I think Granger nixed the sexual abuse story and softened it by making it that Cooper "seduced" his nanny, Selina. When Walsh returns in 1994, she fairly quickly readdresses the story between Cooper and Steffi and Cooper goes back to calling it abuse. 

The sequence around New Years Eve 1992/1993 was very strange with Ron basically performing a singing and dancing number because Sams was appearing in a play. They introduced Ron's doctor mother and a girlfriend, but I don't know if that was going to be explored any further. Given that Walsh would have been out the door, it may have intentionally been a filler storyline. 

Outside of that storyline, I am not sure what, if any, longterm plans they had. Turner pushed Kate Slavinski to run for city council and I believe was last seen in April 1993 at Trisha's funeral. 

 

[Paul Raven]

DC-reading your detailed analysis of Loving's various eras, makes me think of Search for Tomorrow throughout the 80's.

Both shows had multiple writing/producing teams who altered the focus of the show, re-imagined characters they kept on the canvas while dropping/adding others regularly - and trying to compete with the 60 min soaps.

The results were a mishmash which kept viewers unsettled as you never knew exactly what was to come up.

Really, they needed a team that went back to the core as well as working with who was on the canvas than thinking a bunch of new stories and characters would turn the show around.

[dc11786]

@Paul Raven I think you are right how "Loving," particularly in the 1990s, faced a similar predicament to "Search for Tomorrow" in the 1980s, especially during the NBC years. I think the complicating factor for "Loving" was that the foundations were pretty much obliterated very early on. Nothing came much of the initial three main stories: (1) Roger and Merrill's affair, (2) Mike's struggles with PTSD, and (3) Lily and Jack's love. A majority of those characters (Roger, Merrill, Lily) were written out before the show's first anniverary. Mike's wife was also dumped within a year.  I still maintain Nixon should have written the first year herself to establish tone, characters, and overall vision. Once Marland leaves, the show is fairly aimless. Some of the immediate fallout is fine, but once the show gets further into 1986 things tend to fall apart at a bit of a faster pace. 

In the 1990s, Jackie Babbin works to establish an identity for the show. I think what she leaves for Fran Sears in the summer of 1991 is decent and Sears expands on the class conflict by emphasizing the impact of having a college in the town has on its citizens. Sears plans really looked to bring in the social issues that had been important to the show's core. Then, Haidee Granger comes in and things start to fall again in terms of general direction.

[Paul Raven]

Loving's changes so early in the run immediately gave the impression the show was a losing proposition and that TPTB didn't have confidence in the format.

Viewers may not have known or cared about ratings or BTS issues but it came across onscreen.

You didn't see Bill Bell retooling early Y&R because of low ratings or Agnes with AMC.

. I guess Texas and Santa Barbara did the same to some extent by dropping the Dennis/Dawn romance and SB with Joe/Kelly. 

[dc11786]

When I read the bible a few years back, I felt the show was underdeveloped. There were the three main stories and among those stories only a couple of them were lead characters. I didn't get a sense of a majority of the characters and there was little sense of major plot movement in several of the stories. Part of the issue is, as you stated, the network was skittish so a lot of the show's more provocative story elements from the bible (the incest, the interracial relationship, the impotency) as well as some of the stuff from onscreen (the attempt at an AIDS storyline) were excised completely from the show which left you with something that was incredibly generic. It was replaced by very traditional soap fare which wasn't always the most compelling material. Yet, because this was the era of love on the run, the character based material would have seemed unique to some extent. 

[Paul Raven]

And the timeslot was no help. 11.30 am, halfway through The Price is Right on CBS. When no soap had ever worked in the a.m. With sitcom repeats as lead-in.

Perhaps Midday leading into Ryan's Hope ?

it leaves you wondering why ABC even commissioned Loving in the first place.

[DRW50]

Jeff Keller, or someone claiming to be him, uploaded four clips from his role on Loving. You get glimpses of other stories, but the main plot is Steve being on trial for killing Nick and being accused of raping Cecilia. 

@dc11786 @Sapounopera @Kane @Paul Raven @Vee @slick jones @victoria foxton @Forever8 @j swift@danfling

 

 

 

Edited November 12, 2022 by DRW50

[Kane]

Thanks - that's a great find. He's generous about including clips that he's not featured in.

I've been hoping that more of 1987 would show up online. It's such a strange year, with so many characters being introduced and then jettisoned without leaving any trace behind.

[slick jones]

@DRW50 Thanks for the tag!     The scenes are compelling, and I really enjoyed watching them The added plus of three crawls was a bonus!

Now if only some 84-86 starts popping up. I have so many blanks to fill, especially the Edy-Jonathan mess. 

[victoria foxton]

@DRW50 Thanks Carl i never seen this.

Please register in order to view this content

 Poor Steve falsely accused of both murder and rape.

Edited November 12, 2022 by victoria foxton

[MissPalmer]

The first closing we see in the episodes is on 30th March 1987

[dc11786]

Thanks for tagging me @DRW50. It seems like post-Marland, Trisha and Steve are heavy into the action heavy stories. I don't think the idea of Nick Diantos was a bad idea. @j swiftpointed out that the show lacked a longterm male antagonist and Nick certainly would have filled the role. The murder trial wraps up fairly quickly. I didn't make it to the end, but I imagine it ends with the real killer unveiling themselves, and it has lost pretty much all the steam by then. In the broadest sense, Nick was a precursor to Paul Slavinski with the mob ties and the casino. A Nick type would have done better in the long run with Ava, but I could see the potential in a Nick-Ava story post- Trisha as it would create some tension in both the Trisha/Steve story and the Ava/Tony Benedict story. 

As a reminder... there is an episode from, Monday, March 2, 1987, online. Nick is killed on Friday. 

 

 

I think the two year period post-Marland is pretty tough. Very few characters are sticking around for anything more than a single storyline. To be fair, the show had undergone two significant story shifts prior to Marland's departure in January 1984 and November 1984, but the last shift seemed to set up a pretty strong canvas. Once those stories petered out (Ann/Dane/Alden Enterprises, Ava/Jack/Stacey/baby Johnny, Lorna / Linc, Noreen's return) a lot of the show's energy seems to be gone. 

I'm sure there are other characters, but almost no one new is around long in this period. Rebekah and Zona Beecham are introduced to enhance the Lorna/Linc story shifting the source of conflict from Lorna's modeling ambitions and Linc's dealing with Dane and Alden Enterprises to familiar conflict regarding Linc's secret wife Zona and her phantom pregnancy before she ends up dead. Lorna undergoes the trial (as Susan Walters departs and O'Hara takes over) and the Beechams are dumped (only for Judd Beecham to pop up briefly to romance Ava in the summer of 1986) and to fall for her attorney Zach Conway. Zach and Lorna's relationship is complicated by Zach's teenage daughter, Kelly Conway, and her lovelorn aunt Jane Kincaid. The initial Kelly-Lorna conflicts concludes with Lorna and Zach marrying and them leaving for a honeymoon they never return from. Kelly, in turn, has a younger set built around her with Rob Carpenter (raised by a single alcoholic mother and embracing the punk rock aesthetic), Ned Bates (brother of Curtis' wife Lotty, who started off as Lorna's prison cellmate), and April Hathway (secret prostitute) before the show quietly dumps Kathleen Fisk's Kelly to replace her with rich bitch Kristen (played by Teri Polo). Everyone in that story is out by the end of the year. 

Ava jumps from a shortlived marriage to Linden Ashby's Curtis in early 1986 to a romance with Judd Beecham in the summer of 1986 to an end of the year romance with Tony Benedict. None of the men playing these roles were on the show long. In Ashby's case, he was only on slightly longer than his successor Burke Moses who comes on around November 1986, but goes out on leave in August/September 1987 when Moses is cast as the lead in a Broadway show only for the temporary leave to turn into a permanent absence. I'm not sure if Moses returns in October/November for Judith Hoag's departure as Lotty, but Luke Perry follows her out the door as Ned when April announces there is no chance for them and she's jumping ship. 

Agnes Nixon brings back Doug Donovan in the form of Victor Bevine and slides Doug into Mike's old place as Shana's placeholder because she cannot have the priest. I'm not even sure when the show dropped Victor Bevine to be honest. A Doug and Lily pairing would have at least caused a little unrest in Stacey and Jack's marriage had the character been around in 1988. 

There are a series of single story villains that are introduced without much in terms of redeeming qualities. Jeff Trachta's Hunter Belden is scummy as hell. He is brought on to cause grief for Keith and Dolly, but all three characters end up being removed from the story once Dolly's child is located. Steve Fletcher's Alan Howard torments and kidnaps April Hathway the following year. I guess you could even say Nick Diantos ends up falling into that role too by romancing Trisha and getting her hooked on drugs. 

All the characters in the casino set are shortlived (Nick, Tony Benedict, Jenny Baylor) and that story just adds an element that doesn't work for the "Loving" canvas as it is at that point in time. Maybe if they had Shana moving into the district attorney role, that might have generated some story, but overall, it's a big nothing. Mary Lynn Blanks' Jenny just seems to be in a string of second tier blond working class heroines the show cycles through (Rita Mae and Dolly). 

"Clay" Alden and Lily Slater returning to Corinth seems to be the first smart casting moves in terms of building something longterm in a while. 

[DRW50]

@dc11786 @Kane @victoria foxton @slick jones @Franko @Vee @NothinButAttitude @Sapounopera @danfling @Forever8 @j swift

I found these on Youtube today. Didn't see them uploaded elsewhere before this point, outside of Tricia/Trucker clips. Apologies if I was wrong.

 

 

 

Edited November 16, 2022 by DRW50

[Joseph]

Always Fascinating To See Anna Rossini pretending to be Isabelle

[NothinButAttitude]

Thank you @DRW50. That'll give me something to watch tomorrow during work when I finish my training early.