Loving/The City Discussion Thread

[DRW50]

That's very true. Shana in an Iris role makes sense.

The start of an episode during Loving's UK run - if Mike is mentioned this must be from 1985 or 1986 at the latest. Sadly, this channel has said before they don't care for soaps, so I don't see them sharing the rest of the episode.

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[dc11786]

I don't think resting Shana was a bad idea. Around this time, I believe a bunch of the Aldens were dropped or taken off-contract. For example, I want to say Augusta Dabney and/or Wesley Addy went off-contract. Callan White was also dropped. As stated, Shana had been too neutered by marrying her and Jim off.

I forget that Jimmy was born offscreen. 

To me, Shana had a bigger part to play in 1994 when they wrote her out when they brought back Cabot and revealed that the Rescotts, not the Aldens, were the originator of the product which Alden Enterprises had made it's fortune. Baracuda Shana fighting in the boardroom would have forced Leo to play stay-at-home dad and deal with his daughter Patti's developmental issues, if they actually decided to develop that story. 

The Shana / Ann rivalry was interesting and gave the show some momentum. It's a shame they couldn't have found interesting ways to keep their dynamic at the center of the story. I think Shana should have defended Lorna in her trial for the murder of Zona, which could have lead to Ann losing it when Lorna went to prison. Also, a Shana / Merrill (recast) friendship with Shana keeping Merrill's secret that her child was Roger's and not Doug's could have given the show more for both women to do. 

If Trisha wasn't in that clip, I would have sworn it was early 1984, but that clearly isn't possible. The coat narrows this down to about February-March 1985, but it might be slightly earlier. In December, Trisha arrives home. In January, Stacey has just had her aborted wedding to Tony Perilli. I don't get the sense that this is playing out right after that, but I could be wrong. I believe this would be when Stacey and Jack are running around behind a pregnant Ava's back, but I don't get the sense of any subtext from Lauren Marie Taylor that she is lying when she says she and Jack just ran into each other so I could be wrong. 

[DRW50]

@dc11786Thanks for the help with the date. 

You have a good point about Shana having more story in 1994, but I think the choice for the special needs baby made that much less likely, unless they killed off another of her kids.

[dc11786]

The show never committed to Patti having developmental issues. Taggart and Guza started the story, but Nixon and crew didn't really stick with it. Patti received birth to three services (or whatever it was called back then), but they said they would have to see if she would be behind permanently and she kept making progress. Patti had some slight gaps in her development, but they would never say whether or not Patti would be dealing with a condition for the rest of her life. There was a lot of talk about how they had to wait and see. The network might have been skittish about the issue and vetoed it or Nixon might have decided she didn't want to do that story after dealing with it with Beth Martin on "All My Children." 

Also, Nixon had initially had Shana befriend Tess Wilder in the fall of 1993. I suspect, at one point, the plan may have been for Tess to be Patti's nanny. Though, they did quickly introduce the idea of the ad agency so maybe I am wrong. 

[DRW50]

Thanks for the extra info. The idea of Shana and Tess interacting is compelling - I could see them staying friends due to both being outsiders, although maybe not when Tess started going against people like Stacey.

Generally I think soaps aren't the best place to tell those types of stories with kids anyway, as shown with how they were handled with Ann on AMC or Holly on GL. The UK soaps, for all their many other flaws in recent years, do seem to be better at letting mothers have the kids and still have stories and lives outside of them without the kids being killed off or written out.

[Vee]

It is a bit wild to me that Tess came on as Trucker's(?) nanny and then became an advertising tycoon in record time. I still don't get how that happened.

[Khan]

If I were doing a parody of soaps, that (preposterous career advancements) would be one of the conventions I'd make fun of.

[Franko]

With a brief turn as Alden Enterprises secretary in between.

[dc11786]

Tess was a con artist from the start. She stages the run in with Trucker in the mountains at the clinic so that she can connect with the recent widower who had inherited Trisha's millions. Tess was (briefly) Christopher's nanny, but she didn't care for kids. She simply wanted Christopher's daddy's money. I suspect some of this was cribbed from the plans that Taggart had for Dinahlee was her last (or second to last depending on when Flynn first aired) characters from her 1988-1991 run. 

Tess' backstory with Curtis and Buck was convoluted. Her marriage to Dante just piled on the insanity. I've never figured if they were really going to go with Tess and Trucker, but I don't think there was much story there to tell. Given the strength in other parts of the canvas, I imagine story was initially pitched by Taggart and Guza in late 1992 with Trisha remaining on the canvas. 

The stint as secretary at Alden Enterprises continued the throughline that Tess was after money. This was when she was blackmailing Curtis with the gun that killed Dante. Also, Clay seduced Tess to get her off of Curtis' back. It was all fairly stupid, in my opinion. 

When Nixon comes on, she does lay some (minor) groundwork for the advertising storyline when she becomes Steffi's manager. Clearly, Tess is after a quick buck hoping that with very little work she can make a boatload of money. Today, Tess would probably attempt to be some sort of social media influencer without putting in any of the effort. Nixon puts a bit of work into salvaging the trainwreck of a character that is Tess. It's Nixon that really smooth the edges and gives them more purpose. It is through her management of Steffi that she gets Clay to invest in the agency, while simutaneously getting Jeremy to back it as well. 

Nixon reimages Tess as a sorta second chance at the Ceara Connor character with the abusive background (except Tess suffered at the hands of her husband, not her father) and the sort of cunning business tactics that I imagine made Ceara appealing to Jeremy. I believe Jeremy makes a comparison to a woman from his past when he references Tess, which I've assumed is Ceara but may have been Erica.

I found the instant and massive success of the agency a bit of a stretch as well as how quickly Steffi soared out of a small agency in the suburbs of Pennsylvania. 

[danfling]

Writer Dan Wakefield, who was originally to be the co-creator of Loving, has passed away.

He also wrote the book about Agnes Nixon called "All Her Children."  He was to write a review of All My Children for Playboy magazine, and, thinking originally that he would not like the show, became involved with the various plots on that show.

[DRW50]

The Jim Muneco channel put up ten episodes from 1988-1990. I'll just post the first to save space.

The January 5th episode was already on Youtube (with commercials), but the copy on this channel has better picture quality.

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Edited March 21, 2024 by DRW50

[DRW50]

A promo I hadn't seen before. I wonder if the date is accurate as I thought Ron Nummi had left by this point.

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[Kane]

Those character confessional style promos are from 1989. I recall seeing other ones of Rocky, Trisha, and Trucker.

Nummi left in December 1989. In 1990 Rick was briefly played by Brian Fitzpatrick before the character was killed off.

[DRW50]

Thanks. I thought it must have been a misdate.

(this has probably been discussed before but did Nummi want to leave the role?)

Edited March 21, 2024 by DRW50

[Kane]

SOD's comings & goings blurb characterizes Nummi's exit as a show decision:

"Ron Nummi (Rick Alden) - Nummi, who joined the cast in 1987 as the Aldens' black sheep son, Rick, emerged as a central character when Rick became involved in a steamy illicit relationship with Stacey Forbes (Lauren-Marie Taylor). Now, however, the writers have opted to reconcile Stacey and her husband, Jack (Perry Stephens), and turn them into an amateur detective team, a la Hart to Hart, thus making Rick expendable."

However, when Fitzpatrick joined, SOD also made a point of the fact that Nummi was supposedly let go for lack of story and yet the character was brought back within a couple of months.

Although I haven't seen much of his time on the show, I've always liked Nummi in what I have seen and thought it was a shame that the show didn't try to take him in another direction after breaking up Rick and Stacey.