7 minutes ago, EricMontreal22 said:

I also wonder--like were Brown and Esensten hired specifically to lead into the new soap or did that, and the idea for the murders, all happen once they had already been hired? I mean it seems like they'd be hired for SOME reason and launching a soap would make sense--since from all I can find they had ZERO daytime experience before, having written some one off teleplays as well as their time as exec story editors (or something) on the final seasons of Dynasty which I assume was why they were hired (not that the show was beloved by then but...)

Actually, @EricMontreal22 , James Harmon Brown and Barbara Esensten had working on GL under HW's Lorraine Broderick, Nancy Curlee, Stephen Demorest and James E. Reilly prior to their arrival at LOVING.

14 minutes ago, Khan said:

Actually, @EricMontreal22 , James Harmon Brown and Barbara Esensten had working on GL under HW's Lorraine Broderick, Nancy Curlee, Stephen Demorest and James E. Reilly prior to their arrival at LOVING.

OH!? As script writers? Breakdowns? I didn't see a credit on Wiki or imdb for that (or maybe I did and just thought they meant their time as HW...) I wouldn't mind someone interviewing Brown just on his career in general--he was on one of the Locher Room episodes, I think it was one with maybe several GL writers (I know Millee Taggert was also on it) and he spoke really well, I thought and would love to hear about his Loving/City era which I'm sure Locher would never think to ask about (Hell bring on Millee too and they can compare notes.)

33 minutes ago, EricMontreal22 said:

Wasn't there some talk about Ava returning? Or was it someone else.

You're right. There was some talk of Ava returning. I think there were also hints near the end of The City.

For anyone who couldn't access the Archive version, here is the Youtube upload for the March 22, 1991 episode:

Loving (March 22, 1991)

Thanks for doing that. I wonder how Ava would have fit into The City (which as you know I thought, once Tracy joined the cast, had found its rhythm.)

Just now, EricMontreal22 said:

Thanks for doing that. I wonder how Ava would have fit into The City (which as you know I thought, once Tracy joined the cast, had found its rhythm.)

She probably would have schemed to win Alex back (the show may have just sided with Jocelyn). I would have instead have her take over some of Sydney's empire, somehow - seeing Ava getting to wheel and deal the way Loving never let her. Probably fighting with Tess for it.

Good call, and that's what I would have wanted to see as well.

Seeing Susan Keith in the 1991 scenes makes me think of Another World. I can see her playing Cecile like this in the 80s and the 90s.

22 hours ago, Soaplovers said:

I wonder if the change in how Curtis was written/presented had some to do with the change in head-writer from Marland to Nixon. Just like how the character of Ava changed after Nixon took over, I also think Curtis changed as a character under Nixon.

In regards to Leo/Shana... I viewed them as the classic case of Battle of the Sexes with a strong willed Shana verbally battling with the more traditional minded Leo. Back in the 90s, viewers actually enjoyed these types of relationships unlike the more puritanical 2020s where such buzzwords as misogynism are used so much to the point where most people are dismissive.

It's possible the change from Marland to Nixon led to the change in Curtis. Come to think of it, Curtis is defanged even a bit under Marland when they pair him with Colby Cantrell, Rita Mae's niece who worked as a buyer for Burnell's. Curtis' pornographic past (he financed films when he was in Europe) came back to haunt him when model Sasha Hale came to town as she had started in one of his films. Colby didn't like this and she ended up involved with Jonathan Maitlane or Keith Lane. I can never remember which.

Watching the December, 1985, and January, 1986, material recently uploaded from around the wedding of Ava and Curtis, I get the sense that Ava was suppose to be the love of Curtis' life, in his eyes, but that he couldn't really tame her. Even at this point, Curtis is presented as slightly complicated as he has been chasing after and comforting his cousin's wife even though Jack and Stacey have run off to California to start a new life with little Johnny. By the time we get to Lottie, Curtis just seems more like watered down.

Regarding Shana and Leo, I appreciate the fact that they are two very different people with strong personalities. I can see the battle of the sexes element, but I don't think that it negates the fact that Leo is a male chauvinist, and I'm pretty sure this is stated onscreen. What I will say is that it is a true battle for the sexes; we aren't expected to agree with Leo's stance on things nor is Shana a perfect person. In pursuit of having a child, Shana has chosen Leo for his looks, despite his personality, because he's attractie and she wants good genes. While this is never directly addressed, Shana's pursuit of creating a perfect child, whether intentional or not on the part of the writers, ends up being disrupted by the possibility that Shana's baby might have developmental delays. I liked that Shana ended up having power over Leo when she co-signed the loan and he had only so many days to pay it back.

What I should have clarified was that while some of the attitudes that Guza may have had male characters exhibit later on General Hospital, the tone and plotting was quite different. I am always left feeling that Leo feels the way he does and that the writers do not share his vision. In addition, the women in peril genre was big in TV movies in the era and I've seen much more disturbing material on Levinson and Riche's General Hospital from the same period. Leo just being an egotistical jerk doesn't really hit the way the Quartermaine brothers slut shaming a childhood sex abuse survivor. Shana and Leo's material is never offensive me. Honestly, I found Ava's antics funny at times in this story, but trying a bit too hard at others.

While I hear what you are saying about changing perspectives, though I think, especially with what has come out about Joe Stuart and the general work environment in the 1980s in the Loving interviews from several years back, that examining some of the work through the lens of how gender is represented is not unwarranted. I would also agree with you that modern cancel culture does lead to dismissive attitudes towards material that may be less problematic than necessary. I think Leo's point of view is realistic, and I wish they had maintained it because characters with varying viewpoints is the natural source of drama.

12 hours ago, EricMontreal22 said:

He talked about being more surprised by everyone as he knew he wasn't soap opera leading man handsome (and joked about how surreal it was for Curtis to suddenly pop up being played by Burke Moses among others,) but relished the opportunity, especially to play such unhinged material.

It's funny. I will have to rewatch that interview because I could have sworn Marcantel complained about the 1993-1995 period saying that things felt so much more plot driven than it had in the 1980s. Maybe he enjoyed the Curtis in the cage stuff and I blocked it out lol. I remember because I was disappointed he felt that way because I found the Nixon period mostly enjoyable, but, in reflecting, a lot of Curtis' material in that period is bizarre. When I was looking for those end credits from August, 1994, yesterday, there was Marcantel's Curtis at the crash site dowsing the plane in gasoline, and I'm like ok I get it.

12 hours ago, EricMontreal22 said:

I have to wonder about the whole "Phantom Tricia" storyline in general, and Agnes Nixon's involvement. Elements of it seem like she should have known better (like teasing a character's return when you don't have the actress) though she certainly made mis-steps before. And it seems obvious they used it just so they could stretch out the tease of Tricia being alive (only to have the disappointing way it finally ended in the final months of the Murders.) There's even something kinda smart (while being deeply stupid...) about Curtis gaslighting Trucker into thinking she's still alive to keep him from Dinah Lee when in fact she IS still alive. What I do think remains strong in Agnes Nixon's year or so, that Loving had often been missing, is again how she (or someone on her team) do a lot of small things to keep the stories interconnected. Characters in one storyline will still make appearances in other storylines (including the whole Ava coma story and the warnings she gets from Ghost Harry.) For a lot of the 90s, Loving is really not great at that. Also, while I know some people are not at all fond of it, re-watching the whole Steffi/Cooper/Clay/Deborah stuff it all just plays really well and I think they finally know how to make the actors' chemistry work (and yes, in comparison then it makes Ally and Casey just seem like dry paint.)

I thought the gaslighting story allowed Curtis to be a villain without making his actions too evil. He didn't know Trisha was alive so it was messed up, but, ultimately, he wasn't wrong. I also try to convince myself that some of Curtis having PTSD induced crash outs was a mix of the truth and deception like that Curtis probably was always struggling to keep it together, but that he would let go in order to emotionally manipulate Dinahlee and Trucker.

Honestly, they should have bit the bullet in 1994 and just recasted Trisha.

I just read a news account of Shana and Leo's departure. The show was claiming that they had no story for Shana and Leo until Patti could start to show outward symptoms of the developmental delays which was why they were being let go. When Shana and Leo leave, I'm nearly positive that it looks like Patti is on track developmentally, though they could have revisited it down the road. Also, saying there was no story was a cop out given Cabot's impending return and Ava gaining control of Burnell's. That was all material that would have kept Shana and Leo in the thick of things through the end of 1994.

Nixon's run had more pop ins from former characters, but I don't remember the interconnectiveness being much different than it had been in the previous year. Nixon had such a huge canvas.

Casey and Ally flounder under Nixon. I thought Casey's mental health crisis / drug addiction under McCarthy and Walsh was one of their strongest stories.

12 hours ago, EricMontreal22 said:

I have it on very good authority that the Jeremy/Gilbert stuff was started by Nixon (and yes, it literally starts as her credit ends, but I think she had mapped out the story beats.) Some of this is in one of her Loving breakdowns I have a paper copy of (which is much more brief than her older ones but still plays out at least the first month or two of Gilbert,) and LeClerc also says that it was a gift from Nixon who had told him back on AMC he would get the chance to play a villain (of course actors often say stuff like this and it's not quite right--as I've said on the OLTL thread witness how much of Vicki, Erika Slezak seems to think was directly written by Nixon and I think almost likely was not...) but...

There are definitely parallels between Jeremy / Gilbert and Jonathan / Keith. When discussing this with you yesterday, it dawned on me that Nixon / Walsh / McCarthy basically are overseeing the show for most of late 1993 to early 1995. While we usually see Marland's name for 1983-1985, we also have more documentation to suggest that it would be more accurate to say Doug Marland & Agnes Nixon for 1983-1985 as we have outlines like the Jonathan story that start during the period preceding Marland's departure.

As I've stated, most of the Gilbert / Jeremy stuff doesn't work for me. It's very broad until the end, as I recall, but I really enjoyed the climax when Alex shoots Gilbert and the implication awas that Alex went to far putting Ava in the middle. LeClerc should never have been brought over to Loving in my opinion. If Richard Cox wanted to leave after a year, they should have recast Giff.

12 hours ago, EricMontreal22 said:

Interesting about chem testing--one of the most interesting, and there's a video on YT of Oct/Nov episodes relating to this, is Trucker and Angie. He even asks her out and she gives a talk about how she wants a black father figure for Frankie (it's a bit better written than it sounds...) Yet, I think there seems to surprisingly be chemistry there, so it's all for naught.

(Nixon also seems to VERY quickly have Frankie move from the Jesse Hubbard black teen thinking everything is about race and running with a bad crew, to a much more happy go lightly figure obsessed with movies and making his own. It's too bad he doesn't have more to do, as I like the actor a lot.)

Nixon dumped a lot of what Taggart and Guza had set up with Angie and Frankie. I'm pretty sure the Angie / Trucker stuff started under Taggart and Guza before Nixon reset the story for Trucker / Dinahlee and then introducing Charles for Angie. They also seemed to be teasing a romantic tension between Alimi Ballard's Frankie and Amelia Heinle's Steffi which would have been very interesting given the conflict between Cooper and Frankie at the time.

I didn't necessarily see where they were going to go with Trucker and Angie nor was I overly interested. I was curious about Frankie and Steffi.

Edited 7 hours ago7 hr by dc11786

13 hours ago, EricMontreal22 said:

@dc11786 I know this may not mean much, but I have an airdate October 21, Gilbert heavy (actually on the page it's VERY creepy, with him kinda haunting his scenes like a ghost) script from Loving. Anyway here's the title page--check out who they credit as writers...

It means something, but I am not entirely sure what. I have a script from a month earlier and its the same credits you posted. I went and checked yesterday before I posted about the August date again because I wasn't sure if I had just missed Nixon's name earlier. But the credits read as I've stated for August 30: Written by McCarthy and Walsh with Story Consultant: Agnes Nixon. I'll get a screen shot for you in a little bit.

Loving's writing credits are hard to pin down at times. We have Paul Anthony Stewart claiming there was no headwriter in the summer of 1992, but that is not reflected onscreen. I would be curious to see if anyone has a script with just Walsh and McCarthy listed without Nixon's name anywhere on it.

12 hours ago, Kane said:

My theory is that the Phantom Trisha story was originally conceived as Robert Tyler's exit story. His contract expired in the summer of '94 but he ended up extending it for six months, ostensibly to "wrap up" Trucker's story, which I've always found somewhat odd since Trucker's actual exit just ends up being a variation on this story anyway and the show didn't really do anything interesting with Trucker once Dinah Lee was recast. There's literally an episode during the Gilbert saga where Trucker is tagging along with Alex and Charles and he's just... there, doing nothing.

I think the plan was going to be that Trucker would go off to Italy to chase after Trisha and Jeff, and Dinah Lee would get involved with Buck and there would be a brief Curtis/Dinah Lee/Buck/Stacey quad, then Dinah Lee would die in the plane crash. Part of the reason why I think so is that what plays out on screen is Trucker and Dinah Lee return from Italy, they immediately break up, Dinah Lee starts hanging out with Buck (and Philip Brown plays it like Buck is falling for Dinah Lee, and there's plenty of lingering looks between them), and then the crash happens. I don't think Janie was originally supposed to die because the show was doing a great job integrating the character into the cast and having her mix it up with various characters, and Dinah Lee's death would have meant a lot more to Ava (who predicted that someone would die). I think Tyler extending threw a wrench into things because it would have been brutal to have him not find Trisha and then have him lose Dinah Lee in the plane crash, hence the change to Janie being the one to die.

This sounds fairly reasonable. I don't think there was any way to really end Trucker/Trisha's story on a happy note with Trisha in limbo. I much rather they just gave Dinahlee/Trucker a happy ending and called it a day. There were enough other characters in that presumed dead category that left Loving with story problems. I don't think we ever got bodies for Roger Forbes or Jack Forbes. In Jack's case, I do think a body was identified by Clay, but he was at the height of his schemes at that point.

Dinahlee dying is what I assumed was the original plan as well because Janie wasn't even in town when Ava's predictions occurred.

I don't know why they would keep Robert Tyler when they knew that Jessica Collins was going to depart. If Tyler stayed an extra six months, wouldn't that have brought his original exit to August, 1994, which was about the time that Collins should have been leaving. If they recast Trisha, keeping Tyler for six months makes some sense. Otherwise, not so much. I'm not doubting the did this, it's just such a bizarre move.

I'm nearly positive the casting call in 1994 for the role that Elizabeth Mitchell got was written to be Dinahlee's cousin, but that may have just been a cover for the recast.

In regards to what the women were saying about Joe Stuart.. I view it as they were both right and wrong in their opinions on him. In regards to Susan Walters and her complaining about her low pay, what she needed to understand was that this was a business and pay increases are partly tied to ratings and Q-ratings. Loving was low rated and the budget was probably not suficient enough to offer her the raise that she believed she was entitled to. She did the sensible thing and walked away when they were unable to give her what she wanted, but she was also wrong to assume that she deserved the huge raise she wanted. The only story I felt for was Noelle Beck's because that was a horrible thing to even present to her and good for her sticking to her guns.

In regards to Leo and Shana, I think the show runners assumed that with Alex back.. that Alex/Ava were going to fill the void left by Leo/Shana's departure.. but the couplings were so different from one another. I have a feeling that the show wasn't able to write a happy and content Shana since most of her arc was always feeling like an island going back to her arrival in 1984 as the illegitimate daughter of Cabot and being an outsider in the Alden family and later losing both the love of her life and child in a plane crash. I think having Leo/Shana navigating their life with a baby and still maintaining the battle of the sexes rapport would have given the writers plenty of material since both were strong minded and set in their ways yet were in love with one another at the same time.

14 hours ago, EricMontreal22 said:

For a lot of the 90s, Loving is really not great at that. Also, while I know some people are not at all fond of it, re-watching the whole Steffi/Cooper/Clay/Deborah stuff it all just plays really well and I think they finally know how to make the actors' chemistry work (and yes, in comparison then it makes Ally and Casey just seem like dry paint.)

The 1994 Cooper/Steffi romance is one of my favorites. It was well written, acted, and paced. The chemistry is sparkling and whimsical, as with Trucker and Dinah Lee. I suppose it's helpful when you're dating in real life. Although both couples divorced, I digress.

Steffi and Cooper's Loving ending leaves a lot to be desired, with Cooper leaving for Paris solo and then dumping her. But at least The City salvages the relationship but AH should've just left with MW. Ally/LW was more than capable of being the young lead.

Re: your Frankie comment, I agree. I wish they would've done more with the character. He and Janie had potential. Janie had so much potential.

13 hours ago, DRW50 said:

I wonder when they learned that the show was being retooled rather than going on in its current form and that led them not to make much effort with Trucker while he was still there. Either that or maybe they thought they could get Noelle Beck sooner or for a longer amount of time than they did.

I have sometimes wondered if The City had lasted another few years if Noelle would have joined as Trisha or if the show had just moved on too much by that point.

I'm so glad you mentioned this. I'm pausing my NCIS binge to watch 1994 Loving, and I just had to roll my eyes at an April episode of Dinah Lee visiting Trisha's (misspelled) grave. @Kane your site is the best with its commentary.

I generally like Trish since she's the classic heroine, but the importance that Phantom Trisha is given on this show is exhausting. It's an endless deification. The canvas is held hostage for a character who wasn't even there in the show's last years.

Looking back, The City was always doomed to fail. But I do respect the intention of leaving Corinth behind, and that meant Trisha. Most of the Aldens have been killed off, and there wouldn't have been anyone in New York willing to obsess over Trisha.

Edited 5 hours ago5 hr by CrazySexyQ

12 hours ago, EricMontreal22 said:

OH!? As script writers? Breakdowns?

I'm not sure whether James Harmon Brown and Barbara Esensten wrote breakdowns AND scripts for GL during the Broderick/Curlee/Demorest/Reilly era, but I do remember that their names usually were listed among the dialogue writers (along with Michael Conforti, Lynda Myles, Courtney Simon, etc).

4 hours ago, CrazySexyQ said:

I'm so glad you mentioned this. I'm pausing my NCIS binge to watch 1994 Loving, and I just had to roll my eyes at an April episode of Dinah Lee visiting Trisha's (misspelled) grave. @Kane your site is the best with its commentary.

I generally like Trish since she's the classic heroine, but the importance that Phantom Trisha is given on this show is exhausting. It's an endless deification. The canvas is held hostage for a character who wasn't even there in the show's last years.

Looking back, The City was always doomed to fail. But I do respect the intention of leaving Corinth behind, and that meant Trisha. Most of the Aldens have been killed off, and there wouldn't have been anyone in New York willing to obsess over Trisha.

I do wonder how much of the hostage-holding was, as mentioned, down to Robert Tyler wanting to leave and Jessica Collins actually leaving. Up to that point they did have Tucker moving on (didn't he ask Angie on a date only a few months after Trisha died?).

I agree The City was always doomed (I'm still surprised the idea even went through), but if they had had stronger story in place from the start...that probably wouldn't have helped either, to be honest, as I don't think the show was run in a lot of places, but maybe it would have given more time for a replacement soap that was stronger than early PC.

I am surprised they even teased Tucker/Angie - no other interracial relationships on ABC up to that point had involved the leading man, from what I remember. If that relationship had gone forward it would have been interesting, a world away from anything with Tucker and Dinah Lee. I don't know what they would have done, beyond the basics (presumably he would have had conflict with Frankie)

What you mention about Trisha is why I think she could have potentially found a home in The City, as her lack of memory was a blank slate. One story I thought about was if Trucker and Dinah Lee died and she had to raise Christopher, who had no memory of her as she had no memories of him, and they would learn to love each other, but you may also see glimpses of Trisha unknowingly making some of the same mistakes Gwyn and Clay made as parents.

I might put her in a pairing with Danny too, as he schemes to get her money but then falls for her.

Edited 27 minutes ago27 min by DRW50