Loving/The City Discussion Thread

[SFK]

A few years ago, I had the idea for a fan fiction about the messed up emo kids growing up under the shadow of the serial murders in Corinth ("Children of the Corrinth"-silly working title ) It would be a nice touch if Corinth got a mention every now and then, or if a new character/family was from there.

[Eric200]

Did Alex go on OLTL to work with Bo or did Bo show up on the City?I always thought on GH that AZ should know of Tracy Quatermaine since she was married to a big NYC mob guy.

[SFK]

It happened on OLTL, but Bo went to NY to team up with Alex. It was kinda funny b/c when Bo got to NY, the OLTL camera guys did all of these herky jerky establishing shots over cheesy "funky" music to let us know that we were in "The City".

[Eric200]

Lol that rules. It is funny how the City was the lowest rated show but looking back the way it was filmed looks way better than any 2009 ABC soap.

[Paul Raven]

From SOD

New Kids On The Block

LOVING’s Boys And Girls Of Summer Are Pumping The Show Full Of Young Blood

By Jennifer Woodhouse

You've read in these pages about LOVING's nationwide search to find new young talent. The hunt is over — now's your chance to judge the results. These fresh faces will be on LOVING's front burner all summer in stories that take the show, according to Executive Producer Fran Sears, "back to basics. We're going back to Alden University, which was so much a part of the show's beginnings."

Not that the kids are flying solo, without benefit of family ties. According to Head Writer Addie Walsh, "We're connecting them strongly to their families; we're not just isolating them." Cooper is an Alden, Casey is Gift's son and Hannah is Dinah Lee's little sister. The writers are using these relationships, as well as the fraternity/sorority setting, as springboards for the new characters.

The summer storylines revolve around Cooper Alden, their "wild card," according to Walsh. A traumatic incident lurks in rebellious Cooper's background. "We're building a classic quadrangle around him," reveals Walsh. Watch for action between Cooper, Hannah, Ally and Staige, with Kent acting as spoiler.

Ally Rescott, an outsider to Corinth society, will learn the hard way that social climbing rarely pays. She is the first to attract Cooper. But Cooper is drawn to the sweet, innocent Hannah Mayberry, to whom he will open up like never before. "Hannah is the person who perceives the troubled soul in Cooper," says Walsh. "And that will be a major plot point."

Meanwhile, Kent and Staige, AU's "face man" and "star girl" (terms the writers discovered when interviewing students about the Greek system), are out to cause nothing but trouble for Cooper. Nasty, nouveauriche Kent loathes the young Alden, and superficial Staige, Kent's girlfriend, wants Cooper — but only because he's an Alden. "Kent feels very threatened by Cooper coming onto his turf, which will result in physical and emotional injury for the young men," says Walsh.

Casey Bowman, Giff Bowman's son, will act as a sobering force on the scene. "He finds himself in the position of a child raising a parent, which has matured him faster in some ways, but he lost some of his childhood. He is the wiser one of our kids. He's going to have a very strong effect on Ally, and there will be a chemistry between him and Ally that both of them will deny. They're like oil and water, but the oil and water might do a little mixing," Walsh hints.

[dc11786]

Funny, neither Sears nor Walsh lasted long enough to see this fully happen. Sears was out by May, replaced by Haidee Granger, and Walsh left shortly after in conflict with Granger, who took over as defacto headwriter until hiring Taggert and Guza in the fall. The summer was a mess as a result. I do have to wonder though what Sears and Walsh would have done. I suspect the show would have been a bit more rooted in its history with the younger set and the return of Curtis Alden.

[DRW50]

Guza wrote for Loving? Did he suck there too?

Laura Wright, Michael Weatherly, and Paul Anthony Stewart are all such charismatic performers (and Laura Wright had such an earnestness back then and in her early years as Cassie on GL), most soaps would have been lucky to have found even one of them, much less three at the same time.

[You're Soaking in it]

I'm pretty sure it was the other way around. She was in the ABC fold on GH, and tapped to play Loving's Gwyneth when Christine Tudor left. (There was a very brief, temporary replacement in between... just a few episodes.) Savage was in fact several years younger than Tudor, but seemed to be well-suited to play older. I thought she was a good recast... entertaining in the role; sort of elevating the campy side of Gwyn. But she lacked Tudor's emotional depth.

After Loving, she got a gig hosting a lifestyle show on Lifetime - sort of new version of "Attitudes," the show Linda Dano had co-hosted. I remember Anthony Herrera (Loving's Dane; ATWT's James Stenbeck) was a guest and I caught his episode. It appeared that he and Savage had remained friends for some period after her Loving exit (replaced by her predecessor).

[You're Soaking in it]

I always thought Savage was a bit shorter than Tudor... and no thinner unless we're counting CT's weight gain that occurred after her return to the show. I liked her... I didn't think of her as a pod, though.

That said, I wouldn't compare her to Elaine Princi. I really felt Princi was a deeper actress than Strasser. She was far less of an over-the-top, shrieking scenery chewer... I felt Princi's Dorian was more of a threat to her rivals, and was able to convey more internalized pain... her motivations were more palpable. I guess to many, she wasn't as entertaining as Strasser. But I liked that she gave Dorian depth that I had not seen previously. (Think the story of Addie's abuse and Dorian revealing her scars to Blair.) A longer-time viewer once told me that Princi was sort of mix of Nancy Pinkerton's Dorian and Strasser's.

So I was totally taken aback when she was fired in favor of Strasser. And when Strasser came back, it was jarring for me and I, for a long time, felt she was a let down... back to scenery chewing, hairbrained scheming... the writing at that time definitely didn't serve her. That wasn't rectified until years later, when Claire Labine took over and introduced a new chapter in the childhood abuse story that Princi had played.

[SFK]

"Pod" isn't the right term. I suppose Joanne Dorian's Viki or Margie Impert's Rachel were "pods", lookalikes hired in hopes of cloning the original's magic, the whole thing's a bust when TIIC realize they're dealing with unique human beings. I only meant to draw the Elaine/Elizabeth comparison in terms of good, capable, perfectly acceptable actresses playing the show's "diva" character and being replaced by their own predecessors. Maybe it's the memories of a then young mind, but Gwyn #2 always seemed taller, maybe it was the long hair. Tudor was indeed svelte, but Savage seemed longer-limbed to me. Who knows, maybe it's just my imagination. But there was something very feline, slinky about her, whereas CT was sexual, but on the brittle side, like Ann... I won't go so far as to say we're talking Mary Fickett/Lee Meriwether here, but it can take a little getting used to when a character changes not just physically, but their whole vibe as a human seems to change what you believe motivates them, screws with what you believe they would or would not do.

We need some eps on YouTube! I have the desire to compare all these yeas later.

Edited February 10, 2009 by SFK

[Sylph]

Is there a "biography" of Sydney Chase somewhere?

[cityfan01]

http://www.geocities.com/cityfan01/sydneychase

[Sylph]

Thank you!

[All My Shadows]

:(:(:(

Roya Megnot, who played Ava from 1984 to 1988, has died.

Part 1 of the 2/14/86 episode, which features a good bit of Roya's Ava:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8_6TRwbSqKM

[EricMontreal22]

Faison came around... 1994? It was a chase caper when jeremy was with Ava and they went to Universal Studios Florida, etc--pretty silly actually.

I became a Loving fan as a 12 year old because of the EPIC Carter Jones AMC crossover--which was the ebst soap crossover I've ever seen and made me a Loving fan (I actually had never even HEARD of Loving before though I had watched AMC and sometimes OLTL for 2 years prior, that's how littl epromo it got). I wish I ahd it on tape or it would pop up on youtube. Myrtle came back for I think Dinah Lee's wedding (or Hannah's?) but yeah they stayed at her boarding house and we found out Dinah Lee had a history with Carter who was tormenting first his ex the DA on AMC (I forget her name lol--Galen?) and then moved on to blind nuNatalie. Trevor and crew tracke dhim down to loving and were on the show for a week (there was a cute meetign between Trrevor and his wife in real life where they said "I dunno how anyone could stand being married to them) . Jeremy moved there shortly after.