The Doctors

[Bright Eyes]

Surely you're not forgetting about the Dingles?

[DRW50]

Oh that's right, I always forget about Mick.

And of course as Amello mentioned, the Dingles too...

[YRBB]

It says it's Feb. 16, 1981. It's the episode were Jason's fabulous mother Mona has a dinner party for Jason/Nola and her other son and daughter-in-law. Mona gives Nola and Jason $25,000 for their kid but it's obvious she's planning something, which I would very much like to know what it was. It also has Alec Baldwin as Alec. Written by the Konners. I assume it was the better part of the year? How was Lemay with this show?

[Paul Raven]

In answer to an earlier question,Kathryn Harrold left at the end of 77 after Jason and Nola married. When they returned from their honeymoon,Kathleen Turner was playing Nola.

[dc11786]

From what I can tell, the problem "The Doctors" had in the late 1970s and early 1980s was the failure to cultivate new characters' longterm potential or squashing the potential at the end of a storyline. Some of the show's more interesting characters in this period (Billy, Natalie, Luke, and Nola), often only had meagre ties to the medical component of the canvas. While they certainly commanded the story, and often they interacted with the show's core (the Powers, Althea, and Steve and Carolee), these characters sometimes were disjointed from other parts of the canvas.

Also there were some bad storylines. While Billy's 1981 return was fascinating, there was a co-current plot involving siblings Catherine and Kevin Shaw, who's family had been swindled in business by the Aldriches. Catherine was fascinated with Jason Aldrich and posed as baby Jessica's nanny in order to get closer to Jason and to ruin Mona Aldrich. The story wasn't very good and resulted in the death of Jason Aldrich. Also, Steve and Carolee tended to find themselves involved in some asinine plots over the last few years. I believe twice they took in a young ward who ended up causing strife in their relationship, and one of those young women ended up bringing on Far Wind and his cult.

On the otherhand, I can see what you mean, Carl. Barring the Writer's Strike, most of the time there was at least potential with the characters and plots on the canvas. What really hurt the show was the show's instability in the writer's department. 1981 is a perfect example of this.

In the fall of 1980, Jason managed to win custody of Jessica, his and Nola's daughter, away from Nola. Nola romanced Jason in order to have Jessica back in her life. Mona was furious and plotted to soil Nola in Jason's eyes. Initially, Mona tried to get a tape recorded confession from Nola, but Catherine, the nanny who was secretly plotting to ruin the Aldrich clan, informed Nola of Mona's machinations. Shortly after, Nola and Jason's home burned down and Nola suspected Mona was behind the fire. Nola used this to keep Mona off her back. In the episode you saw, I believe Mona is setting Nola up. Catherine would later blackmail Nola for money over some matter and demand Nola pay before her wedding day to Jason, at which point Nola would have access to a fortune. Mona was trying to prove Nola dipped into Jessica's trust fund in order to pay off Catherine in her extortion plot, but failed to do so. I'm sorry I'm sketchy on details, but the information I have s incomplete at times.

[dc11786]

I believe Martha was a nurse at the hospital, but my understanding is she was simply a talk to character.

Sara spent 1978 torn between Mike Powers and Colin Wakefield, a former lover. Colin ended up sleeping with her sister, Nola, and was believed to be baby Jessica's father for quite some time. Sara succumbed to illness in 1979 leaving Mike Powers a widower, again.

[DRW50]

Do you think they might have been better off writing Steve and Carolee out?

I wonder if they thought with some of these stories that they needed to move away from the hospital. I know Schemering's book speculated that the lower ratings for both GH and The Doctors throughout the mid to late 70s were based on people tiring of hospital melodrama. But it seems like the hospital, from the synopses I've read, still provided a lot of fireworks, whereas, aside from Mona and her plans, the stuff outside the hospital doesn't sound as interesting to me, only on paper at least.

What did you think of Alec Baldwin?

Armand Assante was on here at one point too wasn't he?

[Bojangles]

I know nothing about The Doctors, but I stumbled upon a July 1972 article. Here's the scan, for those interested:

[DRW50]

Are they saying Carolee's real mother is playing Carolee's mother on the show too? Did they do that back then? That "real life widow" sounds kind of crass.

Wow Liz Hubbard looks so different, I think she looked better later on.

Thanks for sharing this with us. I sure wish I could see this era, this was when the show was still very popular wasn't it. And I love Nancy Barrett.

[Bojangles]

Yes, I believe it was popular. In the same magazine, The Doctors was voted third in the list of "best programs", under Days of Our Lives (#1) and Another World (#2). The list went up to 16 titles.

edit: there was also a list of "most popular serials":

11.9 - As the World Turns - 41%

10.0 - Days of Our Lives - 34%

9.9 - Edge of Night - 34%

9.8 - General Hospital - 32%

9.5 - Guiding Light - 33%

9.2 - Another World - 31%

9.2 - The Doctors - 32%

8.7 - Search for Tomorrow - 32%

8.3 - Love Is Many Splendored Thing - 29%

7.8 - Secret Storm - 27%

The first column is the size of the average audience, each Nielsen point representing about 620,000 TV viewing homes. The last column is the serial's share of the TV audience tuned in at that particular time period.

Edited August 9, 2010 by Bojangles

[DRW50]

Wow, and to think at this time Secret Storm was seen as having poor ratings.

[All My Shadows]

Wow, what a lovely article and pictures. I don't think I've ever seen anything with the original Carolee before. I really, really wish I could watch the stuff with her, Steve, and Nancy Barrett's character.

Those ratings are interesting. Most of the soaps got roughly a third or so of the audience at a time when there were three networks ruling the ratings. Y&R currently has a bigger audience than Secret Storm had then.

[Paul Raven]

Thank you Bojangles for this.

During the wedding eps,they also played the story of Maggie thinking she was losing her mind(it was actually a brain tumour)

Mike Powers(Peter Burnell) and Toni Ferra (Anna Stuart) were also at the wedding.

[MichaelGL]

Thank you so much for these Bojangles. This thread is literally a fountain of information for this little known soap The Doctors. I really appreciate all the information everyone has contributed to this thread.

[DRW50]

Here's a bit from the 1/77 Daytime TV Stars, ell Publishing Co, Inc. in their News section, by Bob LaGuardia.

Edited November 22, 2010 by CarlD2