The Doctors

[DRW50]

October 1976 Digest issue, with recap.

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December 1976 Digest.

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January 1977 Digest, which means this should still be in late 1976, right? If not let me know.

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March 1977 Digest recap. I think this would count as being at the end of 1976, but I might be wrong. Let me know.

[Mitch]

This was the one and only time I watched the Doctors, and I love the goofy storyline with the necklace and the grave robbing (wasnt there a youth serum also?) Of course, I also liked Alec Baldwin who was smoking hot at that time (though he may have been killed off already???)

I just wonder what the dedicated long time viewers thought of this time???Probably much like I thought of the Reva Clone and Jonathon/James.

[DRW50]

I think that a lot of longtime viewers would have been put off, but then by that time many longtime fans had given up on the show. It sounds interesting to me in the recaps, I wish I could see it.

Alec Baldwin didn't seem to be all that thrilled with the show when he was interviewed a few years later - he said that he realized not long after he joined that this was a show where magazines weren't going to be calling him up for interviews, no photographers at the door. I think he said David O'Brien called it something like "off-off-daytime."

I'm sure the cast got on (Alec and Kim Zimmer seemed close from what she said), but it must have been grueling, those last few years.

[DRW50]

Jean le Clerc was part of a story about a woman who stayed young and beautiful through a serum he provided. He fell in love with her daughter and some triangle ensued. At the end of the show, she'd gone to her natural age, and she sat in the church watching him marry her daughter.

I think she might have been the one who had the line about, "This town thinks Brecht is a hairspray."

[DRW50]

My apologies - I don't have a lot of 81-82. Through the day I'll print what I have.

Here is the recap from the March 31, 1981 Digest.

[MichaelGL]

Some points I'd like to make from that very interesting scan Carl. Thanks again.

-If I'm correct, much of this stuff is from Doris Quinlan's time on the show as EP(former OLTL EP), with Ralph Ellis and Eugenie Hunt as head scribes, former Head Writers of ATWT when it was #1. With such big hirings, it seems like it was a honest and conscious effort to save the show by NBC. (I can't really figure out when NBC gave up on the show, my guess would be sometime after they briefly hired Harding Lemay to revive the show.)

-Having read many recaps from Doris's predecessor, Chuck Weiss, time as EP on the show, I didn't really like the way Quinlan seemingly got rid of various characters and brought on new ones. It was quite abrupt and jarring seemingly. Jason went missing in South America. Kim and Sweeny left town. Luke's romantic interest, Missy died. Colin died. I'm sure a few more characters left as well, and equally, at the same time a variety of new characters came onto the show such as Darcy, Alan, Brad, Jack, etc.

However I do have to admit, while the transition was far from pretty, Quinlan did seemingly make the show better than it was before, IMO (Though I'm a avid fan of the kind of show The Doctors was under Weiss; racy, not afraid to tackle social issues.) Seems as if she brought more focus on the inner workings at the hospital, with the introduction of interns like Darcy, Brad, and Jack. I enjoyed reading much of that that SOD recap from 1981.

It doesn't surprise me though that even with the good storytelling, the show continued to flounder. Like I had stated earlier, the transition sucked horribly, and this was the last thing a show like The Doctors needed at the time. Viewers had already been through enough jarring transformations with their show. Killing off/writing off certain characters while you introduced your own new batch of characters was not the best idea for an EP to make at the time, as it was something viewers had seen many, many times before.

Edited January 22, 2011 by MichaelGL

[DRW50]

For some reason I thought Weiss killed Sara off. I guess now it makes more sense if so many others also went, as it seems like Sara should have been a major character, especially to balance Nola.

I think that a lot of these soaps did get into the pattern of changing for the sake of changing, not for good reasons. It probably doesn't help that they had exhausted their core characters - reading the recaps it seems like the only one who wasn't exhausted was Maggie.

Did you get to read the ones from 1976 or were those ones you'd already read? I don't have any more from then. I do have some from 1977, 78, 79, and 80, so if you are looking for any specific time let me know and I'll try to find it. In a few minutes I'm going to put up some more from 1981-1982.

[MichaelGL]

You're right, Weiss did kill off Sara. Which is puzzling bc Sara had been one of the show's most engrossing characters from the Mike/Sara/Colin triangle. Yes, for GL fans, Sara was in a way the Maureen Reardon to Nola's well...Nola Reardon. Hell, she could have even ended up as a tent pole character like Maureen was if they hadn't killed her off.

I have read most of 76 actually, much of the tail end of DePriest's tenure/start of Marland's tenure is saved on my computer. But I appreciate the scans though, the pictures that come along with the synopsis are equally interesting to see, as the recaps I have on my computer were all typed up.

[DRW50]

OK. I am putting up another 1981 now - any other year you're interested in just let me know. This is from the September 1 issue.

Edited January 22, 2011 by CarlD2

[DRW50]

From the September 22, 1981 issue.

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October 13, 1981 Digest.

[Paul Raven]

Doug Marland became headwriter during this time. In an interview he said that ,in retrospect ,he would have quickly dumped the Matt pulled the plug story.He said that he now believed that if a story isn't working on whatever level,it's better to wrap it up than try and keep it going.

The Doris Quinlan/Ellis & Hunt era was another nail in the coffin. Way too much emphasis on new characters that weren't that interesting or appealing in stories that didn't click.

TD had a good framework to work with but kept killing off viable characters and giving stories to vet characters that should have been strong support and not frontburner.