The Doctors

[Vee]

Very kind of you, and fascinating.

[All My Shadows]

I think I've asked this before, so please forgive me - is there absolutely NO way at all for the It's Real Good TV app to just pick up where you left off? I'm in the middle of 1968 with hopes to finish the year and be into 1969 by the end of summer, but my god, is it annoying to have to scroll so deep into the middle of a year. It's definitely an incentive to binge many episodes in a row.

[vetsoapfan]

I love finds like this. Thanks @slick jones!

[Jdee43]

It's too bad we can't see those episodes with Ann Williams and the rest of that cast, from 1963-1967. I take it those episodes, like the ones from 1980-1982, are either lost, or are owned by NBC and are not covered in Retro's licensing agreement, which is only for the episodes owned by Colgate-Palmolive, 1967-1980. 

The Retro website won't load on my Samsung smart TV anymore. I'm stuck with trying to watch the episodes on my computer. 

[Chris B]

They for sure don’t have the NBC episodes but they do have several of the earlier years. Pre Covid they had plans to stream those but it got delayed and now I don’t think they have any incentive to post those since they seem to have given up. 
 

Ever since they changed it to free streaming you can’t save your place. I still don’t get why they cancelled the subscriptions. Surely some money is better than none. But now they don’t have to answer to anybody about quality since it’s a free service 

[Chris 2]

I believe that they wanted the televised run on retroTV to begin with color episodes. So my guess is that most of those older black-and-white episodes haven’t been digitized for rebroadcast or streaming.

[Maxim]

It will be amazing if they could add some previous years. If they have them.

[All My Shadows]

And now there are obnoxious and misplaced ads for (of all things) 4imprint.com!! Right in the middle of scenes, in the middle of the closing credits, etc. I'd go back to paying if it meant cutting the ads back out.

[Chuck1970]

 

For this week's Saturday broadcast,with only 2 remaining episodes of 1980 left,RetroTV decided not to air them and went back to Dec 1967!! 
You can watch them here at https://watch.itsrealgoodtv.com/content/sc_49984_16993
Sept 26 and 29,1980
(Sept 25 not posted on the website,so possibly a missing episode).
Sep 26,1980
https://player.lightcast.com/1UzNykzN
Sep 29,1980
https://player.lightcast.com/1UzNwgDM

Edited June 8, 2024 by Chuck1970
Added in clickable links

[Maxim]

You can try an adblocker! It helps. There are a lot in the Chrome library. 

[Chuck1970]

RetroTV hasn't been posting on its Watch The Doctors social media pages in almost 3 weeks.  
On this past Saturday's 2-4pm broadcast,they didn't air the last 2 1980 episodes (Sept 26 and 29,1980,which are on the It's Real Good TV site ) and without any notice,went all the way back to Dec 1967,which was unexpected. 
They could have aired the Sept 26 and 29,1980 episodes,then to fill the last hour,air the April 1 and 19,1963 episodes that were on the former subscription site,but never made it to the current free version. 
They apparently have some 1963 and 1964 tapes,which were seen in the documentary video they released last July about the 1980 episodes digitization process,but they haven't said whether or not they digitized them.
This is probably why they stopped posting on their social media,because viewers who weren't aware that they didn't have the last 2 years would have been flooding them with a lot of (deservedly so )angry comments.  
I thought that they would go back to Jan 1,1980 and run those 181 episodes again,since this Saturday slot was announced last year as a special broadcast for the January-September 1980 episodes,so it was a surprise that they kept this timeslot and decided to instead go back to Dec 1967. 
The weekday timeslot is still running March 1972. 
Even though it seems likely that they have stopped posting on their social media pages,the fact that they are still running The Doctors on weekdays and the Dec 1967-Sept 1980 are still available on their website is a good sign that they aren't planning to drop it from their schedule.

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[Jdee43]

I wish they would just put everything up on youtube. That would be so much easier than navigating their glitchy site. 

[NothinButAttitude]

Was The Doctors airing opposite of OLTL in 1980? I am asking b/c I was watching some of the episodes from that time late last night, and I noticed a ton of OLTL stars on The Doctors at that time (i.e. Doris Belack, Michael Storm, Kathy Glass, and Nancy Pinkerton). Odd too because doesn't Dorian Lopinto head to OLTL after this? 

I think because I started watching the episode where Missy got shot in the hospital siege up until her funeral, I didn't get a full grasp of what was going on. And when did Luke, who from what I've seen from earlier years, go from gigolo to Rambo? I assume this is the transition where soaps were embedding action stories to compete with GH (correct me I am wrong). 

I didn't know that David Canary also did a stint on the show. David has to be one of the few actors I've never seen age. He's always looked the same in every project I've seen him in--handsome and dignified. That aside, I got to go back and rewatch this arc from the start to get a gist of what it was about and why they held up the hospital. And I didn't realize that Missy/Luke had just married (2 months prior) before killing her off. This has to be one of the shortest unions on a soap. 

But what was this Claudia/Ashley car wreck story about? My gripe about it was Claudia recalling moving who I assume was Ashley's father toward the car to make him look like the driver and the cops just accepting it. Maybe b/c I watch crime TV so much, that wouldn't fly. The cops would've seen the smear of blood from him being dragged from his initial spot up to the wheel of the car. But that's to be expected for that time. I will give them props for the many exterior shots at this time. They look nice for the early 80s. 

 

[VelekaCarruthers]

No but former OLTL producer for more than a decade DORIS QUINLAN was appointed EP of the Doctors for about a year in 1980.  That was its last decent period.  

[NothinButAttitude]

That makes sense why so many stars got cast on that show. Thanks for clearing that up.