TV Guide review Cleveland Amory June 21 1969
This program, which recently started its 14th broadcast year, is really very simple, once you get the hang of it. Start with Chris. Chris is married to Nancy, who is the mother of Bob, who was married to Lisa, who had an affair with Michael, who was married to Claire, who is the möther of Ellen, who is married to David, who is the father of Dan, who is married to Susan, but who is in love with Liz, who is dating Paul, who is doctoring Martha, who is the mother of Sandy, who is engaged to Bob, who was married to Lisa and is the son of Chris. See, we're right back to Chris.
It's just one big happy family circle, or, actually, two family circles—the Hughes and the Lowells—who, among other things, are congenital intermarriers. But don't worry about that. If you want to worry about something, worry about the illegitimate children. The place is crawling with them. Lisa, Ellen—you name them, they've had them. “Oakdale," the Midwestern community where it all happens, makes Peyton Place look like a morality play—and how such goings on are permitted to go on, year after year, is baffling. One theory we have is the plot is so hard to follow that the network continuity acceptance department is, like most of the rest of us, a lap behind.
It all wouldn't be so bad if it were both fun and gamyness. But the trouble is, it isn't. It’s all so deadly serious that the best way to watch it is in a kind of negative way. Don't root for, root against. In ‘one recent episode, for example, there was a scene—and in this show every scene is a scene—in which Sandy, who. apparently wants to give a hint to Bob, meets him in a wedding veil. Bob, who is very sensitive to little nuances, gets it right away, but he tells her he'll be damned if he'l have a big wedding at the country club. All right, you're rooting, right? But not for a wedding, against one. Anyway, in this particular scene, the blow of watching poor Sandy having to put up with such unfeeling, masculine obstinancy is considerably lessened when you learn that not only has Sandy been married before, she has also been married to stubborn Bob before. No wonder he didnt want to be married at the country club. Too many memories.
Curiously enough, a lot of fans of As the World Turns really do watch it in a negative way. Not long ago, for example, Eileen Fulton, who had played bad-girl Lisa Hughes for some six years, left the series. But the fans were furious. They had become so devoted to hating her that they demanded her return. When she was back on the show again, Miss Fulton was accosted one day on the street by a woman who demanded to know if she was Lisa Hughes. Miss Fulton smiled and admitted she played the part— she emphasized the latter. But the woman would have none of such explanations. She slapped Miss Fulton in the face, shouting, “You're mean! You're rotten! You're despicable!”
Actually, of course, the woman loved her.
By
Paul Raven ·
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