Any Capitol Fans Here?

[j swift]

Does anyone recall the timing of shifts in writers and producers in relation to the clips posted above?

 

I don't note many tonal shifts but the stories ramp up and then fade out.  Julie comes back, with a new-faced husband, Zed Diamond with his art deco set collection and, an evil twin  but they can't get more than a year of story out of all of those characters?  I feel like Jenny and Zed were never fully realized as characters.  Jenny went from an object that Zed desired to a crazy person with very little nuance.  As a result, when there is too much exposition, I start looking for the plotholes: for example, Jenny grew up near Julie but nobody ever commented on their similarities (given that both were in the papers), they looked alike but they weren't twins so how did the cops confuse their fingerprints during Mark's shooting?, was Jenny marred by trauma or was she always crazy? why did they treat her as if she was developmentally delayed at first? why didn't Zed's hair ever move?....

 

Matt McCandless and DJ Phillips (Grant Alexander's character) were also given a lot of press build up for a very short story.  So, I wonder if new writers or producers got rid of some these characters?

Edited June 12, 2018 by j swift

[victoria foxton]

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[JarrodMFiresofLove]

Grant Aleksander had only recently left his more popular role on GL to go west to get in primetime and the movies. I think he only signed a 13-week contract, probably to pay the rent in L.A. while he was waiting for primetime opportunities to open up. He was written as such a sleaze bag from the start I doubt he was ever meant to be long-term. As we know Aleksander didn't make it in primetime or the movies and went back to New York where he rejoined GL (causing his replacement John Bolger to be unceremoniously dropped from the role of Phillip Spaulding).

 

One thing we're seeing in the May 1986 episodes is the transition from Henry Slesar to James Lipton as headwriter. After Baxter and Clarissa remarry, it is all Lipton's material until the end (March 1987). Lipton wrote out Tyler and abruptly killed off Jenny, in order to facilitate a Julie-Zed relationship which I think was a mistake.

 

Lipton also took Sloane entirely out of Trey's orbit by hooking her up with Prince Ali. And he decided Trey didn't belong with Kelly either, so Kelly ends up falling more in love with Thomas...and Trey gets a new wife in the form of Teri Hatcher. Some of Lipton's stuff was quite good...but the transition from Slesar's material to his was a bit jarring and not as smooth as it could have been.

[amybrickwallace]

What was the final soap that Lipton wrote for?

[Franko]

According to IMDB, Capitol. From there, it was a couple more years writing-producing for Bob Hope, then onto Inside the Actors Studio.

[amybrickwallace]

 

Thanks! Love him or hate him, you can't deny that Lipton has had a very interesting and varied career.

[Franko]

I know, right? He must have stories like you wouldn't believe.

[MichaelGL]

So when did Henry Sleasar leave Capitol? 

[JarrodMFiresofLove]

 

I believe it was around May 1986. Slesar was there for just a year, having started in the summer of 1985. Lipton wrote the show until it went off the air in late March 1987.

 

I notice in the section for Episode Writers and Directors (in the Resource Archive) there's no thread for Capitol:

https://boards.soapoperanetwork.com/forum/5-episode-writers-and-directors/

Edited June 22, 2018 by JarrodMFiresofLove

[amybrickwallace]

 

Totally!!

[DRW50]

Capitol promo about 8 minutes and 45 seconds into this.

 

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[SFK]

 

Geesh, how sensitive of you.

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[DRW50]

 

I said that in reply to someone asking if he could put the episodes back on somewhere. Sorry if it wasn't sensitive enough, I just thought they'd want a quick answer.

[DRW50]

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[SFK]

 

I know, just ribbing you, you know you're my heart.

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xo

I wonder who we could in fact contact about getting Capitol released somewhere. Someone on YT is offering the complete series but I'd need to learn Italian first.