Another Life

[DRW50]

I still hope they turn up someday, just for the sake of completism. I also want to see more of Terry's mother, who was interesting (mostly because of the odd choices of the actress).

[DRW50]

Another Life commercial 1984 - YouTube

[amybrickwallace]

Nice...thank you!!!

[soapfan770]

I was looking up old TV schedules and noticed that KTLA in LA aired Another Life at 8:00 in the morning! Wow talk about a bad time slot for the show.

[amybrickwallace]

Mary Jean Feton (Terry Davidson) is still acting and based in Atlanta. She has a regular role on Tyler Perry's Queen Sugar.

[DRW50]

As @jam6242 mentioned in the Memorium thread, Dorothy Stinnette recently passed away. I remember Dorothy best for her dynamic work on here, as Kate.

Dorothy Stinnette Obituary (1928 - 2023) - New York City, NY - Wichita Eagle (legacy.com)

About 5 years ago, someone left a 2017 interview in the comment section of this video. 

Please register in order to view this content

Edited October 29, 2023 by DRW50

[jam6242]

Thanks for the video @DRW50. 

[safe]

In the new book, Ryan's Hope: An Oral History of Daytime's Groundbreaking Soap, Lois Robbins (Mandy Bolan on Another Life/Concetta D'Angelo on Ryan's Hope)  told of being fired from Another Life a day after she told the make-up man she was a Jewish-American. The make-up man asked her if she was Italian. She said she was in the middle of a storyline when fired and called it brutal and eye-opening.

[dc11786]

So I am intending to give this a proper try because I never am able to really follow through with it. I've watched episodes 70-73 more intently, and I am slowly understanding why. 

Episode 70 is a good starting point because the story is fairly narrow in those episodes on Lori's accident which is a good starting point. The derided Paul Mason / Lori Davidson affair rumor plot has already been aborted with Paul off canvas. The drug operation story seems to be slowly developing and what is probably the first reference to Vince Cardello is made in episode 72 when Russ calls Chicago for help securing a surgeon for Lori's surgery to prevent permanent paralysis. 

The family structure is intriguing. Terry Davidson's connection to Ravenswood Hospital gives her access to a world that should allow actions sequences involving life and death. Scott Davidson's work at the TV station adds the adventure of searching for a criminal element. Grandmother Nora Lindsey is very snarky and tell it like it is without the intense faith of her daughter. Lori is a young and innocent ingenue and Peter the young man coming of age while fighting the temptations of others. Mary Jean Fenton is very good as the matriarch almost too sickeningly sweet at times, but tonally that makes sense. 

Beyond that, I am hard pressed to find much to enjoy. The scripts are pretty tough. While compacting the story around the accident provides a tight canvas, there isn't enough meat to pull out of this. Many of the characters aren't deep enough and the dynamics aren't developed (this is suppose to be the first time that Russ is meeting the Davidsons) that this situation to be sustained over multiple episodes. Furthermore, the show's struggle with presenting religion makes the central conflict (bad boy Russ believing that he can secure a world qualified surgeon to take Lori's case over the local dynamo that family friend Alex Greeley suggest) insane. The talk of miracles when there are steps that need to be taken is wild. 

In the limited subplots, I do like elements of the Cummings' situation. Jeff seems like a real jerk who is being lured into a complicated situation with his work at Capitol Distributors, which is tied up in the drug operation. I think Lois Robbins' Mandy Bolen, the career woman who won't again be involved with a married man for long is intriguing. Jeff's alcoholism and his abusive personality are shocking material, but it isn't always presented in the most interesting way. There has been one scene of Miriam Carpenter Mason and her new love interest, Nick Trench, which is slightly intriguing, but I doubt that my interest will be held.  

Additionally, has there been any really concept of who was in charge of the writing? From what I can gather, it sounds like Roy Winsor was the headwriter (story consultant) for part of the first year, followed by Dallas and Joanna Barnes (well into 1982), and the final Headwriter was Jason Vinley who claims he was one of the creators of the show stating his name was on the story Bible, which he still seems to have a copy of.  Most of this comes from an interview with Jason Vinley. The Vinely interview can be found on YouTube. There is a list of interviews on episode 70 on YouTube. 

[Paul Raven]

Variety ran a story on the show in Nov 81.  A summary.

The show had made little ratings impact since its debut,running on about 60 stations and attracting no national advertisers. When it was removed from the last 30 minutes of 'The 700 Club' 15 stations dropped it.

There was feedback from CBN's big financial donors that the show wasn't explicitly religious enough. 

As a result , in October several producers and writers were dropped.

An example was given of the new focus - a nee'r do well character is laid up in hospital fighting cancer and a heart attack. Another character suggest a prayer to Jesus -there's a ray of light and miraculously he rips off the IV and bandages and he's cured , good to go.

Former writers say the show has gone off the deep end, But CBN claims it's 'more authentic'.

Dropped were Gerald Straub, creator, now assistant producer at General Hospital,Roy Winsor writer/producer who helped create Love of Life and Secret Storm and Bob Aaron, exec producer and former NBC exec regarded as one of the best programmers in the biz.

Aaron stated he resigned because he didn't feel he could deliver what they hoped for in the changed format. He promised entertainment with no preaching and with the change in direction he was happy for someone else to take it on.

Aaron said that about 150 episodes had been produced at a cost of just $80,000 a week, with a network half hour costing around $250.000 a week, but the quality was there, although the message was different.

He was told by CBN officials after 2 months on the air that reviews had been good and more stations were coming on board but that ratings were disappointing and contributions were falling off.

That's when Bob Slosser exec veep and CBN board member was called in by Pat Robertson, CBN chairman. Slosser had no producing experience.

Slosser said he was unhappy with the writing and storyline. He didn't need the ratings to tell him changes had to be made. Referring to the 'miracle' he stated not everything would be that explicit and there would be ebb and flow. The religious segments would be more authentic,but it wouldn't be  a strictly religious show.

The new writers were Dallas and Joanne Barnes and David Hummel was promoted from within CBN to exec producer.

Variety believed the loss of Aaron, Straub and Winsor meant the show had lost credibility.

Straub said that CBN didn't understand the genre, taking time to develop characters. They wanted something overtly Christian and in the end there was the financial squeeze and a need to placate contributors.

Winsor felt the move to supernatural stuff was dangerous as they had put together a good show, a Christian serial in the sense that it showed family morals without preaching. He says that suddenly Aaron, a Catholic and himself, Episcopalian and two writers were dropped because they were not 'born again'. It was a shock and a disappointment.

Winsor said they had the opportunity to do something wholesome as a balance to what the networks were offering -a kind of 'Ma Perkins' thing but obviously  Robertson did not feel it was representing his ministry.

WPIX NY had been running AL at 12.30 but moved it to 11.30 am as it was not performing. Programming VP Richard Hughes was adopting a wait and see approach as to how the values of the show would be portrayed in a more explicit way.

WCIX Miami shows AL at 11pm and is sold out locally having attained 'quite a following' with virtually  no audience reaction to the more religious approach.

 

 

 

 

[DRW50]

@dc11786 Enjoyed the rundown of the early episodes. I do like AL, but I have the same problem you do, especially early on, of actually getting through the show. As time passes the stories do start to feel more encompassing and I am more involved with the characters, even if casting issues get in the way a number of times. 

I remember much preferring the first Lori to the second.

@Paul Raven Thanks for that article. I feel for the people behind the scenes who were essentially cleansed for not being born again (isn't this around the time an actress was allegedly let go for being Jewish?). Yet I don't believe the show itself ever delves heavily into hardcore fundamentalism.  I remember reading in Chris Schemering's book of a press release mentioning homosexuality, abortion - the latter is touched on but not heavily, while the former is never brought up (although I wonder about Terry's son Peter). I wonder if the backlash to the miracle healing story made them wary. 

I can see Winsor's influence in the mother character (who feels more than a little contrived to me but then I have not seen much of her) and the good sister/bad sister central element.

The show's choice of converting various bad characters (other than sister from hell Nancy) makes me wonder of the internal issues with the show, although they were fairly realistic about this (some characters struggle with sticking to their new faith).

A few months ago, I was watching this laughably terrible film on Youtube that might be what we would get if a Christian soap was around today (or some might be even worse), as it was about a Jewish family who move to a new neighborhood and befriend a Christian family. The son of the Christian family is very drawn to evangelism and befriends and converts the son in the Jewish family. The father goes berserk and sends him away to their relatives. The Jewish son embraces his gifts as a faith healer and heals various crippled and paralyzed members of the family...and converts many of the Jews in his family and in their old neighborhood. The film then ends with his father finally seeing the light and they all become, essentially, Jews for Jesus...and then on top of that, the Christian son calls out his father for being too concerned with being a mainline Christian rather than being in a denomination that encourages laying of hands. So the Christian family move into embracing faith healing even though they know they will be shunned by their church. 

The whole thing is a howler, and apparently the guy who made it made a number of films with this Charismatic theme (one of them I watched called Bridging the Chasm gave me GL Peapack vibes).

[dc11786]

@Paul Raven Thanks for the article summer. That all sounds about right with what I watched. The syndication package episodes start with 70 which I believe is the first Friday in September so it sounds like there will be probably some changes in November around 110 or so. I seem to recall Jeff's cancer "miracle" was in December, 1981, before they kill off Nora and Scott on New Years' Eve. 

I'm going to try and make it to at least the new year because there is some stuff I've seen before I'd like to see again in context like Nancy's introduction (especially to note who is credited at the time on production and who isn't) as well as the aforementioned New Years' Eve tragedy which I recall being rather bloody and emotionally raw. 

I am curious about whether or not this was a union production. When all of this is going down, it's the Writers' Strike so I am curious if Roy Winsor's title of Story Consultant means he was going fi-core (was that an option in 1981?) or if this somehow was ok. I know "The Catlins" also seems to be a bit vague with the writing credits which makes me wonder if they weren't just trying to underpay people. 

Straub, Aaron, and Winsor's departures seem crazy given who replaces them. In his interview, Vinley makes it very clear that the Barnes' were unsuccessful in part because they were use to nighttime shows where you didn't have to worry as much about budget in terms of sets and things like that. 

@DRW50 The show was in production for a long time. I think in March, 1979, there is an article with Jason Vinley, Gerald Straub, and maybe John Palmer about the show and how its set to premier the first week of January, 1980. I'd really be interested in seeing the original Bible for the show as the pre-production material you talked about is intriguing. 

Lois Robbins' Mandy was dropped because of Robbins' faith. I'm going to try and do the monthly character tallies so I'll be curious to see when Mandy fades from the story. I suspect that Nancy effectively replaces her on the canvas. 

It's interesting about Nora because she does definitely give off the vibe of a domineering woman like the way Winsor envisioned Sarah Dale in his story projection for the late 1960s with Sarah also having a religious bent to her. Nothing seems solid enough for me to dig too deep into her character. 

Characters going from bad to good seems a very P&G philosophy as well.

The film description reminded me of that attempt several years ago to do a Christian soap, "Hilton Head Island." I only made it through about 10 episode but there are like 20 or so more. Linda Gray pops up in the second season (with Donna Mills already present) so I am always tempted to pay for PureFlix for a week and binge the rest. 

[DRW50]

@dc11786 Wow I didn't remember it had been in production for quite that long. You'd think they would have had a stronger early product with that much time. 

I just wish any of the 70 episodes were available somewhere. Even just one or two floating around on a VHS tape. 

I should try Hilton Head Island sometime.

[Soaplovers]

From what I remember, when Miriam Carpenter is kidnapped and held hostage where she discover God is when I think the show turned a corner.  Even after she's rescued, she does struggle with her new found faith and not going back to her old ways.

I did a watch of it years ago when a local station reran the soap, and I recall once the show hits the first year anniversary, it starts to get some mementum.  From what I recall there is a also a murder trail that is well done in the 2nd year of the soap.

I always marvel that the actor that played Lori's husband 'Dr Ben Martin' was the creator of Roseanne and Home Improvement 

Edited July 17, 2024 by Soaplovers

[DRW50]

I remember him being a likeable enough presence but i'm not surprised he found more success outside of acting.

The murder story is probably the show's strongest, IIRC, although they mostly still have a decent run even to the end (although the Bible story near the end didn't seem overly well-received).