AW: What In The Hell Happened BTS?

[JackPeyton]

I Noticed that between 1985 really up until the end of the show there seemed to be a constant turnover behind the scenes. Over 15 changes in less than 15 years! It does seem that the final two years seemed ti stabilize somewhat, but what was going on? Why so many changes?

Was the shows identity constantly changing? Was anything ever consistent? Did all these behind the scenes changes effect things on screen dramaticly? Was this P&G, NBC, or what? And do you think this is the major cause of the show getting the ax?

Who wrote from April-Sept of 1988? And why was HARDING LEMAY only HW for 3 months?!

Here is the chart from wiki-

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Another_World...utive_Producers

[JackPeyton]

-- sorry, double post.

[dc11786]

April through September 1988 was written by scab writers. This was during the 1988 Writer's Strike. Harding Lemay had been fired as headwriter right before the strike.

Margaret DePriest wrote through February 1988. I believe one of her last stories was the climax of the Love family saga.

If Lemay wrote for eight weeks, I would be shocked. Someone can probably explain it better, but during the Writer's Strike, Donna Swajeski was penning the show, supposedly off Lemay's story projections. The network executives LOVED her work and kept her on, firing Lemay. Considering Lemay's attitude, they probably were looking for more of a yes man so they went with Swajeski. When I saw Swajeski's work on SoapNet, I thought it was rather run of the mill. It wasn't bad, but to praise the work was unneccessary.

[Aaron]

Donna's work was consistent, if not spectacular, which (as you pointed out) was something AW desperately needed at the time. I remember really enjoying the show during her run. Watching it again on Soapnet shows that it didn't age as well as some other soaps of the era, but at the time, I thought it was rather well done.

[MichaelGL]

I always wondered what people thought of DePriest's first tenure on the show. It seemed to be the longest out of all those who had written for the show during that decade. DePriest was one of those who were responsible for the "Supercouples & Romance" era we had during the 80s on soaps, and I thought there would have been raves about her tenure on the show. She wasn't someone like Leah Laiman who copied the formula.

[bellcurve]

Yeah, some people, including myself, praised Swajeski's work. But you also have to keep in mind the SOAPnet run was my first time seeing her work and if you really, truly compared her AW to everything that was airing on SOAPnet at the time, I mean what wouldn't look better?

BTW, it's so great to see you still posting here, even after the collapse of MyNetworkTV.

[Y&RWorldTurner]

I totally agree about Swajeski's work on AW. It was nothing spectacular, it was maybe consistent, but it wasn't something that made me excited to tune in day after day. Other soaps were definitely in better shape during that era. This show must have been terribly mismanaged if Swajeski's HW tenure was the longest after Lemay's, and considered the second best HW tenure of the show.

[juniorz1]

I respectfully disagree. Swajeski's tenure was probably the best in all my years of watching, backing up to 1982. It wasn't perfect, but she penned some magnificent tales. Vicky's Who's The Daddy? storyline with Jamie & Jake, Jake's Shooting, the Frankie/Cass/Kathleen triangle, the introduction of Paulina, the Cory Publishing takeover, the introduction of Lorna, Cecile's return- all of this was good stuff. Plus she produced my favorite special, stand-alone soap episode of all time- Cass and the Case of the Stolen Heart, set in the 40s centering on Cass and his three lady loves- Cecile, Kathleen, and Frankie. I found her AW to be far more compelling than DAYS at the time, though it never touched SB.

I thought the stories aged fine. Maybe the wardrobe and the filming style looked dated, but I thought for the mostpart, her stories were timeless, classic soap.

That's very true. But there was a night & day difference on SoapNet between the 1987 stories and the ones that aired in 88 under Swajeski. It was a vast improvement and while Harding Lemay was one of the greats of all-time, I didn't care much for his work when he returned.

[dc11786]

Funny, I did enjoy Vicky's pregnancy initially. I remember a confrontation between Rachel and Donna which was delicious and I really loved Lisa Grady, and hoped she and Adam Cory would make it as a couple. I love how the initial story played on both Jamie and Vicky's own messy conceptions. People complain about Philece Sampler being whiny, but I thought she was magnificent when Harding Lemay gave Donna back her backbone. She may not have been Anna Stuart, but the woman could play fierce when asked to.

Wasn't Jake's involvement in the pregnancy offscreen? Like he returned to town during the pregnancy or after the baby was born and claimed he could be the father of the child? I remember thinking it was a sort of rewrite.

Similarly, wasn't Paulina initially hired to pretend to be Mac's daughter only to turn out to really be his daughter? It seemed a bit hokey to me, but I also only saw bits and pieces of the story so maybe I'm being unfair.

To each there own.

I miss the novelas terribly. I cannot believe no one in the soap industry, or the online internet community, took them seriously. Executives who actually cared about improving their product. God, as much as much Rick Andreoli complained about them butchering "American Heiress", I loved it and don't think it would have worked had it not been edited by the "Watch Over Me" editors. "Saints & Sinners" was so stunning, visually, and the storyline and scripts were decent, despite the product placement. Some of the casting was weak, but I still loved it.

[Paul Raven]

AW's problems go way back before 85.The ratings dropped dramatically in 78 and Harding Lemay left.The 90 min format,the Texas spin-off and NBC tanking in the ratings all played a part.

The show never seemed to get a fair shake.ATWT and GL got The Dobsons and Doug Marland as writers.Pam Long revitalised GL,but AW never got the 'name'writers.GL and ATWT pretty much stayed in the top half of the ratings but AW was always mired at #9

Each set of writers added/dropped characters so the show never had a cohesive canvas.I think NBC played a part as there was always talk of them wanting AW to emulate the Days style.

I think the best shot they had was Lemay's return.He was the first writer that referenced the past and tried to tie the history of the show to the present.

But he was out the door and Swajeski immediately began modifying his ideas.

[JackPeyton]

Well i cant really judge because all i have seen is soapnet/hulu stuff, and i believe all of that is Swajeski. However, i love it. All of it. Currently the only think i am not loving is Dean Frame, and thats because RPG is annoying. lol. But even on soapnet, i cant think of anything i didnt really like or love. Maybe the first storyline. I forget whos wedding it was but she was a hooker, i didnt like any of that. But i dont know what time frame that was either.

The only other HW's stuff i have really seen was JP/LL in the end, and i loved the final year of Another World.

Oh, and idk what era AOL Video was showing but i found it rather boring to be honest.

[bellcurve]

I know this is off-topic, but you make me smile reading this. I miss the novellas as well and I miss our days of posting our opinions of them in the threads. I miss your insight into this industry. The shows were so riveting and I have to agree with you that it's unbelievable that the soap industry(fans, journalists, and other shows) never embraced this. The casting was weak in some spots for all the shows, but I felt like they got better in their second cycle(even cycle one's Desire, the novella I hated the most, ended up paying their viewers off with a satisfying ending and that fabulous Friday after Thanksgiving showdown).

To be honest, I never gave American Heiress or Saints and Sinners a fair shake because I knew I was gonna get screwed over in the end by Greg Meidel's cost-cutting moves to make MyNetworkTV more like Spike. Now that poor channel is going to be showing reruns, like ION and Retro Television Network. How pathetic.

I wish some executive at FOX would create sets of all these novellas for limited DVD release. I'd love to watch my favorite moments from these shows again and I think with worldwide sales, they could recoup some kind of loss the company suffered.

Again, thanks for this reply. Please post more often.

[teplin]

"Oh, and idk what era AOL Video was showing but i found it rather boring to be honest."

I think that was 1980. AW was horrendously awful back then, IMO. I don't know the exact timelines, but a non-soap writer, Corinne Jacker, came in and introduced a whole slew of unappealing characters. Rachel began a completely unbelievable, altogether boring relationship with Mitch, with whom Victoria Wyndham had no chemistry (to be fair, it's hard to have chemistry with a slab of beef). Things started to pick up with introduction of the Cass & Kathleen and Sally & Catlin stories, and then Swajeski took over and did a pretty fair job, I thought. Not anywhere near the LeMay era, but nothing I've ever seen is.

[MarkH]

Wasn't all that Cass/Kathleen and Sally/Catlin stuff penned by HW Richard Culliton? That's what I'm remembering.

ETA: Yup, the era I loved was written as follows:

March-June 1984 (Richard Culliton)

July 1984 - January 1985 (Culliton & Gary Tomlin)

January-July 1985 (Tomlin)

I am surprised how much turnover there was then. But during this period the show was funny, intergenerational, action filled. I'm shocked that the writers kept changing, even then.

The era I loved started with the almost-wedding of Cecile dePouglinac and Peter Love, and ended with the arrivals of Sharon Gabet and Taylor Miller. But in that brief window, it was the most exciting, interesting show I'd ever seen.

[Paul Raven]

The hiring of Corinne Jacker was a major misstep.She was a playwright and perhaps the idea was to bring a fresh perspective to the show-similarly to what Harding Lemay had done a decade earlier.

In practice,it was a disaster.She did focus heavily on the black characters-Quinn,Bob,Henrietta etc,but they were all new to the show.

The return of Steve Frame was a bust.Linda Borgeson as Alice was lifeless.

Characters came and went at an alarming rate.

The show never recovered after Lemay's departureratings wise or creatively.