The Catlins

[dc11786]

Please register in order to view this content

Friday, May 18, 1984

We've seen part of this episode before (the gambling scenes). It's nice to see it in it's full content. This must be very early in Alice Mitchell's run. 

Another mention of the unseen Valerie Krystopolis. 

The decision to focus on only two stories was an interesting choice. Not necessarily one I would have made, but I think the writers were trying to mirror Beau's minor windfall with the decline of the Catlin fortune. 

This is a very P&G group of actors both past and present at the time of this episode. Michael Forest had only been playing T.J. for less than three months when this was filmed. Forest just fits very comfortably into the role. Then tension between Jonathan and Dirk is interesting and had the potential to be capitalized upon. I believe the Catlins boat was seized because of the drug shipments Dirk Stack had been running through the Catlin freighters while he was in cahoots with Cullen Quinn. Jonathan's drug commission may have been the ones to take down the Catlin ships. Then again, I may be adding subtext that really wasn't suppose to be there. 

The gambling stuff is a kick off to a summer storyline involving horse racing. In the July 1984 episode, Jacqui can be seen sitting at the track drinking a coke while Maggie Catlin walks by. There ends up being a bit of a triangle with Jacqui, Beau, and Woody as Woody had lost out on a chance with Maggie when she choose Dirk. By the fall, Woody and Jacqui are living together. In December, it comes out that Jacqui and Dr. Peter Crane, Vanessa's ex-husband and Jennifer Catlin's love interest, knew each other in Europe where Peter had treated Jacqui for a brain tumor that may or may not be operable. Shortly thereafter, Jacqui becomes pregnant and she and Woody make plans to marry with the tumor forgotten (it may have been resolved, I've seen only a handful of episodes) but now threatened by the potential of Maggie Catlin returning one day to Atlanta from Washington, D.C. Whether Maggie actually came back, it is unknown. Like Valerie, Maggie is mentioned a lot in the episodes I've seen but rarely seen.  

[victoria foxton]

Cool seeing Alice Barrett and Peter Boynton. Who both would go on to work on AW and ATWT.  Clips of the card game had been up.

Edited May 24, 2022 by victoria foxton

[dc11786]

Please register in order to view this content

The last of the episodes Tony Wright has. 

The ship storyline is definitely not my favorite. While I think the stuff with Jack Mahoney and Stacy Manning is pretty standard fare, I enjoyed it. I also didn't realize that Vanessa had lost her arm in a car accident prior to her arrival. 

For @slick jones, Stacy Manning said her mother's name was Ellen McKaufsky (spelling?). Stacy changed her name when she became a television reporter. 

[slick jones]

2 FBI Agents

Please register in order to view this content

 

and TJ's buddy Paul

 

No idea who the actors are.

 

@dc11786 the caption had Makovsky, so I'll use that .    Thanks for the heads up. Story isn't great, but a nice watch!

[DRW50]

Please register in order to view this content

 

[rm86732]

Does anyone know if episodes of this soap still exist? My mother played Eleanor Catlin (who was killed in a car accident). I was very young at the time and never saw it, I'd love to find some of the episodes from that first year.

[te.]

I don't know why this promo made me laugh, but didn't just everyone talk about The Catlins? The actors seem like real people!

 

Please register in order to view this content

 

[j swift]

That's hysterical.  From the Videotape Update to some random kids in a mall, it was damned by faint praise.  I mean, “the actors seem like real people” is hardly an endorsement.

[dc11786]

I'm assuming your mother is Marilyn Martin. She was quite good from what I've seen (which is limited), but others have complimented her work. I've seen her praised as being one of the stronger local actors who was working in those early months. Her character seemed to go through a bit of a shift from more manipulative (her character was married into the Catlins, but she was the daughter of their enemy Medger Quinn). When I saw her character (July, 1983), her character had already been softened a bit as she was pregnant.  

I've only seen one episode with Marilyn Martin's Eleanor Quinn Catlin. It was on YouTube years ago from early July, 1983. In it, Eleanor and Jonathan (Jerry Homan) were putting together the nursery. I haven't seen it in years, but your mother was pretty strong in the role. It's a shame her character was killed off, I believe as part of a drug smuggling storyline involving her character's brother Cullen and her politiically ambitious husband Jonathan. I have seen an episode from March, 1984, and Eleanor was already dead. 

I do have a publicity shot of your mother. I'll upload it in a bit. 

 

[te.]

I think it's missing "as in - they picked them off the street!".

[dc11786]

The advertising may not be hitting it on the head the way it should, or maybe we are too far removed from the period, but I think the emphasis is suppose to be on the mood of soaps in the 1980s. This was a cable soap opera, but it wasn't embracing the "Ice Princess" style capers (yet) that most of the shows of the era were. The show's initial murder mystery does descend into utter chaos as the deranged psychiatrist kidnaps the young ingenue Jennifer Catlin after he had been trying to place subliminal memories inside her mind (I believe this was when creator C.T. McIntyre acted as interim headwriter between Sam Smiley and Steve Lehrman). The overall tone though was on family conflict (the rivalry between the Catlins and the feuds fueled by the marriage of Eleanor Quinn and Jonathan Catlin) and romantic conflict (the quad between the brothers Dr. Matt and race car driver Beau and the reporter, Lauren Woodward, who was investigating their sister's murder charge case). 

It's later under Steve Lehrman (formerly a script writer of "Edge of Night") when more of the action and adventure elements start to be introduced and continue until the show's conclusion.  

[dc11786]

I think I finally found out a little more information about one of the show's headwriters, Hilary Sares. Sares was involved in publishing; she was an editor. This interview is many years old, but it seems to clear up that Sares wasn't a pseudonym. 

 

Please register in order to view this content

For the full interview: http://rosescoloredglasses.com/NewsFeb07.htm#Hilary

Robin Grunder was most likely also an editor. I found some articles referring to her as being involved with one of Signet's romance lines. Again, this is mostly conjecture whereas Hilary Sares seems more definite.

[DRW50]

Thanks for finding that @dc11786 !

Sorry if this was already mentioned, but was there any reason why the show didn't seem to get much if any coverage in SOD? (even Rituals got recaps, and IIRC some interviews) Is it the same reason Another Life got little coverage in SOD or Daytime TV - they weren't seen as fitting the proper criteria?

Edited July 7, 2024 by DRW50

[dc11786]

I imagine the show didn't have a publicist,  and if they did, they were also probably doing three or four other roles on production. 

I've posted in this thread a couple of summaries from Seli Groves' soap column. Usually, even if some local papers chop up their soap column, someone will carry a complete list. I never see "The Catlins" consistently, which leads me to suspect that no one was sending them the material consistently. If that's the case, the press just planned around it. 

For SOD, I think part of the issue would have been also the lack of publicity shots that they usually used in their summaries. I don't think "The Catlins" did those other than when the show was launched. 

On a side note, @slick jones I found an article on Rod Davis that stated he appeared in four episodes in December, 1984, as the ghost of Gus Catlin. I think we have the name, but I don't think we had the date or that he was a ghost. 

[DRW50]

Thanks @dc11786 . Given Ted Turner's big profile in the '80s and love of media I'm surprised more of an effort wasn't made to get the show publicity. At times I'm surprised the show lasted as long as it did.