Another World Discussion Thread

[Xanthe]

I was looking at the Wikipedia entry for Another World (I wanted to know when exactly the cancellation had been announced, which was apparently April 12, 1999) and I was brought up short by this description:

I cannot think of anything I would describe as exotic melodrama, let alone anything that was more exotic or melodramatic than something I might have seen on Days of Our Lives or As the World Turns.

[Contessa Donatella]

I could've told you that it was April 12th. 

I find I disagree with Wikipedia, and also IMDb, fairly often. And, Patrick Mulcahey told me that his information is so wrong on both of them that he gave up on trying to get them to get it right, after some effort on his part. 

I have corrected both on Beverlee McKinsey & star billing. It was arduous getting it to happen 

I have corrected a few other things. 

I tried to become a regular editor on Wikipedia & their process was so entangled, so bureaucratic & so very time-consuming that I just QUIT. And, I am not a quitter. 

[Contessa Donatella]

I have a question. Does anyone know what would likely have been on Doug Watson's first winning Emmy reel? That was the 7th Annual & in 1980. 

Got an answer! With Janice, being poisoned, almost died, saved by Rachel & Mitch in St. Croix. 

Okay, no, it doesn't look like that was it. 

Please register in order to view this content

I just noticed this a minute ago while looking for something else & it reminded me so much of this: 

Linda Gottlieb was OLTL EP 1991-1994 where she replaced Paul Rauch. She hired Michael Malone & Josh Griffith. About this time at OLTL, ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY wrote, "OLTL was airing some of the most literate drama ever to hit daytime -- too good to be called 'soap opera'. Actually very insulting for such high praise.

I don't actually have a question per se, or at least I do not have one yet. For now it's just an observation. 

OY! Sometimes I just hate it when it combines replies!

 

Edited November 9, 2023 by Donna L. Bridges
more info

[Xanthe]

Wikipedia doesn't allow people to edit their own pages, so it can be frustrating when one knows something about oneself isn't accurate. (I can understand however the principle that Wikepedia doesn't want individuals to control whatever it says about them.)

My comment about the AW page wasn't to complain that it was wrong -- if it had been absolutely clearcut I would have felt bold enough to edit it. I was more bewildered and curious to see how other viewers interpreted it since I assumed it was intended as a good faith interpretation and evidently the wording has been there for a long time. 

[Contessa Donatella]

Well, I am aware of people speaking of ATWT for example as a traditional melodrama concerning the characters & familial relationships based very much on day-to-day events, so perhaps commonplace, domestic, kitchen table over coffee talking, etc. 

Contrast that, then, with AW which was more a drawing room, or parlor melodrama & somehow the people & circumstances being elevated. So maybe that is exotic in some sense? 

[Soaplovers]

When Jenson first debuted in 1991, I found that she had a better handle on playing Marley then in playing Vicky.  Most likely because Jenson had played Sarah on OLTL... and her character on there was more like Marley.

I think it was also because Marley had more stuff going on when she first took over.  She was dealing with the after effects of the rape, the trial, and trying to grow her relationship with Jamie... plus trying to be able to conceive.  There was more to play then what Vicky had going on at the time (which was her growing relationship with Ryan.. that was more on the backburner).

And Marley's emotional issues started coming up again after she was taking a new fertility treatment where she assumed Paulina/Jamie were carrying on.. and then after finding out Paulina was the one to shoot Jake.. she was furious.  All of that got dropped/resolved quickly and once she started dating Dennis in mid to late 1992.. her character lost purpose and focus.

On the other hand, by mid to late 1992, Vicky's next long term story really started... which was her entanglement with Grant... and then she became the character with more going on then Marley.

To me, how I would rank the actresses playing both twins:

Marley:  Ellen 1st, Anne 2nd, and Jenson 3rd (after mid 1992, her Marley had no story).

Vicky: Anne 1st, Ellen 2nd, and Jenson 3rd (her Vicky in 1991 started off unlikable/mean... then became entitled.).

Edited November 9, 2023 by Soaplovers

[Contessa Donatella]

That agrees with mine except that I do not rank JB at all. And, you didn't say how you rank them when looking at BOTH. You just ranked Just Marley & Just Vicky. 

[Xanthe]

I rank Ellen as #1 for both because she was so good at not only differentiating between them but at doing Vicky pretending to be Marley and Marley pretending to be Vicky. 

I rank Anne as #2 for Vicky even though her Vicky didn't really get interesting until Reginald, Peter, and Lisa were out of the picture. I rank her as #3 for Marley because everything I can think of that she did always seems to come back to how it affected Vicky rather than what Marley wanted.

I rank Jensen as #3 for Vicky and #2 for Marley. I enjoyed her Vicky with Ryan and Grant (even though of course she was messing up her life). I didn't care about Vicky and Bobby. Somewhere in there Vicky became too much of a heroine at Marley's expense, and pairing her with a more heroic Jake and ultimately splitting the twins so that Ellen was playing Marley reinforced that. But even though I disapproved of Marley's romance with Dennis, she felt like a more fully-realized character to me than Anne's Marley.

I rank Rhonda Lewin as #4 for Vicky. She never had to portray Marley and she suffered from the same weak writing that made early Anne so much less interesting. 

[Contessa Donatella]

Now, I look at Anne playing Vicky pretending to be Marley on the stand in court as the ultimate in playing both. 

Your ranking of them relies on the writing not the acting. 

I don't rank Rhonda at all because I just consider her a temp. 

[MissPalmer]

Please register in order to view this content

 

[DeliaIrisFan]

 

I don't know about philosophy (even what little I've seen of Lemay's work - and a heated debate about Immanuel Kant was about the only thing that wasn't used as filler in that first 90-minute episode).  From what I've read, you could make the case that more melodramatic things happened to the Matthewses in the first 10-20 years than most other soaps' core families, namely, so many of them were killed off.  And you could argue that the core families were successively replaced by increasingly "exotic" families, as in more ostentatiously wealthy (Matthewses --> Frames (well, Steve) --> Corys --> Loves), and/or by chosen families.

Just some guesses, but, for sure, it's an interesting choice of words.

Edited November 11, 2023 by DeliaIrisFan

[Maxim]

From what I have seen on youtube... this soap is like the best ever and I am sad that there arent full years available to watch. Ive never watched more than couple of episodes at a time but I am very interested in Iris. Its really amazing how the soap looks, sounds and feels. Class and elegance. Is there anywhere I can find more episodes or there are just the ones on youtube? I am asking here since you guys probably know best.

[Mona Kane Croft]

Wow! Marlena De Lecriox has lost my respect as any sort of soap opera expert or historian.  Remember the historical misinformation about Ryan's Hope she tried to spread on her blog a couple of weeks ago?  Well now she has moved on to Another World with her historical falsities.

In her most recent blog, Marlena states the following: Another World "was the first soap to be set in a real place – Bay City, Michigan – and the first to portray authentic working-class life."  Both claims are false.  First, AW's Bay City was never officially said to be in Michigan, although most fans assumed for years that Michigan was its location (until, in the early-1980s, when AW's writers officially placed Bay City in Illinois). And even if Michigan had been AW's canonical locale, AW still would not have been the first soap ever located in a real place.  And second, Another World was not the first soap to portray working-class life. Although the word "authentic" is too subjective to even include in the conversation. Who gets to decide what authentic means on daytime drama?  There were certainly well-written working-class families on some soap operas before Another World.  

Although Marlena's blog posts are often enjoyable and right on target, why does she feel the need to throw-in all these historical inaccuracies (first Ryan's Hope and now Another World)?? She clearly has strong opinions about the genre (most of which I agree with).  But she also needs to check her facts before she posts things that are untrue.

Edited November 16, 2023 by Neil Johnson

[AMCOLTLLover]

Nearly the entire run from late 1980 to mid 1982 was there 

and 1990-1992

[watson71]

Who is the AW actor that Amy Carlson mentioned in her podcast with Linda Dano at @17:20 who didn’t like the scripts and didn’t want to play scenes a certain way in rehearsal ? Linda cuts Amy off and says do not mention the person’s name, and Dano doesn’t mention the person’s name either.

I’m guessing it was either Victoria Wyndham or Charles Keating…