Another World Discussion Thread

[DRW50]

There was so much elitism and patronizing attitude from soap execs who were soon eaten by the same leopards they had assumed existed for their benefit. This is when they were banking on Passions due to the idea of young demos saving them - I can't even remember how long Lee was still working at NBC Daytime through that show's lifespan. 

I never believed that younger viewers avoided soaps because they didn't want to see older people, and I never will. 

(AW also had younger characters heavy in story for much of its run)

[BetterForgotten]

I think Lee was fired less than 2 years later, but lasted just over a decade. She left us with many “gems” in terms of interviews over the years. Like this one with Jon Reiner at TV Guide:

Q&A with Susan Lee (Senior Vice President, Daytime Programs, NBC Entertainment)

 

[Contessa Donatella]

Michael Kape, former editor of SOAP OPERA NOW, famously says that Susan D. Lee was worse than Frons! And he says that when he first interviewed Frons, as early as '83, that he already hated soaps & wanted to do away with them. It's such a travesty that these people were what passed for leadership in the business at that time!!

Susan D. Lee was fired in 2001. I believe her list of failures included 35 year old AW, 2 yr old Generations, 8 or 9 yr old Santa Barbara & 3 yr old Sunset Beach. We know PSSN was a failure, too, although that had not happened yet. To be fair, DAYS was a success during her tenure.

A member of the Committe to Save Another World, Tina F. Gray tells the story of being outside the studio one of the last days, with other fans, and they were crying, and Susan Lee came over to them & rather than say anything comforting, she got all over them saying they should be at home, watching the show & adding to its ratings. 

As if the ratings mattered at that time. I mean, really, what was she thinking?

Edited February 7, 2024 by Donna L. Bridges
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[Mona Kane Croft]

This is wonderful, but I fear nobody is going to remember who Janis Young is.  Does anyone here even remember the character she played, Bernice Robinson?   I do.  Bernice was a wonderful selfish bitchy character who was murdered on John and Pat Randolph's patio.  Her body was found by Mary Matthews. I'd love to see that episode again!   

Will the audience give any attention to these older actors from 50-plus years ago?   I hope it is a good experience for them.   I can imagine the audience clapping and cheering for folks like Linda Dano and Alicia Coppola, and then dead silence for the older performers they don't recognize.  

[Contessa Donatella]

Hopefully good manners will weigh in & they'll clap for everyone!!! 

[Xanthe]

Loved Cali as Paulina. (BTW it's spelled Timmins -- the city of Timmins, Ontario was named after her grandfather.)

[Contessa Donatella]

Whoa, I will forward that to this woman. She doesn't like having errors in her copy. Thanks for that. 

@Xanthe She has it right so she got hit by autocorrect! 

Edited February 7, 2024 by Donna L. Bridges

[Melroser]

I loved that storyline because it added such mystery! I was 14 in '87 and couldn't wait to watch every day too. The fact that they purposely led the audience to believe the stalker was someone different at different time helped. Chris Chapin. Chad Rollo. I distinctly remember them making it look like Peter was the stalker then suddenly went a different direction. Poor Philece Sampler (whom I loved) got attacked how many times? 

I do wish though that they hadn't killed off Quinn. I felt it left a big hole after. 

[Xanthe]

I think you're mixing up Nancy's boyfriends -- Chris Chapin was gone by the time the Sin Stalker started murdering prostitutes. Nancy had started dating Greg Houston (played by Christopher Cousins, dark haired) in June 1986 right around the time Chris left, and then in December she met Tony Carlisle (played by John H Brennan, blond haired). The murders had started by November but I don't know exactly when they jumped from "MJ is surprisingly invested in the murders of prostitutes, it's like she thinks they're human or something" to "there's a serial killer in town and even nice girls like Cheryl had better be careful".

I know Greg was killed by the Sin Stalker. I think both Greg and Tony were probably suspects. Definitely not Chris Chapin.

 

[Contessa Donatella]

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THIS. In spades. Petronia Paley was a jewel. 

[Melroser]

You're right! Tony! (Nancy was clearly not a fave of mine. LOL!) 

[AbcNbc247]

Yep.

Chris disappeared at the start of the big purge, earlier in 1986.

[Xanthe]

Along with Sally, Liz, Neal, Carter & Thomasina, followed by Zane, Larry, Clarice, and Dee a couple of months later. 

Edited February 7, 2024 by Xanthe
Zane was in the second block

[watson71]

There were a few specific scenes that gave away Dr. Alan Glaser was the Sin Stalker. There were a few times in his psychiatric sessions with Donna that he would be rubbing his neck as she spoke to him.  
 

Remember the early May, 1987, episodes around AWs 23rd anniversary, where all of Bay City was at the Cory mansion celebrating Mac’s birthday in a thunderstorm. TPTB even got Ada in on the action trying to rescue Nancy as the Sin Stalker tried to kill her in an upstairs bedroom.

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[chrisml]

Killing off Quinn was a huge mistake. AW producers and writers loved killing off the wrong characters. If AW could make a good decision or a bad decision, they would usually make the bad one. When a major history of all the soaps is written, it'll be the tale of exec, writers, and producers who hated soaps or hated women. They used focus groups to rationalize their choices, but they can get focus groups to say and do anything. Many of us watched with our parents and grandparents, and we wanted to see the older characters. They used to publish Q ratings until it showed that younger viewers favored the older characters. I remember an article that showed that teenage girls loved Jeanne Cooper's Kay on Y&R and Linda Dano's Felicia. Execs never understood how connected audiences to characters; they were too busy trying to please people who were never going to watch the shows. 

I was a teen when Passions started, and I had no loyalty to it at all. My grandmother liked the show, but it didn't appeal to me in the slightest. I didn't know any friends who watched Passions. I can't remember a teen storyline on AW that I cared for.