Another World Discussion Thread

[Contessa Donatella]

And, to me it is a little bit hilarious that AW fans all over continue to refer to it as

Egyptian Dust

Recently elsewhere I've been running polls. When did you stop watching AW or What storyline caused you to stop watching AW. You may be interested to know that sticking it out till the bitter end is winning by a landslide. Next highest vote getter is - no surprise - Frankie's murder. So that covers like 60% & next 20%. Then the votes drop way down to 10% and well below but a wide array of reasons are given, including but not limited to 

Justine

Lumina

Rachel having twins at her age, how ridiculous

Mac's death

the 90 minute show

firing JC, George R & Dwyer

Hmm, I know there are a few more, in the 1%-3% range but I cannot think of what they are. Sorry, my bad. Should have made notes but I didn't know I would be posting about it. LOL!!

 

[AbcNbc247]

The Egypt location shoot was cancelled because of the Achille Lauro cruise ship hijacking 

[jmgaw]

I stopped watching Another World in 1990. Simply, lost interest in the show.  I had watched the show from 1973 to 1990.

The 90 minute show started the decline of AW.  NBC panicked with expanding AW due to the GH hoopla.

As mentioned above, 1982 was a trainwreck for AW.  The introduction of the Shea family, the movie storyline involving Jamie, and Steve Frame favoring Rachel over Alice. The writers went into that direction due to the forgettable performance of Linda Borgeson. 

[Contessa Donatella]

Actually that is not what happened. Nor is the timing right for it to have been.

We learned from a WOST interview with Pete Lemay  in 2006, which can be found on YT, that it was Fred Silverman's idea to do the 90 minute show.

I don't know how much you know about him but he had these amazing successes as head of daytime at both ABC & at CBS. Then he came to NBC where basically everything he touched turned NOT TO GOLD but to shite. Some of the most expensive shows ever produced up to that time were huge flops. Although even he, like a broken clock, could be right on occasion. However, as we know, he was not right about the 90 minute show. As a matter of fact, afterward,  NBC programmers, who worked FOR him, were asked why they did it & they were quoted as saying it was because they couldn't think of anything else to try.

It was a stupid idea from a man who had reached the point where he was throwing anything at the wall to see if it would stick.

[Xanthe]

The timing is strange, though. How far in advance would they normally be on location? The Achille Lauro hijacking was on October 7, 1985. Nancy had arrived in Egypt in the storyline by October 18. But the character of Hawk, Chris' Native American friend from Arizona, had already appeared onscreen by September and brought a letter telling Chris to be in Egypt by October 25th. 

Why did they already have the link to Arizona before the reason to cancel the shoot in Egypt? 

The dust and the jar it came in were from Egypt though. Nancy bought it there and sent it to Mac as a gift before she came back to the states and followed Chris to Arizona.

[Contessa Donatella]

Yeah, I mean I know that the name still pertains. I just laugh at it not now being called Arizona Dust, but, I admit it simply does not have the same ring to it.

Above, that is interesting that Arizona had already come up before the crisis. 

[jmgaw]

Yes, I am familiar with Fred Silverman. Agree, the 90 minute AW a very poor decision by Silverman. I think Silverman was behind the decision to go with Texas.

[Contessa Donatella]

I'm not sure who wanted them to dump REUNION & instead do a "Dallas-like daytime show" but it seems that it def came from NBC to AW through Rauch, so, yes, it absolutely could have been his (cough-another-stupid?) decision!!!! I've just begun the new Lisanti book so maybe I will find out. (I waited for the kindle version to come out.)

I would apologize for being so critical & so sarcastic, too, but, well, I'm not actually sorry!  Silverman was NOT a friend to AW.  And, I believe the critique is on point & deserved!

I wanted to explain why I think the timing is off for the 90 minute show to be a reaction to the GH Luke & Laura story & its hype. Because, for sure, networks & production companies did react to it!

The first 90 minute show was Monday, March 5, 1979.  And, there was some unknown amount of time ahead of that with people arguing about it & then, planning it. 

The Luke & Laura wedding was mid-November 1981.  They were on the run from Frank Smith & stayed overnight in Wyndham's Dept. Store early August 1980. 

[Paul Raven]

 

@jmgaw did not refer to Luke and Laura. Throughout 78 GH's ratings continued to rise as AW's fell. That turnaround was getting a lot of attention in the soap press with Scotty/Laura, Rick/Leslie/Monica etc .

So the 90 min decision was a reaction to that. I guess the thinking was that 60 min expansion had worked so starting AW a half hour before might keep viewers from switching to GH at 3pm. I don't think anybody really thought it would work.

The most sensible solution would have been to expand The Doctors and hope for a GH like turnaround, but for reasons unknown TD never went to an hour.

 

 

[watson71]

This is 100% correct.  It was even on the nightly news where the US Government would not let the cast and crew travel to Egypt because it was deemed not safe.  The Achille Lauro hijacking took place on October 7, 1985, when the Italian ocean liner MS Achille Lauro was hijacked by four men representing the Palestine Liberation Front off the coast of Egypt, as she was sailing from Alexandria to Ashdod, Israel.

The location shoot was probably scheduled to be filmed in mid-October to air throughout November with a two week tape to air date.  Remember on the show they did some in studio scenes doubling for Egypt before shifting the action to Arizona.  It was an awkward end to a truly bizarre storyline.

[watson71]

NBC or P&G was even fool enough to take a full page ad for two consecutive weeks in TV Guide promoting this horrible storyline.

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Edited 3 hours ago by watson71

[Tisy-Lish]

Perhaps. But would anyone have wanted The Doctors to turn into what General Hospital ultimately became?  Dear God in Heaven...

[Paul Raven]

Through 78 and 79 under Marland and Pat Falken smith GH was still heavily hospital based with a mix of storylines.

The Doctors would have been fine had they followed that template.

Once GH went with Ice Princess all bets were off.Who knows how much TD would have copied that direction?

And OLTL, DOOL went in that direction quite heavily while other shows dabbled in far out stories.

The thing is that TD was well set up for an expansion.