Another World Discussion Thread

[teplin]

 

I agree. I was very young, but I don't remember being upset at all that Mary Matthews was killed off -- certainly not like I would have been if DAYS had offed Alice Horton at that time. I think Courtney's Alice was the linchpin of the Matthews family. Her natural warmth and charisma somehow made the dull-as-dishwater male Matthews', Jim and Russ, a bit more interesting. With her gone, they just receded into the woodwork. (Bailey was okay opposite Laurie Heineman, because her nervous energy helped animate him, but his teaming with lackluster Janice Lynde was a bust.) It didn't help that the Matthews' that came in the wake of Courtney's firing, like Susan and husband Dan, were also boring.

 

I loved Beverly Penberthy's Pat, but she had a different kid of dynamic with her family members than Alice. 

 

I still maintain that what Lemay did with Rachel, Mac and Iris was the best soap material I've ever seen, but getting rid of Courtney was a huge, huge mistake.

[Chris B]

I’m still searching through YouTube for Another World clips and episodes. I see there’s lots of stuff from the 80s so I plan to start with that once I get past all the 1979 episodes I seem to be finding. Something interesting I found is a series of video complications for the 5 different Alice’s. Considering recasting her was a big part of Lemay’s book, this was a great find for me. Each video is separated by actress and besides the Courtney one which is two parts, they’re each around 15 minutes. I’ll give me thoughts on each actress. 

 

Jacqueline Courtney - the clips for her were a mix of 70s scenes plus some from her return in the mid 80s. I’d also seen her in the episode with Robin Strasser as Rachel on YouTube. I found her to be good in the older scenes. Strikingly beautiful and very charismatic. I can see why she was so popular. She seemed like the perfect romantic lead. In the 80s scenes I do feel she was a little flat and she felt more cold. Overall she felt perfectly cast though  

 

Susan Harney - she was excellent IMO. I didn’t feel much chemistry with her leading man but she was a very strong actress from the scenes I saw. I can definitely see why she lasted as long as she did. If she didn’t choose to leave I could see her Alice remaining as long as she wanted. Also physically she looked the part. For such a popular role it’s interesting they seemed to get it right off the back. Usually it takes a couple recasts to find that perfect fit. 

 

Wesley Pfenning - her video is the shortest being under two minutes. It’s a clip from One Day At A Time so it’s hard to say how she fit as Alice. She seemed like she can act but being a brunette I can’t see why they’d cast her. 

 

Vans Tribbey - I felt she was all wrong for Alice but a good actress. She felt more like a Faith from Ryan’s Hope. I did like the scene with Rachel and considering roles change with recasts I’d have kept her a little longer to see how she worked out. 

 

Linda Borgeson - she was beautiful and looked the part but felt weak as an actress. I’m not surprised they rested the character after her. 

 

After seeing off of this though it is shocking to me that Alice last appeared in 89 and the show continued so long. It seems sad that AW had so many living, popular legacy characters they never brought back. It’s insane to think none of the HWs thought to bring people like Alice or Pat back. I still haven’t seen Pat but I know she was another popular character that left before her time. 

[vetsoapfan]

 

The weird thing about Rauch was that he was not ALWAYS an [!@#$%^&*] to Courtney. He sent her a dozen red roses on her 27th birthday, and then, after he had fired her from AW, he gifted her with the wardrobe she had worn as Alice. Decades later, when she passed away, Rauch praised her in the press (!!), calling her a "great gal" who could always be depended upon to give stellar performances. If these sentiments were even remotely true, I wonder if lemay and his petulance werew the real driving forces behind Courtney's firing in 1975.

 

I also found Harney too cold to play Alice, but as well, her version of the character just seemed...not very bright. A combination of the writing and lackluster performances, I guess.

[vetsoapfan]

 

It's baffling how the show mishandled JC's return in 1984. Although she was still a gorgeous woman and very popular actress, the writers did almost nothing with her for the entire year she was back, and then wrote her out again, with nary a whimper. Writer Gary Tomlin later took the blame, admitting that he had not really studied the history of Alice and Rachel, and failed to use Courtney properly. But this one scene from March 25, 1985 proved that someone, either Tomlin or that day's scriptwriter, had done some much-needed research into history. This was the single best scene Courtney was given during her year-long return. The dialogue was good, the characters were in character; everything worked. After months of Courtney having dreadfully short, cropped-off hair (which did not suit her at all), Alice was looking chic again. To fire the actress at that point, when there was so much viable, intriguing story potential for a Rachel/.Mac/Alice triangle...was sheer incompetence and stupidity.

[vetsoapfan]

 

I was devastated when Mary Matthews died. When the scenes aired, I was completely in the dark about all the backstage drama between Dwyer and Lemay, so Mary's passing was a TOTAL shock. It was only later that the daytime press starting publishing stories and interviews about had had gone on behind the scenes.

 

Hugh Marlowe and David Bailey were not terribly interesting actors, but Jim and Russ had been infinitely more charismatic when Shepperd Strudwick and Sam Groom played the roles. Starting in the mid-1970s, when Marlowe began having trouble with his dialogue, the show started limiting his lines (or so it seemed to me), which did not help matters. The Matthews family definitely needed its appealing leading ladies to provide spark at that point.

 

Janice Lynde had been extraordinary as Leslie Brooks on Y&R, but on AW, she was saddled with a bland, nondescript character and a colorless leading man. Their pairing was a bust from the get-go. Brian Murray and Lynn Milgrim were woefully miscast as Dan and Susan Shearer. They were both highly theatrical in their performances, as if they were projecting for the stage instead of the small screen. Neither one of them came across as particularly warm or likeable. They felt stiff and unnatural. Even though their characters were technically part of the Matthews family, I wanted the actors to be written off.

 

While I appreciated the Rachel/Rac/Iris story, characters and dynamic, I'd still vote for the Alice/Steven/Rachel saga (as written by Agnes Nixon and Lemay from 1971-74) to be daytime TV's creme de la creme.

[watson71]

 

I agree with you 100% about the show's misuse of Courtney in 1984-85.  The ironic thing about the March 25, 1985, episode is that we may never know who was responsible for writing that great Rachel/Alice scene.  The WGA was on strike from March 5th to March 19th of that year over writer royalties that would be received from videocassette recordings.  Whoever was responsible for the scene should have been made headwriter of AW because both actresses were great and the history was accurate and succinct.  When the writers returned from the strike, Tomlin was no longer the headwriter and was replaced by Sam Hall and Gillian Spencer who were terrible.  They had Larry involved in the Miami Vice storyline about a disco, the whole Le Soleil storyline with a lot of new characters no one cared about, Carl's quest to find that Egyptian treasure, the deadly dust in the urn that was passed from character to character in Bay City, and the very miscast Taylor Miller replacing Mary Page Keller as Sally.  The only storyline that Hall and Spencer did well was the introduction of Victoria as Marley's twin.

[BetterForgotten]

Courtney's butch haircut and wardrobe didn't help that 84-85 stint at all as well...

[Khan]

Alice treating Rachel for her amnesia crosses so many lines of ethics, lol.

 

I still think a Jamie/Alice romance would have been dynamite, given the history between her and his parents.

[vetsoapfan]

 

I have complained about both for DECADES. It was like the hair and wardrobe people hated Courtney and wanted to humiliate her.

 

So many headwriters for AW in its later years were dreadful and should never have been hired.

[Efulton]

I am with you Khan.  I have always thought a Jamie / Alice romance would have blown up Bay City.  It would have given Victoria Wyndham and Jacqueline Courtney years of story. 

Edited January 5, 2019 by Efulton

[Soaplovers]

I actually liked her wardrobe in the 84/85 return.. and I think it was done to age the character because Sally had been aged.. if that makes sense.  Plus, didn't JC have that short haircut when she was on OLTL?

 

Her wardrobe and hair were much better in her 1989 visits..imho.  It is a shame that she retired, because I would have loved to have seen audiences reactions when she had the short dark hair that we saw during that Soaps 50th anniversary special that aired in the mid 90s.

[watson71]

36 years ago- January 6, 1983- Linda Dano made her debut as Felicia Gallant on Another World.  Pretty much loved every storyline she was involved in except when she was the "other woman" and started seeing John Hudson while he was married to Sharlene.

 

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[Chris B]

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I just watched this episode which I believe is the first 90 minute episode. It’s nice to see one of the stories Lemay spoke about in his book. Crazy to think this is something he didn’t want to do in terms of the 90 minute format and senseless murder plots, but I still found it very engaging. It also was very fast paced for the length although I can see how that would be difficult to carry on.

 

I’ve found a few playlists separated by the year for AW so I’m going to keep watching all I can find. It seems like more so than the other soaps there are so many different eras and so many different characters and families. Prior to watching when I think of Another World I think Felicia, Donna, Vicky and Marley who Id heard of just being a soap fan and none of them are even heard of yet. It’s crazy to think they had so many popular characters who left and never returned. Finally getting to see Pat it amazes me she was written off. Not only was she a long term vet, but the actress is very beautiful plus she’s part of a core family and has kids that could’ve easily been developed long term. Does anybody know why they wrote her off?

 

[watson71]

The March 6, 1979, episode is the second 90 minute episode that aired on Tuesday of that week.  

 

The changes that NBC Chief Fred Silverman would make from 1979-1982 to the daytime lineup would impact the lineup for years to come.  In 1979, the expansion of AW to 90 minutes moves AW out of the 3-4 PM time slot for the first time since the showed debuted in 1964.  This moves The Doctors out of its 2:30 time slot to 2 PM and pushed Days of our Lives to 1-2 PM.  In 1980, AW would introduce characters from its upcoming spinoff Texas on AW confusing viewers with many new characters.  After 18 months, AW is now moved out of the 3-4 PM time slot altogether and moved to 2-3 PM.  The Doctors is now moved to 12:30 PM and Texas starring Beverlee McKinsey debuts at 3-4 PM against GH and GL. In another 18 months, in March 1982, Seach for Tomorrow would take The Doctors 12:30 PM time slot moving tThe Doctors to 12:00 PM.  Then in April, Texas would be moved to 11 AM for 8 months before being cancelled , along with The Doctors, on the same day.

 

In hindsight, it probably would have been better to leave AW at 3:00 PM and placed Texas at 2:00 PM in between Days of our Lives and AW.  With the move to 2 PM and the loss of Beverlee McKinsey, AW never recovered in the ratings.  From 1980-1999, the show would never rise above 7th/8th place in the ratings.  Texas was cancelled after a quick two year run, and The Doctors ended its almost 20 year run because of constant changes to the show.

[katie_9918]

 

There’s a 1979 (April 11, 1979 to be exact) episode on YouTube, probably uploaded after the Five Faces set, that features Wesley Pfening as Alice, taking place after Sally had run away from boarding school. Also features Michael and Marianne, Rachel, Brian, Ada, Liz, Mac, Rose Perrini, and a few others.

 

I really wish there was more available from that era. Brian seemed like he evolved into a hell of a good catch from his introduction through 1980. I really don’t understand how he didn’t seem to have a good pairing after Iris.

 

I have to shake my head at Mac and Rachel in this period. From what I’ve seen, they spent a lot of time acting like two teenagers obsessed with having their own way with each other, despite all the trouble it had already caused between them.