On 5/29/2019 at 9:58 PM, Paul Raven said:

Yes I forgot about Somerset.

Maybe it was doing better at 4pm than RTPP at 3.30?

Also the P&G connection may have been a factor as NBC stood to lose alot of ad dollars if they cancelled a P&G show.

 

RTPP was then higher-rated (and significantly better written) than Somerset, but maybe the network felt Somerset's feeble ratings were "good enough for 4:00 PM."

 

And of course, during the 1970s, P&G was a powerhouse and a force to be reckoned with, so any input they had would have been considered.

 

11 hours ago, Khan said:

They never realize that soaps aren't like primetime shows.  You can't just throw flashy stunts and OMG, jaw-dropping plot twists at the uninitiated and expect them to hook on for (dear) life.  The only way you grow and keep a soap's audience is through one generation passing it down to another like a family heirloom.

 

But that takes insight, an understanding of the soap opera genre and its audience, patience, a lot of work, and intelligence. Not many PTB can boast having any, let alone ALL, of those qualities.

So I spent the last month reading all the posts.  A few every day.  I started watching in about 1983-85.  I can remember that I was at college watching and the scene where "Marley" aka Vicky comes in and kisses Jake was a shock to the few of us in front of the TV.  I was a huge fan of Anna Stuart and loved snotty Donna Love.  By far the reason I watched.  When she left and then returned in that hall of mirrors, that was a very pleasant surprise for me.  

 

I know the mid 80's were considered "crap" by many, but I enjoyed it.  It was fastpased.  Building the Love family as some elitist  patrician family was fun.  Especially in the early days with the money gone how they struggled to mantain the facade.

 

I lost interest in subsequent years, you know life and all that stuff.  I would check in once in a while.  Less Donna meant less me.  But when the end was announced, I came back.  What a mess.  It was evident.  A gorilla.  Really.  What crap.

 

Everything in life has a timeline, so did Bay City and in a broader stroke Soap Operas.  I at one point thought I would love to be a writer on a soap.  I even wrote my own by hand for a few years.  Looking back it was crap.  But I enjoyed it.

 

I loved the conjecture, the insight and the memories of this board.  I am not usually a poster, and it has been a long time so probably not alot of notice, but I felt compelled to write.  RIP Another World.  It was like any relationship, we had our good times, our sad times, we were sometimes disappointed and sometimes we were delightfully surprised.

 

This is my favorite scene(s).  Donna, Vicky and Queen Cecile.  

 

 

 

As a European man who grew up in Italy, I never had the chance to watch AW - although it aired in the country for a few years but it was never big.

 

However around 2008, P&G released a few years worth of episodes on its streaming service. I started watching and I was hooked.

 

The way the show was written and staged, it was like the best NYC theatre you could ask for. I still watch random episodes every now and then and I'm mesmerised. The actors had it all. Sometimes I wonder how many takes they would require to nail a scene because every scene seemed perfectly flawless from every point of view. Staging, blocking, dialogue. It was top notch.

 

My biggest mistake was taking for granted that P&G streaming service. I wish I had downloaded every single episode. Oh well. Youtube makes up for most of them anyway. I'm hoping the actors read the boards occasionally and realize their work is still being acknowledged. 

27 minutes ago, Aback said:

The way the show was written and staged, it was like the best NYC theatre you could ask for. I still watch random episodes every now and then and I'm mesmerised. The actors had it all. Sometimes I wonder how many takes they would require to nail a scene because every scene seemed perfectly flawless from every point of view. Staging, blocking, dialogue. It was top notch.

Was it dubbed or subtitled?  Did they start with the return of Cass from his honeymoon to Kathleen, as they did on Soapnet?

3 hours ago, Aback said:

As a European man who grew up in Italy, I never had the chance to watch AW - although it aired in the country for a few years but it was never big.

 

However around 2008, P&G released a few years worth of episodes on its streaming service. I started watching and I was hooked.

 

The way the show was written and staged, it was like the best NYC theatre you could ask for. I still watch random episodes every now and then and I'm mesmerised. The actors had it all. Sometimes I wonder how many takes they would require to nail a scene because every scene seemed perfectly flawless from every point of view. Staging, blocking, dialogue. It was top notch.

 

My biggest mistake was taking for granted that P&G streaming service. I wish I had downloaded every single episode. Oh well. Youtube makes up for most of them anyway. I'm hoping the actors read the boards occasionally and realize their work is still being acknowledged. 

 

YouTube has a few episodes of Another World, know in Italy as Destini

 

 

 

 

On 5/28/2019 at 8:42 PM, NothinButAttitude said:

 

So true. Sad part about all of this is that Passions NEVER scored those numbers and had NBC and P&G kept the show on air (along with reverting the show back to what made it success), the rating would've possibly rose.  

 

Passions did better in the demos, though, didn't it?

 

^Not trying to be an [!@#$%^&*] with this comment. Just saying, the decision to cancel AW was right from an economic standpoint by the time you got to 1999. We can still hate NBC and P&G for letting it get so horrible in the first place.

Edited June 4, 20196 yr by juppiter

On 6/1/2019 at 7:16 AM, ScottyBman said:

So I spent the last month reading all the posts.  A few every day.  I started watching in about 1983-85.  I can remember that I was at college watching and the scene where "Marley" aka Vicky comes in and kisses Jake was a shock to the few of us in front of the TV.  I was a huge fan of Anna Stuart and loved snotty Donna Love.  By far the reason I watched.  When she left and then returned in that hall of mirrors, that was a very pleasant surprise for me.  

 

I know the mid 80's were considered "crap" by many, but I enjoyed it.  It was fastpased.  Building the Love family as some elitist  patrician family was fun.  Especially in the early days with the money gone how they struggled to mantain the facade.

 

I lost interest in subsequent years, you know life and all that stuff.  I would check in once in a while.  Less Donna meant less me.  But when the end was announced, I came back.  What a mess.  It was evident.  A gorilla.  Really.  What crap.

 

Everything in life has a timeline, so did Bay City and in a broader stroke Soap Operas.  I at one point thought I would love to be a writer on a soap.  I even wrote my own by hand for a few years.  Looking back it was crap.  But I enjoyed it.

 

I loved the conjecture, the insight and the memories of this board.  I am not usually a poster, and it has been a long time so probably not alot of notice, but I felt compelled to write.  RIP Another World.  It was like any relationship, we had our good times, our sad times, we were sometimes disappointed and sometimes we were delightfully surprised.

 

This is my favorite scene(s).  Donna, Vicky and Queen Cecile.  

 

 

 

I agree.  I dont know how anyone could think of the early 80's better than the late 80's

1981 is pretty good. 1983 - 85 very good.  1984 is my favourite year and I watched from 1976 until the final episode. 

 

Edited June 6, 20196 yr by Efulton

4 hours ago, Efulton said:

1981 is pretty good. 1983 - 85 very good.  1984 is my favourite year and I watched from 1976 until the final episode. 

 

 

Allen Potter (The Doctors and Guiding Light) did a great job at stabilizing and improving AW from  Spring 83 to the end of 1984.   1980-1982 was a rocky time for AW in terms of storylines and characters coming and going.  Potter quickly improved the stories and had a nice balance of characters on the show.  I think AW would have continued to improve if Potter had not retired and left the show at the end of 1984.  The only thing I would really fault Potter with during this time was the return of Jacqueline Courtney as Alice.  She was brought back on AW's 20th anniversary with much fanfare, but she was not given a storyline of her own.  They used Alice as a supporting character in Sally's storyline.

5 hours ago, Efulton said:

1981 is pretty good. 1983 - 85 very good.  1984 is my favourite year and I watched from 1976 until the final episode. 

 

 

It's a shame you did not get to see the show from 1966 to 1975. IMHO, AW was at its very best during those years. I mean, Agnes Nixon and Harding Lemay! Need I say more?

5 hours ago, vetsoapfan said:

 

It's a shame you did not get to see the show from 1966 to 1975. IMHO, AW was at its very best during those years. I mean, Agnes Nixon and Harding Lemay! Need I say more?

Now those years are something I would binge!  

21 hours ago, Efulton said:

1981 is pretty good. 1983 - 85 very good.  1984 is my favourite year and I watched from 1976 until the final episode. 

 

I would say 1976is not even comparable to the 80's.  1976 was at its prime for AW

25 minutes ago, denzo30 said:

I would say 1976is not even comparable to the 80's.  1976 was at its prime for AW

Don’t get me wrong.  I loved 76-79.  But for some reason i really liked 1984. The show was back on  track and was a nice mix of the old and the new.  

19 hours ago, vetsoapfan said:

 

It's a shame you did not get to see the show from 1966 to 1975. IMHO, AW was at its very best during those years. I mean, Agnes Nixon and Harding Lemay! Need I say more?

 

I totally agree with you except I would say 1964-1975 were the best years. Just curious: Why did you exclude the first two years? 

Obviously, I'm not @vetsoapfan, lol.  However, it's my understanding that, for its' two years, AW was in a very precarious position -- not just because it was the newest kid on the soap block, but also because a lot of the writing simply wasn't working.  Irna Phillips had created the show (w/ Bill Bell) to be more melodramatic in tone than ATWT or GL, yet she was incapable of that kind of storytelling; and her successor, James Lipton, was a journeyman writer who had the "brilliant" idea of de-emphasizing the Matthews clan and replacing them with the Gregorys, whom Agnes Nixon promptly got rid of when she assumed the reins in '66.