5 hours ago, FrenchBug82 said:

He was "disappeared" because he tried to warn Amanda about Jordan trying to turn her into Amalie. Jordan overheard him telling the Corys he had something to tell them and well traitor! Yada yada

Yes, I do remember it now! It was so hokey.

About 9 minutes in Donna has a flashback to her youth and the unnamed boy who would eventually turn out to have been Michael. I know later closer to Michael’s introduction they used younger actors to portray young Michael and Donna but here Anna Stuart plays young Donna and Michael is just the back of some guy's head. 

I really adore Anna Stuart in the later scene with Marley (about 13 minutes in) where she is so uncharacteristically soft and happy. Normally we see the snobbish Donna whose life was blighted and who was terrorized into thinking she needed to make sure Marley didn't fall into the same trap. 

 

It would have been better if Reginald had never returned from the dead. He was more frightening as a spectre from the past. 

Anna Stuart is one of the most underrated performers on soaps. It's just too bad that Donna got mostly refuse the last few years, because Anna Stuart could always bring it. 

I ran across a synopsis of the week of February 28th 1983 that mentions Donna taking an interest in Mac's past admiration of her mother. Obviously it never came to anything (and I am glad it didn't) but I am slightly curious about what they might have been planning. If they were thinking he could have been the father of one of the Love children I think I would have preferred it to be Nicole. 

When Donna was first introduced she mentioned to Peter that one of the Love children was illegitimate, although I have always thought she was referencing Marley.  Later in the build up to his murder, there was some speculation that Nicole may have been fathered by Jason.

So, I wonder if the synopsis referenced above was more about using Mac as a means for more clues, rather than actually fathering one of the Love kids, which would have to have been a retcon since he didn't arrive in Bay City until after Nicole would have been born.

2 hours ago, j swift said:

When Donna was first introduced she mentioned to Peter that one of the Love children was illegitimate, although I have always thought she was referencing Marley.  Later in the build up to his murder, there was some speculation that Nicole may have been fathered by Jason.

So, I wonder if the synopsis referenced above was more about using Mac as a means for more clues, rather than actually fathering one of the Love kids, which would have to have been a retcon since he didn't arrive in Bay City until after Nicole would have been born.

It's hard to say, of course. I think the synopsis said "loved" which seemed to imply an actual romance. And Nicole wasn't around yet, so my mentioning her was more about really not wanting it to be Donna! 

Mac and Mrs Love could have met jet-setting anywhere in the world. I doubt she went to Europe only to pretend to be pregnant. 

Regarding the word illegitimate, it does feel strange to me to use that term for a baby whose mother is married but to someone other than the baby's father. Babies born in wedlock are treated as "legitimate" regardless of who their father really is. It made me think it should be applied only to Donna if the affair was before the Love parents marriage, or to Marley as Donna's child. But they probably weren't being strictly accurate and felt they could make Peter or Nicole part of a scandal. 

I feel extremely resistant to the idea that Donna could have been Mac's daughter and Iris's sister. 

Edited October 2, 20214 yr by Xanthe

36 minutes ago, Xanthe said:

Regarding the word illegitimate, it does feel strange to me to use that term for a baby whose mother is married but to someone other than the baby's father. Babies born in wedlock are treated as "legitimate" regardless of who their father really is.

Euphemisms have been used indiscriminately by soap recap editors for years.  I was reading an EON recap and I confused how a lusty male character, who had just returned from his honeymoon, could be described as impotent, rather than sterile.  I think the same thing goes for illegitimacy referring to any child whose father was not in a committed relationship with the mother of said infant.  To me, the worst misuse of language is when Soap Opera Digest editors would refer to an incestuous relationship rather than using the terms sexual assault or molestation.  There are numerous historical plot lines which were described using vocabulary that would thankfully be considered out of date today.

On a less serious side of this euphemism issue, it is funny because I just watched an old Loving episode that was posted today on YT in which Shana wants to be artificially inseminated by Leo and the lengths to which the writers have to go not to explicitly say she is asking him to be her sperm donor ("I need your DNA") made me roll my eyes.

3 minutes ago, j swift said:

I was reading an EON recap and I confused how a lusty male character, who had just returned from his honeymoon, could be described as impotent, rather than sterile. 

My friend and I used to laugh about this exact misuse in some romance novel, where the plot was that some man was allegedly unaware that he was impotent and therefore unable to father a child. 

11 minutes ago, j swift said:

I think the same thing goes for illegitimacy referring to any child whose father was not in a committed relationship with the mother of said infant. 

I agree but Donna was supposed to be trapped in an archaic attitude where the family had to behave with (or at least outwardly present) strict propriety. In that context talking as if illegitimacy mattered would be on point. 

3 minutes ago, FrenchBug82 said:

On a less serious side of this euphemism issue, it is funny because I just watched an old Loving episode that was posted today on YT in which Shana wants to be artificially inseminated by Leo and the lengths to which the writers have to go not to explicitly say she is asking him to be her sperm donor ("I need your DNA") made me roll my eyes.

Shana was played by Susan Keith, wasn't she? Was the character similar to Cecile? 

1 hour ago, Xanthe said:

My friend and I used to laugh about this exact misuse in some romance novel, where the plot was that some man was allegedly unaware that he was impotent and therefore unable to father a child. 

I agree but Donna was supposed to be trapped in an archaic attitude where the family had to behave with (or at least outwardly present) strict propriety. In that context talking as if illegitimacy mattered would be on point. 

Shana was played by Susan Keith, wasn't she? Was the character similar to Cecile? 

Yes she was played by SK!
I personally don't really think there was much of Cecile in her although I'd be curious to hear if anyone disagrees.
I guess her main story arc was that she was the secret child of the patriarch of the "main" rich family and that she was bitter so she initially had a bit of a scheming side while she was seeking revenge but it never felt Cecile-ish to me but I never got to see too much of Susan as Cecile at the time (read about it and watched what is available later though)so maybe others who can compare the performances will have another PoV.
In any case once it all came out Shana became a more traditional female character - fell in love with a priest, had her husband and toddler die in a plane crash and various hearteaches. She was sadly never written that consistently and very well despite Susan rocking whatever dramatic material they gave her. But that was the problem with Loving in the first place. 

You can see the episode I was mentioning here:

This was the run-up to pair her with Leo, the guy she is talking to and they were going for comedy-ish hate-you-love-you kind of thing.

You can get a glimpse of her early performance when she was more scheming

I guess you can superficially see the similarity with scheming Cecile but the characters' motives were so different I don't see it ...

It's always weird to remember that Cecile was not originated by Nancy Frangione. Was Susan Keith's Cecile more serious and under NF the character became comedic?

5 hours ago, amybrickwallace said:

Was Susan Keith's Cecile more serious and under NF the character became comedic?

Yes

Nancy's Cecile was still very serious in her first year or so as well.

8 minutes ago, AbcNbc247 said:

Yes

Nancy's Cecile was still very serious in her first year or so as well.

What was the turning point?

4 minutes ago, amybrickwallace said:

What was the turning point?

Based on what I've seen, I'm guessing it was around 1983, when Robert Soderberg came in as head writer. It seems like he infused more humor into the scripts, and then Richard Culliton and Gary Tomlin continued to do that.

She did seem a little comedic in that scene where Vivian was trying to stop her from revealing to a blind Rachel that John Caldwell was really Mac.

4 minutes ago, AbcNbc247 said:

Based on what I've seen, I'm guessing it was around 1983, when Robert Soderberg came in as head writer. It seems like he infused more humor into the scripts, and then Richard Culliton and Gary Tomlin continued to do that.

She did seem a little comedic in that scene where Vivian was trying to stop her from revealing to a blind Rachel that John Caldwell was really Mac.

Thanks. I guess I thought it was Tanquir.