Another World Discussion Thread

[denzo30]

From what I understand Chris Rich who played Sandy declined to come back for either of the special episodes. I really think they should have bought back more characters back for the anniversary specail but apparently most of them declined. Susan Sullivan (lenore( The actor who played willis, etc

[denzo30]

Great observations. I totally agree. Chris Robinson would have been great as Willis Frame. They basically tried to re-create the Willis character with a different brother. Esp. using the storyline of exposing Sharlene as a prostitute. Willis did that in the 70's and Jason threatened to do it before he died

I just wish they bought the offspring of the Frames to Bay City. Gwen and Willis supposedly had many children

Irene Daily is one of my all time favs from AW

[thelma]

I totally agree. Chris Robinson should have been Willis. They could have tied him to Mary and Reginald as happening before he came on screen. They rewrote history already having Frames in Bay City before Steve's introduction. It would have also explained why Gwen was so crazy when she came back. She wanted revenge for her estranged husband's murder.

I wasn't a big Dean Frame fan, but he could have been one of Willis and Gwen's kids instead of some new Frame sibling we never heard about.

Totally with you on Liz and Irene Daily. I loved how much she loved Mac. In the later years she was used a lot as comic relief, but this is one of my favorite Liz moments. It showed her going against her beloved family to help Dennis when Olivia ran off with their baby.

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[DRW50]

In a May 1983 SOD, John Kelly Genovese reviews AW.

Edited August 21, 2011 by CarlD2

[teplin]

Genovese was spot-on with this review. The mishandling of David Canary's Steve Frame is almost a big a mystery to me as the botched return of Jacquie Courtney's Alice a few years later. An actor like Canary in a role like Steve Frame, opposite such other powerhouses as Vicky Wyndham and Douglass Watson, should have been a soap sensation. And as Genovese writes, it would have been the perfect vehicle for rebuilding the Matthews/Frame families. But it was an utter failure on both counts. Bad writing, bad producing, bad decisions all around. And I still consider the firing of Beverly Penberthy to be the end of classic AW. The introduction of Cass, Felicia and the Loves began an upswing, but I thought the show suffered greatly from the loss of Pat Randolph.

[sungrey]

I never understood why that story didn't work. David Canary wasn't George Reinholt, sure, but he certainly was a powerhouse actor with plenty of prime-time credits and decent acting chops. He really could have led the renaissance of Another World. Sadly, the writing wasn't really solid at this point and it showed on screen.

I believe Gary Tomlin was writing AW in the 1984-85 time frame along with Richard Culliton, true? Gary is one of those people who makes a much better writer than he does a producer. He has a solid sense of what works on screen, which makes some of his Days decisions mysterious.

[DRW50]

I wonder if they should have just written Alice out and had him get involved with Pat. What about a Pat/Mac/Rachel/Steve story?

I also wonder if fans just struggled to accept Steve's return.

On paper I guess I can see why someone at AW felt Pat had nothing left to contribute, but the problem is on paper doesn't translate to onscreen. Beverly Penberthy had a very unique presence which made her fit in perfectly with the group at Cory. She could have gone beyond the Matthews.

Something I notice in the 1983 episodes I've seen, compared to the 1979, is that there's a much different energy, more sarcastic and less serious. It seems like this shift took a further toll on a lot of the characters who weren't going to be able to adapt, or weren't given the chance.

[saynotoursoap]

Carl, I had watched AW since its heyday of 1968. I was a huge fan of Reinholt and Courtney, and I have never been overly fond of David Canary, but I accepted Canary totally as Steve Frame. Most of the people I knew who were AW fans thought Canary did a fine job in the role, so I do not think that the plot was rejected for that reason. I remember being quite excited with all of the allusions to Steve's past during the Blackhawk introduction because it was very apparent that Steve was to be resurrected. Also, the set up had a wonderful synchronicity to it, with Rachel and Alice now poised to spar over Mac just as they had a decade earlier over Steve. The weakest link in my estimation was Linda Borgeson, who was miscast as Alice. I have often wondered if the story would have been more successful had it occurred when Jacquie Courtney was available to play Alice.

Corinne Jacker, the headwriter, was a problem, too. She was an Obie award winning playwright and talked a good game. I have an interview with her in which she disses the silliness of daytime drama from that period -she specifically cites the Cassadine freezing Port Charles plot from GH- and talks about how she wants to return to the roots of AW with a focus on history, strong families, characterization and realistic plots. Of course, she did just the opposite, axing Beverly Penberthy, creating lots of uninteresting young characters, and writing a number of over-the-top plots. In her defense, I do not know how much input she had. P&G may have veteoed her best ideas.

Sadly, this was the beginning of the era of "youthification" of daytime, with executives totally deluded about what would bring in longterm younger viewers. As you noted, TPTB thought that teens and young adults only wanted to see other teens and young adults, and that the plots had to be dumbed down with camp humor. Ironically, executives have maintained that same misguided belief even though historically, every soap that has followed this formula has seen its ratings continue to decline.

[DRW50]

What I don't really understand is why they got rid of Pat but kept Alice. Was it only because of the upcoming Steve story?

It seems like AW had a very hard time with younger heroines beyond the early set (Alice, Pat). By the early 80s, when youth was the heyday, they only seemed to have Sally and Blaine. I guess there's Julia but I don't know if she was popular or not - the show seemed happy to discard her.

I wonder if it was P&G who wanted Pat gone.

You'd think, since there was a history of younger men being attracted (wasn't Marianne's boyfriend - the one Pat killed after he tried to attack her - younger?) to Pat, they might have done a Pat/Jamie storyline, especially with the tension over his book. Wouldn't that make more sense than his random relationship with long-missing Susan Shearer?

What did you think of Lynn Milgrim's Susan?

[saynotoursoap]

The same thing I thought of her Orleana Grimaldi. No comment.

Seriously, despite being a member of the core family and possessing an interesting relationship with her mother, for some reason the character of Susan was never very successful. The best scenes with Susan were those played by Lisa Cameron when the fabulous Audra Lindley was still Liz Matthews. Their fights were legendary, the kind that would make your hair stand on end when Susan became petulant and needy, sending Liz into an emotional tirade about how cold, selfish, and unfeeling Susan had always been. I so wish those tapes had been saved. Agnes Nixon's tenure on the series, IMO, was the best era of Another World, followed closely by Harding Lemay's first five years. How I would have loved to have seen Rachel's reaction to a Pat/Jamie affair!

[DRW50]

What was the point where you think Lemay's work declined? Was it around where he felt it declined (the era of Sven, then Pat's murder trial)?

I wonder if P&G didn't want a longtime heroine to be with a younger man. I notice that the times AW did this it was with new or recently returned characters (Elena, Susan, and of course Felicia, although she seemed to flirt more than have serious relationships with younger men). This didn't seem to really change until the 90s, with Donna/Matt.

[sungrey]

I think the big mistake was the 90 minutes. You can't write scripts by yourself at that length, and that's what he wanted to do a lot of the time. It was one thing when Steve Lehrman wrote most of Edge's scripts with a little help from Lois Kibbee on the side (although Henry too wrote key scenes), but 90 minutes five days a week?

Also, whoever greenlit John Randolph's death... MAJOR mistake. The show was trying to do something huge to kick off the new format. It smacked of "wow, let's really blindside the viewers!" The problem was by killing John, Pat's presence really took a major hit. Michael was off the canvas by the end of summer and Marianne and Pat were gone at the start of 1982. Removing the Randolph patriarch crumbled the family in the space of a couple years. I thought that was a terrible thing to do to the longtime viewers.

[DRW50]

The 90 minutes does seem like a bad idea, to the point where I end up wondering if they just had people improvise half the material.

From the synopses I've read of the late 70's it seems like John had become a very weak man who made a lot of horrible relationship choices. I wonder if the show felt he was therefore disposable.

It never made sense to me why they just wrote Michael out. I guess they thought they had Dennis, Jamie, and Joey, but in 90 minutes, that's not really enough younger men, especially since Jamie/Dennis shared the same storylines.

What did you think of the Angie/Willis/Gwen stories? Did you like Toni Kalem or Maeve Kinkead better?

[thelma]

Firing Beverly Penberthy was a HUGE mistake and saying she had no story was a cop-out. I also wonder what the behind the scenes story was. She was still around when Steve returned so it doesn't seem like they traded Alice for Pat. She could have been paired with Mac when he and Alice broke up. Rachel was already starting to pine for Steve anyway. The two actors had a lot of chemistry and I think their friendship could have easily turned into a romance. Liz would have been THRILLED!

I also really liked the actress playing Marianne at the time. She was a good contrast to Cecile and Blaine. She was a good girl, but she still married a guy she didn't love and secretly lusted after Jamie. (Although who didn't at the time!)

I didn't care for Susan and her relationship with Jamie didn't do much for me. She wasn't around that long so I think someone agreed with me.

[soapfan770]

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