Another World Discussion Thread

[j swift]

Were Marley's fertility issues written as being associated with the disease that precipitated her need for a bone marrow transplant from Vicky?

It seems like a missed opportunity that none of Vicky's kids had a similar disease.  During Vicky's baby switch, that could have been an interesting twist.

[Khan]

Say what you will about Ellen Wheeler, but not every actor would agree to audition for their old job, especially if it's for a role or roles that they won an Emmy for!  Another actor might have told the producers to [!@#$%^&*] off.

IIRC, shortly after Leah Laiman joined the writing staff, one of the soap mags sat down with her for an interview and asked her about the Lumina story.  They basically wanted to know what her agenda was, and Laiman responded, in effect, "I had no idea what it was about when I started it, and I'm still feeling my way through it."  You know you're in treacherous waters when you're the HW and even you can't explain a storyline as weird and off-putting as Lumina.

[Contessa Donatella]

Upheaval paraphrase from HER STORIES p. 212-213. Changes in EPs, HWs & network heads. P&G explored possibilities of new business models and/or mergers, etc. if not downright sale of shows. Included for example two Hollywood production companies or studios. Paramount & Columbia Tri-Star. Columbia Tri-Star was already in place with soap opera content since they owned parts of DOOL & Y&R. Remember the Soap/City website? Between 1995 & early 1998 all 3 NY soaps replaced EPs & HWs at least once. In 1995 P&G did an EP shuffle between AW, ATWT & GL. In 2001, ABC shuffled 3 HWs between & among their 3 primary soaps. Between 2000 and 2003 all 3 networks changed their heads of daytime. The biggest factor in all of this is INSTABILITY.

Specifically at AW this amazing amount of chaos happened: 

AW EP 1995-1996 Jill Farren Phelps

AW EP 1996-1998 Charlotte Savitz

AW EP 1998-1999 Chris Goutman

AW HW Aug 1995-May 1996 Tom King & Craig Carlson

AW HW May 1996-Jan 1997 Margaret DePriest

AW HW Jan 1997-Mar 1997 Elizabeth Page, Tom King & Craig Carlson

AW HW Mar 1997-Apr 1997 Tom King & Craig Carlson

AW HW Apr 1997-Dec 1997 Michael Malone

AW HW Dec 1997-May 1998 Richard Culliton

AW HW May 1998-July 1998 Richard Culliton & Jean Passanante

AW HW July 1998 Jean Passanante

AW HW Jul 1998-June 1999 Leah Laiman & Jean Passanante

Head of NBC Daytime Susan D. Lee presided over DAYS, AW, DOC, SB, Beach, GEN & she was fired April 2000. NBC 2000 Sheraton Kalouria Sr. VP of NBC Daytime Programming came on board.  

Procter & Gamble, Head of Productions over soaps, Mary Alice Dwyer Dobbin retired Sept. 5, 2000. P&G did away with the position at that time. 

And AW off the air June 1999; BEACH off the air Dec. 1999; New Soap PSSN on the air July 1999. 

Whew. 

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Ellen Wheeler is very down to earth & comes from a theatrical family & I believe she did the audition process with them twice when we could have had a full twin thing going on & they went with Jensen instead. I don't think it would have bothered her to audition. Ego is there but not ahead of work ethic. I am sure it bothered the hell out of her not to get the job!!! 

I was just having this conversation last night about who is down to earth from GL! There must be something in the air. 

But you make a great point! Many people would be irked if not having an even stronger negative reaction. 

Sweet Jesus. My God. That is just like getting punched in the stomach. I wonder whose story idea it was! If we could find that person & have a hit put out on them!! It's no wonder it had The Secret Garden story smushed up in it. They didn't know how to tell the main story & to flesh it out they just used a handy auto-magical fairytale. And, of course, now it's clear why Stark's attraction to Rachel came off as some weird almost unattraction. 

[Efulton]

It is absolutely ridiculous that Ellen was not brought back.  TPTB really acted like they hated the show's history and the previous actors who were popular.

[Xanthe]

I will admit that I have a strong bias against bringing supernatural or magical plots that cannot be rationally explained into normally natural settings. I don't have a problem when the premise and setting of the work allow for or require supernatural events. (Love Pushing Daisies, season 1 of Heroes, A Christmas Carol, Thursday Next, etc etc.)  But if a series starts out in the real world in I am going to look askance at storylines that require more suspension of disbelief than, say, the possibility that someone we thought was dead was only on the lam. Is it possible that if I had enjoyed the romance of Cameron and Amanda enough I could have liked Lumina? I probably would not go any further than to tolerate the Lumina aspect while begrudgingly enjoying the performances. But Sandra Ferguson would have had to have absolutely astonished me with her ability to become Amelie, so distinct from Amanda that you would believe it was another actress in the role.

 

I thought the concept of Justine and the fact that her resemblance to Rachel had never before come up in any context since Carl started daydreaming about stealing Rachel from Mac in 1984 or thereabouts was utterly ridiculous, but I did slightly enjoy Victoria Wyndham's performance as Justine pretending to be Rachel, at least with Alli.

I used to watch Days of Our Lives before Another World but hearing about Marlena's possession made me actively uncurious about Days.

[DRW50]

I can understand it to a point, because Anne Heche had made Vicky into a more complex character, whereas Ellen's was more of a caricature. I also wonder how much was down to the character being one of the main romantic leads, which Ellen's Vicky never was. It's hard to picture Ellen with Paul Michael Valley.

I still wish they'd tried, as Jensen, while she eventually made Vicky her own, overplayed her early on and seemed more at home with Marley. 

Edited November 25, 2023 by DRW50

[j swift]

I am not a fan of melodrama and sentiment, so stories about illness, or social issues, are not usually my vibe.  I love a female empowerment tale, a mystery, or an insightful mother-daughter drama.  Yet, for my peculiar sense of humor, an illogical wacky tale is totally fun.

For example, Grant met Rachel in 1990.  He was married to her daughter. And never remarked on the fact that she looked exactly like his mother.  It was coo coo for coconuts, and that's what is funny to me.  So, it made AW thrilling to watch, and yell at the screen, and joke about with my friends.  Which are some of our favorite memories.

However, it is completely foreign to me when others feel personally offended by bad writing, or feel as if the production is treating the audience as if we are dumb.  I've read the memories of fans who feel this way, and I can understand that it raised their ire.  But, that has never been my experience. And, honestly, I don't get why anyone would continue to watch if they felt disrespected. 

Edited November 25, 2023 by j swift

[Contessa Donatella]

Ellen didn't have nearly as much time to play Vicky. There's just no reason they wouldn't have thought a qualified journeyman actor would grow in where they were. 

Jensen to me is very different. She never got Marley down. She handled Vicky much better but to me the writers just gave in & wrote Vicky to be this Jensen hybrid - not Vicky but not Jensen sorta Jensen when she's ON, a generic female performer. 

You don't ever hold it against a story if dumbing down is required to make it work? Or do I misunderstand? 

[Khan]

I agree.  A storyline has to be within the realm of possibilities for that show or else it doesn't work for me.  Even a story like Janet/Natalie on AMC didn't work for me, because, one, they were not identical twins; and two, no amount of plastic surgery will ever help you look and talk exactly like somebody else.  As Mama Khan once said, "The eyes always give you away."

For me, Lumina was like the Princess Gina saga on DAYS.  I followed along, not because I thought it was any good (although, I will admit, Lumina had its' moments), but because I wondered just how far the show could go with the bullshit before they were forced to throw in the towel, lol.

[j swift]

Isn't that the unique part of what made the multigenerational aspect of soap fandom fun? 

It was a conduit to the lessons that women knew about men, family, and romance because it catered to mothers at home.  You could debate silly stories with your Mom.  Hear whether Aunt Linda liked a guy with a hairy chest.  Talk to housemates about their theories of who shot Jake. 

So, when a soap got outrageous, it was so entertaining to experience that within a community.

Edited November 25, 2023 by j swift

[Contessa Donatella]

I don't think that this is true. Fandom chatter, based on memories of shows, soaps, sure, but also, scifi, Doctor Who, Outlander, superheroes, comics, more, just more, not infinitely, no, a finite subset of dramatized fiction watchers. They are genres we have other things in common with too, but no we are not alone in the way we discuss, dissect, imagine, etc. 

Edited November 25, 2023 by Donna L. Bridges
typo

[Soaplovers]

When rewatching fall 1988 into mid 1989, Marley's need for a baby made perfect sense.  She didn't have the found family that Vicky had nor did she truly have a mother because Donna had to withhold any maternal instincts when around Marley because of the lie that she was her older sister and not her mother.

So when she married Jake in 1986, she finally hoped that she could have the stability/family that she never had growing up.  Jake cheating on her was the first blow to her dream, and then finding out that she couldn't have children was another huge blow to her dream.  

I wonder if Lemay intended for Jake to be the real dad of Vicky's son Steven.. and that Marley would have started to believe that Vicky's son was really her child?  There were a few hints where Bridget and I think Donna were concerned that Marley was too attached to Steven... and I figured maybe there would be a baby kidnapping that would have happened... which never came to be.

I do think Lemay would have explored Marley's psychological issues in depth had he stayed on.. because her entire identity was ripped to shreds at 18 when she found out that not only did she have a twin sister.. but that the woman she thought was her sister was actually her real mother.  There had to be resentment on Marley's part toward Donna.. and it wasn't really explored in detail except for one scene in 1989 where Marley goes off on Donna for not standing up to Reginald and being deprived of her father, mother, and sister... and I do think the 1998/1999 Marley breakdown and her torturing Donna was partly a way to lash out at Donna for not being strong enough to claim her as her daughter.

[chrisml]

I often felt that AW regimes and writers treated longtime viewers with contempt. I often felt like decisions were purposely made to push viewers away, and I definitely did not stay a faithful viewer the last few years of AW as a result. In regards to the Justine character, it was idiotic, but it at least gave Victoria Wyndham something to do. Was it something I could have done without? Yes, but seeing Victoria Wyndham get screen time was a relief.

If Lumina had been written properly, and one of the results was that Alice Barrett returned as Frankie I think a lot of people would have forgiven it. Wasn't that the original intention?

[Contessa Donatella]

I thought Justine was a good idea & it began to be executed well & then it turned awful.

If it had been well written & brought Frankie back, sure, I would have been open to it then. Just as a general rule I prefer that realism based shows not having sci fi or supernatural in them but I can be swayed by good writing & soapy circumstances.

Edited November 25, 2023 by Donna L. Bridges
typos galore

[Xanthe]

I don't remember Marley's  haemosynthosis (according to the AWHP that was what it was called; as far as I can tell it is not a real disease) ever coming up again after the bone marrow transplant. When Vicky got pregnant with Steven I seem to recall that she didn't believe Jake could be his father because the theory was it was Jake who was sterile. Then late in her pregnancy she learned that Jake wasn't sterile after all, panicked, and begged her OBGYN for a prenatal paternity test that the OBGYN refused to do because it was too dangerous. 

I don't remember the order that everything shook out in. Vicky realized before Steven was born that Jake might be the father. I believe Marley offered to adopt Steven also before the baby was born. Jake didn't suspect he was Steven's father until after Steven was born and he discovered they shared the same blood type. IMO, Marley's attachment to Steven works regardless of who the father is and keeping Jamie as Steven's father is more effective because it continues to involve the Frames and Corys whereas making Jake the father seems to close the loop so that only Loves are involved. (Although I suppose that could have been mitigated if Vicky and Jamie had stayed together. And after Jamie left did Steven interact with the Corys much anyway?)