17 hours ago, chrisml said:

re: Daniel Markel as Sam

 to be fair, the writing just was not very good. I don't think  he ever got a chance because the show never seemed to have a plan for the character. Why bring him back if there's not a long-term story in place? That's always the problem with Swajeski's stories. 

I think they had story mapped out for Sam to facilate the exit of Evan, as Charles Grant made it clear he was not going to renew his contract. Problem was Robert Kelker-Kelly abruptly left, and his temporary replacement, Thomas Gibson, would only give them a month as he didn't want to be tied down to a contract. So they needed a new Sam

When Daniel Markel started as Sam, they story picked up at where it was originally suppose to go with RKK. Then it seemed they were going down the road of a Amanda/Sam/Olivia triangle, but for some reason TPTB decided they wanted a new Sam. Which I don't understand, as Daniel Markel seemed to be doing fine. No offense to Brian Green, but his characterization of Sam wasn't Sam at all. It was like he was playing a different character. 

A new jewel.

@DRW50 @Paul Raven @AbcNbc247

14 minutes ago, Maxim said:

A new jewel.

@DRW50 @Paul Raven @AbcNbc247

Thanks! 

I’m certain that this one’s never been uploaded before.

1982 was a very strange year for AW

21 hours ago, DRW50 said:

Thanks @Maxim so nice to get to celebrate a "new" Christmas with our Bay City friends, and not far off Christmas. We could sure use that gift this year.

Our last Christmas with Jim or Pat...at least we get to see a semblance of a Matthews Christmas here.

Our last Christmas with Louise too (I still wish she'd been allowed a happier exit).

@vetsoapfan I know this is past the time of the AW you enjoyed but if you wanted to see any of the old Bay City friends, I thought you might want to know about these three episodes.

Thank you, @Maxim, for alerting the community to these episodes.

And as always, @DRW50, I appreciate your tagging me about such things which I might otherwise miss. It's true that I was disappointed in AW by 1981 and couldn't stomach watching the show live, but a break of 44 (!!!) years makes me less bitter about the show's destruction, and just seeing folks like Jim and Pat is nostalgic and touching. I'm looking forward to watching these eps.

Thank you again @Maxim for thinking of us with these.

As mentioned above this whole period is difficult to process at times as you know most of the people you are watching will not last long (not even a full year in some cases).

Sometimes I wonder if they should have tried longer with David Canary as Steve, but much as I loved David on AW, he just never works for me on here.

Edited November 5Nov 5 by DRW50

1 hour ago, DRW50 said:

Sometimes I wonder if they should have tried longer with David Canary as Steve, but much as I loved David on AW, he just never works for me on here.

It's hard to say especially if the actor didn't want to stay. If Jacqui Courtney had been in the rôle of Alice and if they had kept Steve and Alice together it would probably have been more successful but it's hard to say with the writing at the time which seems rather jumbled.

I haven't watched all of these episodes all of the way through yet (thanks @Maxim for sharing) but it feels like an odd mixture of attempts at crime and adventure mixed with people talking about their love lives rather than doing much about them.

Bringing Steve back from the dead required a lot of explanation. He wasn't supposed to have faked his death, was he? I thought I remembered they explained his staying away as convenient amnesia but the AWHP character guide mentions partial amnesia in 1970 and simply presumed dead without further details between George Reinholt and David Canary.

I'm not sure why Sandy is talking with the police about drug addiction and crime -- is it because of Jamie or is it supposed to be journalism or both?

Diana's accent sounds more English than Australian to me. Maybe she's supposed to be too posh to be colonial? And I don't really know what she sees in Pete. 

4 minutes ago, Xanthe said:

Diana's accent sounds more English than Australian to me. Maybe she's supposed to be too posh to be colonial? And I don't really know what she sees in Pete. 

I've always thought Chris Marcantel was cute, so I get why she would, but there's nothing of interest going on. At one point the scene just has the three men yelling at each other and Diana standing there. All strangers and none of them make it past early 1983.

21 minutes ago, DRW50 said:

I've always thought Chris Marcantel was cute, so I get why she would, but there's nothing of interest going on. At one point the scene just has the three men yelling at each other and Diana standing there. All strangers and none of them make it past early 1983.

It was the yelling that made Pete unattractive to me -- he was yelling at Diana before Steve showed up. Maybe there are other scenes where he is sweet to her that would let me see his appeal but without a context that shows that he's only yelling because he cares about her it's offputting to me. And her reaction didn't give me any sense of their relationship that could have won me over. 

Diana's conversation with Sally about sex felt very expository and unnatural and I desperately wanted to rewrite it to make it a more interesting dynamic between them. 

 I admire the ambition that Pete wasn't just a generic kid, from a blue collar family, romancing Diana.  They introduced an entire family for Pete. We never get that kind of background data about a young romantic lead today.

I don’t agree that the Steve story was hobbled by either the casting or the exposition of his return from the dead. They built up so much anticipation around Black Hawk—it was actually similar to how Adam Chandler was introduced on All My Children. People talked about him for months before he showed up. And ironically, both characters were played by David Canary. So the same actor got two major “off-screen legend” buildups, and one of them paid off far better than the other.

My disappointment was in the focus of the stories they chose to tell once Steve was back. Sally struggled with his return, but the show mostly focused on Diana. Jamie had just been through so much with Mac and Sandy—there was a whole angle to explore around identity and allegiance. And Rachel? She inexplicably drops Mitch to chase a recreation of the original triangle with Steve and Alice. No actor should be saddled with replaying a legacy triangle with two recasts. It’s a thankless task.

IMHO, if they’d ridden the popularity of Jamie and Sally and told the story through their perspective, it would’ve been much more compelling. Steve could’ve been the supporting patriarch, rather than trying to reposition him as a romantic lead years after the next generation had already been SORASed into similar stories. That shift would’ve honored the legacy without undermining the momentum of the younger cast.

Worst of all, Jamie and Sally were never allowed to play out the enduring drama of Steve’s death (unlike when Mac died). When they killed off the character a second time, there was zero evidence he’d ever existed—until they named a baby after him. And Steve became a footnote.

But, imagine the ultimate, if Steve came back a third time, as the Chief's ( aka Iris's) main investor and lover.  A Steve/Iris romance is what the Iris/Alex romance should've been.

 

Edited November 6Nov 6 by j swift

2 hours ago, j swift said:

But, imagine the ultimate, if Steve came back a third time, as the Chief's ( aka Iris's) main investor and lover.  A Steve/Iris romance is what the Iris/Alex romance should've been.

What kind of relationship if any did Steve and Iris have back in the 1970s? I know from the novelizations that Iris was not happy with Eliot's interest in Alice, but did Steve and Iris cross paths much?

1 hour ago, Xanthe said:

What kind of relationship if any did Steve and Iris have back in the 1970s? I know from the novelizations that Iris was not happy with Eliot's interest in Alice, but did Steve and Iris cross paths much?

I don't think they ever crossed paths, but can imagine how Rachel and Mac would've responded to Steve and Iris?  He was presumed dead by the time she showed up in Bay City.

Iris arrived in Dec 72 and Steve was killed off in March 75 so they were both around for two years.

But Rachel didn't hook up with Mac until late 74 by which time Alice and Steve were married.

So maybe Iris had little connection to Steve.

13 hours ago, Xanthe said:

What kind of relationship if any did Steve and Iris have back in the 1970s? I know from the novelizations that Iris was not happy with Eliot's interest in Alice, but did Steve and Iris cross paths much?

In the 1970s, Iris and Steve didn't often cross paths, but they were acquainted and did occasionally have scenes together.  Iris tolerated Steve, because he was wealthy and influential in Bay City.  But she felt above him in many ways, because of his working-class Oklahoma roots. She felt Steve was "new money," while she and Mac were "old money."  

Don't forget -- Steve died in 1975, and AW was a 30-minute show until 1974.  And on 30-minute soaps, the characters nearly all knew one another, and were never as isolated as some characters became later in the 60-minute soaps,  So yes, Iris and Steve were acquainted and did interact.  But not often.

Edited November 6Nov 6 by Tisy-Lish

7 hours ago, Paul Raven said:

Iris arrived in Dec 72 and Steve was killed off in March 75 so they were both around for two years.

But Rachel didn't hook up with Mac until late 74 by which time Alice and Steve were married.

So maybe Iris had little connection to Steve.

I just had a sudden flashback to reading a scene where Jamie told Dennis that Steve and Rachel were getting married. And I know Rachel tried to get in with Iris very early, so I think maybe she met Mac through Iris.

Maybe Iris newly arrived in town would have required some architecture.

11 minutes ago, Xanthe said:

Maybe Iris newly arrived in town would have required some architecture.

I believe Steve did build Iris's big house. So they would have interacted during the construction.  Robert Delany was the architect.  Steve also built the Cory Complex for Mac (again designed by Robert Delany), and Steve did the renovation of the old mansion Mac bought for Rachel, which became the Cory mansion.  Carol Lamont did the design work for the renovation, but Carol was an employee of Robert Delany's architecture firm.