Another World

[Contessa Donatella]

Went to another In with Linda Dano podcast. (I've been to 4 now.)

This one was Anna Stuart. She is so fun & fine & such a good storyteller. They both spoke of Annie, which is what they call Anne Heche. And the recent anniversary of her death & her relationship with Anna on the show, etc. Anna was scheduled to be on Anne's podcast just 2 weeks after Anne's tragic accident & death. Anna said she always had food & Annie always ate whatever she had, with her fingers, never a fork, as if she was ravenous. She said she'd been gone from the show, trying Hollywood & the day she arrived a strike began so total waste. Someone called her about AH's first day so she watched & saw Vicky in the bathtub like the rest of us saw her first. When she got back, they met right off & their connection was so immediate! Not to be too whoo-whoo but they were everything to each other. They were friends, she was her mother, they were sisters, they were lovers, not that they physically were, just as if they were spiritually. Linda talked about Annie's remarkable talent for her young age.

They both talked about how acting for a soap is so different. And, that not all actors can do it. They said many times actors would be hired & be there for one day & not be able to make time because they were having to have so many lines read to them & they simply would not ever be back. They laughed & said maybe you had to have a weird brain to do it well.

Anna said her husband (Cromwell) is a real working actor who is always working & isn't right now because of the strike & he is driving her crazy! It was amusing. She talked about the 13 acre compound she has & she & James live in one house on the property & her brother lives in another house on the property & there are all these different gardens her brother created by moving the natural stones from one place to another & how she learned from all these books how to garden. Linda talked about her gardening, too. Anna said from the outset that a half hour wasn't going to be long enough & she was right! 

[Xanthe]

I wonder if they were thinking of the original Reginald (supposedly Jonathan Pryce) who bailed/was fired and was replaced by John Considine. 

[Contessa Donatella]

I thought of that example & I bet they were thinking of him but I also felt like they were thinking of multiple examples!! Anna said her husband did a soap one day & found it horrible. 

[Soaplovers]

@Neil Johnson @DRW50

So I finally finished the 1988 write strike episodes I came upon (up till the end of July 1988).

From a character building perspective..these were well written episodes apart from Sharlene/Jason talking as if they lived in Bay City as kids (and in my mind Jason is Willis..or should have been even if the actor didn't want to play a recast...and his murder could have been justification for Gwen's flip outs at the anniversary episodes).

I liked the Liz/Sharlene reunion scene..but found it interesting Sharlene instantly dismissed Russ being Josie's dad.  Wonder if that was a red herring or if the idea got revived once the strike was over. 

Also..lots of progressive conversations about male and female dynamics.  These episodes seem more modern to me.

Lastly, I noticed Ronnie was introduced during the strike and she was given so much focus and development.  Sad that she gets less focus once the strike episodes are done.

And the ghost story could have worked if there wasn't a ghost and it was all in Cass' head because of his grief over Kathleen's death.  Interested that this was revived in early 1991 when Kathleen did truly turn out to be alive.  

Also...I like Mary...but I often feel she would have been better served playing  Liz's daughter Susan Matthew's instead.  Susan was a therapist with ties to Jamie, Liz, etc...and could have filled the same function with a tie to the Matthews.

[DRW50]

Thanks @Soaplovers for your insights. I haven't watched these since the Soapnet airings so the insights are a nice memory jog. 

I agree that this was the best period for Ronnie, who was so warm and kind and deserved more focus. 

I fully agree Denise should have been tied to the Matthews rather than a family that was already fading out by the time she joined the show. I never can remember whether Denise wanted to leave but by 1988 it was clear they had lost interest in the character. 

All of the Sharlene and Frame Farm history in this period gets confusing.

[Efulton]

Denise Alexander left because she no longer wanted to commute from California to NY.

[DRW50]

Thanks.

[Xanthe]

If they had not killed off Julia that would have been another tie as well.

[j swift]

I enjoy the lore of the Love Family.  They were a blank slate, and I think it is creative to establish new characters who have an unexplored history in Bay City.  Also, connecting the Loves and the McKinnons together is an interesting move, given that their origins are based on the relationship of Marly and Jake. 

The concept of a former family housekeeper coming back as the mistress of the manor is filled with possibilities.  Donna would be threatened by no longer being the de facto head of the house.  Michael is reminded of the class struggle that broke their relationship. Peter finds a mentor who will provide some motivation.  Victoria becomes the perfect audience surrogate because she wasn't around while Reg lived at the house, so the exposition becomes a natural way of catching her up to date.

But, the execution was terrible.  We never get to experience what Mary saw in Reg, so there's no tension in returning to her former family.  There are multiple recasts which slow the pace of the story. And, characters change their traits overnight.  So, the promise never lived up to the hype.

[Contessa Donatella]

I'm still up to my ears in this petition to get NATAS to award Beverlee McKinsey a Posthumous Lifetime Achievement Emmy. They have awarded Posthumous ones so there is a precedent for it. Plus an author is working on a bio as we speak so there's a sense of a lot going on. I'm asking everyone to sign it & I'm asking many people to post supporting & to share it. In my YouTube channel is her "City Lights" interview and 3 video clips from early TEXAS & those are in the petition as well as one of the classic Alexandra episodes from GL. We now have 412 signatures & we've had 14 people donate & I'm thanking Kim Wells AW group on FB, Greg Meng, Thaoo Penghliss, Kin Shriner, Kimberly Simms, Kim Zimmer, Jill Lorie Hurst, Nancy Williams Watt, Judi Evans, Mark Derwin & Alan Locher. The text is a nice read even if I say so myself. https://chng.it/JBsh8Y9tkk Thank you for your time & for your consideration. 

Edited September 10, 2023 by Donna L. Bridges
typo

[Xanthe]

Ben McKinnon was Marley's first boyfriend and triggered some strong emotions in Donna as she thought of her past with Michael. The decision to replace Ben with his cousin Jake was a good one in that it allowed them to link Jake to Victoria (what are the odds! as far as I know this was never portrayed as anything other than an enormous coincidence given that Mary should not have been working for the Loves yet when Marley and Victoria were born) and give a deep root to the love triangle. If they had stuck with Ben it would have had to be structured completely differently.

Big Bad Reginald was not subtly deployed and the writing didn't give much nuance for anyone to work with. Mary didn't really have much of a relationship with the Loves after the initial bombshell setup although before she and Vince left town she did have some nice interactions with pale pastel Marley played by Anne Heche. Relationships under Lemay and then Swajeski were just so much richer.   

Edited September 11, 2023 by Xanthe

[j swift]

Agreed, what's missing (in part) is the turn that precipitated Reg's motives.  In hindsight, I can't even recall why he chose to come back to Bay City while everything was going well in Paraguay. 

Scott and Mary experienced the softer side of Reginald, but from the moment he wakes everyone up to announce his return, he's a jerk.  Now, if they explained that he financed Mary's philanthropy through stolen art, that would have created some tension.  Or if he was upset that Donna let Carl steal the family's money, we could have understood his frustration.  But, torturing Donna, while Victoria seems blind to his motives, makes no sense.

As for the coincidental timing of Mary's employment, that feels like it got confused with the idea of Scott as the third triplet.  Mary was said to work for the Loves after Cheryl was born to earn some extra cash.  Of course, Scott was older than Cheryl.  But, it would have made no sense for Donna to have triplets, give one away, keep one, and then drag the third one down to Paraguay to live for a couple of years until Mary has an accident, gets amnesia, and is shuffled off to raise Scott.  It was only recently from discussion on this thread that I realized that Mary had never met Michael because he was banished during Donna's pregnancy, before Mary worked at the mansion. 

However, it makes no sense with the re-write that Donna goes nuts because she remembered that she had sex with John, and he might have fathered the twins.  If John was missing after fighting in Vietnam and the twins were born in 1967, the math doesn't add up.  John is younger than Michael, and if Donna was 18 when she gave birth, wouldn't John have been around 16?  So, wouldn't there be at least two years when he lived in Bay City before Vietnam?  And if Michael was banished when Reg found out that Donna was pregnant, wouldn't she have known she was already pregnant when they had sex? So how would it be possible for John to be the daddy?  It is like Donna took one look at the photo of John holding the twins and forgot where babies come from.

Edited September 11, 2023 by j swift

[Mona Kane Croft]

I would have preferred Denise being cast as Missy Matthews, Liz's daughter in law.  Missy was AW's first ingenue and a part of AW's first popular romance (Missy/Bill).  Plus in my opinion, Missy had more star-power and a stronger back-story than Susan Matthews.  The historical conflict between Liz and Missy (along with Missy's son Ricky Matthews) could have driven interesting material for years.   

[Xanthe]

You would think a dastardly international criminal like The Vulture would be able to manage his affairs through henchmen and not risk being exposed by returning home, even if he is big mad because the father of his daughter's children has come back into her life and bought the stables on his family estate.  There was also some plot where Reginald hired Mitch and Blade to do some kind of digging in a subterranean tunnel between the Cory stables and the Love stables in order to obtain a valuable treasure named The Trump. (I believe Cecile also tried to steal The Trump and possibly it was small enough she could hide it under a jacket?) But it doesn't actually make sense that he needed to be on the spot to handle this. Also why was Scott in Bay City independently? Surely there was a more prestigious law school they could have sent him to, or if not at least one that wouldn't entangle him with the Love and McKinnon families. 

Edited September 11, 2023 by Xanthe
Pronoun clarity

[Contessa Donatella]

Maybe this is a Minority Rapport but I enjoyed Mary/Marissa, Scott, Vince, Cheryl  & even the first HIV/AIDS storyline.