Another World

[DRW50]

Probably. Not to be ageist but I wonder if any newer writers on soaps even know how to do that type of stuff.

@Xanthe Yes there are a number of moments reading synopses, like one where I could swear Mac implies to Iris that he was only with her mother because she was pregnant with Iris, that make the retcon dubious to me. Clearly Lemay regretted it. I get the short-term idea, sending Iris on a tizzy, making her question her whole existence, but probably not worth it, especially as the show seemed to give up on Sylvie quickly.

[Joseph]

Ariana Munker is posting classic clips of her on AW wonderful Treats from a Rather rare Time Period! Plenty of Jacquie Courtney's Alice and Pat Randolph As Well!

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[Paul Raven]

The original story was that Iris would discover that Sylvie was Jewish and they would deal with anti-semitism as Iris would not be  happy.

No doubt Iris would accept it all in the end as a message to the audience but again P&G and,or NBC got cold feet and dropped it. 

Lemay was obviously using his power eg high ratings to push more 'controversial' stories but kept getting shut down. Maybe another factor in his burn out.

They even weren't happy with older woman/younger man romances ie Sylvie/Dennis so gay or Jewish plots had no hope.

[DRW50]

Thanks. That makes more sense as I can imagine Iris being upset and taking a long time to get over her prejudices. 

Elena/Dennis doesn't ever seem that interesting to me in the few clips of it, but I wish we could see more. It doesn't help that it's so earnest and Dennis doesn't have a lot of personality. Something that remains the case in his later appearances under Chris Bruno.

[Contessa Donatella]

Does anyone here happen to recall what year it was that KING-5 Seattle took AW off the air without warning? I've found an article showing that by 1994 it was back on the air but not when they brought it down.

Edit to Add: Found it! Oct. 1993!

I believe it was 1987 when San Francisco pulled that, wasn't it?

Edited July 9, 2024 by Contessa Donatella

[j swift]

We discussed this earlier when I asked if Sylvie was intentionally coded as Jewish. 

But, I just realized that there is an interesting issue based on the intent of anti-Semitism.  Because, it seems a bit unfair to pin the rejection of Sylvie on Iris, rather than Mac.  If we are to believe the retcon, Mac slept with Sylvie and then he and Mrs. Cory adopted Iris, who was the product of the affair.  But, given his own confession that he didn't love his wife, couldn't we also infer that Mac rejected Sylvie based on her religion and ethnicity?  Iris gets all the blame, when her father is the one that determined he could not have a future with a woman who came from a different background. 

It's a big push, but I wonder if that is part of the reason that they decided to leave Sylvie as coded, rather than identifying her as a Jewish woman.  Does that make sense with the story?  Because I could understand why they wouldn't want to deal with the implications of Mac being a racist. 

Although, I'll never know why a story like that makes it through the pitch phase, and then the production gets cold feet after it has begun to air.  They had to anticipate some controversy when it was first presented.  That is always frustrating for the creatives and the audience. 

Edited July 9, 2024 by j swift

[Xanthe]

That's the problem with retcons on top of retcons. There was no implication that Mac had rejected Sophie if Iris' father was supposed to have been someone else, which was the first retcon when Amanda was born. It was only later when they introduced the additional layer that Mac was in fact Iris' biological father that it calls into question why he walked away from Sylvie. (Although I guess to be fair she was apparently in prison for murder (Kirk Laverty blackmail retcon) and he didn't know about the baby.)

Mac's timeline is very hard to trace and I am not sure how old Iris was when her adoptive mother died. Who was raising Iris while Mac was running around fathering Sandy and Paulina?

[Mona Kane Croft]

Well, Sandy was around Jamie's age, and Jamie and Dennis were the same age. Therefore Sandy and Dennis were around the same age.  Meaning that Iris had already grown up and married before Sandy was even conceived.  It also means Sandy was young enough to be Mac's grandson.

And you are so correct about "retcons on top of retcons."  The 1978 revelation that Iris had been adopted was itself a retcon, and the plot just came out of nowhere without any foreshadowing whatsoever.  Then in 1988, all that was completely undone by a second retcon saying now that Iris really was Mac's bio daughter.  The 1978 retcon was acceptable, I suppose.  But the second one in 1988 was just silly and unnecessary.  It served absolutely no purpose to undo Iris's adoption storyline.  I'd love to know which head-writer was behind this decision in 1988. If I'm not mistaken, Iris told Mac that she was indeed his bio daughter in Donna Swajeski's very first credited episode.  So, if Swajeski made that decision, she certainly did it very quickly and obviously without much thought.  On the other hand, since it was so early in Swajeski's reign, it is possible (even likely) that this craziness was part of Harding Lemay's storyline projections.  Franky, I find it difficult to imagine this was Lemay's idea.  It just doesn't seem at all like something he would do.  Of course it is possible that either Lemay or Swajeski were forced to make the change by someone at a higher level at NBC or at P&G. But dear God, why???

By the way, can anyone confirm my dates?  Is there any way to verify this occurred in Swajeski's first episode as head-writer?  I am just composing this from memory, but I believe I am correct.  

[DRW50]

I had always assumed Lemay was the one who retconned Iris not being Mac's biological daughter, because he brought her back and she revealed this truth in her second episode back. Lemay wrote about his regrets over high melodrama in his last few years of his original AW stint. I figured he might have seen this twist as more pointless melodrama that just distracted from the power of the original Iris-Mac obsession storyline.

This happened on October 27, 1988. Lemay is credited as headwriter from September 12-November 10, 1988.

[Mona Kane Croft]

OMG!  Well I was way off, wasn't I?  I apologize for spreading something so inaccurate.  I have believed for years, that Lemay's final script was the day Rachel answered the door at the end of the episode, and Iris stood in front of her.  And that the following episode was Swajeski's first credited script.   Where the Hell did I get that idea?   

[DRW50]

We all have certain memories, and they stay that way as those moments in time stood out for us - not helped by how murky that whole turnover period is. 

[Xanthe]

Oh, of course. A scene with Carmen Duncan and Cali Timmins had floated into my head and I had forgotten about Dennis.

By the way, when I was skimming the AWHP synopses for 1979 (trying to confirm when the info about Sylvie's stint in prison came out) I noticed that apparently she bought Olive's house (at least it mentions Dennis preferring Olive's house over John's for her and the next thing we know she's having a housewarming party). I know we were discussing Olive's house here recently so I found that interesting. And then of course Sylvie was gone by the end of the year.

[Mona Kane Croft]

Yes, my memory is not clear on which house Sylvie bought, but I remember she bought one of them. Either John and Pat's old house, or Olive's new house.  

And regarding Sylvie's time in prison (and Iris being born in prison) -- If I'm not mistaken, all that was in scripts written after Harding Lemay had left as head writer.  Tom King was the writer who penned that stuff.  Do you know if I am correct about that?  

[Xanthe]

I had just read the section in Eight Years in Another World where Lemay is sad to tune in and see what kind of storylines his successors are inflicting upon the show, including making Sylvie a suspect in a murder mystery. Checking the HW credits on the AWHP I see Lemay left in May and the blackmail started in September when King was indeed HW.

Lemay also did not approve of Mac taking up with Janice.

[DRW50]

I wonder what plans Lemay had for Janice.

On paper, Janice being thrown into the Mac and Rachel turmoil probably shouldn't have worked, but Christine Jones was so electric to watch and sold the desperation exceedingly well. I wonder if they ever regretted killing her off.