Another World

[Paul Raven]

In honor of AW's 45th anniversary,I thought I'd start this thread and perhaps all future posts concerning this show could be in one place.at present there are several threads.

Here's a description from Irna Phillips at the time of debut.

"What I want to say is that none of us can face reality 24 hours a day. We must have private 'worlds', made up of our down dreams and pleasures and emotions, into which to retreat. Otherwise, it would be simply too much!"

The story follows the lives of the families of two brothers, William and James Matthews, in a suburban university town. It opens with the death of William, then shows how the sad events affects the widow and their children and the other brother and his family. Grandma Matthews gets into the action, to. The writer promises to relate to contemporary problems; two of them she mentioned are school dropouts and illegitimacy.

[JackPeyton]

Mac's death is one of the greatest soap episodes i have ever seen.

[teplin]

For my money, there has never been a more adult, more literate soap than Harding LeMay's Another World. It really was more like theater than television – sophisticated dialogue, psychological subtext, individual character "voices," a deep understanding of class differences, magnificently drawn scenes that would last as long as 10 minutes. And, of course, the incomparable acting team of Beverlee McKinsey, Vicky Wyndham and Doug Watson. I wish every SON member could have experienced it.

[Khan]

I just said the same to an e-mail buddy of mine, who also happens to be a tremendous AW fan. If I could go back in time and write for Lemay (forget about just watching the show, lol!), I would.

[BQueen]

Another World was my favorite soap opera when I was a child. I watched it as a very young child, with my mother and grandmas and watched it faithfully til it ended. I still miss the show and the characters. It was very well written and acted. My favorite characters were Iris, Mac and Rachel. That was a three-some that was pivotal to the show and the acting was always top notch. Not much else comes as close to this show nowadays as Another World in it's heyday.

[Sylph]

LMAO! Would he even consider you?

Harding had many, many problems with his subwriters and disliked pretty much all of them. Except for Douglas Marland.

[Khan]

Just because I'm all thumbs at message board-ing, don't assume I wouldn't know my way around a beautifully constructed scene. ;D

Edited May 6, 2009 by Khan

[jfung79]

Should we post about Another World Today in this thread too? Just a couple days in and the mailing list is already up to 510 people. Way more than that must be reading. Pretty dang good!

However, in addition to my reservations in other threads about Paulina being off canvas, there being no minorities, and the writer's apparent dislike of Donna, I am skeptical at Grant's return and the mystery of Felicia's whereabouts apparently being the only stories projected at this point. Alina Adams will hopefully involve the fans as much as she says she plans to and get ideas for other stories as well.

But still, whatever, way to go, P&G! There is so much upside potential for this. Leading the way!

Edited May 6, 2009 by jfung79

[jfung79]

Episode 2 of Another World Today is now up (along with part of the Linda Dano interview)!

My reaction -- It's decent, about the same quality as the first episode.

I like that Matt and Donna may be on Grant's side regarding Kirkland because of their own personal experiences with being separated from their birth father/children. Could they be setting up a rekindled Matt/Donna romance too? Still not enough Donna though. (Jamie thinking "Donna was irrelevant" just about says it all ...)

The dialogue for Cass is spot-on, and Donna to a certain extent, but other characters not so much. Marley's is particularly generic.

I voted at the end for Amanda to stick her nose in. Hmm, Kevin Fowler -- related to Sam Fowler perhaps?

About the Linda Dano interview, I hope they ask her how she feels about the show continuing on now in print form. They didn't ask Mark Pinter that in the interview last week.

Edited May 12, 2009 by jfung79

[jfung79]

I read the third episode of Another World Today a few days ago, and it's the best yet! The dialogue is really getting spot-on for characters. I could really "hear" Carl, Cass, Lila, Rachel, Amanda, etc.

The mystery of Felicia's whereabouts is heating up, and the first new character in ten years in Another World has been introduced in Kevin Fowler -- with an axe to grind against the Frames.

I don't know how I feel about all these hints that Carl has not reformed totally though. Frankly, I think that makes sense, but what doesn't make sense is that Rachel is still together with him given that.

[jfung79]

Just read the fourth episode of Another World Today. Another great episode -- not as amazing as the third episode, but still pretty good, especially at capturing the comedy of Cass and Lila as they investigate what is going on with Felicia and Jenna, complete with Krystal Lake reference. Cass is still the rightful comedic star of the show, so different from the bland ATWT Cass.

Meanwhile, it's nice to see Kirkland make an impact in his first real episode of Another World Today. I liked his love-hate interaction with Grant, his chemistry with Charlie, his not feeling like he knows enough about his dead mother Vicky, and his rushing off to see Steven for advice/help. (I also loved Charlie talking fondly about how all the Frames are full of Frankie stories and never stop talking about her -- because I find that Frankie fans are like that too, lol. And, it was interesting to see a hint of Charlie and Lila not totally getting along, with the defiance on what colors to wear.)

Most of all with Kirkland, I loved Kirkland's interaction with Carl and Rachel! I guess the writing is totally going for "return of evil Carl", what with his being proud of just trying to kill Grant and Rachel being scared of him for the first time in 15 years ... I actually am quite enjoying this twist because I never believed Carl could change that much anyway from loving Rachel and Ryan and finding out pretty late in life that he was wrong about what Mac had done to his family. I totally love that this time Kirkland is in the "Matt and Amanda" role of raising questions about Carl, and it's not all about Mac. I can root for Kirkland on this in a way that I wasn't quite able to do with Matt and Amanda. This time, without Victoria Wyndham and Charles Keating being wedded to the idea of working together, maybe Carl and Rachel will even split up. I'm not sure if that's what I want though.

And wow, what does Carl have to do with Jenna's past? Nice cliffhanger, tying the two hitherto separate main stories together! Could Jenna have been a Cory baby that Carl abducted?

Lines of the week, from Kirkland:

"How come nobody believes Grant Harrison can be reformed, when we're all supposed to swallow the Kool-Aid about Carl?"

"He is not my grandfather! He's my stepfather's stepfather. That makes him, oh, wait, I know, not related to me at all." (about Carl, when Rachel asked him to apologize to his "grandfather")

Those are great lines ... On the other hand they are also giving Kirkland really "teeny" dialogue (lots of "dude") -- but I still like it, lol.

Edited May 27, 2009 by jfung79

[jfung79]

I'm still reading new episodes of Another World Today every week and still enjoying it! Just not posting anymore here (instead on the TeleNext message board directly) because no one responds here.

They finally do have a minority character, GQ Todd, a legacy character (grandson of Grant Todd on one side and Quinn Harding on the other), and have finally mentioned Paulina, so I'm happy on those little quibbles I had before.

[DRW50]

I haven't read yet but I appreciate your updates. I'm sorry I haven't responded.

I'm glad they brought one of the Hardings in (were they named after Harding Lemay?).

Is any of Quinn's story in the time before she got murdered on Youtube or any other clip sites? I wanted to see some of that, and some of the last story for Maisie, as I also liked that character. I wish they could have stayed around.

[jfung79]

CarlD2, glad you are still interested. Don't know about whether the Hardings were named after Harding Lemay - sounds quite possible!

There is now an officially sanctioned Twitter role-play companion to the text stories which is really taking off. You gotta check it out! You can sign up to play any character from the show's 35-year run who is not in the main text story. EricJohn, a fan on the TeleNext board, is voluntarily posting summaries of the daily Twitter action. Already in four days since the Twitter role-play was lauched, so much has happened. Just a sample -- there's going to be a Matthews family July 4th BBQ, Alex Cory has come out as gay, Mitch Blake and Cindy Brooke are married, Nick and Remy are raising his son Nico with Angela Corelli who has been stalking them, Ricky Matthews is in a law practice with Wally Curtin, Cory Ewing is trying to find out about his birth father Robert Delaney (to his mother Clarice's consternation), Sean McKinnon has graduated from college and met great-uncle Vince and great-aunt Mary, Tito Banacek is turning his life around after being released from prison because Grant is alive, MJ McKinnon and Adam Cory are married and Adam caught a white collar criminal, and loads of characters including Cameron Sinclair, Sofia Carlino, Nicole Love, and Lisa Grady are making plans to return to town.

Another World is back, and really fulfilling Irna Phillips's vision of showing both the "world of events" and the inner "world of feelings and dreams that we strive for." With the way the characters create their own worlds and then make choices that affect other people's characters, Another World has never more truly shown that "We do not live in this world alone, but in a thousand other worlds."

P&G/TeleNext are really being cutting edge with this Twitter thing! Get on board, rest of the soap world.

Edited June 29, 2009 by jfung79

[soapfan770]

Say I was just wondering, what if AW had used a globe in its opening like it's sister soap ATWT instead of the circles? That's why I liked the background of the 1981-1987 opening because it was set against the stars...a globe where the O is in World would have interesting, or would it be too much of a rip-off?