Another World

[Soaplovers]

I pick a pack of episodes from Feb. 1992 offered by Telenext productions on Youtube... Thoughts:

Jake/Paulina: She was engaged to Grant but you could see she had a yearning for Jake and vice versa. You could just see the chemistry oozing when you saw them together. I forgot how fiesty she used to be before they turned her into a pill junkie years later.

Marley/Dennis: Strangely I liked the two together.. I remember the buildup to them being a couple was good but once they were together, nothing really happened. However, I will say that I liked JB better as Marley then Vicky. JB played Vicky as an unlikeable bitch while AH always played Vicky with a soft side lurking beneath that tough exterior.

Lorna: Love her!! Felicia and Lorna are snarking at each other and we all know what ended up happening there down the road

Grant: I was surprised that he was actually kind of nice! Plus, he was getting along with Ryan! I figured Grant went all out mean when MP took over... when did Grant fully embrace the dark side?

Olivia: I actually liked this character. What I think soaps fail to do now is make all parties in a triangle likable. Olivia is pregnant and pretending the baby is Sam's. You can see she still loves Sam but that she knows deep down that he's with Amanda. What I gathered in the seven episodes I viewed so far is that she still is optimistic and dreamer. Plus, she isn't focused just on getting a man... she has career goals as a dancer and is trying to figure out how to balance that with the upcoming baby. I also liked the interplay with Sam/Amanda. A part of me wishes that the baby was Sam's because it would have been interesting to see how all three of them would react to one another especially with a baby in the middle. Finally, I forgot that Jenna and Jake were friends with Olivia (another problem with modern day soaps...lack of friendships)

Valentine Day Ball: This proved how soaps used to be the medium to watch to see a party in full-swing. Extras, bigger sets, and some great action to propel the plot forward. You had Lorna throwing a tantrum with Rachel/Felicia trying to kick her out, you had Paulina/Vicky coming in the same dress (every woman's nightmare) and fighting to the death, and you had Jamie chasing after a mysterious red-head (I think that was Kelsey, right?)

Iris: Last and certainly not least! She was awesome! I know some of you preferred BM in the role but I only identified with CD in the part. She had the regal, dismissive essence that BM bought to the part but she was different then BM's Iris. I just loved her and it was a shame they never thought to keep Spencer/Iris together longer then they did.

Thus ends my overall thoughts of Feb 1992 episodes that I happened to catch!

[DRW50]

It's too bad they didn't keep Olivia around.

I think it was JFP who made Paulina weak, just being the doting wife who remembers her place.

I think Grant started to seriously change when he accidentally shot Vicky and then kept her a virtual prisoner in a clinic in Switzerland.

[Cat]

Get out of my head!

So much WORD to your post, I watched February 1992 not so long ago and I had the same exact reactions as you. Lorna!

Especially Jensen Buchanan's Marley, which I find more balanced, nuanced and three dimensional than the one-note Vicky who reminds me just a little of Laura Wright's Carly on GH (though of course I can't stomach LW's version of Carly, whereas JB's Vicky does have redeeming features, including her relationship with Donna and, despite everything, her undying love for Ryan).

And that Valentine Ball was THE AWESOME. Since watching AW regularly, I really miss these little things, like the fancy balls with crowds of extras, outrageous evening gowns, fights, revelations and (usually) a dance between a couple who have feelings for each other but haven't quite come out and admitted them yet. I also miss the use of (then) current musical hits which really showed that the soaps had more money to burn back then. And the fight between Paulina dn Vicky was choreographed so well. I loved that they showed up in the same dress, and Vicky told Paulina she looked like trash in hers, and Paulina eyed Vicky's smaller decollatage and said "Well, at least I fill it out properly."

I'm not sure I like Dennis all that much. The actor comes across as a bit of a himbo and SO not Iris's son who was supposed to have been raised in Europe. I do think Marley needs somebody different from Jamie who was incredibly straight-laced -- though I do like the fact that Jamie is somebody who tries to live by his own high standards. He's a decent guy, if very judgmental.

I miss Olivia already, and I'm sad that they never pursued a story between her and her physiotherapist. They were sparky together. They should have put her with Jamie -- if only to piss off Sam and Amanda in the heart of the Cory household.

Carmen Duncan. What can I say? I never saw Beverlee McKinsey, and I'm sure I would be impressed by her command of the role. I love the divas! However, CD's Iris balances the bitch with the warm and vulnerable so beautifully that she has become one of my favorites.

I've already bored everybody here with my overwelming love for Jake & Paulina under Donna Swajewski's tenure. Needless to say, I love the romance and yearning and how the show took its time to really establish the relationship. Evans and Eplin melt the screen with just a look. I am absolutely convinced by the show's implication that J&P are the loves of each other's lives. I'm sad to learn that fiesty Paulina was watered down in later news as her earthy warmth and newly found backbone are what I love about the character. I also like her big-sister relationship with Hannah.

When did soaps decide that strong-willed, well-rounded women and three-dimensional characterization was no longer the way to go? When they decided that romance and sensuality was expendable? I rarely recognize myself as a thirty-something woman in the female soap characters of today, who seem to crave victimization in some weird way... and yet these early 90s AW women, with their big hair, huge earrings and shoulder pads, in the days before spray tans and thinification and breast implants, listening to Mariah Carey, Boyz 2 Men (dear lord!) etc., it's spooky how much more relatable they are to me. Perhaps I am behind the times!

Edited October 31, 2010 by Cat

[DRW50]

Mid-90s.

Most people are closer to AW women than media darlings like Jennifer Aniston, Snooki or Speidi. It's just the media forcing their idea of what women should be, not what women ever actually are.

[Cat]

And thusly soaps lost their relevance -- and their target audience.

What on earth where the TV execs thinking?

[DRW50]

They were thinking if they chased a target demo who will never be interested in soaps or if they chase a demo through the most condescending attitude possible, that was all they needed. They never knew or cared that soaps were special and could bring in an audience by staying with their strengths.

A few years ago when GL was canceled I think I said that I thought AW had no more room to grow when it was canceled and that GL did, but looking back I think that's wrong. I'm actually surprised that considering the wrecking ball taken to AW over it's last 4-5 years, it was in as decent of shape as it was.

[Soaplovers]

From what I can recall the last year of AW was an improvement and might have continued to get better if the show had continued. Or since NBC canceled it, there was no interference from either NBC/P & G so the show was able to tell the stories it wanted.

I also recall that Paulina was somewhat repaired in the last year as well and ended up a balance between the weepy stand-by-your man character that JFP tried to portray and the hot-headed woman we loved in the early 90's. I remember when she found out about the guy pretending to be her child.. she decked him hard-core (just like she did to Jake at the altar back in the early 90's when she found out he was trying to take over Cory).

[DRW50]

I remember the last year as being uneven but some stories had potential. I wanted to see more of Marley recovering from her breakdown, and more of Cindy and David Halliday, among others. Cass/Lila/Anne O'Donnell could have been interesting too. At the time I felt like "Who Killed Grant?" was kind of dull, or possibly pointless, as Grant had gotten away with so much already.

Didn't JFP consider firing Judi Evans? I thought something said she wasn't sure of whether to get rid of Alice Barrett, Anna Stuart, or Judi Evans.

I think Malone's writing also made a mess of the character, along with that story where the house was burnt down and so on. I did like the story where she ran off to Chicago.

AW's very low period of mid/late 98 did have those very good scenes where Jake and Marley talked about her rape. I wish I could see those again.

[Cat]

There is actually a *great* scene between Jake & JB's Marley from the final week of December 1991 where they talk about the rape. It is during Marley's wedding shower and is a very satisfying scene in the sense that it was long overdue. That is when I really started appreciating Buchanan's version of Marley.

Edited November 1, 2010 by Cat

[soapfan770]

Just a question for gossip purposes, but did Eplin and Wheeler have any awkwardness working with each other again in 1998? Or had enough time pass since their allegedly rough divorce?

[DRW50]

At the time Ellen came back to the show, I think both she and Tom said any problems they had were worked out long ago. You never know whether that's just being said to the press, but since they had a lot of heavy story together in the last year AW was on, then she made several appearances with him at ATWT and directed for the show when he was a cast member, they must not have had any serious issues.

[Cat]

Well, I've hit a wall. Or, rather, I am approaching the end of the consecutive episodes that have been posted on line. 7/1/1992 seems to be the last one. I am saving it for viewing tomorrow. Apart from that, I am sort of devastated, you guys!

I want to know who is Jenna's father -- is it Carl? I want to see Lorna finally get accepted into Felicia and Lucas's family. I want to see Marley fall for Byron (of course, that'll never happen). I want to see Vicky and Ryan reunited, Justine show up (c'mon, Spencer keeps mentioning his "dead wife" so you know she's alive somewhere). Most of all, I want to see Jake & Paulina continue on their journey, although I don't know if I want to see them break up and Jake move onto Vicky. That, for me, sort of negates all the evolution of character and amazing build-up of 1991-1992.

Oh, well, hopefully other AW clips on YT are still available for me to put the pieces together.

[Soaplovers]

I've found some episodes from August/September/early October 1992... so you are saying not every episode from 7/1 till that point is posted?

[DAYSjunkie1987]

It starts up again from 7/6 all the way up to 10/5/92. I think AW was preempted for Wimbelton on 7/2 and 7/3 because even the AWHP recaps for that week lists it as 6/29-7/1/92.

[shadow]

You can see more eppys here at Telenext

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Y4Njv85uzY