Another World

[Efulton]

I agree that Caroline being Australian was most likely a part of a plan for her.  One that would have been much more interesting than what Joy Bell got to play.  Which is too bad because she was an interesting actress. I think it its highly unlikely that Carmen Duncan being Australian had anything to do with Caroline being Australian though because Iris was not Australian.  Do you recall if Iris' new accent was ever addressed or were we supposed to not notice it?  

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Edited September 9, 2020 by Efulton

[victoria foxton]

I liked Caroline. AW never did much with her. 

[robbwolff]

 

I don't know. While Iris wasn't Australian, people can pick up other accents. I had a friend who lived in England and when he came back to the states, he was sporting a British accent. Without knowing Lemay's plans, we can only speculate but perhaps Iris moved to Australia at some point and Caroline was her daughter.

[Mona Kane Croft]

 

Yes, Iris's new accent was addressed one time, when Iris told someone (probably Mac) that she had recently spent several years in Australia.   But of course, that was only to accommodate the actress -- not really part of Lemay's plan for  iris.  

Edited September 9, 2020 by Neil Johnson

[Xanthe]

I had remembered it as Iris explaining her accent by saying she had been in Europe rather than Australia -- or at least I remember thinking that the explanation didn't match the accent.

I just watched Carmen's first day as Iris and was surprised that she got the news that she was Mac's bio daughter after all off her chest so early.

[AbcNbc247]

I wonder why Lemay chose to rewrite his own story and suddenly make Iris Mac's biological daughter again. The reveal about Sylvie and Mac's wife did seem a little half assed but I'm glad that Lemay fixed it, I just wonder why.

 

I wish he had gone more into detail about his 1988 run in that We Love Soaps interview. The only thing that he was really clear about was that human trafficking storyline involving John and Sharlene.

Edited September 9, 2020 by AbcNbc247

[Mona Kane Croft]

 

If I'm not mistaken, Lemay's final episode as head writer was the episode in which Iris knocks on the front door of the Cory house -but we didn't see her.  Then Carmen Duncan's first episode was the following day.  So if I'm correct, Lemay didn't write Carmen's first episode and the change in Iris's parentage may have been Swajeski's idea, not Lemay's.  

 

Who ever did it, I think un-doing Iris's adoption plot was silly and unnecessary.  Mac was still a loving father in 1978, after Iris found out she was adopted.  So he would have still welcomed her back in '88, even though she was adopted. There was no need to rewrite the plot, and make her Mac's bio-daughter.     

Edited September 10, 2020 by Neil Johnson

[j swift]

It is an especially interesting quandary when we consider her reintroduction through "The Chief" storyline because her biological origins did not matter in terms of the logic of that plot.

 

My impression was that Iris was trying to manipulate Cory stock so that she could eventually save the company from ruin and win Mac's praise (given that the story was conceived prior to the actor's death).  I don't believe she was trying to buyout Cory publishing in order to ruin Amanda and Matthew's financial well being.  Iris had always been driven by trying to win Mac's approval.  The fact that he now had established relationships with Sandy, Amanda, and Matthew would have threatened her deep seeded desire to be "Daddy's Girl."  So, wanted to help him by saving his beloved company.  However, establishing her as Mac's biological daughter would have no impact on that story. 

 

Mac's will had been the subject of prior storylines and even Jamie was due to inherit part of Cory Publishing just prior to the revelation that Sandy was his son.  Iris had been written out of the will during her marriage to Brian Bancroft (AW was still written by Lemay at the time so he had knowledge of those events).  She knew that her son Dennis had benefited from both the Wheeler and Carrington estates, because he was included in the wills of both his biological and his perceived father.  So, there was no motivation for Iris to be Mac's biological daughter in order to clam his wealth, because already knew that she was getting bupkis.

 

The establishment of Paulina as the forgotten South American Cory was written after Lemay's departure, so there was no logic in trying to establish Iris as a Cory in opposition to Paulina, because she was considered a Cory with or without a biological connection.

 

Finally, there weren't any romantic reasons to make her a biological Cory.  Sandy had already left town and Matthew was not a viable love interest.  Also, her initial story involved a triangle with Donna and Michael, so her biology did not effect any potential entanglements.

 

While it fit with Mac's rather randy past (remember when he had sex in the back of a limo and Rachel found the underwear as evidence?).  It was unnecessary as a plot detail.

 

Unless Iris's biology was somehow going to play into Evan's history... 

 

 

[AbcNbc247]

I checked AWHP. It says Lemay's scripts aired until November 10th and Iris came back on October 27th, so he did make Iris Mac's daughter again. I always found the whole idea of Iris being adopted unnecessary in general. I guess by 1978 Lemay had started to burn out.

You're right. Iris thought that by coming to Mac's/Cory Publishing's rescue, she would earn his love and respect again which is a bit of a rewrite anyway since when Iris left in 1980, there was no strained relationship between her and Mac at all. My guess is a writer didn't do their homework. 

 

I wonder what the original plan for the takeover storyline was. A lot of it was written during the writer's strike so I wonder if the Chief was always going to turn out to be Iris, or did Lemay take the story in a completely different direction?

[Mona Kane Croft]

 

Thanks for clarifying those dates.

 

Regarding The Chief storyline -- Lemay had submitted his storyline projections before the writer's strike began, so its likely at least some of the major plot points that occurred during the strike were Lemay's ideas.  But all the details would have been written by the scab writers.  So it's possible the foundation of The Chief plot was Lemay's creation, but calling the mystery person "the chief" doesn't sound like something Lemay would have done.  That detail was almost certainly written by the scab writers.  But having Iris revealed as the owner of Bennett Publishing (minus the nick-name) does sound like Lemay's style.   

 

I'm also confident Cass and Nicole's ghost plot during the strike was not part of Lemay's plot ideas.  He didn't write that type of garbage.

  

Also, did Sharlene, Josie, and Jason come back during the strike?  Or was it before the strike?   

[Efulton]

Josie and Sharlene came on during the strike.  Jason Frame was a Margaret DePriest creation from December 1987.

[AbcNbc247]

Thanks for the info about Lemay's projections!

 

All of the strike storylines were written by Donna Swajeski, which is probably one of the reasons why her and Lemay clashed and he quit the show. But yeah, I wasn't a big fan of the ghost stuff or the Kevin Julian storyline either.

[Paul Raven]

SOD reported at the time that  the ghost story was created for the strike to keep the characters onscreen without actually progressing the relationship as they were unsure where the writers wanted to go.

[Mona Kane Croft]

 

Swajeski was one of the scab writers, but that doesn't mean she wrote everything that happened during the strike. There were, no doubt, several scab writers.  I'm assuming Lemay gave Evan the last name Bates (Evan had changed his name from Battes, which was a nod to history).  Swajeski wouldn't have been smart enough to do that.   

 

Did Kevin Julian have a storyline?  I remember the character, but that's about all.  

 

And I don't think Lemay and Swajeski clashed.  Actually, I doubt they ever met.  But whatever she did during the strike impressed someone at the TOP, because they preferred her over Lemay, and fired him to give her the head writer's job.   But I'm fairly certain Lemay and Swajeski did not work together at all.  

[j swift]

Speaking of which, the parallels between Iris finding out that she wasn't Mac's daughter and Dennis finding out that he wasn't Elliot's son are interesting. 

 

I stopped watching Texas early in its run, but I wonder if there was any exposition regarding the connection between Dennis feeling betrayed in the same way that Iris had felt betrayed.  Certainly, the infamous slap that Elliot gave Iris when the paternity was revealed should have shocked Dennis enough to be more supportive of Iris, but the character of Dennis was never a Momma's-boy. 

 

All things being equal, (in hindsight), I am happy that character changes that developed for Iris in Houston never became cannon when she returned in Bay City.  She lost a lot of her bite when she became the grande dame of the Southwest.  Although it is odd that a few years in Australia changed her accent, while after all that time in Houston she never even uttered the word "y'all".

 

One question, upon her return was she always referred to as Iris Cory?  I still think of her as Iris Carrington because Louise always called her Mrs. Carrington, and on Texas she was known as Iris Wheeler.  Also, I believe when Dennis was reintroduced he was referred to as Dennis Wheeler, so it is odd that everybody else in Bay City referred to her by her maiden name, even though they had never used it in the past. 

I would argue that the origin of Iris's adoption made sense because of the birth of Amanda.  It cemented the relationship between Rachel and Mac, because she was able to give him the biological child that he never had (except of course for Sandy and Paulina, but he didn't yet know about them).

Edited September 10, 2020 by j swift