Another World

[FrenchBug82]

Justine was atrocious.
I am curious why you consider Ryan's death a nadir. Do you mean the FACT he died or did you dislike the way they went about it?
My take is that while I would have tried to write an exit that left the door open for a return, PMV wanted to leave so it is not like they randomly chose to kill him off. And I thought all the scenes surrounding his passing were nicely done, the acting was on-point and the pursuit of Grant as his real killer in the months afterward was actually relatively compelling for me.
Was there criticism of the way it was written though?

On the other hand, that's the time at which they started Felicia/John and had Donna sleep with Michael again while engaged to Matt, and yes I can see why overall this could be considered as a really really time for the show. It lost a lot of heart in six months.

[amybrickwallace]

Both. I thought PMV was fired, but even leaving of his own accord they didn't have to kill off Ryan.

[AbcNbc247]

Exactly!

He didn’t need to die in the hospital. What should’ve have happened is that after Grant shot him, he falls off the train trestle with Justine and is presumed dead. That way you leave the door open for an actual return and not just as a ghost. 

I wonder what happened in PMV’s life that led to him coming back to AW just a year later 

[amybrickwallace]

Yes! That would have made a lot more sense.

[j swift]

From a Washington Post article about Valley in 2005, when he returned to American University to complete his undergraduate degree.  He noted that he left American for Julliard, and then booked Another World as his program ended and he needed money to fund his theater career. 

After a few years of bad choices and good, he felt "tired -- used." He asked for a hiatus, but the producer "was kind of nice about it" and offered to let him out of the show entirely.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/2005/10/22/another-world-indeed/ca0f509b-e3dc-423c-9912-d739e00d0583/

[FrenchBug82]

Understood. It is fair. I agree a better choice long-term would have been to have him presumed dead or a prolonged coma. Writers overuse deaths that can't be reversed; they are so short-sighted sometimes. But considering how many long-term characters ended up written out carelessly afterwards, I think all things considered they got good story out of his exit.

I am pretty certain he wasn't fired. The story I had had always heard - and I am not putting my own credibility on the line for it but I heard it often enough including on here - was that he was thinking of leaving for a variety of reasons but got really pissed off when Christine Tucci, who he was dating at the time, got fired and that sealed the deal and he decided to walk.

As for his soon-afterwards temporary return, he wouldn't be the first guy to make an important decision on an impulse and once faced with the phone not ringing and the bills coming due, be a bit "Oh s**t" about it.

[amybrickwallace]

Thanks for sharing. I didn't know all this.

[watson71]

I'm sure the story got changed many times given what we saw on TV, but I've always wondered what the original intention for Jordan Stark was.  All of Bay City was invited to the costume party at the top of a skyscraper.  I wonder if TPTB originally wanted to bring back a character like Ryan as the masked Jordan Stark.  The other thing about the beginning of the Lumina story was that Jordan Stark had a  young sidekick named Zak Wilder.  Initially, I thought the show was going to do some Batman and Robin crime fighter storyline with Stark and Wilder.  That would have been better than the time traveling picture ending we got.  Remember in the party scenes, they had Joe Barbara play Jordan Stark with the mask on his face before they cast the role.

[Soaplovers]

And I figured the Lumina story was also supposed to include Marley since he mentioned being intrigued with her..and wishing to know more about her.

And didn't Felicia vanish, only to be found in a different costume as well?

[DRW50]

Didn't Donna also end up there?

[amybrickwallace]

I remember Zak was killed off at some point, but don't remember exactly why. 

[FrenchBug82]

He was "disappeared" because he tried to warn Amanda about Jordan trying to turn her into Amalie. Jordan overheard him telling the Corys he had something to tell them and well traitor! Yada yada

[Melroser]

I also thought that Stark had something to do with Frankie/Anne and then was dropped. That story was all over the place. 

At that point, AW didn't have much to lose. I would have gone all out and had Stark turn random people into characters that had been killed off. Bring back Frankie, Ryan, Michael, hell even Steve if George Reinhold was interested. If Days could do their serial killer story with Marlena and then haha...just kidding, AW should have gone crazy!! 

I suppose NBC would have had to care and be invested in saving the show to add cast money.

[AbcNbc247]

When Leah Laiman took the job as head writer, the mandate for her was to write something "larger than life". And what she came up with was Lumina. How it became solely about Amanda and her love for her Cameron, I don't understand. 

[j swift]

Then you would get final story of Dr. David Hayward from AMC, where the people not only rose from the dead, but apparently their corpses never decomposed....