Another World

[Xanthe]

It sounds splendid but it does make me wonder what percentage of scenes would be set at John and Olive's to make all of that worthwhile. 

[Mona Kane Croft]

Good question in today's soap opera world.  Somehow the writers were able to write plenty of scenes in the house.  John had been a central character since 1963, and he was connected to the entire Matthews family, his own two adult children, and he was fairly close to Iris and to Rachel. Not to mention, Olive was constantly inviting various wealthy people to the house, so she could schmooze.  And probably MORE importantly, in 1978 AW was number-one in the daytime  ratings.  So budgets for production values (like sets) were not particularly limited -- especially with Paul Rauch as executive-producer.  If I recall correctly, Olive and John's set debuted at about the same time as the Sven storyline, so things were about as good as they had ever been in the Brooklyn Studio.   

Edited March 30, 2024 by Mona Kane Croft

[j swift]

They were floating in money back then like a pearl in a bottle of Prell.  (A marketing image that I still don't understand.  Why does anyone want thick shampoo?  And is the pearl meant to represent a skull?)

[DRW50]

The ATWT ending was pure ego. I blame that partly on his running ATWT for a decade and seemingly seeing it as his show. I will never get past how disappointing that finale was.

[Contessa Donatella]

Sorry to be off-topic to ATWT

What do y'all think was behind his throwing Martha under the bus? 

[vetsoapfan]

In all my decades of soap watching, most series finales have left me disappointed, mainly because the cancelled shows had fallen into such disrepair by the time they finally got the axe.

I did think the final scene of SFT, with Jo and Stu, was sweet. The ending of Return to Peyton Place, fading out on Allison and Rod, was effective. But the only soap finale I felt was truly good was Ryan's Hope's, with Jack talking to Mary and then Maeve coming over to thank Jack for being part of her family. RH was never even one of my favorites, but the last episode was one I felt would satisfy the fans and bid a respectful farewell to the Ryan family.

[Contessa Donatella]

I agree about SFT! Never saw RH. Have to go look for it.

[watson71]

Regarding those finales, Ryan’s Hope and SFT wrapped up nicely.  As did Texas, with the loss of the TV station coinciding with the loss of the show.

AW and GL were a mixed bag, but they were watchable and entertaining.  Edge of Night was the same, didn’t care for the Alice in Wonderland mystery that was highlighted in the last episode.  However, it looked like the mystery was going to involve most of the cast.

The last episode of The Doctors seemed rushed and sloppily put together.

AMC and OLTL did themselves no favor ending with cliffhangers when they thought they would continue right away.  Viewers never got a real goodbye from both shows.  The OLTL portion where Fraternity Row was cancelled and they discussed the loss of a beloved soap was good.

ATWT was the absolute worst. 9 months to wrap up, vets featured as day players,  and not pre-filming a Helen Wagner ending was terrible.  Eileen Fulton was on the show 50+ years and had only a few lines in the last episode - not to mention Lucinda and John making a fool out of her. 

 

[Contessa Donatella]

The last several YEARS EF received shoddy treatment from Goutman. Fans cried out for Lisa to have a story. 

[Vee]

I will defend the OLTL finale, I thought the show went out like gangbusters. Yes, the cliffhanger under the BTS circumstances was unfortunate on one level but the show was vibrant, vital and had some wonderful material in those last two weeks, especially Viki's big speech and Drew II's birth. More importantly, the cliffhanger for me does what I think all soaps should do if they go: Give a sense of a continuing world and continuing stories (a la Edge of Night's ending), even if you're not there to see it. I think that is a great comfort for a generational audience, I think permanently closing the book is a betrayal of the contract with the viewer. There were many bad stories in that last year on OLTL but the show went out fairly strong and with a bang and I was proud of that, it proved it was the strongest soap on the network at that time. It didn't slink off like a dying animal, which I felt ATWT did with the globe, etc. or crippled like GL.

AMC's situation was more complex; they had a beautifully filmed ending apparently, and had to junk it and the cliffhanger felt very slapped on by comparison to OLTL. But they had some nice ending weeks too that did not feel funereal in the same way as ATWT and GL ending.

Edited March 31, 2024 by Vee

[Contessa Donatella]

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They incorrectly claim that VW won an Emmy when she did not. Other portions are fairly interesting. 

I watched Schnetzer on the Locher Room this weekend. As you'd imagine both interesting & fun. Laughed at the fact that he didn't know if it was ok to spill the tea about his upcoming tape days at DAYS. Just did it anyway. And he told all about the gorilla & claimed to love the finale. 

[Mona Kane Croft]

Nothing against Steven Schnetzer, who I think is a great actor, but -- well, of course he would love the gorilla and the finale.  It was reflective of his era in the show's history.  Linda Dano probably liked it too.  I'd speculate most of the viewers who severely disliked the gorilla and/or AW's finale were long-term viewers who enjoyed the show before the mid-1980s (like myself).  

Plus, sometimes the things actors find "fun" to play or even "challenging", do not necessarily make for good drama or good television in general. As someone in this group shared a couple of weeks ago, (I'm paraphrasing) actors are often not good judges of great writing or successful storylines. 

Having said all that, every viewer is free to enjoy what she/he enjoys.  Some AW fans liked the show's finale and others did not.  

[Contessa Donatella]

Well said. And, nothing against any actor but I have often said that, and this is especially true for daytime actors, something new to them is like that desirable shiny object or catnip to a cat. They spend so much time playing the same thing day in & day out that "new, different, change" etc. is very appealing to them. I think about Pete Lemay talking about watching Jill Farren Phelps sell David Forsythe, Linda Dano & Anna Holbrook on the story where John had the affair with Felicia & left Sharlene. To most fans that was totally against character, history & integrity but they were enthused. 

[Mona Kane Croft]

Very good analysis of the likely reason behind this phenomenon.  I think you are exactly right.   

[Contessa Donatella]

I think they were going for thick & luscious, like a good terry cloth robe is.