Another World

[Xanthe]

Yes! That's the Italian upload I was referring to when I mentioned the black & white tiles. The scenes with the party start about 40 minutes in. Funnily enough, Cass is Nicole's (then played by Kim Morgan Greene) escort. Based on the AWHP synopses and the presence of Roberta Flack and Louise Mandrell the events are probably during the week of November 14 1983.

If you speak Italian I would love it if you could fill in some gaps.

I can tell that the 1988 scenes are from May 4 & 5. Those whole episodes in English are ones that Eddie Drueding had uploaded to Youtube.

The 1983/1984 episodes are a bit harder to date, partly because I don't speak Italian (I can pick out character names and words like "parlare", "andiamo", "ragazzo/ragazza", "te amo" but nothing subtle), partly because the AWHP synopses are weekly only for this period, and also because in some sections I can't pick out any major events. As far as I can tell all of the Destini (1983/84) scenes are from a period between November 1983 and March 1984. I have not been able to match these to other dated episodes on Youtube. I'm not sure if they are in strictly correct chronological order but they may be.

The first hour looks like pieces of about 3 episodes from November 1983. Sofia Landon Geier appears as Jennifer Thatcher. Royal Dunning is also at the big party which seems to be in honour of Abel Marsh. Blaine and Sandy get a clue about Catlin from an envelope where the return addressee is A.C. Moore. (Apparently this predates the arts & crafts retail chain which was founded in 1985 and was liquidated in 2020.)

The second hour has MJ, a phone message from Uncle Kevin Fowler, Judy Dewey as Blaine presenting baby Alex to Mac after Mac's recovery from his plane crash, and Peter apparently proposing to a feverish Cecile, so it seems to be the week of February 20  1984. Kelsey Grammer appears as Cecile's doctor at about 1:58. Quinn is somehow taken aback by the meal she ordered at Leo's club, but I cannot tell why.

I cannot place the section between 2:00 and 2:12 other than it must be February 13 1984 or later since it includes Judy Dewey, and since Quinn seems on edge when Larry drops by it is presumably before her stalker is identified and captured in late March.

If only I had run away from home and learned Italian when Destini was broadcast.

 

 

[Contessa Donatella]

Is it these black & white tiles?

 

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[Xanthe]

Hm. Those look smaller -- I will have to see if I can find Jamie and Vicky's wedding reception where I think there are some good shots to compare. Maybe they are aesthetically similar but not identical?

[Mona Kane Croft]

I asked Eddie Drueding what set the party took place on, and he told me it was a large country-club set they used in the early to mid-80s for large events.  I think this is also the same set that held a party just after Jacquie Courtney returned in 84-85.  Alice attended the party and, I think, had her first interactions with Donna, Felecia, and some of the other newer major characters.  

[chrisml]

There's Victoria Wyndham talk on the Guiding Light thread, and it made me upset yet again that they did not maintain the Iris/Rachel feud because Victoria Wyndham and Carmen Duncan were so good during "The Chief" storyline, and they just dropped it after Douglass Watson died. Instead, we got the "go nowhere interesting" Red Swan storyline. I wish Duncan and Wyndham had been given the material they deserved.

[Contessa Donatella]

I have a tendency to give them a pass on roughly 15-18 months after Doug Watson's unexpected death. They were planning on everything revolving around Mac's anniversary & the anniversary of Cory Publishing & his death basically destroyed that many months of writing, already written. Of course I hated the blasted Red Swan as much as anyone else!!! And, then, they seemed not to be able to recover & think of what to write for Rachel. But I've also always hated that they just wasted Carmen Duncan once Watson died. That she just stayed in prison, ignored, was appalling. The fact that Goutman thought to involve Iris at the end was a brilliant idea but then once he couldn't have McKinsey, he apparently just dropped the idea. Big mistake. He should've gone forward with Duncan! 

[chrisml]

For someone like me, Carmen Duncan is Iris. I never saw McKinsey's Iris. It's a bit like how I felt when they brought back Robin Strasser as Dorian. I saw Strasser as an interloper since Elaine Princi was the Dorian I knew. 

I'm willing to give Swajeski some grace for not having a game plan for something as unforeseen as Watson's death, but she dragged out the Red Swan story so long that she had enough time to come up with a contingency plan. 

[j swift]

For a mcguffin, not only was the red swan way too literal, but it was ugly, and easily solved as having a secret drawer.  I just think given the amount of time talking about it, there could've been a more interesting story establishing why the tchotchke was chosen. 

I've forgotten if it was destroyed, but it certainly was never used as a significant piece of set decor, like a portrait, or one of Rachel's busts. 

Edited September 3, 2024 by j swift

[Contessa Donatella]

It really seemed endless, didn't it?

I've asked different soap fans what their show's Red Swan was. Y&R Reliquary. AMC (& they claim there's is the worst) is Libidazone. I can't remember any more. I suspect DAYS has multiples. The Prisms. whatever was in the basement of the Mayan ruins. 

[DRW50]

From @chrisml in the GL thread:

Wyndham probably relished playing Justine because it at least gave her something to do rather than being a talk-to for other characters. She had a hard time getting back to Rachel. It reminded me of when Dustin Hoffman played Rainman and then bits of that character showed up in other performances. 

I don't know if the interview is still around, but somewhere in the point of her 25th anniversary, Michael Logan interviewed her, and she immediately confronted him about his panning of her work as Justine. She said (I am paraphrasing) the material was terrible, and she had to be so ridiculous in order to make it work for her.

Edited September 5, 2024 by DRW50

[Mona Kane Croft]

That Justine plot had to be the worst doppelgänger/twin/clone storyline in the history of soaps. The were so many holes in the plot, not to mention the absurd campiness (which did not fit on AW). And there was absolutely no explanation of why Rachel and Justine were identical.  Just a pile of silliness from start to finish.

This was during a period on soaps where is seemed every show decided to do a doppelgänger/twin/clone plot with a major star, whether it fit the show or not.   Didn't AMC even give Erica Kane a doppelgänger briefly?  Jeeze Louise.

I'm not fundamentally against these plots, because occasionally they work quite well.  Frannie/Sabrina on ATWT in the mid-1980s was probably the best of the bunch.  I accepted that storyline completely and was drawn in by it.  It was well written, superbly acted, and the special effects were absolutely believable. Marley/Vicki on AW also worked for me. Lily/Rose on ATWT was also a storyline that I enjoyed, but I will admit it had very shaky beginnings because it toyed with established history too much.  

I have come to believe that the best doppelgänger/twin/clone plots on soaps tend to those in which both characters remain on the canvas more-or-less permanently.  Unfortunately, most of these stories are so bad, and so completely rejected by the audience that the "bad" doppelgänger is dispatched rather quickly and the entire plot is never mentioned again on the show. 

Edited September 5, 2024 by Mona Kane Croft

[Xanthe]

I was about to say that it could not be VW's fault that Justine had a hook for a hand, but then I thought I must be misremembering because there was a period when Justine took Rachel's place living with Carl and obviously he wouldn't just accept that Rachel was missing a hand with no explanation. But I guess the impersonation happened before the accident and it's all true.

 

[Contessa Donatella]

The thing to me about Justine was the juxtaposition. It began quite nicely but it ended so terribly awful. I know from interviews that this was VW's take on it as well, She liked it when it was pitched to her & also when the acting started but absolutely hated it by the time it really got going good & at that point, we were stuck because it just had to be played out till its conclusion. 

I loved the addition of Rose on ATWT. My only beef there is that it was designed to continue for about 2 more years but due to executive decision-making it was very abruptly foreshortened with an awkward death by an unlikely killer

Of course, the Love/Hudson twins were excellent almost all of the time. At AMC Cindy & Karen were great examples. And, always there the example of Adam & Stuart was rather amazing. It's true that they came up with an Erica lookalike, Jane, and she was as plain as the name suggests. Also lame. The identical cousins played by Julianne Moore on ATWT have been mentioned. On Santa Barbara the actual twin brothers, Quinn & Robert, worked quite well. On AW, Cass's evil twin Rex was pretty bad. 

It's been pointed out recently that P&G spent big bucks on the tech & on getting it right, so of course, they wanted to use it as many times as they could. And, still we all hated the Marley wig!!! 

[Mona Kane Croft]

Oh yeah, that wig.  And of all times to use it -- when Anne Heche was playing the roles so brilliantly and believably.  The wig was so bad it almost distracted from Anne's performance.  Surely a talented hair stylist could have altered Anne's (Vicki's) long hair into a style appropriate for Marley, without resorting to that terrible wig.  

[Contessa Donatella]

No question about it. Anyone in Hair could have done better.