Search For Tomorrow Discussion Thread

[slick jones]

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[Vee]

Who was writing in the '79 episode posted a bit earlier? I can never keep track of the Corringtons and the BTS twists and turns on this show. Didn't they come and go a few times?

Edited yesterday at 12:51 AM by Vee

[Joseph]

I'm Amazed Episodes with The Flood from 1986 finally surfaced!

[Vee]

I thought the flood has been up for many years. I just never got around to watching it.

[VelekaCarruthers]

The Corringtons were writing in 79 when these scenes with Mignon aired.  It's vintage Louisiana Corringtons.  

[Vee]

Appreciated!

[Joseph]

So about the Serial killer Storyline just found Stephanie's murder by accident! Do we have access to the reveal of the culprit somewhere?

[dc11786]

@Vee The Corringtons were only at "Search for Tomorrow" only once from about September, 1978 - May 8, 1980. They assumed the writing reigns from Henry Sleasar on August 14, 1978, so there work was probably in place within a couple weeks. Prior to this, they had done some work writing a sample projection for "Another World" with Paul Raunch as training. This is probably how the origins of "Texas" began. Once they leave, they never returned. 

There were six headwriters after the Corringtons left before the show went to NBC less than 2 years later. Two of which I don't think lasted more than two months (Lemay was interrupted by the Writers' Strike of 1981 and Millee Taggert's original run was nixed when NBC bought the show and P&G hired Hunt and Ellis to return and write the show). 

[Paul Raven]

Six headwriters in 2 years! Search changed writers quite a bit throughout the 70's but the continuity pretty much was there throughout.

But with new writers constantly bringing in new characters and changing storylines, without an opportunity to see things through was a recipe for disaster.

Such drastic changes pretty much guarantee a good number of faithful viewers will drop away and grabbing new viewers isn't that easy.

Search had a good structure waiting to be explored with Stu's family  and Jo's grandkids as well as the Sentells but they seemed to think the Kendalls and McClearys were the answer.

And they did weird things like bringing in Sarah, a never mentioned adopted grandkid for Jo instead of her natural grandaughter Tracey and discarding Danny Walton for various Kendalls.

[dc11786]

I don't think there is anything wrong with bringing in new families like the McClearys and the Kendalls because you cannot just have Jo's brood marry Stu's brood. There needed to be interlopers. The problem becomes when this all happened without tying back into the two family lines. 

For example, I tend to hear less complaints about the Sentell/Tourneurs and the Adamsons because almost every character introduced in those clans were introduced as love interests or conflict for Stu and Jo's family. Travis was linked to Liza, which made Travis' mother Liza's enemy. His uncle Martin became Jo's latest love interest. Lee becomes one of the exceptions to the rules as he mainly becomes involved with Sunny, who was initially brought in for Tom (I think). Ted was for Janet and Stephanie. Tod was for Wendy. Laine was conflict for Gary and Carolyn. 

The initial arrival of the Kendalls and the McClearys is fine in my opinion because Tomlin followed the Corringtons path of tying the new and the old. I think the biggest mistake was Jeanne Glynn's reign where she started doing things like Adair / Chase / Alec without any real ties (besides a brief attempt at Chase and Wendy at the start) and jumping into Cagney / Suzi / Justine rather than giving Suzi the third leg of the triangle (preferrably Brian) or fill Justine's role with the already established Kristin. Throw in Hogan / Sunny / Victoria and you got a real mess. Nothing was about the long term characters. The center of these scenarios were all newcomers.  The only story with the central character in the center was Liza / Kentucky / Cord though none of that was cohesive enough to stick.

Once the show was unbalanced there, it was hard to come back. 

[Paul Raven]

@dc11786 I completely agree with your assessment.

I don't object to new families per se but rather them taking centerstage and overshadowing.

TPTB need to take a step back to ensure vet characters/families are also being highlighted. As simple as making sure that each episode includes familiar characters, tying new characters to the vets etc.

Also with the Kendalls, there were so many family members, recasts and change in emphasis.

Lloyd, Estelle, Michael, Steve, Chase, Alec, Adair, TR -most of them weren't even on at the same time.

Too many writers want to make changes, not necessarily improvements.

[Joseph]

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Not sure if these episodes have showed up on This board yet but they're precious so!

[Franko]

Somehow I had forgotten about the three-hander episode with the McCleary brothers returning to their flood-damaged home. It's ... well, a choice.

[Contessa Donatella]

About when in this lovely (thanks) chronology was Mary Ellis Bunim there? Patrick Mulcahey there?

[dc11786]

I know you and others have spoken of characters that you felt could have returned, but I often feel that so many of the characters feel like names and not people. This isn't a slight to the writing, but rather to the passage of time and how much of the CBS run is gone. Those 1980 episodes are a treat because its nice to see a continuous glimpse into the show. My point being I often feel like the characters who are always slated for a return needed a strong entrance story and not just a reliance on family ties. In the past few decades, soaps haven't been great at building connection between people beyond romantic (and even that has been lackluster in many cases). 

Jo's prominence seemed to depend on whoever was in charge that week during the NBC run. Cherrill gave her a lot, while the end of Hunt / Ellis seemed to feature her little, but did feature Stu. Tomlin gave Jo the Vargas tale and Stu had his romance with Barbara. Glynn tried to keep Stu and Jo in the thick of things with the Murder at Midnight Party and lots of family scenes for Stu and Warren's revenge involving Jo. 

I know they aren't well liked, but I thought Paul Avila Mayer and Stephanie Braxton were smart to bring on Sarah and bring back Danny to tie Jo and Stu to the young set especially as Liza and Suzi had  aged out. I also thought Caldwell House was a great setting and it was nice having them back in the hospitality business. Tomlin making Jo in charge of Liberty House was probably good, but I've seen very little of it. 

With the Kendalls, there was such turnover with the characters due to the change in producers and writers. Cherrill created Steve and Michael, but it was Tomlin who revealed they were brothers (not sure if that was Cherrill's original intention) and brought on Lloyd and later T.R. I thought letting Michael fade out made sense given the trajectory of the character (his romance with Jenny) had come to an end. Personally, I would have had him pop in more as the moral compass, but that wasn't meant to be. Steve's departure was downright criminal given that he was Martin's biological son and the building of T.R. as the long lost Kendall daughter being raised by the Sentells. 

I think Glynn loses the plot for a bit by bringing in Alec and Chase, the twins. Pairing them with a McCleary was not the choice I would have made. I wonder if it would have been any better had the show explored the original angle; Adair being the mother of baby Elan that Liza and Travis had also been raising. I wonder if T.R. would have turned out to be someone else or if the Sentells would be raising two Kendalls. I think they might have been able to make that work if it was Tracey Whiting they were torn up over with Wendy playing spoiler. Though, it would ultimately still be three new young people being asked to carry a bulk of the story. 

I am not sure when Bunim was there. Was the late 1970s until 1981. I feel like Fred Bartholowmule was hired when the show was going to NBC as Bunim and Lemay had fought earlier in 1981 over a rape sequence that ended up playing out under Don Chastain. If that's the chase Bunim oversaw the Corringtons and Mulcahey was a script writer who was brought in by the Corringtons. 

Joanna Lee oversaw most of the initial arrival of the Kendalls (Michael, Steve, Lloyd, Estelle in flashbacks only). Ellen Barrett would be the one to introduce the McClearys (Hogan, Kate, Cagney, Adair, and family friend Justine Calvert) though Hogan may have been introduced in the final episodes of Lee. Barrett would expand the Kendalls to include T.R., Alec and Chase.