Search For Tomorrow Discussion Thread

[katie_9918]

Thank you so much! I originally got into this because I’ve been a true blue GL fan all my life and Jerry ver Dorn’s tribute to Mary Stuart on the sad occasion of her passing set me on the trail of Search For Tomorrow.

 

In a happy (or psychotic - YOU be the judge) coincidence, I am also somewhat obsessed with seeing everything that Will Patton has ever done that’s captured on tape. I’ve accepted the inevitability that some scenes may be lost, but you have given me Patton’s last scenes on SFT.

 

I’m also a huge fan of Matt Ashford, so seeing any of his pre-Days or pre-GH work is a plus (even if his character is a complete jerk, lol) and I so very much appreciate everything you have provided and even all the things I don’t properly appreciate yet, having not gotten to them yet.

 

You are simply wonderful in all ways and I so very much much appreciate all of your contributions to the soap community.

[Soaplovers]

TPTB really didn't value the contributions that performs put toward playing a character, or else why would the show insist on recasting Stephanie and Liza in 1984/1985 when both characters were playing by very popular performers that had that something special.

Seeing the three 1985 episodes uploaded with the first two episodes of Sherry Mathis playing Liza and then the last episode played by L. Gideon... it was like seeing two different characters and probably was jarring.

And the Wendy character of 1982 and 1983 is so vastly different then the character of Wendy in 1985.  It did seem as though the writers were sort of restoring Wendy back to the less scheming version of the 1982 in her finals weeks of her stint in 1985.

Jo also seemed to have more focus/attention by the writers in 1983 then she had in 1985... And that Kate McCleary character in 1983 was so not needed... she was too drab/boring.

[dc11786]

I think Kate was introduced in early January, 1984, for a few reasons. I think the long term plan was to make her Stu's new girlfriend as they had bounced Olympia Dukakis' Barbara Moreno a few weeks earlier. In addition, the original story for Adair was more than likely the revelation that she and one of the Kendall brothers were the parents of Elan, the baby that Travis and Liza were raising. Kate as Tourneurs' nanny/ Sentell housekeeper would give Adair easy access to the house. Also, Stu and Kate together would have had the natural conflict when the custody of said child came into question. 

Wendy shifts in June, 1983, when Wendy and Keith's marriage ends and Wendy starts to show interest in Warren, who is being neglected by his wife, Suzi, who is busy with her psychology classes. Then, she gets pregnant in August, 1983, with Warren planning on dumping Suzi for his pregnant mistress until stumbling upon the fact that Suzi had been bequeathed a significant trust by her late father. Gary Tomlin was headwriter during this period and he had a tendency of taking heroines and turning them into schemers.

When Jeanne Glynn and Madeleine David/Carolyn Franz write, Wendy wavers in 1984, I believe, after they have written out Warren for the first time. She has a brief relationship with Chase Kendall and then she ends up back with Warren while Stephanie tries to pair her with Alec Kendall. Wendy is a schemer by default because she wants to keep Warren by her side; he had escaped from prison. 

In Jeanne Glynn's final weeks, Wendy definitely is in schemer mode because Warren is dead and she has decided to make Suzi pay by going after custody of Jonah. She also has a brief rivalry with Sunny when Wendy twists Stephanie's arm into making her an anchor at the television station. Wendy's last act of duplicity is to keep quiet (at the beginning of Mayer / Braxton) about Warren's confession that he had in fact been gaslighting Suzi for months on end. Cagney confronts her as she prepares to throw the recording into a lit fireplace to destroy the proof needed. In the end, Wendy turns over the tape, reconciles with Suzi, and turns over a new leaf by becoming involved with Quinn. A good chunk of 1985 is Wendy and Sarah Whiting (the newly created daughter of Patti) fighting over Quinn with Sarah becoming more and more manipulative and Wendy more career driven. Wendy and Quinn  were acting as managers for Sarah's music career. 

The Stephanie / Wendy / Bela stuff at the end is ugly for both Stephanie and Wendy. Shaffer's Stephanie is at her most desperate and pathetic clinging to an affair with younger lion tamer turned news anchor Bela and Wendy's motives seem to shift between manipulative and cunning (trying to prove to Stephanie that Bela is trash) to lovelorn (as if Bela could possibly be some great love) by the time Stephanie called Wendy a slut, I think I was ready for it to end. And I'm typically a Tomlin apologist. 

Peluso deserved better.