Search For Tomorrow Discussion Thread

[Paul Raven]

For many years he ran Westside Auto a car repair business. Ellie was his faithful secretary.

Someone correct me if I'm wrong but Sam Reynolds may have assisted Stu in setting up his own business. Previous to that he may have worked in a similar business as an employee?

[skylark]

I haven’t watched much 1984, but it’s kind of surprising to hear Warren was so conniving after he was so against continuing his life of crime under Rusty in ’82-’83. I’ll have to check it out. Him and Martin enemies? I gotta see what happened.

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[Paul Raven]

Soap Scoop By Connie Passalacqua

"The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated" may be the famous message sent by Mark Twain to the Associated Press in 1897, but its contents are most applicable to the fate of "Search for Tomorrow," daytime's lowest-rated soap opera. To both counter rampant cancellation rumors and possibly revive the 34-year-old show, a new production team, headed by executive producer David Lawrence, was brought in two months ago. "I'm delighted that in the last six-to-eight weeks,the ratings have gone up two share points, so what we've been doing can't be wrong," says Lawrence. "At least we're going in the right direction." He attributes the gain to the new headwriting team, Pam Long and Addie Walsh.

Both came to "SFT" from a lengthy, successful stint on "Guiding Light," where co-headwriter Long (a former actress  on "Texas") cooked up outrageous but highly original and entertaining plot lines. "Pam and Addie are an extraordinary and well-matched writing team. Pam's inventive and passionate and gets all wrapped up in ideas, and Addie, who's organized, gets them into shape."

Lawrence is also pleased the show's focus has switched to the activities of the three McCleary brothers Hogan (David Forsythe), Cagney (Matthew Ashford) and Quinn (Geoffrey Meek). Lawrence is an old friend of "SFT," having started his career there as a Procter& Gamble supervisor in 1960. He's spent the past 14 years in Hollywood producing miniseries ("The Key to Rebecca") and TV movies ("Consenting Adult ) through his own production company, Castle Colombe Productions Inc.

He also co-owned, wrote and produced the memorable movie anthology series "That's Hollywood." Lawrence says that he's at various waiting periods concerning work on an upcoming ABC-TV movie, a Broadway musical and a Peter Sellers retrospective for a British company. But when these projects get moving he intends to stay with "SFT," delegating authority to others in his company for his ongoing projects.

"So many people have come and gone from my position that it would be heartless for still another person to leave," he says. "And there's no use kidding ourselves, if the show goes into a decline now, we're finished. But if we can hold (the ratings) we have now and gradually build on them to add (another ratings point) as I intend, then I think the future of the show is good.".

[Khan]

And it did, and they were.

[Soaplovers]

The show already had an expiration date by the time Pam/Addie joined as the headwriters.  It was nice that the show was able to go out with a great final episode that tied up the show nicely.

Based on the article, it does sound like Pam had great ideas.. just needed someone strong to implement them.. and I do think your idea of pairing Marland and Pam would have been a winner.  His shows were tightly plotted, but the day to day stuff was kind of cold and lacking warmth.. while her shows were warm/earnest and watchable.. but her plots were a little out of whack at times.

[Khan]

I agree.  SFT's final EP, David Lawrence, might have had a prior working relationship with P&G, as well as a minor track record of producing outside of daytime, but nothing in his resume suggests to me that he was a visionary. 

It's kind of like when CBS hired Cathy Abbi to produce the last several months of LOL.  The only other notable job she'd held was as an associate producer at Y&R; and I think I've read somewhere, too, that the higher-ups knew she wasn't cut out for the EP gig, but hired her, because they needed someone to run LOL into the ground and give them an excuse to cancel it.

(Lawrence also reminds me of that string of no-name EP's at LOVING who were there when it was clear that no one who was any good wanted anything to do with that show.)

And I don't know whether I was the one who had suggested a Pamela K. Long/Douglas Marland team-up, @Soaplovers, but I'll gladly take credit for it, lol!

[dc11786]

I think the last time the show had a chance was fall of 1985 with Erwin Nicholson as EP and Gary Tomlin as writer. The return of Estelle opened up story possibilities in a way that could have generated some real long term story including the return of Martin Tourneur. Repairing Hogan and Sunny in the chemical plant poisoning story had the potential to repair some of the harm to Sunny (which I don't think was as bad as what Long and Walsh did to Liza). A Chase / Adair / Ryder / T.R. triangle seemed to have potential especially if most of the quad ended up tied to the newspaper. Keeping the Sarah / Quinn / Wendy triangle going with Stephanie's daughter as the spunky heroine and Jo's granddaughter as the more emotionally manipulative antagonist would have been a good way to keep things heading in the right direction.

I'm curious what was on deck had Tomlin stayed as I know that Gary Walton was suppose to come back and romance Sunny, which was why the nephew had been introduced (Gary and Laine's son). I don't know how Bela Garody survived a highly despised intro story, a serial killer, a flood, three producers, and 3 head writing teams while having such little story potential. 

I feel there is just a very big disconnect when I watch Long/Walsh's "Search for Tomorrow." It seems most visible to me when I watch the anniversary episode back to back with the next day's episode. The anniversary episode is nice, but also mostly relies on the actors chemistry than a strong script (in my opinion). It's not a bad script, it just isn't memorable from the lines standpoint, but rather from the use of flashbacks. The next day's episode with Liza and Patti fighting over Hogan with Hogan dangling the hospital records while Quinn fights with Jerry Henderson and Suzi fights off the advances of the guy from Liberty House just isn't it. I've tried to watch the Ireland stuff, which is very romantic and plays well into fantasy, but just lacks dramatic tension, in my opinion. To be fair, I feel this way about Long's work on "Texas" as well and much of Walsh's work on "Loving."  

Jozie Emmerich and Haidee Granger of "Loving" were former ABC daytime executives. Going from artists to business folk represented the shift from developing a creatively strong show and creating a show which was strong at staying within budget. I imagine some of that might have been similar with SFT's final teams. Also, I think SFT was a dry run for P&G before they put people at other shows (typically, AW). 

Abbi was at "Love of Life" for about 17 months before the show was cancelled. I know @saynotoursoap mentioned Abbi being brought on to run the show into the ground. The Jean Holloway run (November/December, 1978 - May, 1979) nearly did, but Ann Marcus' material was very intriguing. I do think the canvas may have been a bit too big under Marcus/Abbi, which I think occasionally was the problem during the NBC years for SFT. 

I would be curious to see how Marland would have handled a town that had recently been destroyed in a flood. I feel like that's not something he would easily dismiss and it might have naturally built in that civic piece (when Jo was on town council, Brian and Tom were trying to clena up crime, and Suzi was pursuing a social work degree) that had been lost in the shuffle. 

[Paul Raven]

Reading through the synopses, i thought the Joanna Lee era presented the best-far from perfect but at least fairly balanced.

When Sherry left, maybe Liza should have also. She had been frontburner for a decade,so maybe some time away would have helped. Gary coming in to keep the Waltons/Bergmans at the center of things. Tom also with a good recast.

And why didn't they just bring in Tracey,Jo's natural grandaughter instead of creating the never before mentioned Sarah? weird!

Bringing Patti back finally but writing her as a different character.Where were her children?

So many changes and stories that seemed to lack purpose.

[Khan]

I think Douglas Marland would have used the flood as an opportunity to introduce a new family - most likely, a blue-collar family, who would have been particularly devastated by the flood - while keeping Jo, Stu, Patti, Liza, Sunny, etc. front-and-center.

I know people think Marland couldn't write a half-hour soap, but I'd like to chalk up his stints on THE DOCTORS and LOVING to external forces, lol.

[Soaplovers]

Marland needed a co head writer that could infuse a canvas with emotion and life.  His soaps were kind of cold and listless without any spark of life.

Hence why a Marland and Pam Long collab would have worked.  She could provide ideas and infuse emotion/heart into a show while Marland would have implemented and provided structure to those ideas.

And the blue collar family would have heart and have distinctive personalities (she did well with the Reardons and Lewis families that Marland had created).

[dc11786]

Lee definitely presented the strongest period. Jo's kidnapping is always cited as the reason the show thrived, but Lee really helped cultivate a strong canvas that was intergenerational and blended the past and the present. The decision to make Wendy Wilkins a schemer was brilliant. Wendy going after Warren Carter built that part of the canvas up beautifully. The decision to make the show an ensemble again and not the Travis and Liza show allowed the canvas to open up. Lloyd Kendall as the new rival to Travis Sentell and Tourneur Instruments was intriguing giben the history between Lloyd and Martin regarding Steve's paternity. The criminal element led by Warren, Ringo, and Vargas was balanced well with the Brian Emerson and Tom Bergman's crime commission with Sunny in the wings. Stephanie and Steve was fun, and the eventual Stephanie and Lloyd should have been fun. Barbara Moreno was a great addition not only giving Stu a love interest, but building up the social work element that would have eventually included Suzi. There was a sense of future building in Henderson that didn't occur very often afterwards. 

Liza leaving might have allowed Sunny to flourish. If they had done the Lloyd/Hogan stuff with Sunny, it might have been a little more effective, but maybe it wouldn't have been. Liza's departure would have meant that Danny Walton was Stu's main family tie. Gary showing up earlier might have helped, but in July, 1985, I'm not sure what I would have done with him. If they had revived the Riverfront Clinic where Angela Bassett's Selina McCulla worked they could have tried that romance. 

Sarah Whiting being adopted was a layer added by Tomlin I believe. Danny would have been older than Tracey, and Sarah is with Wendy and Quinn, who are clearly suppose to be older. Of course, Danny was still the same age he was in 1983, but that's another story. To be fair, Tracey isn't even mentioned by many of the soap books from the time, but, neither is Sarah in the end either. I like Sarah, but it would have made more sense to bring on Chris Whiting and have him fight Quinn for Wendy. 

I think Marland's "Loving" works in the final months (December, 1984-May, 1985). His "A New Day in Eden" is very slow given the structure of 2 half-hour episodes a week. Truthfully, even if it aired daily, it is a bit slow. I think his larger canvases played better on hour long shows, but I think paired with the right EP (maybe Joanna Lee or another female daytime outsider) could have worked for "Search," but probably wouldn't be my first pick. 

[Khan]

On the one hand, I appreciate Joanna Lee's attempt to steer SFT away from the kind of action/adventure-based stories that was occurring at the time on other soaps.  Since SFT still was a half-hour show, with a budget that probably wasn't very huge in light of their ratings, they really didn't have the proper resources to tell those stories effectively.  But, on the other hand, in addition to the usual network/sponsor interference and time slot/affiliate clearance issues, she didn't have that kind of "Wow!" storyline that could have infused new life and interest into the show, the way the David Hamilton storyline helped GH avoid cancellation back in '77.  In order for her vision for the show to have succeeded, she and Gary Tomlin really needed a true potboiler storyline that could have had everyone talking.

Edited December 19, 2023 by Khan

[Paul Raven]

Agree. That live episode 'lost tape' schtick got lots of publicity but it was undermined by the feeling it was ahoax.

What they should have done instead was a 'live week' and use that in conjunction with some returns eg Patti, Gary  or gimmicks like the ghost of Eunice appearing to Jo and Suzi and maybe a bombshell story eg Jo's son is alive.

Something attention grabbing for each day of the week and lots of publicity.

[Khan]

I would've gone even further that week and had Jo on trial for murder!  Of course, no one in their right mind would believe Jo to be capable of such an act, but just imagine how the audience might have responded had the big Friday cliffhanger had been the jury finding her guilty?  You KNOW they're gonna tune in on Monday just to see whether Jo will be exonerated after all!

[Paul Raven]

 Have Patti return to escape from an abusive relationship. 

Jo is shocked that her daughter has been through this. The guy turns up and starts to get rough with Patti , resulting in Jo picking up the gun that Patti had brought for protection and blasting that bastard to bits. The Friday finale is a freeze frame of Mary Stuart withe pistol smoking