Search For Tomorrow Discussion Thread

[Khan]

Of course, there's still my "Keith Barron comes back from the dead (as a homeless person)" storyline idea in my back pocket. 

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[DRW50]

I love that idea (as long as he isn't a circus clown).

[dc11786]

Jon-Michael Reed reported that Tomlin's original plan was to have Stuart Whyland be the serial killer. I believe Stuart was involved with Lee Dumonde at the time so she may have been intended to be an intended target at some point in the story. 

@soapfan61 Thanks for sharing that scene from the trial. I remember one of the soap books talking about how important and powerful that scene was. It's nice to see some more of the details. Andrea is such an interesting character. 

I think Matt McCleary's twin brother Malcolm was involved in some sort of payroll robbery involving Judge Henderson. Malcolm was killed back in the day, but everyone thought it was Matt so Matt went into hiding in Ireland. Personally, the last year of "Search for Tomorrow" doesn't appeal to me once Tomlin leaves, and even good bits of Tomlin's 1986 seem like they would be a struggle to get through. 

In my opinion, "Search for Tomorrow" was at its best during the NBC run during Joanna Lee's run. This was a reboot in the way the Corringtons managed to reboot the show when they came in 1978. Resetting the show away from just Travis and Liza, the introduction of the Kendall family as the rivals to the Sentells, developing the Warren/Wendy/Suzi triangle, and repositioning the civic aspect of Henderson with the crime commission and the work with the youth all helped to really develop a strong show. 

If the show had continued in 1987, I would have liked to have seen something of that nature, but as many have stated, the show was so gutted by that point it would have taken at least a year to two in order to start to really see the results. I think I would have kept the McClearys at the center for the year just to let them suffer and go through the big plot moves to keep the show going before basically eliminating all of them except Quinn and maybe Hogan. I would have reestablished the rest of the Whitings slowly with teenage Tracy and Chris and then eventually Len, Andrea, and Andrea's new husband/ex-husband who would be Jo's love interest. 

With Liza, I would recast (Carla Borelli as was once suggested) and build up to the return of Travis with a pairing with Steve Kendall, who I would move into the business world to build a battle of the wills between Martin and Lloyd over their influence over their son. For Steve, I think someone like Richard Bekins would suit my purposes. Then, I would have Travis return to mess up the happy home Steve and Liza had created. 

In the meantime, I'd just torture the McClearys. Matt and Kate's reunion would immediately be threatened by Matt's realization that Kate isn't the same woman he was in love with all those years ago and she is now more independent. Kate thinks that Matt is attracted to their son Quinn's fiancee, Kat, who has to deal with immigration issues forcing her and Quinn to move up their wedding to St. Patrick's Day. Cagney would investigate a syndicate who is onto him and wants him dead while Cagney and Evie fight because Evie is tired of hearing about Suzie all the time. On Quinn and Kat's wedding day, the church is shot up by the men after Cagney. Kat ends up dying on her wedding day. Cagney is forced to go on the run, faking his death, and leaving Jonah with Jo. Adair returns for all the nonsense to become involved with Dr. Jerry Henderson who helps Evie cover up that she was high as a kite on pain killers when she accidentally caused Kat's death in the hospital after the shooting. 

Kat's death would reset Quinn back to a cad and amoral character who sees himself as the new Warren Carter type. To complete this, Kristen returns looking for custody of Jonah and gets into cahoots with Kristen, who's red locks remind him slightly of his dead bride. Kristen and Quinn are set to become a major threat to the community just as Wendy returns to town and revives her relationship with Quinn. Brian Emerson also would return at some point. Maybe Brian and Adair would be a thing for a moment after Jerry and Adair break up. Ultimately, I would want Brian to become involved with a female lawyer, who would be law partners with either Scott or Kathy Phillips. 

I'd give Matt and Kate would officially divorce and both leave town. Kate might make a play briefly for Stu, but Stu would end up in an opposites attract relationship with Andrea Whitting. Hogan and Sunny could be a thing or they couldn't, it wouldn't impact me either way. I would probably do a Hogan / Patti / Len situation with Patti working at the hospital in the PR  department while Len faces a malpractice suit and Hogan is determined to use the Herald to slander his rival. I'd also probably try Sunny and Brian or Sunny and Steve. I could also see a Sunny and Quinn situation. I'd probably have Bela go to prison because of the syndicate that was after Cagney leaving Sunny, who was pregnant at the end, to decide she wants to be a single mother before losing the baby and then deciding to just sleep with one of the three suggested guys (Brian, Steve, or Quinn) in order to provide her child a father. Probably Quinn because I think at some point I'd revisit Hogan / Sunny and having Quinn/Sunny ties would fuel drama. 

[DRW50]

@dc11786 So many great ideas there, especially Quinn being a cad and Jo having to raise a child all over again. 

[dc11786]

@DRW50 I think Jeffrey Meek was underrated and misused. He should have been the center of the love triangle with Stephanie and Wendy. That would have been more interesting than Bela. And then later, it could have been Sunny, Quinn, and Bela. 

In an ideal world, I would have loved to bring back Spence Langley back as the main heel as I think the connections to Wendy, Brian, and Stephanie as well as the smaller connection to Cissie, Roger Lee, and Kathy Phillips (he briefly clerked in her office before he left town) would make him the perfect candidate for the Warren Carter successor. Plus, he was a lawyer which the show really needed by that point. The problem is none of those characters were on the canvas by the end of 1986. 

I think Jo in her sixties raising a child would be the sort character moment material that Mary Stuart would excel at. Also, I feel it would press her to "search for tomorrow" and keep hoping that she has will to go through this all over again. Of course, I would sprinkle in some Duncan Eric references to keep this board happy. 

The missing Whitings (Len, Tracey, and Chris) had to be addressed. Len's returns could be intermittent, but he would need to resolve his issues with Patti in order for her marriage to Hogan to be successful. Additionally, bringing back Chris would mean dealing with the nearly 20 year elephant in the room of Chris being Len's biological son and the implications that would have on Chris/Len, Chris/Patti, Patti/Jo, Chris/Tracey, Len/Tracey, etc. etc. And Jo knowing means she would have to be held accountable (I don't care what the network would say @Khan, Jo can be tarnished a bit).

With all that playing out, and Stephanie dead, it would be the perfect time to reintroduce Andrea Whiting, who I earlier suggested should be played by Tudi Wiggins. Now, I am considering a slightly softer version of the role and wonder if "Somerset" and "As the World Turns" vet Georgann Johnson might be better suited to play my follow up plot where Andrea is forced to recognize who she actually is. Returning to Henderson engaged to Phillip Lancaster, the owner of a pharmaceutical company looking to relocate his operation to Henderson for some of the tax benefits that Jo has been opposing on City Council, Andrea arrives thinking she is the doyenne of Henderson society unaware that she is viewed as a virtual pariah. Phillip will try to block the sale of the land to Lancaster for his company to relocate because of Lancaster's history with environmental issues and Henderson starting to deal with the fall out of two 1985-1986 stories (the flood and the chemical spill) which has led to some clean up issues that have put Jo and Estelle (as the person handling Lloyd's affairs) at odds over who is responsible. Phillip finds himself drawn to Jo, but she doesn't reciprocate his feelings. The one-sided attraction will lead to Phillip ending his engagement to Andrea, who initially blames Jo because of the business issues before realizing that Philip has had romantic feelings for Jo. In the fallout, Andrea finds a sympathetic ear from Stu, who knows Andrea's history and is leery of her until her genuine attempt to do right lead him to think she might truly be turning over a new lead. Jo, of course, remains skeptical. 

[Paul Raven]

@dc11786 as always some interesting ideas. Thanks for sharing. 

Would you have any interest in returning Janet, Gary, Danny and Laine or Ted Adamson?

I know that you have to consider the number of characters/stories in a 30 min format.

Maybe Search should have bitten the bullet at some point and expanded to 60 mins.

[Soaplovers]

From watching episodes of the show in the fall of 1986, I was surprised at how well balanced the canvas was.. with an equal focus on all age groups.  Seeing Ann Flood playing a character unlike Nancy Karr was a treat.. and she was effective.

I think had the show been allowed to continue into 1987, I think the show probably would have maintained the smaller canvas... but continue to morph into a show that was more like Days then a P & G show.   If I recall, when Addie Walsh and Pam Long came on before the show was axed.. the plan was to make the show more like a Days.  So I have a feeling that would have been the main thing going into 1987.

With that said, I do think it was time for the show to come to an end by 1986.. and the show did end in a beautiful way.  

[dc11786]

Joanna Lee wanted the show to be a hour long; she felt that was the only way it would survive in the then modern soap enviroment. Under slightly different circumstances, Joanna Lee could have been the 1980s equivalent of Wendy Riche. It really is a shame that her ideas were often shot down (such as Sheryl Lee Ralph's Mac being one of Lloyd's wives and not just his assistant).

I usually don't give much thought to Janet because Millee Taggart pretty much went into writing by the mid-1980s and while I am usually pretty open to recasting, I am not sure if that would work here. Liza could have used her mother so I wouldn't have been opposed to her coming back, but it probably would have been limited. If she did come back, I would want to revisit Chuck Gardner, the son that sorta fell into the abyss. He would be a villain and would tie the Bergmans and Jo's family together. 

I know Gary was set to return in spring, 1986, and to be paired with Sunny, which is why we ended up with the Craig Walton visits Aunt Sunny for the summer scenario. I don't think Sunny / Gary would be a bad idea, but it isn't the angle I would go. I would have paired him with Angela Bassett's Nurse Selina McCulla from the Riverfront Clinic and explored the class conflict at the clinic verse the hospital with Gary initially working at Henderson Hospital before realizing how the board diverts funds that they claim are for the clinic back into the hospital. Gary and Selina would go toe to toe over the politics while slowly becoming more and more enamoured with one another. One of the reasons I don't always do much in my alternate histories with Gary is because I don't always have the greatest sense of who he is. The affair with Laine seems purposely out of character to create conflict under the Corringtons, but it was effective. Does the audience still want that hotheaded version or more grounded? I'd probably try to straddle the line with him as well as struggling to be a father to Craig who he feels has been spoiled by his mother's excess wealth and lack of love. I think I'd have Craig reject Selina/Gary in order to see Gary / Sunny be a thing, but neither Sunny nor Gary would actually be interested in that situation. 

Neither Cain Devore nor John Loprieno set the world on fire as Danny, but that was more to do with the writing than the acting. I think they were trying to go the neglected angle with Danny, which I am not sure the audience really was ready for because they had seen so much of the Janet / Danny relationship. I would want to go in a different direction with him if I did have him come back to Henderson. I wouldn't want to revisit Danny and T.R. though I don't think Danny at the television station would have been a bad idea. I still think there was more mileage in brining back Chuck Gardner so I might pursue the angle of Chuck (or Charlie as I would probably rechristen him) trying to tempt Danny over to the dark side in his plot against the Bergman/Walton/Sentell clan. 

After Gary and Craig were established, I think Laine Adamson could return and reintegrate herself into the business sector. I would put her up against fellow female business woman and pseudo stepsister/sister-in-law Liza over control of the manufacturing industry in Henderson. Laine would want to make things work with Gary, but her selfishness and desire to succeed at all cost results in her losing Gary and Craig. With T.R. presumably off canvas, I would have Estelle develop a mother-daughter relationship with Laine with Estelle wanting a Laine / Steve pairing. Then, Laine can be a part of the Steve Kendall / Liza romance with Gary trying to keep Laine from destroying his sister while waiting for the back from the dead Travis. When Travis returns with amnesia, he would decide to build his life with Laine, which would also upset the Steve / Liza dynamic when Liza became jealous.

Ted Adamson would fit with the business sector I would want to build up especially since even though I am interested in Lloyd vs. Martin, Martin isn't really a businessman. Now, Ted jockeying for power while using his daughter Laine and her connection to the Kendall family until Lloyd was released from prison would be interesting especially if Ted went after Estelle in the process. I think I might also go for broke at some point and hire Maree Cheatham back as a Stephanie doppelganger before revealing that the woman was in fact Stephanie's half-sister, a child Stephanie's mother had after abandoning Stephanie as a child (as Stephanie's stepmother Rainey Wesner had been a character in 1970s). Cheatham's new character would be a woman who was raised with money, but was down on her luck and looking to restore a sense of wealth and power. Though, I'm not sure Cheatham would return and I'm not sure how interested I'd be in Louise Shaffer in the part, though I initially imagined this role as a way to have both Cheatham and Shaffer on at the same time (Shaffer would have played Stephanie's half-sister). 

 

[Paul Raven]

I think the ship had sailed with Maree Cheatham. Bringing back Andrea would probably be enough re a woman in that age group.

Wendy, Brian etc were connected to Stepahnie so with her gone that's it for them.

Same with bringing back Travis-after the initial reveal where is there to go?

Bud Gardner had really been forgotten and I'd leave him there.

With the Whitings back and Gary/Laine etc there's plenty to work with going forward.

I think more mileage to be gained by the return of Jo's son Duncan as the result of a baby switch. So many different directions to go in with that reveal.

So the Sentells, Kendalls and McCleary's would be gone by the end of 87 with the focus now on Jo, Duncan and  the Whitings, Stu and his offspring. Tom is a must return.

Sunny, Laine and possibly Ted.

 

[dc11786]

I think you make a valid point about Maree Cheatham. By September, 1987, she ends up at "General Hospital." I don't think she would consider a return after how she was treated.  I will, however, argue your point regarding Wendy. Wendy's introduction to the show was through Stephanie, but she was part of arguablly one of the most popular story of the NBC years with the triangle involving Suzi and Warren. With the other two legs dead, Wendy access to history was limited to Jonah, Suzi and Warren's child, and to Jo, her mother's enemy. The show did briefly attempt at the tail end of Jeanne Glynn's stint try a Wendy / Sunny rivalry professionally, which I think could have been revisited. If Peluso hadn't landed "Loving," I think her returning to "Search for Tomorrow" would have been a given. 

I do think @Paul Raven you have a very different overall vision for the canvas which is the nature of a show that was evolving all the time throughout the 1970s and 1980s. It seems like you have limited use for the Kendalls and Sentells so Travis' return would mean little. For me, so much time is spent between 1983-1985 building up this intense rivalry between the Sentells and the Kendalls that I think was ripe for revisiting. Maybe the ship had sailed, but I think there was enough around at the tail end of 1986 to rebuild around. So for me, I would have Travis return from the dead with amnesia and reject all the people who claim to know him. I would build a pairing with Laine Adamson (or anyone really) who would be on the outs with her father and with Gary and would see Travis as a way to enhance herself professionally while also sticking it to the Walton crew. Travis' relationship with his children, T.R. and Tourneur , would also be worth revisiting. Liza trying to navigate a happy place between them while also building a new life with Steve Kendall, with ties to the Sentell/Tourneur and Kendall families, would keep it all together. It would mean reimagining Steve in the realm of big business, but I think that neopotism would easily land him one of those jobs with either Tourneur or Kendall's companies. 

I think Duncan was dead and it would be best to have left him dead. Janet's son was never killed off, just ignored. And in a genre that loved to introduce long lost children no one had ever heard of, I think this would be the space to explore with Janet and the child from her first family. I think giving Liza a brother who was a troublemaker would naturally give her more to do.

One thing I am realizing Paul is you are positioning Patti as the more central female lead in your vision of 1987 while I definitely would be more interested in rebuilding Liza's role. I can acknowledge this is essentially Jo's show, I think Liza had taken such a lead in the NBC years that she should have been central. While I don't find Louan Gideon's intrepretation my favorite Liza, I've seen enough of Liza to enjoy her. I don't have as much with Jacquie Schultz's Patti, but I don't enjoy her stories for the most part. It's not an issue that I think a recast would fix. Even by rebuilding her family around her, Patti was very detached from the canvas by the 1980s. 

While I like Marcia McCabe as Sunny, outside the brief period of time that Sunny and Hogan were together, Sunny's presence during the NBC years is not memorable. While I think restructuring her place on the canvas would be valuable, I am not sure if her character (not McCabe herself) had a strong enough hold to carry the show with her family. 

So much of Stu's family comes off as underdeveloped to me because the scope was so limited for that crew in the 1980s. How do you imagine Tom and Danny? It seemed like they had differnet personalities with each recast. Gary also seems to fall into a similar boat. 

Everything is really in the eye of behold though. 

[Paul Raven]

Thanks for the feedback. I am loving your ideas and just posting some alternatives to discuss.

I guess for me the Kendalls suffered at the hands of various changing regimes.

There were 3 Lloyd recasts, then Michael, Steve, Chase, Alec , Adair and TR I think. Some of them never interacted and it seemed like new members were added and dynamics changed to the point that it seemed a bit of a lost cause. Yes, there was some stuff to be explored but they hadn't done much of a job up till then and I would be more inclined to start with a clean slate.

As for the Sentells, Travis, Renata, Mignon were dead, Lee was gone for years. So that's why I would drop Martin also. And Travis BFTD ...I guess SFT hadn't used that trope much.

And Travis and Liza were so identified with Sherry Mathis.

I can't seem to convince you re Duncan's return. How about Bruce, Jo's ward  and daughter Tory, who could be aged to a teen?

I just think a reset back to the families around Jo and Stu would anchor things.

 

 

[Khan]

I'd be okay with bringing Duncan Eric back from the dead, but only if it's made clear that Duncan (or whatever name he'd be known as by that point) was raised in a good home by loving parents.  I think that would be more interesting to write for and to watch than to suggest the poor lad was abused all his life by folks who were total scum.

[dc11786]

I hope my tone wasn't condescending. I actually enjoyed thinking about your points because I recognized that I am very focused on the NBC run because that was what I have been able to view mostly. 

I definitely can see how you'd view the Sentells and Kendalls as a bit of lost cause given the constant turnover in actors. In my mind, Peter Haskell would have to be willing to return as Lloyd, Rod Arrants as Travis, and a strong enough actress in the role of Liza for that to work. I think Liza could (should) work, but I can also see why you'd be willing to cut your losses given that Sherry Mathis was out. 

Regaring Duncan, I just think that giving Jo family for the sake of giving Jo family isn't a strong enough reason. I've heard people say this before (I want to say I heard someone once suggest that Tomlin wanted Vargas to be Duncan), but I just don't know what people would hope for in that story. Personally, I agree with @Khan about not wanting an abusive background, but I would want Duncan, if he had been swapped, to be a ruthless, spoiled person who would give Jo grief because for her to be at the center, she needed real conflict. 

Personally, I'd rather see a new ward given to Jo over Bruce returning, but I just find a lot of the mid-1970s stories very bland because of limited access to the material. Bruce and Amy don't seem super exciting from the SOD summaries. As a reporter, I guess he would fit in with the station/Herald. 

I do think the show needed more of a foundation and exploring branches of Jo and Stu's family trees would be a good place eto start, but I just feel so many of the characters in those families were relatively drama free. Gary is probably the messiest with the Laine affair and the baby. Tom, though, struggled to be a person under a multitude of actors. A strong sense of who Tom is and what his story would be would be anecessity for any post-1986 return. The legal eagle aspect is an access point, and his family anchors him, but I don't think the Kathy / Tom story was going to give Tom much todo in the long run but play supporting figure to an eventual return from Scott. Danny was another one approaching Tom territory with multiple actors struggling to shape the character. I think that's why I like the idea of Janet's son by Jo's cousin coming on and being a jerk. It had the potential to shake up both families. 

[Paul Raven]

Absolutely not. It's great we can exchange ideas respectfully. 

 I agree that Tom and others weren't clearly defined but of course with right actor and writing that can be addressed.

I just think Duncan's return could be the source of a lot of conflict and drama. He might have children of his own, siblings,an ex wife etc. Maybe he discovers his true parentage while his mother is still living and torn about not wanting to hurt her. Or later discovers she knew about it all along. So many possibilities.

How would the show explain that Bud was missing from his family all those years? He was an infant when last mentioned. At what point was he forgotten? Was he still around but not really seen into the mid 60's when Janet was dropped?

When she came back in 71 Gary and Liza were established as her children.

On the subject of the Kendalls, was Estelle supposed to be the mother of all those children?

She must have been continually pregnant! And at one point did she desert them all, including a blind son?

Edited October 17, 2024 by Paul Raven

[dc11786]

I believe Janet's son (was he also named Bud, I thought Bud was the father's name, but I might have gotten that detail wrong) was dropped when Janet left with Dan in the early/mid 1960s. For some reason, I was thinking Bud was still alive and I was going to have him raise their son, but I think he was murdered. If that was the case, I would explain that he became a problem child living with Dan and Janet when they married and after he ran away from home several times, Dan and Janet put him in school. Resentful, the son graduated and never looked back on his family. 

Estelle was the mother of Michael, Steve, Chase, Alec, and T.R. Chase and Alec were twins and the show pretty much wrote off Michael after Tom Sullivan left in September, 1983. During the 1984-1985 T.R. kidnapping story, there is no reference to Michael and I don't remember him being mentioned when Estelle turned up alive.