Soaps Original or Working Titles

[CSF]

Maybe it would have lasted longer too with that title lol

[EricMontreal22]

Loving is just a title I never really liked. I can't quite say why, but...

[SFK]

I agree, it was meant to be a "back to basics"-type title, evocative of good, classic soap opera, but I always thought it was too generic and (as silly as this may sound) feminine.

I also like Into This House better than Lovers and Friends which reminds me of than song Dionne Warwick used to sing on the Psychic Friends commercials.

If P&G Channel ever comes back, man I wish they'd air L&F/FRFP, I'd watch beginning to end.

[JackPeyton]

i think that was just its working title.

[Jonathan]

I agree. Maybe it's because no one really uses the term "loving" in every day speak. You can try, but really, the term "love" is pretty much synonymous.

[EricMontreal22]

I would too--the Rauch/Lemay creation is the one soap I've not seen an episode of I want to. But I don't think much ofit survives at all--the Museum of Broadcasting has one episode of each I believe.

I think you're right--as much as I HATE calling things feminine or masculine--Loving IS too feminine of a title. All I know is when I was a teen loving my soaps I'd be even more embrassed to tell classmates I watched a show called Loving, than All My Children (partly though as NOBODY I knew, even my mom's soap loving best friend, had never HEARD of a show called Loving lol) I love and miss Loving/City but one thing I find so fascinating about it is how Agnes Nixon's instincts didn't seem to be right this time--viewers DIDN'T want a soap that went back to the quieter, slower days of early 70s AMC, etc and that prob trickled down to the not particularly appealing title.

[SFK]

Totally. In the cancelled soap thread where the promo is posted, it's funny to hear Agnes talking about her "hot" new show called LOVING (!?) which along with its logo/font just makes me think of a doily-trimmed Valentine.

And you're right, as much as I appreciate her brand of storytelling, Loving always FELT like a warm-up to AMC. And in my grandmother's home for example, that's exactly what it was. Loving was on while she made lunch, AMC is what we watched while we ate lunch. And I have a feeling that's what it was like for a lot of people, our knowledge of Loving was always more peripheral. I know I didn't really get into it until its final months, knowing that The City was around the block. A show that I was really excited about.

[All My Shadows]

The problem with "Loving" as a title is simple...are we referring to it as a present progressive verb (I am loving you)? A gerund (Your loving keeps me warm)? Is it being used as an adjective (She has a loving smile)? Are we referring to Loving v. Virginia? It's just a plain throw-away title that really has no meaning.

[MarkH]

Well argued. But one might then argue that such a generic title has the properties of a Rorschach. It is an empty vessel into which the viewer can project meaning. It thereby becomes meaningful to all who watch.

I'm sure that was the thinking, anyway.

I watched that show for years--at least during summers and holidays--and I could never enjoy a single day of it. I never felt any personality with that show. The constant Alden recasts (all the way up to Isabel) didn't help.

I was probably most interested in the Vocheks, but they sort of evaporated away.

The incest storyline was intriguing, until the daddy morphed into Snidely Whiplash.

[EricMontreal22]

That's a good point that Loving as a word doesn't quite work either.

Mark, I DID love Loving--I startedwatching during the Carter Jones/DInah Lee etc crossover with AMC and was hooked--at times (liek 1994 when Agnes returned for 6 months to headwrite) it was my fave of the three NYC based ABC soaps. I kinda wonder why you watched it for years if you never even enjoyed one solid episode But I do get your point.

Recasts plagued the show. I knwo the incest storyline was partly changed on orders from ABC

[Jonathan]

I'm having flashbacks of 6th grade grammar!

[SFK]

And that's exactly what I got from the title, open to interpretation/applicable to a myriad of characters in a myriad of ways. Yet, as you say, it was TOO open, too generic, too boring. I think Woody Allen's Another Woman for example is a much better, more interesting take on that idea of a title carrying several meanings.

[Paul Raven]

I will stand corrected but wasn't GH originally Emergency Hospital?

And Emerald Point NAS was originally announced as simply 'Navy'

[dragonflies]

Wasn't it also GH2 at some point, before the show debuted too? Also originally it was going to have Ned and Lois instead of Lucy and Kevin too.

[catsmeouch]

Yes, it was definitely GH2. I actually thought that was less goofy than Port Charles.

Passions' working title was Harmony's Passions.