Serial killer stories

[soapfan770]

Say would anyone count Doug Cummings as being a serial killer on ATWT? His storyline, one of Marland's greatest, wasn't intended to be a serial killer story at all but it certainly did leave behind an unusually high body count.

Hahahaha I just got that lol good obscure reference

[DRW50]

I wish the whole thing was online too, as it was one of the few well-written stories B&E have ever done and Christine Tudor acted the hell out of every step. It still upsets me that she got no acting work after this.

I guess in some way the Cummings story was a murder mystery because you didn't know until near the end that Douglas was the stalker.

It's interesting, some of the stuff near the end of that, where they had Lucinda offer Kevin Gibson a job, leading viewers to assume he would have a future on the show, then he was shot and died in Frannie's arms. Then even months later, Frannie talked about how much she missed him, and even mentioning his name caused her obvious pain.

Doug Marland obviously had no use for the character and yet he took special care anyway, just for those who might have liked him, and because Frannie liked him.

It's quite a contrast to the wretched writing of today, like on AMC this year, where various characters, some beloved characters even, were blown away and within a week or less, no one gave a crap.

[Cheap21]

I wish SOAPnet would air Loving but thats most likely never going to happen

[JackPeyton]

Sadly, soaps just dont pull in the ratings soapnet needs. so no, i doubt it will. Tho it would be nice to burn off at 3/4am when nobody really watches anything.

Our best bet would be them ending up on hulu like Another World.

[Vanguardian]

Y&R is in drastic need of a serial killer tale! So many characters on that show needs to be picked off one by one! Y&R needs to murder the following: Jana, Ryder, Daisy, Emily, Noah, Eden, Mac, JT, Patty, Rafe, Heather, Jeff. Those almost killed: Michael, Nick, Victoria, Paul, Kay, Nina, Jill, Phillip, Murphy, Billy, and Chloe. The serial killer turns out to be: CHANCE...........suffering from a deadly form of PTSD!

[Mr. Vixen]

Oh my god, that sounds like a really really good storyline! I have never seen much of the show, though I haeve caught bits here and there on youtube, and read up on it (because the things I had heard intrigued me.) I vaguely remember watching The City when I was younger, but I remember it more from what I have watched on YouTube.

Is there any place were you can watch LOVING Online? It's not on Hulu or anything is it?

And THANK YOU for that amazing recap! You are really good at that! Did every survivor of the murders move to THE CITY?

[EricMontreal22]

No a number fo the (mainly older) charactersstayedin town or moved elsewhere. You can see random Lovingon youtube including 5 editsfromthe murders I believe but nothing official.

[DRW50]

The only place you can see Loving is some episodes and clips on Youtube.

Thanks for the compliment -- I guess written on the fly recaps are my forte.

Not all the survivors moved to The City. Ava left her husband Alex (who went to The City after a few months) and stayed in Florida with their kids. Ava's mother Kate and her fiance Neal stayed in Corinth, I believe. The chief of police, Charles, stayed in Corinth with his daughter Bree and his old flame Lorraine (who moved to The City about 6 months later). Deborah made a brief guest appearance on The City, but otherwise, she stayed in Corinth, as she had just met a doppleganger for Clay, and I think she might have won the lottery.

[Vee]

I thought the Music Box Killer story on OLTL started well, as they explored the methodology and pathology of Matthew Ashford's character, Stephen Haver, and what had made him so twisted. I think it is Ashford's best work on daytime and he absolutely should have won an Emmy. His scenes with Linda Dano's Rae, fetishizing her as his mother and beginning his ritualistic sacrifice of her, and the scenes in which we thought he killed her (and he should've), were incredibly frightening and very well-written - making her sing "We Shall Overcome" and then Haver says "goodnight, mother" as the camera pans away from Rae. It felt, frankly, too real and raw for daytime IMO. It was like a week and a half of Haver keeping Rae prisoner and then killing her and burning the corpse. It was like Seven. I hated Rae and even I felt sorry for her. But Gabrielle's death was unforgivable, and then the story turned totally idiotic when Jessica became Haver's brainwashed slave.

I think serial killer stories can work if done right. I love slasher movies. But most of the time soaps [!@#$%^&*] it up and OLTL has done too many of these stories. The KAD and Killing Club Murders were terrible. KAD had potential to be huge, and do great things with Marty, Powell, Rebecca (with Reiko Aylesworth, not that shitty recast whose character was destroyed) and could've redeemed Todd properly. Instead it was cheap, nasty crap and they killed Talia for no reason.

And the Killing Club - oh God. It was so bad, so endless, with the cheerleader barbecue and then Marcie, who'd invented the Killing Club as a vengeance game when she was a dejected high school outcast, spending months shrieking at people about my book is killing people you guys why don't you feel more sorry for meeeeee It got so bad that they actually dragged Viki out of her Higley-era tomb to tell Marcie to "please be quiet."

[DRW50]

Malone's first year back had such a bizarre tone. I think he either had totally forgotten how to write for soaps or he'd never known and Gottleib/Bedsow Horgan made it look like he did.

I had forgotten Linda Dano was still on the show then. That was her exit story wasn't it? She left town with John Bolger?

[Vee]

Yes, that was Rae's exit. In a staggering display of tone-deafness, OLTL announced with great flourish that a character killed in the Music Box Killer SL would be resurrected near the end to face Haver. Everyone expected Gabrielle, dead next to the toilet, to rise again, and instead we got...Rae. Who then left town with a guest-starring John Sykes.

MBK was Malone's second (and last) year. It was ALL strange.

[EricMontreal22]

I know due to his recent Y&R stint Josh Griffith is quitehated but I think he played a big partin making Malone's writing work for soaps--Malone is quick to give him creidt and in the 90s the show completely fell apart when he left and Malone wrote the laast year or so solo. Of course even when Griffith was there this time aroudn things weren'tbrilliant but when he left (claiming too much Fronsinterference) they likewise got much worse.

Veethanks for reminding me of those scenes theyw ere surprisingly chilling. Was I the only one sad enough to even bother reading the Killing Club? Like I said it'sa surprisingly good mystery novel--Higley's killings apparantly based on it had next to no connection that I could see...

[Vee]

I did not read it. But I heard the priest did it. SPOILER ALERT.

Other egregious little bits from that Malone II era: Marcie going on and on about the wonderful awesome "Professor Malone" who helped her write her book.

People say the show is plotted too fast now but OLTL is carefully nuanced and sedate today compared to Malone's speed in 2003 and 2004. He relied on catchphrases, big concepts, slogans to make something work and then rammed it through like a dildo. On day one of both of their appearances, River and Adriana were paired up as "Rio and Adriana." Within days of meeting, Flash and Joey were "the priest and the punk" as they were often referred to onscreen. Malone's ideas sometimes worked, but invariably were executed insanely. Good or bad, something was always wrong with it or insanely rushed. Even the adorable young couple, Starr and Travis, their affection came out of nowhere (and it was particularly off-putting when the 12 year olds got a heavy summer makeout scene but OLTL couldn't get their gay stories onscreen at the time except for asexual Mark Solomon). By comparison I think Ron Carlivati moves slowly and carefully.

[Toups]

I have the entire Salem Serial Killer storyline, so once I have the technology (I don't have anything to get VHS onto my computer), I am so putting up the entire thing (Mid August 2003 - May 2004) on youtube.

Wow that scene sounds awesome. Sadly, I couldn't find it on Youtube.

[Mr. Vixen]

Oh okay, that clears it up! Thanks! I'm going to go try and find more on YouTube!