Douglas Marland 1986 NYT Article

[Y&RWorldTurner]

I would kill to see more of Gordon Russell's OLTL, he might have kept some of Agens's elements, but he also had a unique writing style of his own. So much of what seems to have become overdone soap cliches like the babyswitch seemed to originate or at least get drilled into the soap opera mainstream during that time period at OLTL. What could have been a convoluted mess wasn't, his time at OLTL seems like it was serious case of compelling character psychoanalysis.

Russell's stories also seemed like they were paced quite slowly, or slower than how Agnes paced her stories, and of course, they all had lingering effects for quite a long time.

[EricMontreal22]

I would kill to see more of his--all I've seen is the Daytime to Remember Karen episode, the wonderful couple of hours connected to that storyline on youtube from 78-79, and the 1976 Birth of Kevin episode from DTR.

[DRW50]

There's some stuff on Youtube like Joe Riley's funeral and when various people had flashbacks to Niki, but you've probably seen that.

[EricMontreal22]

I haven't! And can't find it

But were the flashbacks to the early 70s/late 60s Nicki? Cuz Russell never wrote Nicki (this was before Nicki Smith and crew were hauled out every other year

[Y&RWorldTurner]

I'm shocked whenever I see clips of Vicki from that era. There was a set of clips where Vicki was in her office doing actual work and worrying about Joe, who was taken hostage, and Karen comes over too, since Jenny was also being held hostage.

Anyway, that Vicki seemed like a much more realistic person, and I loved how he often seemed to point out how judgmental and high and mighty she can be, which today, is done very unintentionally.

Maybe we should start a thread on Russell's OLTL?

[DRW50]

They seem to be gone, sadly EdgeofLlanview, I think that was the name, the account is gone now. They had clips of Tina's arrival in Llanview (as Tina Clayton), Joe's funeral, and Larry, Joe, and Vince all thinking back to Niki. This was when Marco was making people think Niki was back. It was Erika as Niki, they weren't the real flashbacks.

[Y&RWorldTurner]

I'm sure you all know marcowuzmypimp (love that name) has a number of clips from that era, namely Karen related, but lots with other characters too.

[TC]

By all means, start one.

Seriously that was the norm back then for all soaps. People had jobs. Peoples' storylines hinged on whether or not they had them. Alcoholism and drug addiction were big stories because they affected one's ability to keep jobs.

Sometimes I really hate Gloria Monty.

[DRW50]

Yes, I've seen some of those, I should watch the rest. They're great. I love the Viki/Karen friendship, and how it seems like a real friendship. I don't know if that's with those clips or not when Karen and Viki are talking about Karen's prostitution and Karen is feeling sorry for herself and down on herself and Viki tells her to snap out of it, and tells her about Niki and the shame of that. It's brilliant recap dialogue because it does not seem in any way like recap. Yet they were casually filling in new viewers (and there were MANY new viewers to OLTL since the days of Niki) on Viki's past.

[EricMontreal22]

Yep those are the youtube clips I meant. I found them a couple of weeks back and intended to only watch one--I literally stayed up from about 2am till I had to go to work watching them... I guess that's a sign of good soap (FASCINATING to see Tina's introduction too)

[EricMontreal22]

A brief golden era for that--in 1971 the NYT complained of the lack of actual jobs on the P&G soaps (particularly for women--they stated that at the time, it was early 1971, not one female who was married had a job) I love too how back then people had INTERESTING jobs. I mean it helped define them--concert pianist, not just a professor but a professor of something SPECIFIC, etc, architect, ballet dancer even. Now they all seem to have random vague corporate jobs, or random vague cosmetic jobs etc.

[Y&RWorldTurner]

I created a special thread to discuss Russell and his OLTL work.

[Sylph]

He really did. It was soap opera transformed, a mixture of fine, delicate, sophisticated novelistic traditions and pure theatre (I usually puke when I see someone say daytime is theatre, but here it really applies). It wasn't labourious, stretched out, it just seemed to flow, many interesting storylines developing at once (with Irna's rule: one starts, the other is in the middle, and the third major one is ending), it had the influx of new themes and story devices, it abhorred clichés like baby switches, poisonings, long-lost children... The scenes were varied in content, duration and tone, it was just magical. And probably thus - unsustainable beyond those 8 years, too taxing. He complained constantly how his subwriters, that is how he called them, were inappropriate, how he spent much more time editing their scripts and breakdowns than he would if he himself would write them, then he held a seminar on soap writing, but that didn't help matters either... SO he basically wrote it all: projections, outlines, scripts, got up at 4 or 5 in the morning, wrote for several hours every day... It just pointed to a breakdown (which he never had, thankfully).

I believe it was the We Love Soaps interview. And no, I don't think it was an asteism. I think Lemay really got Marland, as a person, and he encouraged him to go away from AW when Marland had an offer to HW a serial. Marland resented that, he didn't get it as a compliment, but thought Lemay wanted to get rid of him.

[EricMontreal22]

Sylph--what's your favorite era of soap? I mean that you've watched? (And have you liked anything by dear Saint Aggie? )