1998 Article on ATWT

[DRW50]

Andy initially left in late 1995. I think he left around Thanksgiving or Christmas.

He came back in early 1998, around the time of Holden and Lily's wedding. I remember being happy because he and Julie had scenes together (the last time we would ever see Julie) and they were two of my favorite characters.

His stories were a bit all over the place. I had forgotten he was involved with Nikki. Then he got together with Molly, which I thought was a good pairing, but they shot that to pieces because she was supposed to be drawn to Reid as he was so much more dangerous and hot or whatever (which never worked for me because washboard abs don't balance lack of personality and a Charlie's Angels style "flip" hairdo in my book). Then they had the story where he found out he was Hope's father and they had Denise marry him even though she truly loved Ben, blah blah, she and Ben had no chemistry and it was a very depressing and unpleasant story, complete with Andy being presumed dead and Ben being angry with God when Andy came back from the dead.

Hogan would have loathed Andy, as he loathed anyone besides his precious sociopaths like Craig, so I guess it's a good thing Andy left so early.

What you described does sound very dark. I don't remember it being THAT bleak watching at the time but I do remember being more into GL at this time, so perhaps I was starting to recoil a bit. I don't have a lot of clear memories of most of that era anyway. I wish I had saved some of that on tape.

I think one of the reasons I liked Neil so much was she was a lot of fun and personality and humor, compared to some of the misery. Of course she was then murdered, so more fool her.

Yeah, Holden got involved with the doctor. I thought that was kind of rushed. He was in a lot of filler relationships while they had him circling around until Martha Byrne came back.

I guess they already knew Martha was coming back at this time? I know it couldn't have been long before Lily disowned Lucinda and got her adoption revoked and all that, while leaving town. I can't remember if she ever let Lucinda re-adopt her.

I think there was a big argument between Lucinda and Iva in late 1992 or early 1993. I remember that...and I remember that I really liked Scott and his relationships with various people in his life. Too bad about what happened with Joe Breen. Then when they brought Scott back he barely ever saw his family most of the time.

If it had gotten dark I imagine Marland would have found a balance in time, as I think he usually did.

What I liked best about that era was the multi-tiered cast, and I guess that would have been something taken away from him even if he had lived. For me that complex cast and their relationships was what made ATWT so unique and so true to life. What I loved most was that you would have people getting news, it didn't matter if they were only casual friends with someone, you would see them picking up a phone and reacting to the latest death or birth. And lives would continue offcamera, even if a character had been gone for years. I miss that so much. Law Packer and Backus did continue that through most of 1993 and I think it went on for part of 1994 but it all sort of slowly died away. A lot of ATWT slowly died that way and then you look back and you go wow. Like if I look back at 1996, I'm actually pretty surprised at how much some of the vets were used. I am so used to the Goutman era of Lisa Who? or Bob and Kim only being seen when it's time for a hospital stay.

[Gray Bunny]

P&G played musical chairs with their EP's and writers in 1995 in knee-jerk reaction to the O.J. trial. GL and ATWT really suffered during this time (AW had already been suffering since.... 1984...?)

[DRW50]

ATWT was hit almost immediately, then GL and AW both started to flatline around spring/summer 1996. The soap press tried hard to hype AW because at that time they still spent a lot of time praising JFP (they only seemed to really give that up when she sent OLTL to sheer depths of hell). I guess they wanted all the soap changes to succeed, and I can understand, as everyone did, but it was kind of funny to see them say things like, well, ATWT is improving because John Valente got rid of a bunch of people. Yes, and he replaced them with huge duds...

[Y&RWorldTurner]

Valente's ATWT was when I really felt like the heart and soul of the show was shot dead, and in many ways, the show never recovered from that era, as brief as it was.

[DRW50]

I think if not for MADD and FMB they still could have recovered, I think that some of the arrogant power moves like what they did to Allyson Rice-Taylor taught fans to never give the show a real chance again; it wasn't so much that she was irreplaceable as they didn't seem to really care that she had fans and they didn't seem to care that people wouldn't enjoy the elitism of hiring a pal from ABC in some random role and assuming fans would be fine with businesswoman Connor dusting blinds and suddenly having a Southern accent.

Valente was definitely where it started. It's a shame because I think when Richard Culliton was there the show still had potential. Hiring soft porn writers, and not even very good soft porn writers, was a disaster.

[LoyaltoAMC]

FMB was not a good fit for the show. She really didn't care much for the vets. I remember her making a comment at the time, something to the effect that the vets only needed to be trotted out for holiday episodes. Don't remember the exact comment, but it was to that effect.

[soapfan770]

What happened to Breen? I liked Breen, and especially enjoyed watching old Youtube clips on him and his villainous role on GL. I read he's married to Carlene Carter these days. The other Scotts did nothing for me, and I wondered why the brought him back in '95.

[DRW50]

Breen left ATWT suddenly in early 1993 when a tabloid ran a story about him having AIDS. I remember Eileen Fulton in an interview a few years later talking about how angry she was with that article. At least Joe still seems to be healthy and is happy. It's a shame he hasn't acted in a long time, as he was very talented and Scott could have provided a lot of fresh storylines.

There was something too smirky about Doug Wert but I think he could have worked if they'd made more of an effort, but they seemed to just end up settling into the role of his trying to fleece Rosanna.

[Saving ATWT]

Agreed, Marland's last year wasn't very good. I'm guessing that either this had something to do with his health at the time or, maybe, he was about to make some big changes so he flooded the canvas with characters to see what did and did not work. When he died, there were so many paths for a new writer to take. It would have been easy to keep building the Walsh family, do something with Duncan, add a new Stewart, or build a family around Frannie.

I like Molly but there was no need for her character at the time. The same could be said for the addition of Carly and Ben.

The writer makes a good point about Y&R always staying focused. I think Lucinda was Marland's version of Victor and, once her character was diminished, the show slid down hill.

[jfung79]

I know people were upset with ATWT under Broderick, especially with Lucinda falling for James Stenbeck, but I loved Broderick's ATWT. That's what got me loving the show in 1999 after AW was canceled. The show-spanning baby Hope storyline is still my favorite soap umbrella story ever -- there was so much emotion for Lily and Holden in that. And the couple of Eddie and Georgia is still my favorite "young love" story ever. Ben Jorgensen's struggling screwup Chris Hughes is still my favorite Chris. The Chris/Katie friendship portrayed there still echoes to this day.

No, ATWT has had its struggles -- Broderick's successor Leah Laiman was certainly bad -- but I will never, ever reject Lorraine Broderick's version for As The World Turns.

[David V]

I only discovered this thread while coming in for an occasional visit, so apologies.

Anyway, 1995-96 was the key in the decline of the entire P&G lineup because their screw-ups there were to set the stage for the grim years to come. We have to look AW differently because of the network the show was on (NBC) and its generally poor record with soaps, but much of it does apply.

I think anyone would have had a hard time stepping in to Marland's shoes. Caso was still EP, Packer and Backus had written for the show under Marland, so they weren't going to radically deviate from his vision and ratings were still decent. Richard Culliton did write some good storylines from what I recall. Of course, none of this was as good as it had been under Marland, but it compared favourably with the garbage that came after. Valente began changing things by getting rid of beloved actors and bringing in new characters nobody cared about- shades of Days in 1980, similarly only one of the new characters lasted more than a year. Their hiring of Black and Stern, given their background (despite having worked for Falcon Crest), was one of the biggest catastrophes in soap history. GL and AW were faring little better during 1996. Still some people think Valente sabotaged ATWT because of his bitterness about being moved from AW.

Let's give P&G some credit here. They were quick to see what was happening. ATWT was considered in 1996 to be the worst show on TV, and Daytime was in nowhere near as bad a state as it is today although the signs of cancer were beginning to appear. They did a spring cleaning at all three soaps late in 1996. ATWT really didn't improve at all until about the end of 1997. Compare that to today where bad writers and producers are not punished quickly enough or at all- how often did we see calls for Passanante to go?

Guiding Light was fatally wounded by the Carruthers storyline. That killed any chance of a recovery or return to respectability.

And Another World. Some of the show's problems went back to the glory days of the 70s to some decisions made by Rauch and Lemay. It wasn't even the expansion to 90 minutes which caused the show's decline that it never really got out of (save for a renaissance in the NBC Silver Age). It was the departure of Beverlee McKinsey for Texas, and the goings-on at Days, which pulled the show down at a time when NBC in general was in the doldrums. The 80s saw a heavy turnover of writers and producers with only some stability being achieved by Laibson and Swajeski, but the show could still be very good at the time.

All this shows that since the mid-90s, P&G's treatment of its shows has been an utter disgrace. They should be ashamed of themselves.