As The World Turns Discussion Thread

[victoria foxton]

From what i seen of ATWT on you tube from 1980-85. What worked worked well but what didn't fell flat. I like the Dobson's pitting John Dixon against their new creation uber villain James Stenbeck. John marrying Dee Stewart was a stroke of genius.  The Dobson's created two supercouples in Betsy and Steve, Tom and Margo. Many characters came and went their where a few that are fondly remembered like Diana McColl. Mercy Thompson, Karen Haines Dixon, Kirk McColl, Ariel Aldrin and Dusty Donovan, Craig Montgomery, Lucinda and Lilly Walsh. Brad Hollister looked like 1970's porn star he was way older than the Stewart sisters who were all gaga over him. From what i seen of Diana she was a complex fierce rich girl written in shades of grey. I loved what a loving stepmom Lisa was to her step kids. I also loved the friendships between Kirk, Jay, Marcy and Frannie and their concern for Lisa when she was kidnapped by some mobster. Lisa interacted very well with the kids loved her close motherly relationship with Mercy Thompson. ATWT  of that era is so different from the Marland era.

Edited October 1, 2015 by victoria foxton

[Mitch]

Some of the characters you described were post Dobsons Lily, Lucinda, Dusty Marcy and the Kirk Jay, Fanny thing was I believe post Dobs, but they may have generated the blue print for it. The "Lisa is den mother to the town," and kidnapped came after the Dobs definatley...(they wrote the original Lisa/Diana thing to be antogonistic, which could have been good, but BVF did not have the same "bite," Fulton had and just always came off as disinterested and snobby, which Lisa never was. 

I like Lisa best when Fulton came back and before Marland wrote her. She was in the middle of a lot of stuff, and was motherly and loving but still had her Lisa sting going. I liked that Whit's kids all thought of her as their mother and that she would nose her way into their lives but they liked it. Marland kept up the Lisa mothering the lost children of Oakdale but it wasnt the same and it seemed more removed..almost like Lisa paled in comparison to Kim and the "family" the Hughes had. I liked that Lisa had her weird untraditional family. I HATED it when Hogan took over and by the end of the show Lisa ended up almost a pathetic lonely spinster character, which she never was. I wish Marland had kept her step family or Hogan would bring back Diana as a vixen to compete with Carly (sorry people, I think the Carjack era was so boring and repetitive and I liked original recipe Carly until she became the Reva of the show. )

Of the Dobson stuff I liked the "Stenbeck Heir," storyline (hated Gunner though) but James was kind of a dumb villain, would have been nice to have shades of grey on him, and that was really the only besides the tedious Steve/Betsy stuff.  The "Who killed John," storyline was I thought really their best work on ATWT, it involved almost everyone and spoiler free time back then the audience thought John was really dead.

 

 

 

 

Edited October 1, 2015 by Mitch

[BetterForgotten]

Their second stint seemed a bit more well-received than their first, to me at least. However, Mary-Ellis-Bunim, the EP during their second stint, was controversial in her own right as well. 

 

It's amazing that they wrote GL and ATWT so differently, tonally at least. Granted, most of their GL stint pre-dated the ABC soap dominance in the late 70's/early 80's, while their ATWT stints didn't. I assume P&G was in panic during this time. 

 

ATWT also seemed to be targeted the worst during those dominant ABC daytime years - always cited as the most old-fashioned soap in the press. 

Edited October 1, 2015 by BetterForgotten

[Soapsuds]

These were the writers during that time….So Lisa's return was after the Dobson's left?

 

 

1983	Caroline Franz and John Saffron
Mid-1983–1984	John Saffron
1984 – November 1984	Tom King and Millee Taggart
November 1984 – April 1985	Cynthia Benjamin and Susan Bedsow Horgan
April 1985 – November 1985	Susan Bedsow Horgan

[DRW50]

I thought the Dobsons came back again at some point in 1982 or 1983. Wasn't part of that time when the show recast Lisa?

[BetterForgotten]

From what I've seen, the Tom King and Millee Taggart era didn't seem as bad as some make it out to be. Didn't they create Lucinda and ugh Lily?

 

I think Marland inherited an alright show actually, and used many of the existing elements to his advantage when he took over. 

 

 

Edited October 1, 2015 by BetterForgotten

[DRW50]

While some isn't that good (the Maggie/Jay story), a lot of what I've seen of their 1984 and 1985 run is good, although Susan Bedsow Horgan tweaked it further. I think some of their material for Tom and Margo was actually better and more suited to their strengths than what Marland gave them in HBS' years (other than the miscarriage story, which HBS and Marx played the hell out of, I think he gave Ellen Dolan better material). 

[victoria foxton]

[Soapsuds]

I liked Jay. What happened to his character? I wish he would have stayed during Marland's run. Didnt Marland also write the affair with Tom and Barbara when HBS was playing Margo or was it Susan Bedsow Horgan?

[DRW50]

That was Marland.

 

Jay was last seen while Frannie was recovering from what Doug had done to her. They went to his diner (?). He and that Spree or Speed woman were supposed to be together and happy. 

[Soapsuds]

BTW I found Maggie to be such a boring character…and seeing her again on the ATWT dvd releases further confirms it….

[NothinButAttitude]

From what little I've seen of Maggie, she was either shrieking about Frank and him possibly going rouge in the Haskell story, flirting with Cal, or suffering from baby rabies. 

 

But I did like Frank, who seemed like a milder version of Steve. Were all the Andropolous men overbearing brutes? 

[DRW50]

Yes, they were. 

 

I like Maggie most when she's bantering with her family. I wish they hadn't just totally forgotten her existence.

[NothinButAttitude]

So you think that she is one of the many characters that they should've brought back sometime before it's cancellation?

[Scrapple]

How could they do that? They needed to concentrate on the characters longtime ATWT fans cared about...y'know like the Ciccone family, Gabriel, the pointless characters played by Billy Warlock and Stuart Damon, etc.