As The World Turns Discussion Thread

[Soapsuds]

I had a huge crush on Jamie Walters. I had forgotten he was on ATWT.

 

 

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Edited December 21, 2020 by Soapsuds

[allmc2008]

I've been lurking. Who has been asking? @Vee? @Khan? 'Cause we all know how much they **LOVE** me (sarcasm).

[DramatistDreamer]

While watching the GL fundraiser livestream, I can't remember whether it was Robert Newman, or Peter Simon, or maybe Grant Alexander who mentioned how, for many years, GL used to focus on characters celebrating Christmas, rather than existing storylines for their Christmas episodes, and that in later years, the show did the opposite, using the holiday as a backdrop, while centering existing storylines.

I mention this because I have noticed the exact same thing with ATWT. While watching an episode from 1985, the aspect of characters celebrating the holiday was the focus. Clearly, nuggets were being dropped of characters that we would see months, sometimes years later but the main focus was Christmas Eve, Frannie's birthday and Christmas.

I don't know whether it was a budget thing but, in the last years of the show, having a meaningful celebration of Christmas seemed almost like an afterthought, where the episodes insisted on ploughing ahead with the existing storylines.

[Mitch]

It was Simon, and yes.. I think it was moving the shows towards a more plot driven focus and away from character driven that changed that.  I don't mind that the plot continues to move forward, as whatever we are dealing with in our lives continues during the holidays...its just when the plot completely dominates that it is a problem.  A good example is a GL episode where Beth comes home to Lillian on Christmas Eve and the fallout of Dylan being Reva and Billy's kid is dealt with. The simmering hostilities at the Spauldings is going on at Alex's party, and at WSPR you have the rest of the cast renacting the Christmas story and small issues and problems being healed (Ed and Fletcher make up...)  All in all a good example of plot and sentimental Christmas celebration..(as only Pam Long could do.)

 

As I have said before..Marland is a colder writer so his family celebrations always seem stiff and formal compared to GL..but he actually seems to stop the plot more then  GL did.

Edited December 28, 2020 by Mitch

[DramatistDreamer]

 

1983's Christmas episode seemed pretty stiff and formal to me, from what I saw.

 

Maybe because I also watched Y&R, whose celebrations seemed much more choreographed, ATWT seemed warmer. I guess it's all about your perception.

Edited December 28, 2020 by DramatistDreamer

[titan1978]

That doesn’t surprise me, because for as much as I love Bell and the aesthetic of Y&R, I have also found it static, staged, and emotionally chilly.  It’s part of the old school Hollywood aesthetic they used.

 

Most of this is because I grew up on ABC shows.  They all had more action in every sense.  Their characters emote more by showing, not telling.
 

On Y&R, you have the classic shots of someone talking to the back of another character with the camera facing both, the sweeping shots of sets, and a lot of classic soap elements like characters talking about every step and emotion of their lives, often telling as much or more than showing, and not much character based humor.

Marland’s ATWT feels patrician to me.  I haven’t seen enough of his other soaps to say if he wrote this way specifically on ATWT or if it was his style.  The GH I have seen written by him is still filtered through Monty’s lens, and she did whatever she wanted with the script to get the show she wanted.  I’ve seen some GL and with Nola it does have more spunk.

[DramatistDreamer]

Speaking specifically about Christmas episodes, for me, Y&R came off as somewhat remote (even as I found it entertaining) because most of the families were wealthy and well-heeled. If Victor gave Nikki or Ashley a gift, it's usually going to be some expensive bauble. The heartwarming "miracle" of Christmas usually did not involve a regular character but an outsider like a homeless person, etc who would be off the show by New Year's. The Williams family, who were middle class were also somewhat remote ad Mary Williams was seen as attending church and doing charity, usually off-screen, in addition to being portrayed as a judgemental busybody.

The warmth was just not there. The families on Y&R could be seen as intimate and tight-knit, which can be seen as cozy or they can be seen as insular, not particularly welcoming to strangers.

 

One thing that I can say of ATWT, particularly during Marland's best years is that events and occasions seemed welcoming to the outsider (sometimes to the detriment of a certain character, here and there). Just last week, I mentioned Lisa always being the great connector, introducing and welcoming new people. She once mentioned feeling like s stray who had been taken in by the Hughes, which explained why she was so welcoming of others, as I saw it. If you like at Bob's Thanksgiving toasts, there was always someone new eho hadn't been there in the previous year.

It's possible that because those gatherings were more open, less insular than other soaps (which really seemed to tightly close ranks around their family unit), that ATWT seemed colder in comparison but I liked that the characters seemed more welcoming to outsiders.

 

I also think that the show acknowledged the very real aspect of loneliness, despair and alienation around the holidays.

[Brolden]

I've been reading through the old RATS group for a while now, experiencing much of the early 90s vicariously "in real time".

 

I just stumbled upon this post about Craig, which I found rather funny with hindsight.

 

Title: CRAIG LIKES TO SLEEP WITH HIS EXES' SISTERS

Background: This is in 1994, when Craig briefly returned during his marital issues and had a fling with Sam, who was new on the scene

 

 

Little did they know at the time he would go on to add another Snyder sister and a pair of Washburn sisters to this list, as well as another mother/daughter pair (and I'm not even referring to whatever it was that was going on between him and Dani in '09, because that was just gross). 

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Now, at the time Sam was believed to be scamming Lucinda apparently and that she was not in fact Lucinda's long-lost sister (I didn't know that... so it was later revealed that she actually was who she pretended to be? That actually makes the Jade storyline in '06 seem like a complete ripoff). Around the same time, Rosanna traveled to Montana to find out that she had a half-sister courtesy of her uncle Ray and her mother. For some reason this led nearly everyone on RATS to believe that Sam would turn out to be Rosanna's long-lost sister, which led to the following humorous comment in the Craig-thread:

 

 

 

Little did they know... 

 

On a different note, I'm shocked by how vocal they were about their distaste of KM's Emily. I know nearly everyone prefers MS's Emily and, having seen her, I can see why. Emily was never my favorite character in the 00's while I was watching, but I can't say I was bothered by her either. I can see why she wouldn't have been popular through the affair with Tom in the late 90s, as well as when she just started and everyone was still missing Melanie. But I'm in '94 now, a full 2 years after KM's debut and there are some really heinous comments about both her look and her acting ability, and there was even a letter-writing campaign to get her sacked. If I wasn't digging for info, I'd almost be turned off from going through the group. 

 

 

[Khan]

KMH's Emily was just so different from what she'd been when Melanie Smith still playing her.  No way could you have imagined KMH's Emily hooking up with James Stenbeck or Paul Ryan.

[DramatistDreamer]

 

KMH's Emily seemed so fragile, imo. What a contrast to Smith's more stoic, unapologetically voluptuous portrayal.

[dc11786]

 

Wasn't there also the philosophy that people might not be watching the shows because they were with family? So to move the story ahead didn't make much sense logistically. While the shows definitely became more plot driven, I think the Christmas episode change also highlighted that the producers stopped thinking of the viewers as people but strictly consumers. Ignoring the relationship that is built between the viewer and the show (and the viewer and people within their own families who watched the shows) really led to the place where we are now. Granted, given the ever evolving nature of media, soaps probably would have always reached a natural conclusion, but I think the complete focus on commercialization which led to the plot driven writing, in my opinion, was a contributing factor. 

[DRW50]

 

Kelly was badly miscast as Emily - she didn't have the vulnerability and, frankly, her voice was grating, which didn't help with all the scenes of Emily whining (and she spent years whining...), but beyond that something just felt "off" about her and her interactions with those around her. She was a bad fit for most of the main characters in Emily's life, at work or at home, and most of her early stories were bad and boring. It wasn't until Emily's pairing with Jef Hamlin that I began to warm to her in the role, and sadly, that only lasted for less than a year before Emily was thrown into a heinous story which obliterated the character. She was then "redeemed" by rape (ugh) before the whole thing started all over again with her desperate efforts to ensnare Tom, which were just pathetic and foolish and toxic (all THAT over Scott Holmes Tom....really????).

 

I did like Emily's relationship with Hal, and that was probably her best pairing. 

 

The best I can say about Kelly was that, similar to Liz Keifer, I eventually just sort of got used to her.

 

I'm not surprised to hear about the ugly comments. That viciousness was commonplace on soap boards for many years. I remember even in Soap Opera Weekly around 1994, they made fun of Emily for constantly having her cleavage on display, concluding with, "As Mammy said in Gone With the Wind, t'aint fittin'....and t'aint natural, either."

Edited December 30, 2020 by DRW50

[DramatistDreamer]

Never have I ever considered trying to write a letter or call a television show to try to get an actor fired. As much as I critique these show, never have I ever tried to threaten or harass an actor, writer or producer-- that seems extreme. When I wanted to "voice" my displeasure with a show, my response was always to simply stop watching (which I did on occasion, sometimes for several months). For the most part, I rarely read the soap magazines (which likely explains why I knew so little about BTS gossip, etc. until I ventured onto this messageboard, lol.), and I only started going on soap messageboards in the very early '00s, and even then, it was only two (before I took a good 2.5 years' break from posting, visiting any soap related boards) before venturing onto this one. Critique the character portrayals, how the characters are written, directed, lighting, wardrobe, etc. but I will never understand spending hours on end insulting a person's looks. If I thought someone's acting was unbearable, there is a simple, relatively painless solution to this-turn off the television or turn the dial.

 

Having said that, I agree with@DRW50
KMH was severely miscast for the role, and for most of her run in the character, the writing/direction for her character did her absolutely no favors.

[DRW50]

 

You had the right idea. Message boards were pretty toxic for a long time and become more about their own culture than the shows.

 

The mid-90s seemed to be the peak of these firing campaigns, culminating in late 1996/early 1997 with the Jeff Trachta fan protest outside the studio, and the fans who sent canned goods into the ATWT studios demanding they "can-her" (Susan Batten's Connor). 

[Brolden]

 

Which story are you referring to? The mid 90s are a blur for me. I've seen one or two episodes of her with Jef, and liked them as well. When the Soapcentral recaps pick up in late '96 Emily seems to be in some sort of triangle with model Paul and Sarah Kasnoff (is that the story you mean?) before being thrown in Diego's orbit.

 

Maybe it's because of her pairing with Hal, which happened right as I started watching, that I've never objected to the character or actress much. I agree with you that that was her best pairing.