As The World Turns Discussion Thread

[FrenchBug82]

 

In all fairness, knowing a lot of people but in a shallow substance-free manner and keeping things positive are literally the two main skills of his dayjob career.

He is just transposing what he knows; problem is the huge gap between what he knows how to do on one hand what we the audience expects and what could potentially be rung out of these chats.

 

[victoria foxton]

 

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[Vee]

 

Yeah, I think we've discussed this before. Roger really should do it, but unfortunately Alan gets these bc of his connections, even though he was a PR flack for P&G in their final years and seems to have minimal investment in these shows or knowledge of them or their history beyond that era. I stopped watching most of these because watching him wing it on shows or periods where he has little knowledge or is trying to control people who can have real conversations and talk candidly is aggravating.

Edited June 25, 2021 by Vee

[Soapsuds]

31 years ago this month Margo pulled the plug

 

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[victoria foxton]

Adorable sweet Casey.

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[j swift]

I'm reading the introduction of Sierra on Tumblr from 1985.

 

In retrospect, it doesn't make much sense that Lucinda adopted Lily after abandoning Sierra.

 

Please feel free to correct, but I seem to recall that Lily's adoption was motivated by either the desire to create an heir for Martin Guest, or just to solidify their relationship.  But, why not just go back to South America and use Sierra for those purposes?  The wiki said that Sierra's father forbid Lucinda from seeing her, but it was also established that Sierra thought of Lucinda as her godmother and they had maintained a relationship.  Given that Sierra was probably only a few years older than Lily, and Lucinda was wealthy after her marriage to Martin, it seems entirely possible that Lucinda could have hired someone to go get Sierra when she was much younger rather than waiting for a coup.

 

Obviously, Sierra, and later Bianca, were created for storyline purposes, but the logic doesn't really hold together very well when read back 37 years later.

[DramatistDreamer]

 

What Sierra knew of Lucinda was what others told her. She had never laid eyes on Lucinda until she got out if Montega. Lucinda had a different name when she was married to Jacobo Estefan, Sierra's father. From what I remember, Lucinda had seen Sierra from afar at Bob and Kim's pre-wedding ceremony reception, and actually said "Is that her?" sort of to herself. She hadn't seen Sierra since she left her as a baby. Jacobi, from Lucinda's telling, was a highly chauvinistic, strong-willed, patriarchal man with a despotic disposition, whose word was law. She once said that Tonio very much reminded her of Jacobi, except Tonio was "prettier".

That has more logic than the aspect of Martin Guest being able to procure Lily through an illegal adoption, without Lucinda having anything to do with it. I would have loved to see more detail of how Lucinda rose to power. Was it similar to Barbara, who had been a dormat wife previously... until after Guest's suicide? Barbara becoming a barracuda had plenty to back it up, but there were some holes in Lucinda's personal backstory, imo.

But yeah, it was actually Martin Guest who handled the adoption. Guess Lucinda was an old-fashioned wife who let the husband handle all those pesky little details.

Edited June 26, 2021 by DramatistDreamer

[DRW50]

It's hard for me to remember if they ever said much about Lucinda between her being made to leave home when she was in her teens and her time in Montega (or was Walsh before Montega?). 

 

This also reminds me that I cannot remember if the dead child she had with James Stenbeck was before or after Sierra. 

[victoria foxton]

The dead child was a really bad retcon. I don't think they even bothered. Mentioning where in Lucy's timeline that took place.

[DRW50]

 

Oh it was absolute dogshit, I agree. It's mostly just we know so little about Lucinda's years pre-Oakdale I was piecing together from fragments. You're right it doesn't fit her continuity - the biggest reason of course being that she clearly had no history with James when they connected in 1986.

[lilyredd]

Lucinda and Martin adopted Lily because Martin was infertile. I do agree with the concept that Lucinda did not need to adopt that ingrate or at least should have dumped her at the farm the moment Iva started stalking her about Lily.  Lol.
 

I think the story was that Lucinda who went by her given name Mary Ellen married Jacobo and gave birth to Sierra. Jacobo was a politician who sort of ran the country. At some point she met and fell in love with Martin. When Jacobo found out he exiled  her and threatened to kill Martin. I think Jacobo was powerful and it was his dying that allowed her to see her child again. 
 

The show was never clear when she changed her name to Lucinda or how her husbands treated her. While on the one hand I have a hard time seeing a character with such a strong personality being meek and mild at a any point, I always thought Lucinda had bad taste in men and her need to control her relationships stemmed from abuse from those men. 
 

Too much changeover in writers and producers that the timelines of all characters get muddied. Exploring her wide open past would have provided much story for her and her relationships for years. Water under the bridge. 

[j swift]

It feels as if once they went down the path of exploring Lucinda's childhood and thereby creating some audience support for her vulnerability, when future writers tried the same device the returns were diminishing.  The same thing happened with Dorian on OLTL and Felicia on AW, once they humanized the diva, there's no going back..And writers certainly shouldn't make the backstory murkier over time because they were disrespecting the established cannon that fans learned to accept over time.

Edited June 26, 2021 by j swift

[lilyredd]

Absolutely. I don’t think exploring the past has to be a set up for sympathy. It can be used to introduce new characters, new experiences etc. Too often writers, especially Marland, had everyone abused by one of their parents and your parents are not always the source of a persons problems. 

[DramatistDreamer]

 

Lucinda was old-fashioned in certain aspects. I remember a scene between Lucinda and Craig where they were arguing over Sierra's estranged marriage to Tonio when Lucinda was trying to convince Sierra to stay with Tonio even after the affair with Barbara had been revealed. Lucinda insisted that "a baby needs a father" to an incredulous Craig who chided her by saying something like "How incredibly progressive you are, Lucinda!" and that Sierra needed her friends more than she needed a faithless husband.

She also expressed joy and pride in being referred to as "Mrs. Dr. John Dixon". So, Lucinda could be incredibly old-fashioned in some regards.

I think that what people may have a hard time with is, the delineation between Lucinda as master of the boardroom but preferring a more "traditional" role on the homestead.

If you look at the personal biography of someone like Lucille Ball, you'll see that this is not so uncommon, particularly of women from certain time periods.

[lilyredd]

This is true for me. I have a hard seeing a strong, devious woman taking crap from a husband or any man. Lucinda wanting to get back with John even though he very publicly was sleeping with Susan made no sense to me. From the above perspective, it makes sense and sometimes we put our own sensibilities on characters.