As The World Turns Discussion Thread

[Mitch64]

The funniest thing Marland ever wrote (unintentionally ) was someone throwing pregnant Dana off a balcony or something, and characters were having a conversation in front of a window and there goes Dana flying by....and she was okay?!?!?

[Khan]

 

I agree, @DRW50.  Marland must've realized what he was doing - right down to Doug and Darryl having the same initials, lol! - and tried writing his way out of it.  Unfortunately, in doing so, he made an already complicated mystery even moreso.

But, on the other hand, I always chalked up the parallels or similarities to being in line with Frannie's tragic flaw: a basically nice, sweet girl, who nevertheless has a lousy time picking men.  (And when I say "lousy," I mean REALLY lousy, lol).

Edited March 22 by Khan

[DRW50]

Yes.

I did like Larry. Toward the end of his run, they did play up more of a sanctimonious, unlikeable side (even before they had him cheating), but I put that on the poor state of the writing and also the inevitable result of having to deal with KMH's Emily. Before then he did seem like a supportive, nice guy, with an easy sense of humor. I can see viewers in 1991 wanting him to be happy, especially as there was enough turnover in the male cast to where the only other young guys around were angsty Caleb, Andy, Holden, etc.

The Sean story was so odd. I'd love to see Marland's story plans for 1990 because I have the issues with that year which many seem to have with 91 and 92. Much of what is done is aborted halfway through (like the Sean story or "scheming" Lily) or spinning in circles due to impending cast departures (Paul/Emily). And the last gasp of Tonio, which still goes well into 1991.

The Casey right to die story is excellent (this is the story that got me hooked on ATWT) as is Kim/Bob/Susan. So much of the rest is a scramble.

Burke Moses is charismatic and handsome but his energy is anathema to the Marland era - he's always about to rip someone's head off. That may have been Marland's biggest flop of a storyline.

Edited March 22 by DRW50

[P.J.]

ah...Burke Moses! He was doing Broadway too, iirc. Or went on to do Broadway.

[Vee]

It's interesting to see in the long story doc that Marland flat-out says Andy Kavovit looks younger than he is and that it will be a major problem for them going fwd. I think he's intimating a Paul recast. I love what I've seen of Kavovit in the role but I can understand the concern; he still looks youngish today. (This problem was not dissimilar to Chris McKenna's Joey at OLTL not long after, where they ultimately felt they had the same issue.) Putting him onscreen with Melanie Smith was very bold given that juxtaposition, not that I'm disapproving. But you wouldn't have been surprised if someone turned the dial to CBS in the afternoon and suddenly thought they were watching a French film or something.

Burke Moses went on to be one of Alex's mob pals on OLTL, I think.

Edited March 23 by Vee

[j swift]

I would argue that there are multiple cases of ingénues experiencing repeated trauma, but to demonstrate growth, they are usually a damsel-in-distress the first time, and the second time they have more agency.  For example, Hope (DOOL) and Felicia (GH) became independent, in the eyes of the audience, once they were able to use the lessons learned from prior trauma to save themselves. 

[DRW50]

He did.

Smith and Kavovit worked well together for what the Emily/Paul relationship was meant to be at that time. I do understand why Paul had to be recast, even if I really liked Andy in the role...it's a shame they screwed it up so much.

I wish the show hadn't put them together again later on, as it never really worked - the layers of those first few years were completely ignored as Paul was just an empty suit and Emily was a grab bag of misogyny and histrionics.

This aspect makes sense - unfortunately they never got to explore it onscreen. 

[Vee]

It was obvious to me they did that because they were desperate to find any port in a storm for Roger Howarth by that point after several dud stories and a hostile audience, and leaned on an old pairing and a somewhat popular vet. Not dissimilar to the Becky Herbst safe harbor at GH years later, although I'd argue Becky is much more popular at GH than KMH was at ATWT. I do remember the Howarth diehards trying to will "Pem" into being a big deal at the time, because they knew he had a very rough ride at ATWT in those early years not ever really being accepted as Paul and all his love interests were either dead or off the show. It never fully happened for the couple with those actors as far as I can tell, but Howarth didn't get fired, which is all that mattered to his fanbase.

I would've tried to keep AK as long as possible, but I understand the issue. My feeling with young-skewing actors is to always keep them if they're quite good, well-liked and photogenic enough, whether it's Kimberly McCullough, Christie Clark or Erin Torpey or males like Kavovit, Chris McKenna, Scott DeFreitas, Eddie Alderson et al. You just write to the youthfulness or contrast it/make it edgy, as the affair with Emily did. (Of course it's not like a recast didn't work out for OLTL with Nathan Fillion, but that's a relative outlier.)

Edited March 23 by Vee

[DRW50]

I would argue that didn't really work out for OLTL either, as they only gave him actual story for about a year; it just looks better because he had primetime success and spoke graciously about the show. I do get why they wanted to age Joey, and Nathan was a decent choice, even if he wasn't as good as Chris.

I do wish they had kept Kavovit - to be honest I was never sure whether he wanted to leave or was let go, as they were playing him with Tess before he left, so there was some potential story in place. Of course, if they had, he would have been dumped the way Scott Defrietas was for not being "hot" enough.

Howarth was always a terrible choice as Paul, but they were just picking a name out of a hat anyway. They should have just cast him as Hutch, or Teddy Hughes, or Mark Kasnoff. Hell, say he was Grandpa Hughes reincarnated. It's not as if anything he was going to do at the show was going to matter anyway, just as it never did at GH. 

[Vee]

I think Nathan as Joey was popular more for him and what he brought to it onscreen than for any of the stories, of which only one really worked. Still, he was a hit as a heartthrob. But I would've brought back Chris once Nathan hit it big in primetime and Chris had aged up a bit. They were very similar in personality and charisma even then IMO.

I know Andy Kavovit got his fair share of primetime, etc. around this period (The Young Riders?) so I think it worked out for him.

That was in the Sheffer era of populating the show with big soap names in forgotten core roles. It was a marketing strategy I could get behind, up to a point. As many fans with much more history with the show have articulated far better than me a lot of those character changes didn't fully work or were total 180s; I liked some that others hated. But I think Roger is when the worm officially turned though, and many future attempts also flopped. Scott Holroyd had been very well-liked as Paul (I still don't know why he never did daytime again), and Roger's first months were literally an embarrassing carbon copy of Todd Manning material and very OOC for Paul - almost identical to what he'd just been playing at OLTL in '03 - while his IMO considerable chemistry with both Martha Byrne and Cady McClain could not save bad story.

Had RH completely departed from form, and tried to do something more in the vein of the doomed Austin character from GH, playing it fairly straight, he might've done better. Or in another role, as you said. But that was not what they wanted, the same mistake GH later made by insisting on bringing him back as Franco. ATWT wanted to revamp Paul as snarky, evil daddy hallucination-plagued Todd Manning and Roger played it, tics, schemes, rambling and all, because he was just happy to no longer being playing an actual rapist anymore. (Something he enumerated at length in a recent podcast interview both of us are familiar with re: the Todd saga, and I am glad for his mental health he could leave OLTL even if I found his ATWT stint lousy - it clearly made him content and more stable to not be doing that kind of work anymore, and over time made him able to play material more earnestly again when he did return to ABC as Todd, etc.)

Edited March 23 by Vee

[DRW50]

Not a period of the show I enjoy revisiting, but I don't think this one was available before and I can't remember if it was ever posted here. The audio isn't great.

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There are some good scenes here with Iva and John, and Lily and Iva (even if it is Iva having to shill for her deadbeat dad brother and his toxic relationship with Lily), although it's tough to hear them. 

Martha and Lisa are so emotional here - it seems much more like the actresses saying goodbye than the characters.

It still makes me sad that they dumped an actress of Lisa Brown's caliber, even if logically I know Iva had been wrung out. I still loved the character, no matter what.

Some decent stuff with Royce and Julie too, and Barbara and Hal, Hal's clear dissatisfaction with Fashions laying groundwork for the story that was one of the bright spots of 1994 (Barbara faking her own stalking).

Edited March 23 by DRW50

[DRW50]

I think by the time Marland arrived, most of the story boom for David and Ellen had ended, although they still had more prominence than he'd give them. By this point, Henderson Forsythe had also begun spending more and more time away doing stage work. Maybe if he'd been promised huge stories, he would have been there more often, but I'm not sure. 

The show's last attempt at new story for Ellen and David had been retconning a grandson (Stewart). I'm not sure if Marland should have immediately dumped the entire set in that age range bar Frannie (especially since we hear so much about his "rules" which claim you aren't supposed to do this), but I don't know what long term value Stewart would have provided. In the long run, Ellen got more material out of her bond with Courtney than she probably would have had with her own grandson. And that's where Marland did a good job with Ellen, as counsel and community figure, even if I wish he'd allowed her to have more romance and a life of her own. 

I do wish they'd had Betsy in a more central role, especially as I am so impressed by Lindsay Frost's work. I think her being so tied to Steve and Lindsay never being as well liked by fans as Meg Ryan hurt her. 

I agree that Dee could have returned. I think Marland wanted a clean tree with Ellen, Susan, and Emily, but there were opportunities to have her interact with John and James and find a new life. Maybe Marland and Calhoun/Caso just thought she would be redundant, and the most popular Dee (Jacqueline Schultz) might not have wanted to return again due to some of her co-stars (and she noticeably did not return in 1991 after doing so in 1986).

Edited March 23 by DRW50

[Joseph]

Does Anyone Know when Lyla's Original Tenure ended? In 1993 or 1994? What month? 

Also does anyone know where I could find the Christmas episode of 2007 in a good quality?

[DRW50]

Soap Central says November 1993, which sounds right.

Such a moving little scene:

Lyla Says Goodbye To Casey

Edited March 23 by DRW50

[Joseph]

I thought so too but she appears on the December 23, 1993 episode and even sings so can't be November