I thought I'd open since it's been a week. It still doesn't seem real.

4 hours ago, DRW50 said:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wW-XT__Xjl0

August 1988. So it is a strike episode.

Now I'm curious if one of the other scenes from 1988 I thought was un-Marland (Kim telling Seth that Betsy is like a daughter to her, and she hasn't forgotten how much he hurt her other daughters) was also during the strike - maybe not if Seth and Betsy were already a couple by then.

Yes, that (very beautifully written) scene between Kim and Seth is from the August 2, 1988 episode. Other than a "Story by Douglas Marland" in the end credits, there is no writing team listed (for obvious reasons -- no one wants to be known as a scab writer.) I once had a conversation with the writer BK Perlman who wrote for "Ryan's Hope" in the mid-80s. Prior to being hired as an RH writer in 1983 she had actually been a scab writer for RH during the 1981 writer's strike. (She, of course, used a different pseudonym during that time.) Later, when producers were looking to fill their writing staff in 1983, they remembered her and her work and officially hired her. I'm not certain if others in the writer's room were aware of her past?

16 hours ago, Khan said:

True. But, you know, even if I were to look past the "baby fever" angle, the whole story just...lays there for some reason. There's no real suspense to grab you; no urgency or desperation (although, the actors are doing their very best); no real stakes. In a way, it's like the precursor to the unfortunate "baby Cabot saga" that seemed to eat the show alive during the Sheffer and/or Passanante era.

Can someone explain the whole "Baby Cabot" storyline to me...I quit watching at that point as I could care less about Carly or Roseanne and HATE any storyline surrounding a baby.