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.

2 hours ago, Mitch64 said:

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.

I still don't know what the point of that was. It seemed like there was a very, very hard push to put Jordan and Chris Beetem over at the time, and then he and the entire storyline just vanished overnight.

I actually thought Jordan/CB was quite good but I wonder what happened there. Later I remember him making a public stink about his stupid role on OLTL, in a poorly-done storyline that unfortunately proved quite prescient for today (the One Pure People white supremacist group).

Edited 4 hours ago4 hr by Vee

3 hours ago, Mitch64 said:

Can someone explain the whole "Baby Cabot" storyline to me.

Well, it's been a long time since the entire story unfolded, and I still can't recall or make sense of all the twists and turns...sigh...but I'll try, lol.

Basically, Rosanna, who is married to Craig at this point, wants a baby. Craig, however, doesn't want a baby - I guess, because he had just lost Bryant? - but to appease his wife, he arranges for an adoption.

Rosanna learns that the adoption (of their son, whom she names "Cabot") was illegal and that she has to give Cabot back to his biological mother, who lives, offscreen, in Canada. Rosanna dumps Craig and leaves Oakdale (and somewhere, in the middle of all this, Rosanna falls in love with Paul Ryan, too).

In the meantime, Rosanna gets back in touch with Cabot's bio mom, who tells her that she could have Cabot back, but only if she convinces Jordan Sinclair to marry her. (Don't ask me why, lol).

So, Rosanna does just that: she cons Jordan into marrying her. It's only AFTER they marry, however, that Jordan learns he is Cabot's biological father. (I think this is also when Jordan learns he, himself, is James Stenbeck's illegitimate son, but I'm not sure).

Rosanna panics when she learns that James is Cabot's paternal grandfather and abducts the baby. James, in turn, abducts Cabot and Rosanna and leaves them to die in a burning building. Someone - Jordan? Paul? - rescues Rosanna, but the baby is presumed dead. Jordan annulls his and Rosanna's marriage and leaves town.

Barbara, who had crossed over to the dark side with James, plots with him to implicate Emily in some bizarre scheme to drive Rosanna crazy with the suggestion that her baby was still alive (which he was, James had rescued Cabot from that fire). Rosanna agrees to dump Paul in exchange for getting Cabot back. Rosanna leaves Oakdale again.

Some time later, though, Craig finds Rosanna (and Cabot) someplace out of the country. Rosanna is devoted to her son, but realizes that she has to give up baby Cabot for adoption again, or else he'll always be in danger of being taken by James Stenbeck...

...which, I think, led us straight into the Jennifer/Gwen baby switch, but whatever. I mean, all that drama over a child that ended up being given away anyway, and a baby drama that led us only to yet another baby drama. No wonder I ended up on antidepressants, lol.

Edited 2 hours ago2 hr by Khan

7 hours ago, MarlandFan said:

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?

Thanks.

I'd never heard that story about BK Perlman. I actually enjoyed RH more during the brief strike period than I did the rest of that year.

I find 1988 strike-period ATWT fascinating as you can see the outlines (for instance, the building up of the Langes, the arrival of Hank Elliot) yet there are a slew of moments which go extremely off the rails; the whole Laura mystery turning into very woozy '50s noir; in such a short space of time Lien and Pam being held hostage, especially since Robert Tyler was wasted when in another universe he would have been the ideal Marland angsty cornfed hero. The show becomes much pulpier alongside the more traditional elements (the episode where Betsy learns the truth about Josh/Meg having some lovely moments with Mac's daughter accepting Nancy).

Those little moments like the one with Kim and Seth always stand out for me because Marland just had such a specific style and focus on relationships (I don't remember Betsy and Kim ever being as close under his pen, although they were still a part of each other's life). It's interesting seeing the show briefly broken free of those constraints, although when they were permanently broken free...you see the end results in 1993 and 1994.

I do wonder if he still would have had the same plans for Meg/Josh if not for the strike. I suppose Jennifer Ashe wanting to leave also made that easier (not sure if it was Bill Fichtner's choice to leave or not).

I still wonder if the strike affected any of his plans for Beau and Pam too as they didn't exactly have great material from then on and then Marland dumped them both less than a year later.