As The World Turns Discussion Thread

[DRW50]

[Soapsuds]

I remember fans going hog mad about this story. How Lisa wouldnt have left her child. That it was a rewrite of history. And this was Douglas Marland era. I liked the new brother angle just hated the backstory.

The Lisa story is so much better than the crap we got from Goutman and Co.

I just hated the background music with the scenes as Lisa meets Scott. Who chose that awful music?

Edited June 5, 2011 by Soapsuds

[Soapsuds]

Also wasnt that the Marcy recast. I remember there being two Marcys.

[DRW50]

I can never remember about the Marcys. I thought the one who came back after Linc died was the recast. I don't remember them that well - this one has a pinup cheesecake type of appeal.

Yes the music was way off in that first scene when she met Scott. I was shocked. It seems like the production values really started falling on ATWT in the early 90's, even compared to GL and AW.

Looking at it now I can see why fans might have been annoyed, and it all seems a little slipshod (and that grandmother gets on my nerves). It kind of seems like actors reading dialogue.

But it's so nice to see Eileen Fulton acting! She really could give a performance when she had the opportunity.

I also thought the music in the scene where she tells Scott the truth was so much better than in that first scene.

[Soapsuds]

LOL...I hated the grandmother too. I believe the first Marcy was a brunette. What a difference between the Marland years and Goutman ones. So much more vets with slow storytelling. I still havent seen the last episode of ATWT.

[DRW50]

My mother decided not to watch. She said it would be too sad and she would just remember the better years. I didn't really blame her - she didn't miss much anyway.

[Soapsuds]

I'll probably see it during the summer. I even know where I have the copy. I made two copies of it.

[soapfan770]

Question: Didn't the show bring back a recast Monica Lawrence for the Scott story, and how was she involved in it?

[DRW50]

January 1989 Digest. ATWT review, by Robert Rorke.

Repetition and the domination of one character over all others have brought the Emmy-award winning soap As the World Turns down from its previous standard of excellence. Although some of this year's story twists have jolted us, others made no impact or seemed rehashed. The show has always distinguished itself with multi-generational stories that got everyone involved, but now there are simply too many characters milling about with nothing to do except recap the plot and delay the action. Still, for all its plodding, the show made great improvements in 1988 in the area of romance, delivering one vital new couple, one compelling triangle and a most amusing and complicated quadrangle. We also met one of the best new characters on daytime.

THE ULTIMATE RED HERRING

1988 got off to a bad start when a great story - the murder of James Stenbeck - turned into the ultimate red herring. After months and months of suspense, interrogation and a trial for Barbara Ryan, the story climaxed with a resounding thud. James Stenbeck wasn't murdered; he had escaped and was at large. Saving Stenbeck's hide cheated the audience, and his once-thrilling visits to Oakdale are now too predictable. We know exactly what he's going to do, which women he's going to call (Barbara, Lucinda, Emily) and how he's going to torment them. Stenbeck may be back, but it's no big deal. The audience has been Stenbecked to death.

Another blunder was the lengthy and ultra-convoluted ghost story in which Duncan McKechnie and Shannon O'Hara tried to exorcize the angry spirit of Margaret, the wife of Duncan's ancestor Angus. This plot involved a portrait that cried real tears, various special effects, seances and other residue from Dark Shadows. Almost impossible to watch, the story was intended to cement the romance between Duncan and Shannon because Margaret had cursed all women born to or married to McKechnies and it didn't even accomplish that much. Duncan and Shannon were once a spirited couple, but now they seem terminally adrift, and Shannon has lost her greatest quality - her sense of humor.

FATAL ATTRACTION

As the World Turns gained lost ground when they did a Fatal Attraction story involving Dr. Bob Hughes and an emotionally disturbed mother of two named Laura Simmons. Although identical to the terrific Douglas Cummings story of 1985, in which an emotionally disturbed Cummings became fixated with Kim Hughes to the point of kidnapping and murder, the Laura story succeeded on its own. Carolyn Ann Clark gave a solid performance as poor Laura, whose sweet exterior could explode into murderous rage at the slightest provocation, and Don Hastings dropped his medical savior faire and showed us a side of Doctor Bob we've never seen - terrified. Two sensitive and new characters were also highlighted at this time: Laura's brother, Beau Farrel, and his lover, Pamela Wagner. Although Beau initially seemed to be another product of that mysterious/disturbed/new-young-man-in-town mold used to introduce nearly all young men on this show, Maffin's energy and intensity made the character distinct. Unfortunately, he hasn't had a story line of late.

This is an ironic development because once ATWT had a dearth of young male characters. Now there are plenty, to say the least, and the old king of that hill, Craig Montgomery, has returned but his place in the story structure seems less than assured. Formerly, all females in Oakdale flocked to him; Craig's life was a series of visits, making sure they were all right. But now Craig's acolytes are gone. Betsy had a nice sendoff with Seth; his wife, Sierra, is presumed dead; his mother, Lyla, has her own life with husband Casey; and sister Margo is too busy covering up the parentage of her son to hang out with baby brother. Craig's awkward re-entry into the Oakdale orbit underscores the fact that even a brief absence from a soap can alter the character dynamics so drastically that some may not fit in anymore.

Hillary Bailey Smith, who also took a brief sabbatical, fares much better. The dynamics between the couples Tom and Margo, and Hal and Barbara are truly amusing as the actors try their best to breathe new life into one of the oldest soap plots - whose baby is it, anyway? While Hal remains cheerfully oblivious (and so attached) to Margo's son - it's his - Tom's biting the bullet and Margo is on the edge of a nervous breakdown. Watching the dressed-to-kill Zenk go to pieces as soon as down-to-earth Margo even mentions the word motherhood is one of the delights of the show. In recent years, Barbara has run the gamut from doormat to she-devil, but is infinitely more entertaining to watch as Margo's patsy than as Stenbeck's football.

LILY VS. MEG: THE FORCED AND THE GENUINE

That aforementioned quadrangle worked much better than its more youthful counterpart, the Dusty/Lily/Holden/Emily story. Holden and Lily were already plucking at our nerves when they broke up. Hensley strained for the soulful and came up with the merely sullen. Talented Martha Byrne got saddled with some of the most monotonous soul-searching daytime has ever seen. "Are you being honest with me? Can we ever really trust our feelings? Can we face the truth? What is the truth?" These are just some of the profound utterances that fall daily from Lily's lips and the men of Oakdale hang on her every word. In fact, they all fall in love with her. Last summer we were treated to endless loud slugfests as Holden and brother Caleb fought over who was going to talk to, look at, and dream about Lily. Transient mental case Spence Davies was also smitten with her. The entire Snyder family revolves around her.

It's enough. When one character is made the central figure in a cast of more than forty actors, it is difficult to maintain dramatic balance and you risk alienating the audience. Someone who managed not to get smooshed (like the character of Pam Wagner) by the Lily Monopoly was Meg. Out of the ho-hum affair between Tonio Reyes and the promiscuous Emily Stewart came the stormiest and most compelling triangle ATWT has had in years. Meg learned of her husband's infidelity with Emily and ended up making love with her cousin Josh, also known as Rod Landry. This shocking twist led to a series of secret trysts that climaxed mightily in a brutal and superbly choreographed fight between Tonio and Rod, and Meg's tragic miscarriage (she was carrying her lover's child). The three players have been excellent. Peter Bonyton has turned Tonio into a first-rate scoundrel. William Fichtner continues to amaze as he makes sympathetic one of the most difficult roles on soaps - that of a man who has been almost universally reviled because of a rape he committed as a teenager. And Jennifer Ashe has made Meg the foremost heroine of the show by earning the audience's sympathy through her genuine predicament instead of demanding it by bending your ear, like Lily. Ashe's performance should earn her an Emmy nomination.

A MAN FOR ALL SEASONS

The other absolute hit of the year was the introduction of the wily and intriguing Kirk Anderson. Wiggin's charisma sets him apart from the other young actors on the show. His argumentative romance with Iva has rescued Lisa Brown from lamenting the sorrows of young Lily and he fits perfectly into the crazed orbit of Lucinda's Walsh Enterprises. He's quick and funny - and boy, in Oakdale these days, that's a relief.

ATWT used to be regularly amusing, but with characters like Lilith McKechnie stalking around and offing people, and the aforementioned Spence and Laura, now it's more like the Lunatic of the Month Club. The Laura Simmons story was great, but we've just had another wacko whose name begins with the letter L and who used the same weapon as Laura, and it also begins with the letter L - a letter opener. Are there no kitchen knives in Oakdale? There was also one shot of Botsford giving her one expression of steely-eyed menace that we saw at least three times a week. Another reason the show may seem so Gothically dreary is that, after the ghost story disaster, it's become clear that the Castle McKechnie is an aberration. The stories that take place there now don't fit in anymore with Oakdale life as we know it; the people who live there are not well-integrated with the various eavesdropping families of the show.

WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE?

The show wins high marks for its inventive direction and for its attention to psychological subtlety. For instance, Lucinda was furious with Craig for sleeping with Emily while Sierra (her daughter and his wife) was still missing. But after she scolded him, she had a subliminal flash of the erotic night she had with Craig several years ago. It rang true. So has the entire story concerning Andy Dixon's alcoholism. Scott DeFrietas has played an awkward, insecure teenager so convincingly that he doesn't seem to be acting. On another front, the historical revelation that Hank Eliot is gay was handled with sensitivity and dignity, though it seems prudish that his lover won't be seen.

It's impossible with a cast this large to give everyone a story and yet Doug Marland usually gets around to everyone. He even gave great-grandmother Nancy Hughes, series-original Helen Wagner, a love story. But some of the show's major characters were relegated to the sidelines for large chunks of time. It is inexplicable that actors as talented as Larry Bryggman and Elizabeth Hubbard should have so little to do. ATWT is just not as entertaining or interesting when they're not around. Now that the show has improved its romantic profile, it's time to recover the lost humor and distribute the stories evenly among the characters who are truly engaging.

[DRW50]

June 1957 TV Radio Mirror

[DRW50]

[All My Shadows]

Thanks for all of your stuff, Carl. I feel like I don't say that enough.

Whoa, Ellen #1 looks like Andrea Evans!

Oh, how I wish we could see some 50s ATWT. It's hard to picture the show without Lisa and Don Hastings, but I'm very interested in the stories that propelled it to #1 as well as how they found their footing with the 30-minute format. Not to mention Ruth Warrick as Edith.

Anne Burr (Claire) sort of looks like Peyton Place-era Ruth in the top pic.

[DRW50]

Anne also reminds me of Celeste Holm. Wendy looks kind of old there, perhaps because of the angle.

I really would love to see 50's ATWT, especially the Edith story, as it was very daring for its time and was presented as a love story, not as Edith being a homewrecker. If Irna had had her way, Edith and Jim would have lived happily.

[DRW50]

One of the best, if not the best, Emily/Barbara scene, at about 30 minutes into this episode. Melanie and Colleen really go for it.

[Paul Raven]

That Judge Lowell pic is obviously from a few years earlier.

I always wonder about Ruth Warrick working in soaps in the 50's.She was never a huge movie star,but was the only one I can think of that went to soaps that soon. Did she need the money? Would her 'star' power given her a better contract?

Plenty of other movie actors did primetime in the 50's,but not soaps.

Or was she just happy to be working regularly in NY and earning a bit of extra cash?