As The World Turns Discussion Thread

[DRW50]

Thank you!

[DramatistDreamer]

This definitely peaked my attention when I first glimpsed the announcement. I am going to make the effort to watch this weekend when hopefully there are less things for me to do. Glad you enjoyed it!

Bump because I want to remember to watch this too.

[Soapsuds]

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[Reverend Ruthledge]

Danny Pintauro seems like a nice guy and Colleen Zenk was probably the nicest soap star I ever met. It was good to see them together. 

[DRW50]

@slick jones shared in the Soap Hoppers thread that Barbara Rucker (Sandy Thompson) passed away five years ago, from Alzheimers. 

Sandy is such an odd character to me, as she stayed on for such a long time after her split from Bob, surviving recasts and various changes in focus and sliding into the moribund mid/late '70s period. 

I think there's only one surviving episode of her. Rucker certainly seems to have a classy presence, even if there are so many blondes with the same hairstyles or faces around this point it took me a bit to remember who was who. She and Michael Nader made a very pretty couple.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f2lb5hXZk9s

[Reverend Ruthledge]

I agree with your assessment of the character. I'm equally bewildered as to why she lasted so long. 

[DRW50]

What did you think of the show in the late '70s? Do you think there were any real mistakes they made or did the show just inevitably lose steam after twenty years?

[Paul Raven]

I thought (wrongly) Hunt/Ellis had taken over by Sept 78 and were responsible for the arrival of Barbara and others especially this Ginny character who for some reason got a lot of attention for a short time and then disappeared.

I think having a lot of long time characters was an issue. They were all older now Bob, Don, Kim,Dan, Susan, Lisa etc and it was harder to come up with new stories. But loyal viewers were accustomed to seeing them so it was a struggle to write for them and try to bring in newbies.

And then there was Sandy, Valerie, Mary,Joyce -just way too many'older' characters who floated around.

The younger characters Dee,Annie and Melinda were kind of extensions of their families and didn't provide much interest for new younger viewers.

 

[Khan]

It does seem as if ATWT was a show in search of some fresh, modern ideas by the late '70's, but I'm still not sure whether the steps they undertook to reach those goals were the wisest.

Edited June 23, 2024 by Khan

[Reverend Ruthledge]

I agree with the previous posters about ATWT in the late 70s. ATWT was always a slow-moving soap in the past but with a depth that most soaps didn't have and that kept viewers thinking below the surface. The slow, conservative (some say stuffy) tone of ATWT in the 50s and 60s was a strength as it allowed for a lot of subtext that I think intelligent viewers enjoyed. There weren't too many gimmicks and shiny objects to dazzle that a lot of writers use to forego the harder work of writing on a complex level. Having long-time characters only adds to that multi-layered aspect. However, in the late 70s, the core of the show and its raison d'être got lost along the way a bit and the positive aspects of being slow and conservative weren't as much of a strength of the show as it was in the past and the negative aspects of being slow and conservative, without the positive aspect, became a bit glaring. Things got a bit drab and boring. Characters, instead of becoming even more complex with time, became a bit tired and boring. Attempts to make them more interesting usually had them doing things out of character. Any attempts to "jazz up" the show seemed to fall flat as it meant a lot of disconnected, inconsequential characters and weird, uninteresting storylines. This all came to a head in the early 80s which is the only time ATWT really felt completely lost and the show went a bit off the rail. I know he's not everyone's favorite, but Douglas Marland really performed a miracle by reviving the show when he came along and he struck the perfect balance between making the show exciting plot-wise but also engaging the viewer to think on a deeper level. He also knew what to do with characters that had a long history by actually utilizing those histories and making the characters interesting BECAUSE they'd been around so long. I think the only instance he dropped the ball on this was with David and Ellen Stewart but I know Henderson Forsyth's lack of total commitment to the show dictated some of that. Anyway, Maryland really "got" the show which I honestly don't think anybody had gotten since Irna Phillips. Having said all that, I think there was some good writing in the late 70s. I just think it's the time when the show started to have a bit of an identity crisis which got worse in the early 80s and which it recovered from when Marland took over. As much as I love the 50s, 60s and early 70s of ATWT, I actually think the show was the best under Marland. Not that he was better than Irna. It's only because a show like ATWT is dependent on its history probably more than any other soap and it just took several decades to let that history happen. Marland had a lot of history to mine from and he did that. I don't know who was writing in the late 70s and early 80s, but I don't think they got that. 

Edited June 24, 2024 by Reverend Ruthledge

[DRW50]

 

Thank you for sharing your thoughts. I have not seen enough to give a real opinion of the 50s-70s but of what I've seen I do think Marland was the strongest writer. The only thing I really miss from his vision is more of a spark of life, the type of firecracker Lisa was in her early years, or Margo was in her early years. He did try, with Meg, and later Tess, Marcy, etc. but these women were often so far on the outside (and if they moved inside, like Meg, they lost most of their edge).

The Dobsons and whoever replaced them made a lot of mistakes and seemed to just drain the show even further of depth and identity (more location shooting wasn't worth the sacrifices made), but Margaret Colin and Justin Deas do give some of the juice that the very very earnest material surrounding them needed. I think the very dreary younger set was the show's biggest issue, beyond the clump of older characters they had run out of story for - while going through that 1978 episode I genuinely had a hard time telling Sandy apart from Annie, even though Sandy should have been about 20 years older. 

(also - nothing against Kelly Wood, but something about Mary just irrationally annoys me) 

I will also give credit to Susan Bedsow Horgan and the others who put so much in place before Marland arrived.

[allmc2008]

Why didn't Sara want Don to know that Amanda Holmes was her daugther? Is there a more detailed summary of that storyline?

[Khan]

I agree.  I think I've seen a fair amount of Mary-Ellis Bunim's work on ATWT; and in the beginning, at least, I think she had a lot of interesting ideas for how to freshen up and modernize the show.  By 1983 or '84, however, ATWT had become such a mess, due to so much of it revolving either James and his circle or the Steve/Betsy romance that the rest of the show was suffering from neglect.  SBH and Robert Calhoun, therefore, really had their work cut out for them, as they had to recalibrate the show after a period of so much excess.

Edited June 24, 2024 by Khan

[Paul Raven]

Sara was Amanda's bio mother .But they both were in love with Don Hughes.But Don  got engaged to Sara. Amanda discovered the truth and spitefully threatened to tell Don that (gasp) Sara had an illegitimate child. There was an argument and Sara took a tumble and died Amanda was put on trial but was found innocent.

[Matt]

Don really had a thing for older women, didn't he?