Eileen's grandmother clause made me think about Lien, which made me watch her debut (she was the cliffhanger the episode before, but close enough).

I didn't realize that Tom just accepted Lien's word without any type of test. I wonder if Marland may have wanted to leave the door open of her not being Tom's daughter, but the strike got in the way. Probably not, as that isn't necessarily his style, and similar stories on AW and Santa Barbara seemed to be a mess.

Marland rushes through some of these beats compared to his usual pen - I wonder if this was down to Hillary B Smith not being too far off her maternity leave (and she was planning to leave altogether until nearly the last minute). 

I do think it's a bit of a stretch for Lisa to not have more of a skeptical or surprised reaction to Lien, but maybe they didn't want to send a negative message about the first major Asian character on the canvas. 

I do love that Lisa takes little time to spread the news.

Scott Holmes never has the charisma Justin Deas or Gregg Marx had as Tom, but I do think he shows here he was capable of subtle, meaningful performances. I'm sorry he lost that along the way.

A shame this is the only time they delve into Tom's pre-Margo past, when Carol or Natalie were drama waiting to happen.

The last scene in this episode is beautifully done.

Edited July 21Jul 21 by DRW50

On 7/20/2025 at 12:14 AM, SheenaSoaper said:

People are grieving. Please stop your horseshit of commenting on every post. For the love of [!@#$%^&*] god.

Amen!

One thing Eileen said in her foundations Emmy interview that I agree with was when she said 'You can't refuse to say a line that you don't agree with because you're the actor and you have to say a line.'.  She instead said to come with a suggestion on modifying the line so that it fits with the character.

Shame that most younger performers don't understand that actors have to recite the lines as written unless you approach things from a more collaborative way (and once you've had a few years playing the character under your belt).

 

Thanks @Soapsuds I wasn't sure if that channel had anything left. Glad to get another episode from the frame right before Marland arrived, especially this early take on Shannon.

37 minutes ago, DRW50 said:

Thanks @Soapsuds I wasn't sure if that channel had anything left. Glad to get another episode from the frame right before Marland arrived, especially this early take on Shannon.

You're welcome. I've always liked this version of Shannon better than Marland's version.

 

I wish these writers had been brought back after Marland died. I enjoyed their take of ATWT.

Just now, Soapsuds said:

You're welcome. I've always liked this version of Shannon better than Marland's version.

I wish these writers had been brought back after Marland died. I enjoyed their take of ATWT.

Me too. I think Horgan may have been tied to OLTL by then, which didn't really end well.

They sure would have done a better job with Shannon than what we got in 94-95.

12 hours ago, Soapsuds said:

I wish these writers had been brought back after Marland died. I enjoyed their take of ATWT.

As did I..perfect combo of history, family and a side of camp and fun. They would have been a change though after the last few year's of Marland and his morose storylines at the end.  

Damn was Bryce pretty as hell, and then sexy Tom! But Carter's acting always made me think that Sierra was brain damaged in Montega.

2 hours ago, Mitch64 said:

 

Damn was Bryce pretty as hell, and then sexy Tom! 

Bryce looks so young and darn adorable. Gregg Marx is sex on a stick.

Speaking of Tom....Scott Holmes first week back as he replaced Gregg. One post already on YouTube says I missed Gregg Marx.😂

 

Saddened to hear about Eileen. I was thinking of the "7 divas on the bus" special for the 50th anniversary of the show. It is insane to me that 4 of those ladies are now no longer with us.

Has anyone heard any news of Marie Masters or Kathleen Widdoes in recent years? They've both never appeared on The Locher Room. I'm sure they're just enjoying a quiet life, but I do sometimes wonder if we'd even find out if something were to happen to them.

What are everyone's favorite Eileen moments? When SoapClassics released those 10-episode disc sets around certain couples or characters around a decade ago, I used to fantasize about what potential sets they could come up with. Which 10 episodes, spread out in time, would I select for a Tom & Margo disc set, a Lucinda disc set, a John disc set, or indeed a Lisa disc set? 

Admittedly, I missed most of Lisa's biggest moments, as I originally watched in the 2000's when Lisa was barely on. I've always been blown away by the scene where she says goodbye to Eduardo, so that would definitely be included. Just based on the number of flashback sequences it's been in, her goodbye to Earl might also be included. I've enjoyed some of what I've seen between Lisa and John as well, it's a shame to me that when they seemed to bring those two back together at the end of the 90's, those plans were torpedoed by John's short-lived marriage to Carly. 

What moments would you include on a 10-episode Lisa disc, provided most of pre-1979 ATWT has very sadly been lost? 

2 hours ago, Brolden said:

Saddened to hear about Eileen. I was thinking of the "7 divas on the bus" special for the 50th anniversary of the show. It is insane to me that 4 of those ladies are now no longer with us.

Has anyone heard any news of Marie Masters or Kathleen Widdoes in recent years? They've both never appeared on The Locher Room. I'm sure they're just enjoying a quiet life, but I do sometimes wonder if we'd even find out if something were to happen to them.

What are everyone's favorite Eileen moments? When SoapClassics released those 10-episode disc sets around certain couples or characters around a decade ago, I used to fantasize about what potential sets they could come up with. Which 10 episodes, spread out in time, would I select for a Tom & Margo disc set, a Lucinda disc set, a John disc set, or indeed a Lisa disc set? 

Admittedly, I missed most of Lisa's biggest moments, as I originally watched in the 2000's when Lisa was barely on. I've always been blown away by the scene where she says goodbye to Eduardo, so that would definitely be included. Just based on the number of flashback sequences it's been in, her goodbye to Earl might also be included. I've enjoyed some of what I've seen between Lisa and John as well, it's a shame to me that when they seemed to bring those two back together at the end of the 90's, those plans were torpedoed by John's short-lived marriage to Carly. 

What moments would you include on a 10-episode Lisa disc, provided most of pre-1979 ATWT has very sadly been lost? 

I would love to see some of her "hey day" of bitcheness, specifically of her seduction of Michael Shea and their marriage..that seemed to be Lisa's height of bitchiness and then they defanged her a bit and made Joyce the bad girl.  

I love a lot of what the Dobson's were doing with Lisa before Eileen went a bit...overboard with her ditziness and left the show.  Sure Lisa wasn't a front burner but she was always there and the wrote her with the perfect blend of knowing slyness.  There was one funny scene when Joyce was feigning a brain tumor to marry Grant, that Lisa goes over to her apartment, goes into her bathroom and searches her medicine cabinet to find any meds...as she leaves (Joyce is cleaning, when do we see a soap character clean) and Lisa swabs a finger over the woodwork and says, "Needs work" ..seems goofy but Eileen played it off well. I also loved when Lisa had a family built around her, the McColls, and the night before Steve's trial for Whit's murder begins she has them all over for dinner. It turns into a big fight and Lisa walks around the table verbally bitch slapping each of them..."Do you know what it's like to testify in a murder trial?  I DO..and they will tear each of us apart on the stand so we need to stick together." Lisa rarely got to play a matriarch but I liked it when they let her do it. 

Edited to add another Joyce/Lisa scene...its during the drab Dee Rape Trial, and a ice storm hits Oakdale and their is a blackout hits  some areas (take that JFP)  Lisa, the long suffering Grant, and Joyce are stuck at the Hughes law firm with only candles...Lisa and Joyce get into it (if I was Grant I would dive head first out the window) and Joyce "accidentally" drops her candle on Lisa's skirt setting it on fire. That might be a better Joyce scene tho as she just smirked. 

Edited July 23Jul 23 by Mitch64

Did anyone think that Lucinda introduction as the new villainess diminished Lisa at all?

2 minutes ago, kalbir said:

Did anyone think that Lucinda introduction as the new villainess diminished Lisa at all?

I don't think it did a great deal, as Lisa had stopped being a schemer or bad girl a number of years before that point. I think she was defanged a little too much in the late '80s as the character worked best when she was always something of an outsider, rather than puttering around her club or waiting for Earl to contact her. 

She did get more story of her own again in the early '90s, but I wish they'd given her another story that would have caused conflict with her and the Hugheses, the way that Eduardo's murder and the wrongful death lawsuit against John did. 

It's a shame they did such a lousy job with the con artist story in 1996 - I might have made him younger and made Lisa empathize with him, given her own scheming past, serving as a mentor and possibly a love interest.

Not bringing back her son Scott didn't help-it was one less way to involve Lisa in story.

Scott suffered the same fate as Andy, Frannie etc. TPTB stubbornly refused to flesh out the core families.

I guess they thought brand new characters with no ties to the past would make the show more contemporary and appealing.

40 minutes ago, kalbir said:

Did anyone think that Lucinda introduction as the new villainess diminished Lisa at all?

Yes, I did.  Not so much that Lucinda was the new villainess, because Lisa was not exactly a villainess at that point.  But I felt Lucinda diminished Lisa because the two characters were so similar.  Both similar age, and vaguely similar looks.  Both former working-class girls who had eventually both married a couple of millionaires and became wealthy widows.  The only real difference was that Lisa was tied to the history of ATWT, and the audience already knew Lisa's history.  While Lucinda was a newer character, and the audience was yet to learn about her history.  Otherwise, the two characters were nearly interchangeable.  That is just my opinion, so please do not go into attack mode... Pretty please??

And Douglas Marland didn't help the situation.  Although in general, I loved Marland's writing on ATWT, he certainly favored Lucinda over Lisa.  Yes, both characters got approximately equal screen-time under Marland, but Lucinda got storylines while Lisa was mostly a supporting character.  How many storylines did Lucinda get during Marland's eight-years at ATWT?  And Lisa got one big storyline -- the Scott Eldridge reveal, which I LOVED.   I'm not suggesting Marland disliked Lisa or Eileen Fulton. In fact, I think Marland loved both Lisa and Eileen.  But I do believe Marland found Lucinda a more interesting character than Lisa.  And so he wrote more interesting material for Lucinda, which diminished Lisa significantly.   Again -- please don't attack.  Just the opinion of an old hog farmer.