As The World Turns Discussion Thread

[DRW50]

Diane Franklin.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diane_Franklin

What gets me in these clips, especially the one with John eating with Kim, is how much John is like Lucinda - everything he hated about Lucinda. He's so neurotic, so fussy, gossipy, insecure, pushy.

[Soaplovers]

It is said that what we hate in others is what we hate in ourselves.

[P.J.]

^^that's why all of John's caterwauling re: Lucinda's schemes was so much BS. The only difference between John and Lucinda's obsession with their kids was Lily wasn't Lucinda's by blood. John's manipulations re: Andy were legion and before Lucinda knew him.

[SoapDope]

Isn't the guy playing Lois boyfriend the one who played Pee Wee in the Porky's movies ?

[Sapounopera]

These 1979 episodes are amazing. Were they written by Douglas Marland?

Kim is so classy and sophisticated and she has a great dynamic with John and Betsy. Judith McConnell.. was a beautiful woman!

After watching this version of Tom, I guess that many viewers were not happy when Justin Deas showed up as a brand new character.

Dee, Melinda, Marcia and Mary.. I love their vintage soap looks!

Characters don't have to be involved in steamy triangles or fight super villains to be interesting. If they are written how they should be, you can just watch them discuss their daily troubles.

[Mitch]

It had to be Marland..it has all the earmarks, the gothic storyline which is the template for the Doug Cummings storyline (I cant believe Marland didnt have Lisa say,"Oh Frannie I was once involved with a man who had an assistant who was obsessed with him...." the way he uses phones to keep the characters connected, the coming and going in the Hughes kitchen, the intro of another character arriving in the John/Kim scene and that conversation that Kim had with John is going to repeat itself with "Andrew," and his drinking.

You can also tell Marland loves Kim and KH. He writes her not as a mope but as a strong willed, classy lady that is just a bit sad and overwhelmed with everything that has happened since her husband died. The Dobson's turned Kim back into a romantic heroine who let her husband push her around and then just as Betsy's mom. I I also like his version of Betsy and the way she told John what was what. Quite a change from what the Dobsons do to her and what she becomes with Meg Ryan. I have never understood why those two had the careers they did.

Speaking of the Dobsons and recasts. I think this Tom is actually pretty good and sexy here(not in a Greg Marx way but he is only human...) I like his early L.L. Bean look..I think he could have worked if they had just made him relax a bit. He played Tom like he was Don and Bob's age...(though Lisa doesnt look that much older then Tom here.)

All in all they screwed up with not keeping Marland at ATWT , but then we would never have had his "fixing," of the show and its return to glory in the 80s.

[Soaplovers]

I think the Dobson's are pretty good writers, but ATWT is a different show then GL was so their writing style didn't mesh with ATWT like it did with GL. I liked that P & G would switch up their writers, but they should have been more careful in switching writers to shows that would with the writers. I often wonder if the Dobson's should have been switched to Search for Tomorrow when the Corrington's had left to create Texas.

Back on topic, I think Marland ended up writing ATWT longer then he should have and I often think he should have been switched out in 1990/1991. Just not sure who could have written the show in his place if they had opted to switch him out.

What was the reason he only lasted two months or so at ATWT in late 1979?

Edited October 26, 2013 by Soaplovers

[Mitch]

Agree that Marland was burned out near the end of his tenure, I quit watching all together..he kept repeating himself and brought in all these characters far from the core...(who the hell was Aunt Mary and her Coffee house anyway???) He should have been training someone for two years to make way when he left and maybe consulted on ATWT for a year or two. I would have loved to see what a Pam Long with a strong producer could have done....or if they moved Nancy Curleee to be head writer.

[Khan]

IA.

[Khan]

I never thought of that possibility -- but you know, now that you bring it up, it IS a tantalizing thought.

[P.J.]

"Aunt Mary" was Hutch and Linc's biological mother. Played by Lisby Larsen who was also Calla Matthews on GL.

I don't know if you can really "train" someone that way. There are very few writers that honestly seemed as committed to each and every character as Marland was. You can show them how to outline, plot, develop a character---but the way he was able to weave characters in and out of stories--that was a gift.

[robbwolff]

I'm not sure it's Marland writing. From what I've seen online these episodes are from the summer of 1979. Marland supposedly didn't arrive until the fall of 1979. I wish these episodes showed credits.

[Limenade]

^Agree--it'd be a revelation to see the credits! These 1979 episodes do have that familial, generational warmth that one associates with ATWT, which Marland carried on assuredly in his 2nd stint that began in 1985. I do notice one Marland's signature touch that seems to be missing here: the crisscrossing of multiple stories within the same scene. Scenes in these 1979 episodes still seem to move for the most part from story to story, scene to scene, like blocks, whereas during his tenure on GH ('77-'79) Marland was already blending stories within the same scene that would give his writing a very different rhythm (that's how I feel, anyway). I'm thinking of the nurses' station at the GH that doubled as the hub of how characters from different stories mesh, which Marland would repeat on GL (Cedars Hospital) and ATWT (Memorial).

Edited October 27, 2013 by Limenade

[robbwolff]

Any idea when Marland departed General Hospital in 1979?

[DramatistDreamer]

I really agree with the sentiment that something was definitely missing with the cohesiveness of the writing in the last few years of his tenure. The storylines he wrote throughout the 80s were firing on all cylinders and I think 1986 was probably my favorite year that he wrote because it was one scintillating storyline and revelation after another.

I'd imagine that churning it out at that pace probably got pretty tiring after a number of years and burnout might be more than a possibility.

I also wonder whether failing health could have had much to do with the quality of the stories in the early 90s.

Also, by the end of the 1980s, it seemed as if there were more than a couple of popular actors that had left, many of whom had recently been in front burner storylines. It just seemed that by the early 1990s, there was more than a little bit of turnover.

I'm watching some of the '79 episodes and finding myself really getting caught up in the storylines. I've only heard about these storylines.