As The World Turns Discussion Thread

[soapfave06]

I wasn't watching then but the casting for Annie and Dee (wasn't there a third?). Really was outrageous. They both came off twenty years older to me and had no charisma.

[Mitch]

Actually, the whole Stewart family at that time was a drag, from Dee and 40 year old Annie (lol) to David and Ellen..(they always looked like they had hemoroids to me..) to annoying Suzanne Davidson and her bad make up..the show kind of halted when they came on, and the Dobson's decided to showcase them over the Hughes family (I know Annie and Dee were heroines in their 20s but...)

I acutally liked it when they had David and Ellen split up and they had Ellen act her age (i.e. she would be young enough to be Nancy's daughter, not another Grandma drinking coffee with her.) I always thought that storyline would have been juicier if they Wagner was still on the show at that time, showing disapproval over their split up especially if they brougth Don on to screw Ellen and Lisa went back to her bad girl ways and chased after David to spite Ellen....(wonder what her and Forsyth would have been together??)

[DRW50]

It's a shame the guy who knocked Ellen up with Dan was killed off at the time. I always thought it would have been an interesting story to see him come back into Ellen's life years later. I guess he still could have, with a faked death.

[Mitch]

I thought a great storyline would be for a relative of the housekeeper Ellen killed would come to town for revenge. Maybe the son would romance Dee or Annie or a daughter would move in with the Stewarts and start gas lighting Ellen. That seemed like a totally Marland storyline.

Can anyone explain the murder storyline. I can't beleive that Ellen plotted to kill her.

[DRW50]

I think she fell or something and it looked like Ellen had killed her, because she was trying to blackmail Ellen and David over the secret.

There was so much the show could have done with Ellen.

[All My Shadows]

I'm looking forward to the scene where Betsy goes at John. I do like her, though. Like you said, she is very soulful. Kinda like daytime's answer to Kristy McNichol. It must have been interesting to be a young actress on the show for that particular five-year period. Were there any other Betsys between Suzanne and Meg? And was there any extreme SORASing between the two?

Annie and Dee are kind of a bore. I do like them with their parents, and I love Ellen and David. How weird for them to spend the early 70s as parents to two grown sons, then both sons end up dying and their two daughters grow up and take over. Maybe this was an attempt to sorta de-age the characters (especially my girl Ellen)?

Back to Annie and Dee, though. I'm disappointed in them somewhat because I've always loved the concept of the Stewart family and their predecessors the Lowells as a less idyllic counterpart to the Hughes family. I was looking for more from these two supposed-to-be young girls in the late 70s. Once again though I guess that's ATWT's fall from grace and need to cling to its old-fashioned ways. I wish they'd tried to reestablish the Stewart family more in the end. Annie had quadruplets and we never saw a single one of them onscreen!

Edited July 30, 2014 by All My Shadows

[amybrickwallace]

Was this the only time quads were born on a soap?

[Mitch]

Well, the Dobson's thought they were giving Dee a social relevant plot line with her screwing a guy to death, then becoming "frigid," from it and then the rape story. It just was weird that Annie and Dee met Brad like, in the spring, Dee started hanging out with John in the spring, and Annie marries Brad in the summer, and then Dee marries John in the fall, and then he rapes her. It moved too fast to get the viewer invested in the characters (much less that in the Spring Brad cheated Nancy and Chris out of money and the audience was suddenly supposed to care about him..) but still is like watching paint dry. As Pauline Kael said about watching soaps,...watching the Stewarts and their girls was like watching people submerged in water. From this alone I never understood why the Dobson's have the reputation they do..they were just not right for ATWT.

What was with all the late 70s "frigid," heroines?

We did see the Quads as kids during Nancy and Chris 50th anniversary.

Edited July 30, 2014 by Mitch

[amybrickwallace]

Frigid heroines? That's a disturbing trend.

[DRW50]

Lisa Denton took over as Betsy from about 81-82. I think she was college-aged.

Irna Phillips killed off Paul because she was repulsed by the sibling-swapping in his storyline. I think Dan was killed off because of the youth craze. I imagine that Dee and Annie were aged to help fill that gap, and help to address the fact that the show had no young heroines outside of Carol.

Their stories in the clips - in theory, sisters struggling with the aftermath of extramarital affairs should be compelling, but it's really not. The only interesting part of Annie's story to me is Doug's brittle wife with her disco hats and her ambushing of poor Ellen.

[Mitch]

LOL..Marsha as bitchy as she is is much more interesting and sexy then "40 year old," Annie! Plus I do love the "Oakdale Disco," which is going on like a coke fueled 3 a.m. in Studio 54 when in actuallity its like 3 in the afternoon. Anybody who breezes into boring Ellen's tea time to insinuate her daughter is a tramp is fine by me.

I think in addition to the reason of demos, Dan was killed off as Kim and he went through everything already. What else was there to do as a married couple? Chris and Nancy and David and Ellen were the tentpoles, and I am sure the fans would be in uproar if they cheated on each other. Ah the perils of late 70s supercouples! though with Kim they tried to have her do the same things with another man...(i.e. the bitchy ex wife causing trouble.)

I do think its interesting that Bartholemu (the producer) felt that killing Dan and shuffling off Nancy and Chris would make the show younger, not new sets or direction or any energy at all.

Edited July 30, 2014 by Mitch

[amybrickwallace]

What year was Andy Dixon born in the story?

[All My Shadows]

Andy was born onscreen in 1976.

[danfling]

Ellen killed Frannie Brennan when Frannie (who had fallen in love with her employer David) threatened to tell Dan that he was actually the son of Ellen unless Ellen would refuse to marry David.

Ellen confessed to the killing. She refused to say anything else because she did not want the truth to be known.

[amybrickwallace]

Thank you for confirming Andy's birth. Kim dumped John to be with Dan, right?