As The World Turns Discussion Thread

[Soapsuds]

@Mitch Nadine was too ditzy for my tastes. Harley and she were just unbearable for me. But Nadine's death was so sad and brutal.

[Mitch]

Yea, I wasn't a fan of Nadine, or really of any of the Coopers (I liked Harley first go around....during the Wheeler years and she became the "heroine," everyone was in love with BE became so shrill and sharp...it was unbearable.) Hated her death though...(they could have married her off with that trucker guy she was seeing) but have to say I wouldnt have minded if they had killed Buzz like that and dumped his body in a dumpster.

[DramatistDreamer]

Aww, that Terry Lester clip made me wistful!  If he were still alive, he probably wouldn't have returned to Y&R but some part of me believes with him in the role of Jack Abbott at least there would be some balance of power between characters and Victor might not be consuming the entire show.

 

I didn't mind Nadine in very small, measured doses.  I liked Shannon O'Hara, so obviously I don't have a problem with zany characters but Buzz should've had a limited arc and then disappeared from Springfield.  I agree with the assessment of Harley, I liked the character in the very beginning.  I think I kind of disengaged from the show in the middle of her romance with A.C. Mallett, I honestly don't even remember how they broke up.  I just remember flipping channels one summer and seeing Mark Derwin on OLTL, which I didn't watch back then but I figured he wasn't on GL anymore obviously.

 

It would be interesting to know whether there was ever any network pressure on Marland to make the show darker or was he simply trying to take the show in a more edgy direction?

Edited February 27, 2016 by DramatistDreamer

[SoapDope]

I remember reading Marland wanted Jeanne Cooper to leave Y&R and join ATWT. Jeanne told him if he wrote a part for her she would be there, but he died. I wonder how Bill Bell felt about that and if he would have put up a fight to keep her ?

 

I miss Terry Lester too. I read he and Bill Bell made peace several years before Terry's death.

[Khan]

Jeanne Cooper on ATWT?  It's too surreal to imagine.

 

As I've said in the past, if Marland had not died in '93, he probably would have left ATWT anyway -- either to write his own show, the bible for which he was working on at the time of his passing; or to work on another soap.  (My theory has always been that P&G would have asked him to fix ANOTHER WORLD.)  Either way, he wouldn't have remained at WT much longer.  IMO, its increasingly somber tone -- while certainly not reflective of the kind of quality, character-driven writing Marland had been giving it all along -- was a sure sign that he was starting to burn out.

[robbwolff]

Was Marland still working on Soul Survivors when he died? I thought he created the show in the late 1980s but CBS passed on it.

[Soapsuds]

I read where Marland was going to stay on ATWT for another year or two which was back in 86. So having him until 1993 was a blessing.

[NothinButAttitude]

Weren't the Kasnoff family supposed to be part of the bible of the show that Marland was writing before he died?

[DRW50]

January 1974 Daytime TV Stars.

 

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Sorry - I'll add the next part tonight. 

Edited February 29, 2016 by DRW50

[DramatistDreamer]

Very interesting to see how viewers felt at that particular time.  Boy, I wish there were some clips on You Tube or Daily Motion to illustrate what they were contending in those letters.

 

Another interesting thing is that I sometimes hear people complain about how the Dobsons had diminished the Stewarts, except for all things Betsey by about '83 and the Stewart girls absence is often cited of a prime example of the writers' neglect of the Stewarts.  Funny how sentiment can change.  I don't pretend to know much about this era though.

 

Question:  So what went wrong between Donald and Lisa?  In later episodes when Donald used to visit Oakdale, his interactions with Lisa usually appeared to be tense and sometimes stiff encounters.  Why?

Edited February 29, 2016 by DramatistDreamer

[All My Shadows]

Mabel Christianson's letter reads like pure satire.

[DRW50]

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[vetsoapfan]

I agree that Irna Phillips' last tenure as ATWT's headwriter was marred by inexplicable and disturbing plot twists. I was not completely thrilled with the "new" Liz Stewart, having appreciated Jane House so much in the role, but to kill off the character was a pointless and almost mean-spirited mistake. She still had so much storyline potential, and the character was immensely popular. I never adapted to Susan Harney replacing Jacqueline Courtney as Alice Frame on ANOTHER WORLD either, but I would have been aghast if TPTB had had Alice die.

 

The letter by Helen Pfeiffer reminded me about how much I preferred John Reilly to John Colenback in the role of Dan Stewart. While Reilly was charismatic and affable, Colenback always struck me as morose and humorless. It was a shock watching the character go from one interpretation to another. Similarly, after Mart Hulswit's sunnier portrayal of Ed Bauer on THE GUIDING LIGHT, I was never able to adjust to Peter Simon's grim, more listless version of the character.

 

Anyway, even with ATWT's going through a rough patch during Phillips' final reign, the show was still significantly better written (and truer to its roots) than it ever was under the likes of Jean P, Stern and Black, Hogan Sheffer, etc. I'd take a bad Irna Phillips story over the ((ahem)) best of Jean P any day.

[DRW50]

Do you know what she was talking about with the plant stuff? Was that Tom and Carol? What went on with Wally and Jennifer and Lisa and Don? Was she with Don when she had the phantom pregnancy?

[vetsoapfan]

The plant references are both pointlessly sarcastic and hard to figure out. Carol was infertile, so the "infertile geranium" comment might have been about her. Nothing of interest really went on with Wally and Jennifer; the character of Jen was only really important (and interesting) when she was with Bob. To me, Don and Lisa never really had much chemistry, and the thought of her ending up with her former brother-in-law (on such a conservative soap and in such a conservative family) icked me out.

Yes, I think that it was during her relationship with Don that Lisa believed herself to be pregnant again. She walked around saying, "But...but...how could I be expecting?" It was almost amusing. In the end, she had an ovarian cyst and was not actually pregnant for the third time.