As The World Turns Discussion Thread

[lilyredd]

I was ok with their ending simply because I wanted happy endings for characters I liked and I do not know nor trust what the show would have done otherwise. I didn’t love it but…  Having said that,  no way Lucinda surrenders her company to anyone - daughter or not.

If you were given a blank sheet and told write Lucinda and Barbara for the finale, what would you have done?

[DRW50]

I suppose with Barbara, I felt like the character had been all over the place in her personality and stories for decades (even in "better" times, they would have her having a baby with John, which I just did not really buy), so as long as it was not more of the same cartoonish behavior that she had under Sheffer, I didn't find it to be a departure. I do see it as more of a departure for Lucinda,  but then I felt like Lucinda had spent the last year of the show having more agency again and making the choices - and mistakes in some cases - on what do with her life when her schemes came out, rather than what would often happen to the character (being  punished and having to start over). But then, I had stopped watching ATWT a long time before it ended (my viewing became more and more sporadic starting in 1996 and then pretty much died from 2002 to 2009), so maybe I just can't have the same opinion as someone who went through more of those periods. 

Edited October 7, 2021 by DRW50

[Mitch]

I agree...I wish they had shown that people don't need to be "coupled up" to be happy, or at least coupled in the conventional sense. I would have ended it that Babs who spent so much of her life chasing after, being effected by the men in her life, was okay with running her business and just having a younger lover (why does everyone have to be "married" in a soap and a wedding is so cliche for a TV show conclusion.) and Lisa is too busy with her businesses, her family and helping the new generation of Oakdale's wayward youth cover up paternities and past lives and lovers that she feels the same. So the last scene of both characters would have been them at Fashion's...Lisa, "So Barbara, its you and me and our businesses, did you ever think both of us would end up this way after all that time lost chasing men?" Babs going over to hug her, "No, but I am sure as hell glad it did! And are you the Lisa I know talking about endings?" Lisa "Oh honey, no, we have a LOT of life and a love or two left in us! Which reminds me, I just came back from the hotel and saw ole Lucy and Johnny Boy acting like newlyweds and trying to make me as the kids say, jelly...well I can tell you  by lunch they will be at each other's throats and he will be kicking that old hag out of his room like a dime store hooker!"

Edited October 7, 2021 by Mitch

[DRW50]

We did get a  number of characters who were moving on with their lives without a romantic relationship, like Lisa, Luke, Holden and Lily (although they were likely going to reunite). It's just the stories were either nonexistent, or badly told.

[adrnyc]

During Jean Passante's interview on The Locher Room, she said that the writers wanted to bring back every character from the past that they possibly could; however, the people who controlled the purse strings said no.

 

I would've HATED an ambiguous ending. While the ending may have been far from perfect (what could ever be perfect?) I cried my eyes out at the finale. I found it to be incredibly touching and moving. The show was over and was never going to be brought back due to P&G. I loved that it put an "ending stamp" on the story.

 

For those who are doing a re-watch of the series and want to piece together the missing episodes: https://classicsodatwt.tumblr.com/page/3

I believe it goes back as far as 1976? And it only goes up to 1990 but it really helped me piece together '86-'90 when I watched it. (Started in 2016 and am up to 1997 right now where the show is definitely firing on all cylinders. I have to force myself to only watch one a day or I'd never get anything done!)

[Soapsuds]

 

[amybrickwallace]

+1

[Mitch]

Yea, but Lisa's wasn't because she made a conscious decision..it was just cause "well we have to put her in there somewhere..." which as you said is bad writing. And if Holden and Lily had finally said, as I wish Carly and Jack and Reva and Josh would have said..."You know, we really need to take a breather from each other and repeating our mistakes and dragging other people down with us.  Lets' focus on our kids, our family, our jobs..." but again, bad writing but I would love to have a soap character just say, "Its okay to be single and not looking!"

[amybrickwallace]

So would I!

[DramatistDreamer]

On a previous post, I already gave my ideas on Lucinda (and John, by extension). My basic premise is the idea that there should be a final "ending" was not ideal. I compared the finale episodes for AMC and ATWT and gave my thoughts on why AMC, despite some clumsy execution provided a better ending than ATWT and why this gave AMC some viability and a chance for at least one reboot, something that is unlikely to ever happen for ATWT. In short, AMC left their characters viable, while ATWT completely put their characters out to pasture.

Never "sunset" your characters, unless someone dies in the end. Even Thelma and Louise left a little room for "What If?" in the end, despite the fact that intellectually, we all knew they went over that cliff. (As preposterous as it was, that ending actually inspired talk of sequels).

To be as brief and as descriptive as I can, If I had a chance to write storyline arcs to the finale for Barbara, for example, I would give her options, I wouldn't just shove her with Henry as a "happily ever after". I would spoil her for choice. At least a year before the finale, I would have Barbara relaunch BRO (or whatever they wanted to call it). Have Barbara be a driven designer having her own design house. We don't have to see runway but see her in the process of making sketches, discussing fabric, cut and debuting collections in Milan, London, etc. (Paul can make the trips abroad, returning with rave reviews), have there be so much interest that she is drawing notice from other fashion houses to do collaborations have Eric Forrester be interested in her (perhaps for more reasons than professional). He makes an offer to Barbara which is tempting but Barbara decides that this is not the right time in her life for such a monumental change that could uproot her very stable life, Eric, convinced they will work together, urges her to give it more thought. As Barbara and Henry grow closer and eventually get engaged with plans to marry soon,  a surprise return from Barbara's past comes back into her life and unwittingly crashes her big engagement party, right in the middle of Bob Hughes's toast, which causes Barbara to reconsider whether her life is as steady, stable and as sure as she thought. Eric, hearing about what happened at the engagement party suggests that she come to L.A. for awhile, give herself time to process the recent upheaval and work with him on that collaborative collection with FC, married or not, he believes they would make a dynamic team). Of course, there would be conversations with Henry, who stands by her and hopes that this is a momentary obstacle to their impending nuptials (although Henry doesn't see divulge that Vienna Hyatt has contacted him, offering her support to him and more). This surprise "guest" from Barbara's past also also offers Barbara a window into a past, before she acquired all the "baggage" she now has, as this person remembers her from a time when she was free from scandal and judgement.

I have my ideas on how I would wrap on that, if I ever have the time to sit down and write that, I just might put it in writing. 

Lucinda, I wrote some of that piece but I would definitely write her as looking to groom a successor, her own "wunderkind" to run Worldwide, while, of course, still very much holding onto the reigns at the company. The best option would have been Bryant, which she always envisioned taking over from the day he was born (there are actual clips of her saying this), and this would create good conflict with Bryant's parents. The problem of TIIC killing off Bryant could have been solved in true soap fashion, and I have already posted what I would write (anybody remember this?) as a solution. But yeah, I would never "sunset" these characters. Keep them viable, give them options because one never knows. 

[lilyredd]

Thanks for answering!

[Vee]

I didn't realize how many hands Dusty changed to as a child before being adopted by John. Whoof, what a history. I can't remember McCouch's Dusty and John interacting much.

[j swift]

I'm sure there's a thread somewhere when we've compared and contrasted final episodes of the various soaps.  However, my recollection of the ATWT finale was that I was suffering from "finale fatigue".  There was so much discussion about the "Capitol model" of ending on a cliffhanger, or the "Guiding Light model" of ending by tying everything up in a bow that it created a false dichotomy.

While I believe that we need to distinguish between disliking a creative choice versus wishing other choices were made. I did not resonate with the finale episode because it lacked emotional empathy.  The audience was experiencing a loss, but the characters and plots did not reflect those feelings.  In hindsight the example that best fits was probably the one story that they couldn't plan for; focusing on the loss of Reed, as opposed to the loss of Nancy.  Reed's story seemed to convey to the audience that loss was also an opportunity for renewal, because his organs literally lived on.  But, if they were able to write about the loss of Nancy (although they obviously could not have predicted that Helen Wagner's death), we could have empathized with the experience that some things are lost forever.

Edited October 7, 2021 by j swift

[DRW50]

They had a scene when John returned for the final weeks, which surprised me. 

 

I think that's a part of it. I also think that Goutman's lack of care was incredibly obvious at the end. Ellen Wheeler faced the same budget issues as ATWT, yet she still brought people back and tried to honor the history of GL more. Goutman did not. 

At the time, there were heavy attempts to gaslight people into seeing this as a wonderful finale. I never believed it and I never will. The only thing I believed is that most of the writers at Daytime Confidential sucked.

[DramatistDreamer]

You're welcome. Just a few ideas, in short.

Gaslighting is an apt description @DRW50. It really feels that way.