Did Agnes Nixon really need to create another soap while she already had two on the air? It just seems to me that some of the storylines on Loving could have been told through the characters on All My Children. Like the storyline featured in the premiere movie involving a prostitute ring at the local campus a news story covered by Merrill Vochek could have through Brooke English. And the incest storyline involving Lily Slater could have been easily told through either Angie Baxter or Liza Colby. Conversely, the subsequent murder that followed could have involved Les, Pat and Jesse or Larry, Marilyn and Tad. Also the Vietnam Vet story that involved Mike and Noreen could have involved Phil and Tara had the latter characters not been written off of AMC. And then of course AMC's cast was so massive they could have had a much more intricate game of musical beds than Loving did. There was nothing that set Loving that far apart from AMC except it's college backdrop...and yet that's not all that extreme given Pine Valley University was featured adequately on AMC. Loving wasn't even that diverse...and eventually it came to mirror AMC with versions of their characters most notably Mona and Erica Kane via Kate and Ava Rescott. Plus, Loving pushed Ryan's Hope to that time slot that eventually expedited that show's demise.

What do you think?

Erik

I always thought she should have tried pitching Loving to CBS or NBC. And in fact, Loving/The City isn't owned exclusively by ABC, it's owned by Nixon's production company...

The show would have probably still flopped, but maybe its downfall would have been easier and less chaotic...

Edited March 14, 201114 yr by Y&RWorldTurner

ABC Wanted To Fill That 30 Min Slot & Trusted AN Cause Of Her Track Record

I always thought she should have tried pitching Loving to CBS or NBC. And in fact, Loving/The City isn't owned exclusive by ABC, it's owned by Nixon's production company...

The show would have probably still flopped, but maybe its downfall would have been easier and less chaotic...

oh wow, I never knew that. Maybe thats why Loving/The City never aired on SN. I thought ABC owned it and therefore was a no-brainer to be on the schedule, at least early in its cycle when they didnt have too many rights to other content and/or orginal programming

PS I don't want to knock anyone's obsession with this show...though THE CITY, actually had a lot of potential.

Yeah, each episode of LOV/CITY ended with the "Dramatic Creations" logo.

I wonder if they thought about approaching Spelling to do a daytime soap in '83. Dynasty was really gaining momentum then and he had tons of hits already under his belt at ABC. Perhaps he was too busy with the primetime shows to take on 250 more episodes a year.

The same could be said for Irna Phillips. Did she really need to create ATWT and AW in order to tell the same stories about the same WASPy characters in Anyplace, USA that she'd be telling on GL? Did Bill Bell really need to create B&B, which, esp. in its early years, was very similar in tone to Y&R, and which pushed Capitol out of the way? I know that Agnes wanted to capture the college crowd that she had with AMC a decade earlier. AMC was on fire in the early 80s. I think it made sense from a business standpoint to add a similar show with appeal to that same audience. ABC's big mistake with that was not cradling it between AMC & OLTL. And when it comes down to it, all soaps are variations on one another anyway, telling the same stories with the same character types but with a different set of characters, so what was one more?

I wonder if they thought about approaching Spelling to do a daytime soap in '83. Dynasty was really gaining momentum then and he had tons of hits already under his belt at ABC. Perhaps he was too busy with the primetime shows to take on 250 more episodes a year.

How much involvement did he have whith his shows? I always thought he created them and left them at the hands of the writers/producers to handle. If he were to do a daytime soap, Id think it would be the same way

At this time AMC was extremely iconic and popular, making tons of money for ABC, even as GH had begun to slide.

When P&G didn't buy Agnes' shows, she left and never returned.

ABC might not have wanted to see her do the same thing with them.

How much involvement did he have whith his shows? I always thought he created them and left them at the hands of the writers/producers to handle. If he were to do a daytime soap, Id think it would be the same way

Well Sunset Beach, 15 years later after Loving's debut was Aaron Spelling's attempt at daytime. It lasted two years, but it was absurdly campy. Though I have to admit this past week with the earthquake and tsunami in Japan actually reminded me of the elaborate earthquake and tsunami on SB. They did do some really fun things on SB...like one woman impregnanting her rival with another man's sperm via a turkey baster...and there was even a Scream-like island adventure with a masked murderer on the loose who after the mask came off turned out to be the twin brother to one of the show's leading men. SB was more satire than Passions, and was definately Spelling.

Edited March 14, 201114 yr by Erik

Well Sunset Beach, 15 years later after Loving's debut was Aaron Spelling's attempt at daytime. It lasted two years, but it was absurdly campy. Though I have to admit this past week with the earthquake and tsunami in Japan actually reminded me of the elaborate earthquake and tsunami on SB. They did do some really fun things on SB...like one woman impregnanting her rival with another man's sperm via a turkey baster...and there was even a Scream-like island adventure with a masked murderer on the loose who after the mask came off turned out to be the twin brother to one of the show's leading men. SB was more satire than Passions, and was definately Spelling.

It lasted 3 years

It lasted 3 years

Shut the hell up, are you serious? I thought it was from '97 to '99 cause I remember watching the last episode before 2000. So its debut was '96. Wow...

Shut the hell up, are you serious? I thought it was from '97 to '99 cause I remember watching the last episode before 2000. So its debut was '96. Wow...

It ran from January 6, 1997 to December 31, 1999 which is practically three years.

Agnes might have been better off spinning off an OLTL or AMC character to help create Loving, like Irna used to do.