8 minutes ago, All My Shadows said:

Hooray for new 70s AMC!!! It was the first suggested video for me when I went to YouTube on my TV this afternoon.

I'm surprised but not really at how heavy the focus was on the Cortlandts only a few months after they first appeared. Gone are the days of Phil, Tara, Anne, Nick, Paul, etc. being the major players. I was really hoping to see some Estelle in this one.

It's definitely nice to see Brooke's lighter days and to finally see some of what came after the Tom/Erica confrontation, but I have to say that this was very much a low-key, middle-of-the-week type of episode. Only two stories going on, and soooo much of the focus on Cliff and Nina, who were still so new. I really do wonder what the initial reaction to them was because I can't imagine everyone was smitten with them right away.

I think Nina is the perfect ingenue, along with Jenny (or Angie) maybe the best AMC ever had. My disdain for Peter Bergman in the last few decades doesn't help my opinion of Cliff. I did enjoy his moment with Brooke near the end where they were being childish about Palmer. I can't remember if the show ever tried a Brooke/Cliff pairing when they were both much more dour. I think that's one of the best parts of the episode for me is that other than the expected like dear Mona or long-suffering Nina, the "good" characters are allowed to have some spunk.

I wonder how much this episode was hurt by them still learning the shift to an hour. Within a few years I think there would have been multiple stories, more quick cuts, instead of padding, much as I enjoyed the padding here as it amounted to location shots with Myra Marple and with Palmer being aghast.

I also wonder how long after this did Tom and Brooke get together.

Edited August 12Aug 12 by DRW50

Everything was so brown!

AMC went all in on Cliff/Nina/Palmer and it was a gamble that paid off. The right story at the right time. So many other shows failed when they made new characters front burner so quickly.

And they did it w/o tying them to any established characters., which broke the golden soap rule of tying newbies to established characters.

Of course the original plan was to have PB as Jeff Martin, but they wisely decided to make him a new character. Twice married Jeff would have had extra baggage, that might have altered things.

I would pay money to see the entire Cliff/Nina/Palmer story with Daisy so this was quite a treat to see them so early on. Palmer is so over the top, although I thought he was using the cue card for a moment there.

It was such a joy to see Erica and Mona and such a young Brooke.

I wonder how much those exterior shots cost. It baffles me with today’s technology DAYS for example can’t afford a single decent shot in or out of studio and they spent money just for that!

4 hours ago, DRW50 said:

The AMC episode is posted one post above mine.

Thanks for the ping so I didn't miss it!

I see that Cliff/Nina were already a main focus by this time, and I believe that this pre-dated Phoebe's party welcoming the Cortlandt's to Pine Valley.

I'm also surprised that there was a lot of focus on just two storylines in this episode, but seeing how some modern day soaps seem to focus on just one story for episodes on end.. it isn't a surprise that this also happened back in the day. I love that channel because Chicago has always been good at archiving their local broadcasts :)

Thanks @DRW50 for the tag!

Janice Rollins mention! I've been trying to find the actress that played this role since 1983. There was an article in SOD about Cliff and Nina's romance that mentioned her, but I haven't in all these years seen another mention of the character. Now, if only the actress' name can finally pop up!

17 hours ago, Forever8 said:

I love when they post classic soap episodes along with the OG commercials

19 hours ago, DRW50 said:

The AMC episode is posted one post above mine.

the scenes were so long back then. That opening one with Nine and Brooke for example went on far longer than Im used to with soaps

45 minutes ago, Cheap21 said:

the scenes were so long back then. That opening one with Nine and Brooke for example went on far longer than Im used to with soaps

Another sign of the half-hour format still in their system, I think. By the time of the early '80s episodes the scenes seem shorter.

21 hours ago, DRW50 said:

The AMC episode is posted one post above mine.

I love that only days after I ask to see some of the earlier, bitchier Brooke, we get some glimpses of her. She's not really that bitchy per se other than her dig about Erica ("one of the original Dead End kids") but she is nowhere near as serious as she would be within a year or two. There's even a moment here where it's established that doing actual work is a new thing for her.

I wish we could have had more of this Brooke for a longer period of time.

As a bonus, you also get Myra laying an almighty verbal smackdown on Palmer.

And Erica trying to be her most pious and good to keep Tom...who is not having any of it. Richard Shoberg has a way of making you vaguely afraid of Tom in those moments even though you know Tom is a decent man.

Susan reminds me so much of Roya Megnot here.

Palmer is such delicious high camp at this time.

Interesting to see Nina and Brooke are in college here - within a few years they'd both be heavy in business.

@vetsoapfan @slick jones @alwaysAMC @All My Shadows @Paul Raven @SoapDope78 @SFK @Soaplovers @janea4old @Sensuelle @Wilsoky @te. @soapfave06 @cassadine1991 @Khan @Jonathan @Kane @EricMontreal22 @Darn @Spoon @Cheap21 @LeClerc @Vee @FrenchFan @TheyStartedOnSoaps @Franko @bongobong @Stevel @ghfan89 @MissPalmer @Liberty City

WOW!!!!! Thak you very much!!! I Love It!!!

On 8/12/2026 at 10:34 PM, DRW50 said:

The AMC episode is posted one post above mine.

I love that only days after I ask to see some of the earlier, bitchier Brooke, we get some glimpses of her. She's not really that bitchy per se other than her dig about Erica ("one of the original Dead End kids") but she is nowhere near as serious as she would be within a year or two. There's even a moment here where it's established that doing actual work is a new thing for her.

I wish we could have had more of this Brooke for a longer period of time.

As a bonus, you also get Myra laying an almighty verbal smackdown on Palmer.

And Erica trying to be her most pious and good to keep Tom...who is not having any of it. Richard Shoberg has a way of making you vaguely afraid of Tom in those moments even though you know Tom is a decent man.

Susan reminds me so much of Roya Megnot here.

Palmer is such delicious high camp at this time.

Interesting to see Nina and Brooke are in college here - within a few years they'd both be heavy in business.

@vetsoapfan @slick jones @alwaysAMC @All My Shadows @Paul Raven @SoapDope78 @SFK @Soaplovers @janea4old @Sensuelle @Wilsoky @te. @soapfave06 @cassadine1991 @Khan @Jonathan @Kane @EricMontreal22 @Darn @Spoon @Cheap21 @LeClerc @Vee @FrenchFan @TheyStartedOnSoaps @Franko @bongobong @Stevel @ghfan89 @MissPalmer @Liberty City @AMCOLTLLover

Thanks for the tag… I love cliff and Nina

That 1979 episode is so good. And I believe one of the I Love Lucci marathon episodes is from just a few days earlier (well on YT they credit it as being November 27...) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QkurLPa6xic&t=1472s

On the current week of Pluto TV Canada's 1995 AMC, Michael Sabatino premiers as Dr Kinder. Funny he doesn't get an announcement for replacing Bruce Thomas who had been playing him the previous three months and actually I thought was doing a fine job--but Sabatino is instantly more sinister. And I have NOOOO memory that the role was even recast from when I first watched 30 years ago.

Pluto TV has started to solidify their schedule with six new episodes thrown into 9 episode rotation each week it seems, and it's a rhythm I'm finding easy to catch up. When they were still occasionally showing 12 new ones a week it was... not. I wonder about the change, although it may be so that they don't burn through episodes so quickly (I have heard that they only have--at least digitized) from May 1995 to May 1996 and we're already on late October 1995 episodes...