AMC Tribute Thread

[All My Shadows]

It was the same for Cliff and Nina - their September 1980 wedding was huge and ushered in the era of location shoot weddings for supercouples, and they'd been on for maybe a year and a month or two? I think the Cortlandts first arrived the previous summer.

I'm entering April 1989, and I have some comments and questions.

 

- Walt Willey deserves credit. The energy he had in the Jack/Erica romance 30+ years ago was still there later, even as they were on rehash number-whatever in the early 2000s. Regardless of the stories between the two, the chemistry was always there between the two, and they just felt believable.

 

- Bye, Julie girl! They kinda rushed her exit, though, right? We went from lovey-dovey Julie and Nico couple scenes to him being an [!@#$%^&*] to justify her deciding to leave.

- Do people generally prefer this earnest, homespun, country boy version of Will as played by LQ or the more villainous version as played JPS? Was the change in characterization gradual or quick?

- I can't help it. I love David and Melanie. Maybe not LOVE, but I'm falling for TPTB's manipulations to make me like them. The lingering looks, the wispy music in the background that plays every single time, the dorky cute motif of them enjoying classical music, etc. It's all so sugary sweet, and I'm eating it up.

 

- I know that this is definitely a big transition period for the show (maybe it's biggest?), but it's so weird to see Donna pop up as barely a supporting character. I know she gets more to do when Chuck comes back later in the year, but you can already see they were unsure of what to do with people like her and Benny.

[Darn]

 

First of all I'm very upset my "were been" typo was quoted. Secondly, I thought about them when I made that post, wondering how long they'd been on the show before they got their lavish wedding so thanks for the dates. I kind of miss when soaps would just commit to a couple and could invest in 5 episodes of these nearly brand new characters getting married. 

[AMCer]

 

Kathleen Noone's Emmy win is at 1 hour 36 minutes. (I don't think it had ever been up on youtube).

 

She specifically thanks Agnes Nixon for coming "back to the show" to write this story.

[BetterForgotten]

The other women in the category are great in their own way, but Kathleen's clip was a force of nature. She was amazing. 

[AMCer]

Mark's cocaine addiction and subsequent intervention was one of AMC's most notable stories and Noone's Ellen reading Mark the riot act was one of the show's greatest acting performances. So satisfying because Ellen had been such a goody two shoes for so long. It got a lot of attention in the soap press at the time. And then two years later Ellen disappeared and I can't ever recall her being mentioned again.

[All My Shadows]

I pulled out the 25th anniversary book, and it has a different photo from the same wedding listed as being their second wedding and occurring at Thanksgiving time in 1980: "An anguished Dr. Frank Grant came close to leaving Pine Valley when his ex-wife Nancy accepted Dr. Russ Anderson's proposal of marriage. As their wedding drew near, Nancy realized she still loved her ex-husband Frank, and they remarried in a Thanksgiving wedding."
 

It's gonna stay

Please register in order to view this content

IDK how I feel about a couple coming in and commanding so much time, especially in Cliff and Nina's case. Nothing from their introduction into the show is online at all, and I don't think it ever has been - we have one 1979 episode that doesn't feature them, but we do have that string of masquerade ball episodes from Feb. 1980 thanks to Eric. I just want to see how they were integrated into the show, and I definitely want to see more of Sybil.

[EricMontreal22]

She was mentioned when Mark would return--always some excuse as to why she stayed in Hong Kong (I think?)

Please register in order to view this content

[Darn]

 

I guess it's more I miss commitment to an idea. Nowadays it feels like they write the show on the whim of what the audience might want that hour or which couple kinda sorta has chemistry that week. 

[AdelaideCate007]

 

She came back for one of the anniversaries too- either the 25th or the 30th. It's the one where they also brought back Mark, Donna, Chuck, Daisy, Benny, Cecily, Nina, etc and they had a party at the Martin house.

 

 

I loved them and their wedding at the time. I'm sure  it was probably irritating to some how prominent they became in such a short amount of time, but they were so good together at the time. I still hate how they killed Edmund off for no reason.

Edited May 19, 2020 by AdelaideCate007

[EricMontreal22]

Yes!  That was the 25th week long celebration.  (Which I loved although at that time, before I had net access and I had just started watching AMC in late 1991, I had no idea who half of the characters were lol).  Here they are at 40:25
And yes the way Edmund was written in the end (locking up Maria/Maureen) and then being killed--accidentally I believe by Jonathan.  Criminal!!  I adored Edmund when he came on (though I liked him best with Brooke).  RIP John.
 

 

[Paul Raven]

I wonder if they had  committed to the Cliff and Nina story when Cliff was planned to be Dr Jeff Martin. With Jeff and the Martins involved it wouldn't have felt like newbies taking over.

Nonetheless, the writing and casting obviously grabbed viewers as Cliff and Nina (with a lot of help from Palmer's villiany) became very popular.

I guess the timing was right as perhaps viewers were ready for something new as Phil/Tara/Chuck/Donna had pretty much played out along with Paul/Ann, Linc/Kelly etc

[OzFrog]

Sometimes I wonder back when Bobby Warner was reintroduced in the mid-late 90s, how would things have panned out if somehow Peter Bergman had come back as Cliff at that point (yes yes I know he was well and truly at Y&R by that stage, but one can dream)? That would have been an interesting dynamic to explore especially with Nina coming back for a little bit as well (and the soap geek in me reckons Peter Bergman and Brian Gaskill had enough physical resemblance at least to pull it off).

[DRW50]

 

I think people have said the transition was fairly quick, although moreso when he became a psycho at the end. 

 

I think Lauren Holly had been off for a while to film a movie (was it that Ford Fairlaine trash?) and only returned long enough to wrap up her story. 

 

Most of 84-89 seems to be a transition period...

 

1987 hit #1 in the ratings at one point (for the conclusion of the Damon Lazarre mess) and onscreen it feels to me like they really pulled a lot of things together, but I guess the show was just too bloated and the strike probably didn't help. It's a shame as for me the 1989 changes make the show more generic and it's never quite the same. 

[ghfan89]

Cliff and Nina's wedding did have the twist of Cliff find out Sybil was pregnant right before it, and Cliff flashing back to it during the wedding vows. That added some drama for sure.

 

Will was actually off screen for about 6 months and had left town between LQ and JPS. You could tell they were going in a different direction when JPS showed up, though I suppose to the seeds were already planted that they could go there with LQ because Palmer wanted to leave him the business before he took off.

 

Yes, around this time there was a change in both EP and writers. They didn't know what to do with Donna during a lot of the late 80s aside from being Natalie's talk-to. They do bring back and aged teenaged Emily Ann into the David, Melanie etc group later that year that gets her some more play, then of course the return of Billy Clyde and Chuck. Although the Billy Clyde story sort of ended up becoming more about Dixie in the end.

Edited May 19, 2020 by ghfan89

[DemetriKane]

 

I know this isn’t a popular opinion but Pratt wasn’t that bad to me. He had the wrong title I wish he came on as a EP and someone better got headwriter. Any good writer could turn his decent ideas into compelling television and he did have some good ideas.

IMO, 1987 is considered a golden year for the show. I really liked it. I’m actually watching it right now. It’s Definitely a few things I would change to improve it, But it’s perfect show everything just works. Including the Erica/Lazarre/Goldie  storyline imo timed just right for the fall and Halloween lmao. Erica kinda seems like a heroine during her pregnancy with Bianca. It’s the happiest she’s ever been.

Edited May 19, 2020 by cassistan