One Life to Live Tribute Thread

[Vee]

And ironically I think (based on Labine's own interviews) that it was originally possibly intended as a triangle for Dorian and Viki. Mel and Viki's connection was teased early on and Labine has said, IIRC, that the Mel/Dorian pairing came about in part because one other party was not interested in being in a love triangle. That would have to be Erika Slezak, and I assume despite her personal fondness for Robin that she just didn't see the appeal in a love triangle opposite Dorian.

Labine also teased a reconnection with Viki and Clint (and gave us maybe Clint Ritchie's last great scenes on the show when Clint finally confessed his resentments about the dissolution of their marriage), but my understanding is that also didn't happen because of CR's drinking and possibly Erika not wanting to deal with that again.

Edited May 19, 2023 by Vee

[soapfave06]

I was already digging into the JFP era but the comment of Strasser got me looking into Dorian more, so it does seem obvious the character assassination from a recap angle but did any of the plots play well onscreen?

Dorian helping Hugo kidnap Viki, only to join her and ending her quest for revenge for Mel 

Dorian mowing Jessica down and causing the miscarriage 

Did RS play these in a way that it didn’t decimate Dorian or did it greatly hurt? 
 

Was the sidelining of Dorian and Cassie and recast of Kevin hurtful to the overall show at the time? 

 

[Vee]

Yes. People were furious about LB's firing as well as Robin going. The Tim Gibbs Kevin recast was wildly unpopular both with the audience and BTS, but he was a JFP favorite and was played everyday. Once Jill left OLTL, Gibbs' Kevin didn't even get an onscreen exit; that was how little the network and show knew fans regarded him.

The miscarriage storyline was well-performed and had some decent drama at various points, but all of it was designed to marginalize Dorian as a character. And it did that. I don't even remember the nonsense with Hugo Monroe, that entire mob storyline and family was completely forgettable months after it happened. This is the first time I've thought of the Monroes in years.

Edited May 22, 2023 by Vee

[soapfave06]

I wasn’t watching them but had read about Hugo before, never realizing Dorian teamed up with a killer and helped him kidnap Viki 

In just a few short months Dorian did that and caused Jessica to miscarry 

I wonder how much stronger the ratings could have been if they avoided this nonsense 

I very much enjoy reading your thoughts on OLTL! 

[Vee]

IIRC, JFP had ratings up at that time because she went for the jugular early and often. Much of the late '90s for OLTL were sleepy doldrums, a hangover from the glory years under Gottlieb/Susan Bedsow Horgan and Malone/Griffith, which were built on a succession of massive umbrella storylines and heady supercouples. Several subsequent revolving-door regimes under Laiman, Labine, etc. mostly coasted on the fumes of that glory and those couples, some bad regimes, some so-so. Labine was just finishing out her network contract at ABC after her GH spinoff was turned down and was clearly not fully invested in being there. There were a few good stories, ideas, couples, etc. but mostly it was a fallow period. It always felt like a lazy fall season to me.

JFP changed that. She came in hot and suddenly huge things were happening. As @Khan IIRC and I have both discussed, the Georgie Phillips scandal with Bo, Nora, a video-manipulated 'sex tape' (an early precursor to CGI and AI fakes today) and her subsequent murder gripped a lot of people - me included. All of a sudden the teenaged me opened up a soap magazine and saw the actors playing Bo and Nora, my favorite couple, touting a hot new storyline for them after they'd spent the last couple years cuddling and snoozing in the background. RSW and HBS both openly cheered on the story, saying they'd spent the last couple seasons 'in the freezer'. Then Jessica loses her virginity in what I thought then and now was a very honest, realistic way - drunk, to the wrong guy, who promptly knocks the perfect daughter up. Then Bo and Nora are broken apart. Cassie goes insane. Jessica loses her baby, to Dorian. It was urgent action and drama. It brought me back, I think it brought a lot of people back.

But what many of us didn't know about JFP initially, but learned quickly, it that it was empty calories. The flash faded and you began to get an idea of what you were really looking at. The day to day writing suffered terribly, got very stupid. The murder story with Rachel was crass, histrionic and misogynistic, the first of many. And while JFP had used key popular characters to bolster ratings and push her narratives, Bo and Nora together were not her priority. Dorian was not her priority. Sam Rappaport (played by her lover Kale Browne) was her priority; Tim Gibbs as Kevin was her priority; Sam's son Will (the wrong man for Jessica) was her priority; Ben Davidson was her priority.

I remember being glued to the TV afterschool everyday for my tape of OLTL in the February sweeps of 2000. Nora had finally discovered that Lindsay Rappaport had altered Bo's fertility tests, which had driven her to go to bed with Sam in order to provide a grieving, suicidal Bo with a child. This choice ultimately destroyed their marriage. (And it was a storyline HBS, who initially cheered on JFP's arrival, detested - she tried to go to the head of the network to get killed off, for Nora to die in childbirth.) Nora manages to get past Sam - who tries to physically bar her from leaving her home, something I never forgot or forgave - and rushes to the church to bust up Bo and Lindsay's wedding, while (IIRC) Jessica rushes to stop Cristian from marrying Roseanne Delgado. I was sure things were finally going to be put right for these characters, that Bo and Nora, as a beloved supercouple, would get it together and Lindsay and to a lesser degree Sam would see justice.

But that didn't happen. Bo and a lot of other people blamed Nora. Sam remained a central sympathetic player in the show's eyes (multiple DNA tests were even done in those years to try to force the audience to accept that little Matthew was in fact Sam's son, something that was only undone once JFP was gone). The focus of the show remained on the Rappaport family, populated largely by actors JFP either had long favored on other shows or who she herself had discovered, and on the veteran favorite characters (Bo, Nora, Viki, Jessica, etc.) who JFP could carefully attach to them in frontburner romances. And Bo and Nora stayed broken up for almost another decade.

JFP was very clever. She knew the way to make her characters and performers indispensable (for a time, anyway) was to link them deeply to popular characters, and to play the longtime characters heavy in those major stories. She got one thing right: She played Bo, Nora, Viki, etc. everyday. But the stories often sucked, the characters were a mess, and it took years to recover from what she did. She eviscerated the show.

That said, yes - the ratings went up.

Edited May 22, 2023 by Vee

[soapfave06]

Thanks for sharing, when I was reviewing the ratings, I did see a huge boost for February 2000, so that makes sense and a huge missed opportunity to not reset the show back to the proper couplings after all that hell. 
 

I did quite enjoy Nora and Bo reuniting in 2009 when I was watching but there wasn’t much story for either even with them apart. 
 

I appreciate your detailed recap, if you don’t mind, how did that era contrast in fan response to the more cartoonish Tomlin era? 

[Vee]

The way I recall it, fans were very happy to see the back of JFP. Gary Tomlin was welcomed, and a lot of his early changes made people happy. The thing about Gary is that he also loved grand pronouncements to the soap magazines. Literally any actor who prepared to leave the show he would gush was 'irreplaceable.' Jason-Shane Scott leaves as Will: Irreplaceable! Erika Page leaves as Roseanne: Irreplaceable! I didn't hate Erika Page or anything but it was all a bit much. Still, he clearly had genuine affection for the show and the canvas, he brought back things we cared for, brought back fan favorite characters like Alex and David Vickers, lightened it up and created a new spirit of optimism and hope for the show after several miserable and very long years. (Gary was also responsible for hiring Eddie Alderson as Matthew, owing to the fact that the kid hung out BTS with his sister and the adult actors adored him. The fact that Eddie did not learn to act for another seven years and that his Matthew gradually began to resemble Ralph Wiggum from The Simpsons in the meantime was immaterial, but hey, it all worked out in the end.) AFAIK, there was a real sense of happiness BTS again. And the Viki/Jessica/Natalie saga with Allison Perkins and Mitch was a huge engine for story, and gave us Roxy.

But Gary was never much for taste. The vile Baby Jack story with Todd and Blair was played for laughs, with a Mariachi band and actual cartoons onscreen. The extended storyline in which Mark Derwin impersonates a mentally challenged man would not fly today! The return of Gabrielle was lampooned because of Fiona Hutchison's very campy performance, which (allegedly) led to BTS pressure from certain parties to end the storyline with her, Asa and Max ASAP. (I loved her performance, but I was in the minority.) And the Natalie story was controversial with the audience and BTS with Erin Torpey, where I think it ultimately helped push her to leave the show due to how she felt Jessica had been marginalized. (She was.) The Mitch rape retcon with Viki was unnecessary. The Keri Reynolds/Antonio saga sucked. The Todd/Tea island adventure, don't get me started. The Colin/Troy switcheroo, with Ty Treadway rehired with great fanfare to play Colin's identical twin so Gary could eagerly tout responding to fan demand to see HBS and TT paired for real, flopped and led to the horrendous "Joanna" plotline - but it also gave us the scorching Troy/Lindsay affair in Gary's final months. The focus on Jen Rappaport sucked, until in his second year Gary realized the fan rooting interest and made her the villain opposite Natalie.

So it was a very, very mixed bag. There were fun stories and new characters and then very bad ones, and the audience rebelled. The show had gone from grim and miserable to OTT camp and silliness. But Gary did give us some new characters, couples and stories we cared for (Natalie and Cristian/Natalie, Roxy, Bo/Gabrielle). I think Gary's heart was in the right place, but the taste and a lot of the writing went to Saturday morning cartoon levels. Still, he reignited the show's heart and he gave us Live Week. Which we should've done again, every year.

Anyway, mine is just one opinion. I'm sure many can weigh in.

Edited May 22, 2023 by Vee

[Khan]

I agree.  In retrospect, though, I can't blame Gary Tomlin for attempting to inject some levity into OLTL in order to help it stand out from all the other shows.  He just needed someone to say, "Maybe we shouldn't include the mariachi band next time, Gare."

[soapfave06]

Great review, I appreciate your feedback as it was a complete turnaround after being critically acclaimed, critically boring and then critically depressing. 
 

Speaking of the Natalie/Jessica switcheroo, I was reviewing old SOD postings on twitter and it appears OLTL was a steady #2 in the late summer/early fall of 1986, so I would presume this to be the Mitch climax, Dorian on trial for his murder and baby Jessica being kidnapped, I reckon it was a good idea to revisit that but I had not realized Jessica ended up marginalized, I would love to see the initial ET Jessica and Natalie feud. 
 

Also, very funny and accurate comments on Matthew, OLTL really tried with the teen scene and despite being a teen at the time, I just…couldn’t with any of those actors, save for Kelley Missal as Dani. 

[Vee]

I think Erin and Melissa had much more interesting chemistry than Bree Williamson and Melissa. It was very difficult for anyone to write Erin's Jessica as just a damsel in distress, or just an idiot ingenue as the recast became; like Kimberly McCullough on GH, Erin radiated more intelligence than that. So what you had onscreen with those two was Melissa as the fire and Erin as a calm, mature presence. I thought it was a great contrast. Of course once Bree arrived it became much more bland.

Erin did not hide her distaste for her storylines in 2001-2002. IIRC she was vocally hurt by the early implication that Jessica was not Viki and Clint's daughter but some random castoff, and I think Erika has said the story was hard for her. (I wasn't upset by the story at the time because I assumed it would end up reversed in some way; I don't think GT or anyone else had ever intended to not resolve it eventually as Jess being Viki's daughter after all, but they could've let ET know and the Mitch vs. Clint paternity angle stood for way longer than it should have.) She also was very, very vocal even in press and online interviews about hating the pairing with Seth Anderson. She talks in blunt terms about Brandon Routh's attitude without naming him in the OLTL oral history, and made it clear at the time of the storyline in many interviews that she didn't like Jessica staying with the con man who had slept with her 'sister' and stolen her life. Jessica and Seth's stuff was kind of a B or C-story in 2002 as Natalie became popular and then became the central heroine. I loved MA and Natalie so I adjusted, but Jessica was handled poorly. It didn't have to happen and I wish Erin had stayed.

Of course, it didn't last: You cut to 2003 with the insane Malone II run which I could talk about for years, and suddenly Bree Wiliamson's Jessica has arrived as the ultimate clueless soap damsel Erin's never was, is dominating airtime, has an A-story with her character's teen sweetheart's older brother who has known Jess since she was like 13, and meanwhile Natalie and Cristian, the A-story leads of the show in '02, could now barely buy airtime all year along until David Fumero leaves. Things can change on a dime.

Well, by the time Kelley Missal got there Eddie could act (at least IMO). After years of being not very good, seemingly overnight in late '08 or early '09 he suddenly began seriously stepping up as part of the story with Matthew being paralyzed, Bo and Nora reuniting, etc. And from then on I feel he became the strongest actor in that age range on the show. (Kelley is also very good, but in a role that on ABC basically amounted to Starr Jr. she didn't get half a chance to show what she was really capable of until the Hulu revival, where she crushed it and dominated. I know @DRW50 had a lot of opinions on that back in the day.) 

I think Eddie and Kelley were good young talent, and Matthew and Dani were fine characters. (Jason Tam as Markko and Brittany Underwood as Langston were also good, but they were in Frank's designated roles of 'ethnic sidekicks for Starr and Cole'.) I think Destiny has a character had potential but Shenell Edmonds was never much of an actress; her charm and rapport with Eddie put her over with the audience. But the thing is that they clearly backed off Matthew/Danielle in the first place because someone at the show (allegedly, FV but possibly Frons as well above the show) decided Eddie was not hot enough. So they hired the Fords, all overgrown hardbodies, let them dominate the canvas, let one of them squire Dani around and Matthew was relegated to mostly C-story with Destiny or the backburner from then on for as long as the show remained on the network. The Matthew/Dani thread - and the complicated web of romance with them and Matthew/Destiny, and those three characters' childhood friendship and romantic connections - was not properly picked up on again until the Hulu revival, and frankly that triangle could've driven the show as a central axis for years to come, still could today. C'est la vie.

Edited May 23, 2023 by Vee

[Khan]

I agree.  In a way, they reminded me of Judith Light and Brynn Thayer, with Melissa Archer as the Karen, and Erin Torpey as the Jenny.

Respectfully, though, I have to disagree with you once more, @Vee, about the Jessica/Natalie switcheroo, lol.  I still believe Gary Tomlin intended all along for Natalie to be Clint and Viki's one and only daughter and that he and Broderick/Whitesell changed their minds only because the audience was already ahead of them.

[Vee]

Yeah. It's the same reason I was never into it when they had Natalie vs. Marty over John years later - those two are the same type of fiery heroine/antiheroine OLTL had been expertly molding since Karen Wolek, across two different iterations. It's the same woman fighting herself.

[Khan]

Plus, they were fighting over John McBain, which was just about the biggest WTF ever, lol.

[soapfave06]

I’m not sure if Erin Torpey would have stayed anyway, but another example of decimating the core, that’s a nice balance and a great example (Natalie/Jessica to Karen/Jenny) I also like the contrast of Viki/Tina with the red head and the blond sister. I can’t recall how GT wrote heroines in general across the soaps. 
 

I so loved the Hulu revival, I thought the casting for Matthew for excellent and Kelley SHINED as Dani and her relationship with Tea, I just loved it, and yes I thought Matthew/Destiny/Danielle could have driven story for a long while and it would have been worthwhile with Matthew from a core family and Destiny and Danielle as diverse leads.  
 

I think I gave up on the show around Spring 2010 after the lesbian wedding fiasco and ousting many diverse characters, on top of the utter waste of Tika Sumpter as Layla, I was tired. 
 

I never could get into Langston and Markko after the initial story but they didn’t try much, I would have liked to have seen Starr keep her scheming side as a troublemaker, I think that botched that foursome for me the most. 

Ugh, I’ll never be able to forget that

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[Khan]

I think Natalie was created with Tina (and Tina and Viki's relationship) in mind.  Even after she got pregnant by Will, Jessica was Viki's "perfect" daughter - likely because, as @Vee said, Erin Torpey was too intelligent to portray Jessica as a stereotypical damsel in distress.  Jessica wasn't "messy" enough to keep herself and Viki in angst...but Natalie could've been.

I think we were going to learn that Jessica's biological parents were Roxy and Mitch.  I think the revelation would have caused a temporary rift between Jessica and Viki, as Jessica struggled with a sudden loss of identity.  "If I'm not Clint and Viki's daughter," she'd be asking, "then who am I?".

I think Mitch was brought back (even though we saw him die on-screen) so that he could be there as Jessica learned the truth; and I think Jessica would have reached out to him and to Roxy (as Viki looked on in dismay) in an attempt to replace the ties she believed she had lost with the parents who had raised her.  But, once Jessica realized that her biological parents were no damn good, Roxy and Mitch would have been disposed of, and Jessica and Viki would have tearfully reunited.  Jessica still wouldn't be a "real" Buchanan anymore, but Viki (and Clint) would have "adopted" her; and Natalie would always be torn between her sense of devotion toward her adoptive sister and her fears that her biological parents preferred Jessica over their own child.

Some of that actually played out, of course, but I think the key fact in the story - that Alison Perkins switched Jessica and Natalie at birth - was changed early on, because the EP and HW's were more concerned with surprising the audience than with just trusting that they would hang on to see how it all played out.

Edited May 23, 2023 by Khan