One Life to Live Tribute Thread

[EricMontreal22]

Completely agreed--and I wouldn't be surprised if Gottlieb had approved the story before she left.

[ReddFoxx]

Scenes with Tori are definitely something that I recall seeing when they first aired, especially the flashbacks of her taking out Victor. What I remember most was Jean locking up Dorian after Tommy threw her down the stairs. Really good stuff.

[Vee]

I believe Gottlieb was all in on the long-form DID storyline and helped craft it with the writers. It was in motion before she exited. She/they evidently had planned to do the reveal a year earlier in '94, but Clint Ritchie's accident delayed it.

 

Anyway, here's Viki and Dorian having flashbacks to the night Victor died - enjoy Robin wearing a '70s wig and Viki looking, well, about the same in this low quality video. I know Robin and Ron Carlivati maintain Dorian killed him and he stayed dead, or at least they suggested it in 2007 without delving into it or proving it. I still believe Viki did it, but at least the show basically undid the 2003 story from then on by changing Victor's gravestone to the 1970s in the later years. I also think it gives Dorian more dimension, the truth that she protected Viki's secret for decades.

 

Also a treat: Erika Slezak's Skeletor voice as the Satanic "Victor" alter which I still find terrifying, if also sometimes hilarious.

 

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[Vee]

Viki puts a bow on the Sloan/Victor thing in late '95, I guess? Featuring a cameo by Crystal Chappell as Maggie Carpenter, her one character I really liked and one of Malone's last:

 

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[Khan]

It wasn't enough for Mikey Malone to convolute the hell out of an already convoluted history (and insult longtime OLTL fans' memories of Victor Lord in the process) just to make that storyline happen (although, after the 1985 and '89 retcons, they were probably used to being told that everything they saw onscreen was just their eyes lying to them).  Nope, he couldn't resist putting the damn thing to bed w/o taking a huge, watery dump on the memories of every Joe/Viki fan out there by having Viki reveal that she never felt more alone in her entire adult life than when Sloan -- not Joe, but Sloan -- passed away.

 

Sorry, Mikey, but this fan is never going to see what you clearly wanted all fans to see in Sloan, and in Sloan and Viki.  Joe Riley's impact on Viki's life was far greater than that of Sloan Carpenter's -- she had children by Joe, for God's sake; and lost him not once, but twice -- and to suggest that losing a husband she had for "a brief time" was her darkest hour is complete and utter b.s.

 

Just as it was b.s. that Viki being drawn to a man who was so much like her own father was so profound.  God.  Did anyone ever bother to tell Malone about Steve [!@#$%^&*] Burke!?

Edited September 22, 2018 by Khan

[DRW50]

I had issues with the way that Viki's 1995 alters (namely the way that Niki was rewritten, which led to the path of her eventually becoming a complete monster), but Tori was fascinating. I wish they'd done more with her, but maybe it was for the best they only really had that one plot.

 

I feel like I am extremely hard on OLTL compared to other soaps, and I don't even entirely know why. If I ever have time I will go back and rewatch Malone and SBH's OLTL. It was the first time I watched OLTL, on the one hand, but on the other hand, it was difficult to fully invest because there were just so many elements I disliked (Antonio, Todd, Kelly, etc.).

Edited September 22, 2018 by DRW50

[Khan]

 

AFAIC, re-retconning Dorian as Victor Lord's killer might have been the smartest thing RC ever did, on any soap.

 

I must admit I cackled with Vanessa Marcil-like glee when I read the quotes from RS, about how she had turned Malone and ES onto the fact that DID sufferers have more than one alter and that it all stems from child abuse, only to have her so-called "good deed" blow up in her face when they rewrote history and made Viki her own father's murderer.  "Goody," I thought. "Serves you right for meddling in the first place!"

Edited September 22, 2018 by Khan

[BetterForgotten]

Strasser did some of her best work (and probably the last time she got the chance to) in that 1995 DID storyline, the reveal aspect at least. But yes, Malone could be a deeply convoluted and heavy-handed writer. 

[ReddFoxx]

I noticed that Viki looked the same whereas Dorian had a different hairstyle in the flashbacks, but I figured that was because production could play with Dorian's style more since Strasser was not in the role when Victor Lord died, but Slezak was around the whole time and always had short hairstyles with minor modifications so they had less room to play with her style.

I didn't really care for Sloan. He was boring.

Edited September 23, 2018 by ReddFoxx

[Soaplovers]

I think having Sloan dying and the stress/sadness of that made sense for her DID to come out...Vicki never was good with coping with stress....but not even mentioning her first true love Joe was an insult.  She should have said she hadn't felt this sense of loss since Joe left her..even Express regret that Kevin/Joey never got to know their father, etc.

 

I think the abuse element made sense...vicki and victor had this emotional incest vibe from what I read of the early history...with sweet Meredith being almost like their child.  I think it would have fit history wise if it wasnt sexual abuse..but emotional abuse that eventually led to Vicki's DID... hence why Nikki Smith was wild and free (because she was a part of Vicki that was repressed).

[Taoboi]

[Vee]

IIRC Erika had shoulder-length hair for most of the '70s. Robin's flashback look OTOH appears to be channeling Rachel Davis.

[EricMontreal22]

The abuse aspect made *complete* sense to me (if it hadn't been so well done, though, I probably would think differently).  I can't fault Malone/Griffith for that personally.  (I can blame Higley--well for everything but especially for making Nicki guilty for practically pimping young Jessica out, not to mention how Higley had a shrink say it was beneficial for Clint and Vicki to watch the kidding porn made from that session--NO shrink would say that--etc etc.)

And let's face it to those who say it ruined Victor--he was already, well, a creep to put it mildly, especially after the 1980s "revelations".  I guess some think molestation was a step too far--but is it really after him sleeping with Irene Manning and everything else?  It seemed a natural further revelation to me. 

(One thing I find amusing is on in interviews Susan Bedsow Horgan stated how they consulted with Agnes Nixon who thought it was a great and powerful idea--then in the Giles book Nixon basically says it was a terrible idea she had no input in, I think with the thought that Victor was somewhat based on her father, and she wanted to be clear HE never sexually abused her.  I adore Nixon as everyone knows, but she has contradicted herself before--especially later in her life--the Giles interviews were done post-stroke--so who knows where the truth is...)

It DID annoy me how Joe (Kevin's father for [!@#$%^&*]'s sake) was essentially erased after the Heaven story really.  On one level I get it--in All Her Children (back in 1975) Agnes talks about one dilemma with soap writers is how much of the character history should you keep referencing---her example was that Ann Tyler was a divorce from a wealthy European aristocrat, but that by this point in her history in the show--while that shouldn't be ignored--it just made things too complicated to ever even mention it.  However, in this case fans knew about Vicki and Joe for more than a decade...

[j swift]

So, we all agree that Pete O'Neil was the true love of Niki/Vicky's life; right? (lol)

 

My problem with the reiteration of the DID story was the tonal shift.  Under different writers and producers in the 1980's Niki Smith was an unintended campy performance.  Vicky would throw on a long red wig (wig buying was a previously unknown symptom of DID), look at herself in the mirror with a maniacal smile, and become Niki.  It was more similar to Samantha and her evil cousin Sarina on Bewitched.  It was a plot point in a murder story and later Tina and Maria used it against Vicky to try to hump Clint.

 

When Vicky's DID was re-introduced it was suddenly supposed to be a mental illness storyline, told with some sensitivity, about the origin of her psychosis.  However, in my experience of watching both, it seemed to silly to treat this plot point seriously that had previously been so campy.  Coupled with all of the soap DID tropes, like a sudden different wardrobe for each personality to convey the personality changes to the audience, it felt like it was underestimating the viewer's sophistication about mental illnesses.  Trying to tell a story about the effect of childhood trauma while trapped in a secret room of a mansion is a mix of silly and serious that never worked for me.  Also, unlike alcoholism stories where they are careful to make the character never drink again, or medical stories where they always showed the scar, Vicky psychosis had no effect on the characterization.  She was still  a solid citizen whom others look to for support.  Nobody ever questioned her decisions or treated her differently despite the fact that she went completely unmedicated for years.  It was another 90s attempt to try to be socially relevant but really being a bit insensitive and wound up poorly informing the audience.  

 

Then, when it was repeated a third time with Jessica it was even sillier because now the audience was fully aware of DID, and Jess/Tess did not fit the profile of a DID client.  OLTL had to learn the lesson that once you go to Heaven, the Ol' West and Eterna you should not try to tell sensitive dramatic stories with the same set of characters.

[Khan]

 

Yep.  I've said in the past that, in many ways, OLTL never did come back from Eterna.

 

RE: Harry O'Neill -- In retrospect, it's annoying how the writers made it seem as if Pete was Niki's true love, when history says it was Vince Wolek.  But, since they had foolishly killed off Vince years before, and they needed that past love to create conflict between Clint and Viki, I guess they had no choice but to rewrite history.

 

ETA: Thanks, j swift, for pointing out the error!

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Edited September 22, 2018 by Khan