A New Day in Eden

[SoapDope]

ROTFL !!! at that cheesy scene. I guess people who only had access to scrambled porn had to rely on this for their erotic needs. 

[DRW50]

Even pointing an arrow at his crotch might have been better. This show is earnestly trying to talk about sex in the '80s, which I appreciate, but the execution feels like a parody. Still, it's a memorable way to finish...

I wish the actual full scene was available, but I didn't even see that until browsing on Youtube yesterday and realizing I'd missed it.

That's probably one of the reasons these shows didn't perform well on Showtime - people could just wait to watch the more blatant softcore that also aired on the channel. I wish they'd done better as there's a whole potential genre here that never really happened.

[SoapDope]

I agree. It does come across as a parody and trying too hard to seem edgy. I also think maybe the time period was also the problem. The 70's were the height of the sexual revolution and a show like this would probably have fit in with that era, but by the early 80's there was a backlash with the rise of AIDS and a return to a more conservative mindset by the general public.  

[duane]

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[te.]

Funny that A New Day in Eden had episode "titles". I wonder what "Biff Spies On Pam and Clint" and "Tragic News For Betty" could've been about?

[DRW50]

Thanks so much @duane . Never seen that. Good quality scan too.

I find it hilarious that just about all I really know for sure with Loving Friends is it's the show where Paul Hecht got ass. 

[dc11786]

I'm pretty sure there is a list early in this thread of all the episode descriptions. Those descriptions aren't on the actual episodes. The scripts are just numbered "N.D.E. #133" for episode 33 from season 1. 

The picture gives a little more detail about the Biff spies on Pam and Biff plot point. At the time, Miranda Stevens was having an affair with her nephew's friend, Clint Masterson. Additionally, Clint's father Melvyn Masterson had been an old flame of Miranda's. By this point in the story, Miranda has begun to suspect that Clint is cheating on her and asks her nephew / surrogate son, Biff Lewis, to spy on Clint. Biff finds Pam Evans and Clint having an affair. Around the same time, Pam had been seeing Greg, Biff's brother and Clint's best friend.   

Miranda gets her revenge by seducing Pam in the Lewis swimming pool in the much talked about lesbian scene in the show.  

Betty's tragic news hasn't ever completely come to light for me, but I suspect it might have to do with her husband, Joe Parker, who I believe was presumed dead but wasn't. 

 

[dc11786]

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[DRW50]

@dc11786 Thanks for letting us know about this! Such lost soap media being found near the start of the year is a great surprise. Never thought we'd get a full episode.

Such odd opening credits - less romantic and more the guy looking like a predator.

[dc11786]

I was shocked when it appeared. I can see why it was lost to time. A lot of the younger actors were definitely still learning their craft. Also, it was the typical soap grind of filming an episode (parts 1 and 2) a day. 

It's really great seeing that cast list. @slick jones there are a lot of answered questions including on-air confirmation that it was Madge Whitehead:

Logan Claybourne     played by Stephen L. Shubert

Dr. Mark Hammond   played by Michael Laurence 

Joe Parker         played by Nick Eldredge

Frank Richardson    played by Paul Kent

Hud Richardson     played by Robert Lisaius

Hank Sowolsky     played by James Horan

Davey Sowolsky    played by Scot Doebler

[DRW50]

@dc11786 has so many great scripts and summaries through this thread that include a lot of details of the episode after the one uploaded. I am very appreciative of them for giving more insight and making the episode more interesting to me than it would have been otherwise.

I agree about the actors struggling to learn, which is especially noticeable with Biff and Francie, especially Francie. A case of characters being more interesting on the page. And Miranda acts like a loopy villain from a '70s DC comic. The scene where she is berating whom I assume is Beau over the phone while Betty watches is a real howler. (I could also see that happening with Diane and Carrie on GL)

I'm so glad to get to see Lara Parker on the show. I don't think she was ever great at playing good characters who had no real strength (this reminded me of her work as Alexis Stokes), but then it's only one episode. 

Great to get to see Jane Elliot too. 

Clever to have Biff and Davey being similar physically, to show Francie's choice. Davey is kind of cute - sad to read the actor passed away around 50 from cancer. 

It's nice to see James Horan, who is very charismatic in a bit of a nothing part. I could swear I read years ago he used to be a male stripper - a shame we never got to see those talents. 

Between the name Sowolosky and the young woman who is a factory worker, Marland re-used more of this show for Loving than I realized. Maybe he took some of this from a Loving bible.

(Horan would later star on Loving, but years after Marland was there) 

Good cliffhanger. The actress who plays Laurel is so familiar to me. Maybe it's from Santa Barbara, or she just has a generic soap look for that period.

Larry Poindexter was such a journeyman actor (including in some later softcore material) so it's a comfort to see him here compared to a lot of the iffy unknowns. 

[dc11786]

Yeah, I don't know what I would make of this episode if I hadn't read the other episodes. I believe this episode is also new to me as it is from the one script I don't have of the last nine so its a treat. 

Seeing Jane Eliot was a treat. Awesome to see that she got a Special Guest Star credit. Even Eliot seems bored, but I'm not sure Jim McMullan is the most dynamic screen partner. The faint Southern accent she gives the character is jarring for me having watched so much of Tracy's final episodes on "General Hospital" in 1993 in recent weeks. It makes sense though for a character born and raised in Atlanta living in Paris the past few years. 

By all accounts, Lara Parker was miserable on "New Day in Eden." I think what you see now is probably pretty consistent. The  character was tested with Jim McMullan and Michael Laurence, but she always tanked the pairings so she wouldn't be nude. They end up having her raped twice; once in a flashback by Joe Franklin, her husband who is lurking outside the Parker cottage at the start of the episode, and later by her daughter's writing professor.

Styling Maggie Sullivan's Miranda in the big hair doesn't work. The character of Miranda is suppose to be sleek, cunning; she's a master manipulator. This look doens't work. The exposition heavy conversation with Miranda and Beau in the office with Betty listening was definitely a highlight, which isn't saying much. 

Jef Severson's Ememtt is mentioned and in the credits, but the character is long gone. Unless he popped up in episode 59, he last time he appears is episode 50 when he flees Eden as his son Logan closes in on the secret that kept Logan and his mother Blanche out of Eden.

The Sowolsky brothers definitely seem to be two of the stronger young leads. James Horan is the standout in the role of Shelley's redemption, country boy Hank Sowolsky. Shelley is a typical Marland anti-heroine who was scheming at the beginning with Biff Lewis (hence the comments from Lockhart about providing an alibi for Susan Walsh's murder in the pilot) before being burned in the factory explosion about midway through (episodes 35-36). I thought they might use the fire to recast but Wendy Barrie does seem to be elevated by Horan's performance. 

The setup here with the Sowolskys and the Lewis boys is more interesting than I remembered. In addition, I know the Sowolskys owned, or had owned, farm land where Davey caught Greg Lewis deflowering Laurel Franklin. The farm land more than likely was tied up in the land deal that was going on involving Emmett & Miranad and the urban renewal project being overseen by Steve Carlson's Josh Collier from AURIC. So that would have pitted the Sowolskys against the Lewises. In addition, Davey witnessing the little tryst between Laurel and Greg means that the secret regarding Laurel's paternity would have become messier. 

Scott Doebler dying so young was upsetting to see. I didn't realize he had also been the dead Buck Jarrett in "Ordinary People." Shame he didn't do more soap opera work. 

The Laurel / Greg scenario ends up being reused by Marland with Lily and Holden with Holden coming from Sowolsky like family. I have to wonder how Marland would have handled the Laurel and Greg situation in the second set of episodes. I imagine he would have undone Greg's paternity. I would have revealed that Greg was Miranda's son by another man (lets say Beau Ravenel just to maintain the very unlikely event you could convince Eliot to stay on as Madge). Having Miranda's son involved with Betty's daughter would propel conflict and having Miranda more attached to her nephew Biff over her son Greg would have also propelled drama. 

Poindexter is great for a very gentle part. I appreciated him when he was playing the replacement for Father Matt on "Days" after Ralph Waite's death. 

Ava and the Sowloskys aren't in Nixon's bible, but I wouldn't be surprised if those early ideas didn't pop up early on in Marland's outlines due to "Eden.

[dc11786]

@DRW50 Regarding Horan, he played a stripper turned male model for a week on "Romance Theater" from this same time period as "New Day in Eden." Here he is as Jake Jordan doing test shots for a swimwear company:

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"Image of Passion" was released as a complication several years after "Romance Theater" folded along with several other stories from the series. This is only missing about 10 minutes or so from the original which was probably a lot of credits and narration by Louis Jordan.

Back to "New Day in Eden," it was very neat seeing Francie's dream of her and Biff together in contrast to Biff's dream of him and Francie several episodes earlier. Even down to the staging of having Francie's dream being more chaste than Biff's. That also may have been down to Patrick Mulcahey, who's disinterest is apparent in the scripts. Also, I suspect that the Biff / Francie confrontation reads better on the page. It was definitely Mulcahey's style to have the younger characters swear more which I thought made sense. 

On my last reading of the scripts, the sexual content really seemed to be reduced to things that could be easily cut out and tended to be in the first part of a script. As an even number, that's why this episode might have been pretty thin in provocative content. I think Jaffe was really hoping to syndicate this, but I am not sure if they were aiming for late night or daytime because I know tamer versions of scenes were also filmed. 

[DRW50]

Thanks so much @dc11786 - I didn't even know any of "Romance" was available. I read that about Horan in a soap book from the early '80s that I read in the library back in the '90s or early '00s (wish I could have kept those books). IIRC it was a profile on Rick Porter, as they mentioned him being a male stripper as well. It's hard to not be cheesy in that format but he does make it work...

I can see what we watched being syndicated, although given the glut of syndicated programming at the time and the lack of a larger number of episodes along with the Moral Majority rising, it may have been tough to sell.

I'm so glad that you had that script between Miranda and Marge which took place before this episode as it grounds the histrionic phone call. I agree the styling goes a long way. She just looks like she got dragged out of a hedge backward.

Thanks for the info about the Loving bible. So, I guess Marland did just move some of this stuff, which makes sense. I guess he and Nixon put together various tropes to create Ava. Ava may be this show's legacy. 

I have a lot of respect for Lara Parker but unless she was fooled by producers, she should have just turned the job down if she didn't want to do nudity. I had never heard any of her comments about the show but even in the episode you can tell something isn't quite right.

I did like that in Francie's fantasy she callously and offhandedly mentions dumping her father in a home. She seems nuanced, which the acting doesn't quite get but then it was still early days for this show. 

From what you've said about the Hamner scripts I guess we got lucky finding a Mulcahey one.

It shows the length and breadth of the soap genre that we are talking about Mulcahey in stories from 1982 and 2024. 

Based on what you mention about Lily and Holden I agree they must have planned for Laurel and Greg to not be related.

There's something so haunting to me about the closing credits - these silhouettes in... are those the Hollywood Hills? Just very cold and austere under the guise of passionate love and romance.

[dc11786]

In terms of "Romance Theater," there were a series put out on VHS in the 1970s that I bought probably 12 or so years ago. They really aren't good. I know one of the books said "Image of Passion" was the best and I don't think it's terrible. "Bayou Romance" with Annie Potts and Paul Rossini was one of the better ones, but still nothing I'd rush off to see again. 

If they had managed a syndication deal, I think it would have been a daily show. The pacing at two episodes a week doesn't work. This would be the tail end of the first 13 weeks so I think there was potential with "Rituals," but it probably would have only made a year like "Rituals." 

Regarding the nudity, I think people filmed the pilot knowing it was a possibility but not really wanting to go there. I know Anne Lockhart said she didn't want to continue with the show so that's why her character Susan Walsh was the first one murdered. I am not sure if that is logical. I wonder if Lockhart was originally slated for one of the more prominent female roles (Francie, Shelley, Laurel), but because she refused to do the nudity she was given the role of the first victim Susan. The serial killer story seems so important to the show's origin story about the urban renewal project being threatened by these murders which could prevent people from moving to a revived Eden. Parker has said she purposely torpoed the romances with characters in order to escape sex scenes. Given Betty Franklin's significance to the story, I think they would have been better off recasting. 

Frank Richardson was the serial killer in the end faking his paralysis, which kept his daughter tethered to him. I missed her offhand comment aboutdumping him in a home, but that's a wicked little comment from Mulcahey that I can appreciate. 

The shot of the lovers at night that closes it out is great. I hope that some of the bigger sequences show up for this show one day (I.e. the poolside seduction, the final two episodes with the very gothic undertones and Frank rising out of the wheelchair to reveal to Francie he was the killer). The end of the opening sequence is used in promo material that has popped up. I always assumed it was Eden at dusk, but now I realize it was Eden at dawn, which makes the most obvious sense. From what I can tell, Eden is located in the southwest, maybe the only soap to be set in that part of the country. The ending shot of the opening with its bizarrely animated garden of Eden seduction is very romantic. The end credits really evoke the idea of a cable soap.