Bizarre soap scenes

[DRW50]

Labine is definitely very willing to admit mistakes - as she did with her OLTL run. I think she's a brilliant writer and I wish more of her work was available.

I think her GL run was definitely plagued by interference - supposedly Rauch wanted her gone from the start and I remember even at the time finding it very convenient that actors fired during her tenure would go to the soap press and imply she was to blame, not Rauch - but generally I just don't think she was the best writer for a show like GL. I think she should have gone to ATWT.

As for OLTL, I think, aside from some nice quiet and fun moments here and there, and some of Dorian's material, it was a disaster, and some of that has continued to plague the show for years and years and years.

[DeliaIrisFan]

That's interesting, why do you say that about ATWT vs. GL? Again, I go back to what she and Mayer did at Love of Life, which sounds like it was in a place much like GL was at the time - considered by some in charge of the soap biz to be relics, but having really lost touch with its core to the point that it wasn't appealing to the older audiences that it was presumed to have. And it sounds like she took it back to the core - restoring the rivalry between the two sisters - and introducing their grown children who ended up driving "younger generation" stories for years. And the ratings went up. Since I read what you said about that May character originally being rumored to be Nola's daughter, I've had visions of something similar, where Nola returned to Springfield with her apple-doesn't-fall-far-from-the-tree daughter to stir things up. But it wasn't an era where one writer could single-handedly change a show that fundamentally, and LOL cast actors like Christopher Reeve, as opposed to that actress on GL who seemed interchangeable with so many other blonde "vixens" Rauch cast at the time.

I guess ATWT was in a similar position as GL at the time, now that you mention it, although the core was much more intact. I would have been fine with seeing Labine's take on that show, if the environment wouldn't have been the same in terms of the toxic micromanagement. As it was, I probably would have found it more watchable because half the show wasn't taking place in a fictitious tropical monarchy that the producer refused to abandon, but I suspect the deeper problems would have been the same.

I remember most of her OLTL being quiet and/or fun moments, punctuated with random spurts of plot-driven things that stuck out pretty obviously as not being part of any sort of long-term story plan and that I tend to think were foisted on her and/or conceived at the last minute after more thought-out stories were killed midway through. I think that's why a lot of people found it boring, but I enjoyed a lot of the former more than anything else on the air at the time and found the latter much less harmful than the plot-driven stuff of essentially any regime that came after her. And I have to say that I don't honestly see anything she did as impacting the show for years and years - mainly because JFP undid pretty much all of it, seemingly just to make her presence known in many cases.

[DRW50]

Labine's writing started the Tea worship, the deification of Kelly, and the unceasing need to have Blair humiliated in every way in order to remind viewers how wonderful Tea and Kelly were. Those two things made the show almost unwatchable for me and continued to do so long after Labine had left the show. I still have awful memories of Kelly's apology tour, where she would tearfully recount how sad she was to have killed a late-term baby, almost killed her cousin, and then covered it up, and everyone - even Todd! - told her she was a special angel. The only person who didn't say that (Blair) was demonized as unforgiving and undeserving of being a mother.

This was also when Todd/Tea started the crap about how she knows him better than anyone, even himself, she was the perfect wife and mother, and his chief defender as he went around yammering to parrots and blowing up boats in a Patrick wig. They also dragged Andrew into this mess, as the "good" loser who could not compare to Todd.

I also disliked how Mel Hayes took over so much of the show and how often Dorian's story was interrupted by Mel and his family judging her at every turn and Mel seeing Viki as a more acceptable alternative. If JFP hadn't come along and pretty much frozen out both Mel and Dorian I think they would have ended up pairing Mel/Viki.

[DRW50]

Love of Life had a strong core (Vanessa and Bruce) which GL didn't by that time. GL was such a mess structurally and while I do think that Labine would have had much more of a chance if Rauch hadn't been there, I don't know if she really understood most of the characters. For instance, making Danny a mob kingpin who sleeps with the cigarette girl was never anything that character represented. Writing Blake as some uneasy combo of Delia and Lucy Coe. The violent and ultimately pointless story that involved Selena suddenly being a mob moll and leaving town battered and in shame. I do think she tried, but even some of what she had planned that didn't make it to air doesn't sound right to me (a Children's Hour story with Olivia and Holly). The only stuff during Labine's tenure I felt was her at her best and the potential for what her GL could have been was her material for Meta Bauer.

I think ATWT would have been a better fit for her - characters like Kim, Lucinda, Barbara were right up her alley (she basically wrote for Lucinda on RH anyway, with Rae Woodard), and Goutman was not as detrimental, spiteful, and controlling at this point as he became later on. ATWT had so much untapped value and integrity before Sheffer decimated it.

[P.J.]

LOL...I finally remembered one from ATWT. Since it didn't often delve into some time-shift, devil possession territory, it was hard.

Jack and Carly trying to trick Kit into a confession using Sam's dummy, "Cowboy Jack". You just know Michael and Maura are saying WTF as they're crouched down on set.

[DeliaIrisFan]

Sorry, I don't honestly remember any of that with Kelly. In fact, I'm drawing a complete blank on her and Todd even sharing a scene at that time. I confuse Blair's pregnancies - that was when she got pregnant by Patrick, right, not one of Todd's progeny? The baby that was going to be a bone marrow donor for Starr? By the time people found out Kelly was the driver, hadn't Alex already been found to be a match for Starr? If I'm remembering all of that correctly, I can see why Todd wouldn't (want to admit to) caring one way or the other about Kelly's role in the accident. But was he really that effusive to Kelly? Was someone else present, and he was trying to make a point?

Anyway, I don't know, Kelly in that time period seemed like a non-entity to me: a poorly developed "younger" character (despite my being about 16 at the time) whom Labine inherited, albeit played by an actress with promise. I think maybe if Labine had the chance to write the aftermath of the story of Dorian and her sisters' dysfunctional childhood (assuming it even turned out the way Labine had originally planned and didn't get diverted at some point/s by ABC/Phelps even before she was officially pushed out, which I sort of suspect it did), Kelly might have benefited as a character from a stronger relationship with her mother and an exploration of that dynamic.

As for Tea and Blair, I saw both characters (and Todd) as damaged individuals who were about equally destructive to themselves and others. My recollection is that that was how most of Llanview saw them as well. And yet they were all very human and compelling, I thought. For the record, I loved the Andrew character at that time, and I didn't see him as a loser compared to Todd at all, but rather as someone that Tea would have dumped Todd for in a heartbeat if she were not such a mess. I thought his unrequited love for Tea and his ultimately being there for her through all of the dysfunction with Todd was sad and beautiful, and dare I say an interesting parallel to his history with Megan and Jake (not comparing Jake and Todd at all, or Tea and Megan for that matter, just the kind of person Andrew was).

Really? Wow, I don't remember getting any sense that Viki and Mel would be involved romantically. Which surprised me, because when she first joined the show, Labine talked about them as a potential triangle, but once Dorian and Mel were on-screen together, it seemed like the writers fell in love with them. And I'll freely admit, I did too.

I was a new viewer at the time - I got pulled in during the classic episodes in that A Daytime to Remember thing - but it seemed like Dorian had done a lot of things that her significant others' family would realistically judge, so I didn't really have a problem with that. I also didn't know Labine's history save for GH at that time (pre-SoapNet/Ryan's Hope reruns), but knowing what I know now, I'm even more convinced that the writing was not meant to undermine Dorian. What Labine said in that interview the Writer's Guild did with her and Bill Bell, what must have been shortly before she joined OLTL, sounds like her Dorian story to the letter: "I love things coming out the way you wish they would in real life. I love making characters suffer and strive and work for what they get, but I love them to get it in the end." That, along with having seen her classic "redemption" arcs on RH (Delia, Jack) and read what she has said in interviews about how much she believes in Freudian psychoanalysis (which I don't even fully agree with, but I can buy into as a work of fiction), makes me think that Dorian would have made peace with why she did the things she did and come out a better, stronger person for it. And I believe, in the end, Labine's writing would have shown her to be rewarded for that.

I guess I didn't really think of Danny or Selena as being central characters, or more importantly as well-defined enough that Labine could really be blame for tweaking them (or getting rid of them, in Selena's case, whom I honestly wasn't sorry to see go). The same with Olivia, at that point - and obviously Labine wasn't the only one who saw something sapphic about the character, and I could totally see Holly having a fling with a woman depending on the circumstances.

As for Blake, I think so much of her was wrapped up in her history with her father, and the character really suffered during that time when there seemed to be a moratorium (presumably imposed by MADD, sticking to her guns after that "wizened old man" quote) on addressing Michael Zaslow's death on-screen. Blake had already been defanged and reduced to somewhat of a ditz by the time Labine came along. I think Liz Keifer, throughout the years, also suffered from residual ageism on CBS/P&G's part, though I don't believe she was even 40 at that point, because she was paired with Jerry ver Dorn. Unless Blake was cheating on Ross with younger men, which had been done to death by the time Labine arrived, no writers/producers really used her on the frontburner from the late '90s onward. For a legacy character played by a relatively young actress, I tend to think that was a mandate from somewhere. Within those rigid and very unfortunate limits, I think Labine probably saw that LK could do comedy and thought that it would be nice at least to give her some throwaway scenes. A lot of it fell flat, admittedly. I would argue that was because Blake wasn't written like Delia or Lucy - those characters always had purpose and their kooky schemes drove stories.

I do agree completely about Meta, and I choose to see what Labine did with that character in the midst of the residual San Cristobel and Santos dreck as an indicator of what she might have done more of if she'd had free rein. I guess we'll never know.

Well, I can't argue with you about seeing Labine's take on those characters. It is ironic that, at the time, there was so much hype about Sheffer being "new blood" and how ATWT got the better end of the deal (I think he even gave some interview where he claimed P&G offered him the gig at ATWT or GL and he chose ATWT, the implication being that Labine got his leftovers). A decade later, of course, Sheffer is anything but new blood and he is widely disliked by online fans of multiple shows. I haven't watched any of his work save for a month or two at a time of his ATWT stint, and I certainly can't begin to judge how much of what he's done has been hamstrung by the networks/production companies when I would argue that same point about Labine, but just the fact that she has been about a million times more gracious than he is when quoted in the press does make me feel a lot more warmly toward her.

[DRW50]

The story wasn't supposed to be a fling, it was supposed to be, I guess, some type of repressed or doomed feelings on Holly's part, if the Children's Hour comparison is apt. I don't know. She didn't go into a lot of details so I shouldn't put words into her mouth.

I liked Selena but I could understand if they wanted to get rid of her. But her exit story was so offputting, and I don't know why this was done. Perhaps they were going to set up some long lost child of the Santos father who would cause problems, but there could have been a better way. The scenes of Tony - who was supposed to be some type of young stud on the show - roughing up Selena were jarring. There were a lot of attempts at this time to suddenly have a tougher Santos mob when IMO the family only ever worked as a cartoon, not as any type of "real" mob family.

While I can agree Danny shouldn't have been a central character, at that point he was, and having him as Sonny Corinthos, complete with affair with bimbo employee, was another jarring choice.

I do think Labine fared better with some of the Bauers and with Harley/Phillip. Unfortunately a lot of what GL had become, she didn't seem to be able to adapt to, if she was given the chance (which she probably wasn't).

The idea was supposed to be that Todd didn't blame Kelly, because she was sad, and because he had already killed someone based on revenge against Patrick, so he just kept going with that. But the problem with this was there was ZERO drama in any of this. That's when I began to realize they didn't care about drama - they only cared about propping Kelly. The accident wasn't Kelly's fault. The coverup wasn't Kelly's fault. The prosecutor made sure Kelly was spared as much as possible. Dorian waved the flag for her. The only person who dared to criticize her was Blair, who was painted as a bitch. They even went as far as to have Kelly testify against Blair to make sure Blair lost custody of Starr. This was again turned into a "poor Kelly" moment, because Blair punched her. Everything Kelly did to people was just another example of how precious she was. This is the type of material which they used with Kelly for the remainder of Tognoni's run in the role.

The difference for me was that Tea's damage was presented as some type of nobility. Todd was presented as the loveable goof with a big heart and a bad side - always the victim. Blair, meanwhile, was chasing after rich men and making quasi-racist remarks.

[jcar03]

One of my mother's co-workers was telling her about this and my mom thought she was accidently watching DAYS.

I also remember the art thief story with Daniel and someone came ninja style into the alley to steal the painting or whatever it was, I was like what the f--- is this.

[DeliaIrisFan]

I think we're both talking about the We Love Soaps interview? Did she specify which character would have the repressed/unrequited feelings? I didn't think she did, and I guess I just assumed - but perhaps I was projecting Olivia's later story with Natalia - that Olivia would have been the one who would have had a thing for Holly. I could see Holly being curious after Olivia put it out there, and also along the way using Olivia a bit with Roger out of town, etc.

Well, I'll grant you that. Although I'm not sure who could have. The ironic thing is, I remember reading a year or so later, after Rauch had gone through a few more head writing teams and it looked like P&G/CBS was finally zeroing in on him as the common denominator, he abandoned San Cristobel and downplayed the mob, presumably in a last-ditch effort to save his job. He even did a taking-off-life-support story, involving Reva and her island prince of all people. It seemed silly to embark on a plug-pulling story on a soap after forcing Claire Labine out the door!

Oh, I do remember the controversy over Blair calling Tea 'Chiquita." I actually thought that was realistic...even more realistic would have been Tea retorting by calling Blair an ignorant redneck. (Little did I understand at the time that Blair's next respond should then have been, "Are you calling me a racist, Chiquita? I'm Asian!") Again, different strokes, but I saw Blair and Tea as evenly matched, as far as having married Todd for his money but telling themselves that they wanted to save him from his demons (and being completely ill-equipped to do such a thing).

[Khan]

I think it's always tough to judge the work of a HW such as Claire Labine in an era where her brand of character-driven storytelling is considered old-hat and passe. No question, she (and Paul Avila Mayer) belong in the same category with Agnes Nixon, Doug Marland and Bill Bell. Unfortunately, she also belongs to a time when soaps didn't need "big" stories in order to satisfy audiences. I'm not talking gimmicky plots either, but juicy, riveting melodrama that we always include in our "Favorite Storylines Ever" lists.

[DeliaIrisFan]

But I would argue that she did satisfy audiences when she wrote GH, in the '90s. Which I guess you could say was a different era, but I would consider that to be the last successful head writing regime at a corporate-owned soap (many would consider Reilly's work at DAYS to be successful, so although I wasn't a fan I'm limiting it to the ABC and P&G shows, which I do think have been subject to a different management structure, often to their detriment), based on several criteria.

Many of her stories at GH are still included in a lot of fans' favorite stories ever, and not (just) because such and such couple got together or so-and-so was a great character (until...), like I would have to qualify just about anything in the last decade or so if I were to even think of calling it one of my favorite stories. Stories actually built and were allowed to develop over a period of months/years, and when you got to the climaxes that viewers still remember, you could look back and remember the smaller moments along the way that were leading to what inevitably happened. I truly don't think we've seen very much of that on soaps since, across the dial; too much changes along the way for that kind of seamlessness and momentum. And GH at the time was a commercial success in a lot of ways - consistently rated in the top three for nearly two years (yes, it faltered toward the end, due to several factors, not least of which was that the network was in the throes of being sold to ABC, something that I really think the declines of all three shows can be traced back to). GH circa 1994-95 also was one of the main shows that made me a soap fan...and maybe at this point I'm of a different era, but what can I say?

[Mitch]

Hmm interesting that May would be Stacey...there were a lot of hints with the movie buff thing. I take it they would have still made her an undercover fed (which is interesting I could see a Nola kid being that) and that she would not have screwed her cousin's husband???

I will admit Labine's material did have definite promise. She did get rid of several characters old time fans hated and that Rauch loved like Carmen and Selena( and no suprise that both of them Rauch pets blamed Labine...I hated Selena, she was just a character brought on so Rauch could say, "See, I bring on the old broads too," as he pushed MK, MG, and MD out the door) and her centering things a bit more on solid ground. Meta is one example, getting rid of cartoon Carmen to focus more on Claire as an antogonist of Michelle's (much more interesting given that she is her bio mom) and you could see the move to get rid of San Crud and the mob. Two things may have worked against her Rauch hated her and fought her contantly (he also fought Taggert on every word but by that time TPTB were more inclined to listen to someone other than Ruachie) and he and the writers had destroyed GL so thorougly the only people watching were the Mannywacks, the Cassie and Richard fans and Jeva nutballs, there were no old viewers left. And since so fans were the most vocal, and TPTB were desperate they would listen to the nutballs, she was doomed from the start.

Her first few days on the show really showed promise, Blake and Ross were allowed to be show having children and a messy house that goes with them, but still some witty sexy banter. Josh and Reva are show going to their divorce lawyers and in quick cuts show ending each others sentances. Things like that were small but so much more clever and witty then anything that the writers had done before. And after Labine we got Lucky Gold and what was his first event, an earthquake in San Crud that did nothing.

[DRW50]

I remember Soap Opera Weekly complaining about a credits crawl which ended with Nancy Hughes wearing a clown nose. They were horrified. I wish I could see that.

It was during the Valente/Black and Stern era.

[ClassicSoapsFan]

What about the AW finale where the man in a gorilla suit...errr gorilla...kidnapped Cass and the cast sung "Get Up Off of That Thing." Thanks Chris Goutman!

[DRW50]

I kind of liked that - as it was a nice tribute to the old Cass/Felicia days.

What I never understood is why they brought Sam Groom back as a minister, and not as Russ Matthews. Yet again Goutman did not know history.