If Douglas Marland Had Lived...

[soapfave06]

That's the same thing I've always thought. Even at GL, I'm pretty sure that he introduced several characters within his first 6 months.

[ghfan89]

Harding Lemay had a interesting perspective on the Marland rules:

We Love Soaps: Doug Marland had his infamous “Marland’s Rules.” I’d like to know what Lemay’s Rules are?

Harding Lemay: I don’t have any. I know Doug was rather rigid about a lot of things. I trained Doug actually. Very interesting writer. There was a very very dark underside to all his writing. Good characters though. I think everything you write creates it’s own rules. Whether it’s a play or a book or a script. Every situation you write creates it’s own rules and that rule is the truth of the situation. You can’t have rigid rules. Because you lock yourself into a dramatic box. And it doesn’t work. And that was one of Doug’s problems as a writer. The people who wrote with him would often be confronted with Doug’s rigid idea of what was right and what was not right. My attitude was, “Try it, see if it works.”

[ghfan89]

I actually preferred Marland's shrewish Barbara to the hapless Barbara of the early 80's. You have a good point, though.

[Y&RWorldTurner]

Lemay himself wrote for Marland at GL, did he forget that?

I actually agree with Lemay's perspective on those rules...

[Paul Raven]

Yes it has been stated before that Marland ignored his own rules. At ATWT he got rid of Maggie,Frank,Marcy and Stuart before his 6 month limit.

I think waiting for six months to dump characters is unreasonable.It is obvious usually which characters aren't working and a new writer will have their own characters they want to introduce so there always needs to be room to drop/add characters.

[Mitch]

Wait a minute..Marland wrote a three way sexual encounter, with pics no less, into the plot??? Marland, who was issy prissy about any kind of sex at all? And Gavin was bi? And Carolyn was a kinky ho? Now THAT would have made an interesting story line (especially if Gavin was giving Daryl and Frannie the eye, imagine Kim clutching her pearls when she sees THAT on the cover of the Argus!!)

ATWT started falling apart at that time even without the CC storyline. Marland had taken the show too far afield from the basic premise of the Hughes family juxtaposed to the Snyder and Walsh families. Wasnt this the time that he brought in Rosanna and Orange Skinned Mike..which was just Lily and Holden all over again. I think even Marland can spend too much time on a show, so they may have moved him to another one.

[DRW50]

He wrote the outlines which introduced Mike but that was a year after his death. He did have Hutch.

I think 1992 was a good year for ATWT, from what I remember and the episodes I've seen, but it was brutally dark.

[Quent]

Making Barbara a bitch was one of the best moves Doug Marland ever did. Up until that point, her "damsel in distress" routine was wearing thin. Even though the change was quick, it made sense. Barbara had been used by men her whole life. She finally thought she found Mr. Right, Brian McColl, but he dumped her for Shannon O'Hara.

I have to disagree that the introduction of the Snyder clan was a violation of his rules. The family was intoduced one at a time. We didn't meet the next Snyder until the one before was established. Heck, we only heard of Caleb and Ellie through one-side phone calls from Emma a good two years before we ever saw their faces!

[LoyaltoAMC]

I'm not the biggest Marland fan, but there's no denying he was a very good writer and loved the genre. I would love to have seen what he could have done with AMC, although I don't think he ever would've worked with Agnes again after Loving.

[glatwt]

thats something i always wanted to know, what went down between marland and nixon? not to get off topic....

[P.J.]

I don't consider Barbara's about-face as abrupt as say Nola's on GL. And all credit to Marland for seeing that CZ had the stones to pull off the transformation.

I think there's a lot of truth in Marland's rules. His "enforcement" might have been rigid---but ultimately it was his ass on the line. He planned so far ahead any deviation instituted by an associate could have undermined future story.

Re: his rules and the introduction of the Snyders---he's simply acknowledging that characters need to be accepted by the audience. He introduced them in stages (Holden and Emma, then Iva, then Meg) and integrated each into an appropriate part of Oakdale (Iva worked with Steve, Holden was Lucinda's stable boy). He didn't simply plop them into the middle of Oakdale and write "Snyder family drama" for a solid six months.

Granted, at one point, you couldn't swing a dead cat without hitting a Snyder/or two/ or someone previously/currently/hoped to be involved with a Snyder...in town...but the same could have easily been said of the Hughes and their relation-by-marriages at the time.

[juniorz1]

One word: Loving. They created it together and things got so bad that Marland didn't even want to be credited after he left.