For Search for Tomorrow to survive, what the audience wanted and what the network thought they wanted would have need to match up, and I don't think it ever truly did. At times, the show was close to being a strong contender. What I have seen of the Joanna Lee / Gary Tomlin era, they were the closest to match audience and network expectations. If Lee had stayed, she would have had to stream down the cast size as her canvas was large (I believe in anticipation of an unlikely switch to an hour). She also would have needed to just focus on producing a decent show as her attempts to get eyes on the show (Cher/Michelle Phillips guest starring, the Live episode) wasn't as powerful as just well produced story that she and Tomlin were cultivating.
I can only imagine what Monty would have done to overhaul the show. If it was anything like her return to General Hospital, the show would have been better off dead. I do think that AI might produce a hilariously devastating vision of what that would look like.
In terms of new people, I would be interested in what someone like Jorn Winter or Jacquelyn Babbin might have done as producer possibly paired with Peggy O'Shea, Henry Sleasar, or even Barbara Morgenroth
Reverting back to Liza as the sole female lead was foolish. When Lee and Tomlin were in charge, Liza and Travis were part of a larger ensemble and their main story revolved around Liza's desire to have children with the birth of Tourneur and then later with fostering Bilan (or whatever the baby's name was) and T.R. Tomlin / Barrett set up Hogan and Sunny well as the seconday couple until Forsythe's exit in the late summer of 1984. I don't think Sunny ever really recovers from that.
The show had two strong younger female leads, Lisa Peluso's Wendy and Terri Eoff's Suzi, but Paul Avila Mayer and Stephanie Braxton sent the characters into different story orbits (Wendy with Quinn & Sarah and Suzi off with domestic drama as a young wife in the emotionally complicated McCleary family). Even in these separate orbits, there stories were playing out within similar story spaces (the McCleary family) that could have and should have kept things interesting. People will probably disagree, but I probably would have returned Brian Emerson in the summer of 1985 as a romantic complication for Suzi and Cagney as well suspecting that Quinn was up to some underhanded things (like Warren Carter) which could have given him animosity with Wendy.
Jo was on the town council for many years.
I agree that it was unlikely that anyone would be able to save the show. How do you think Falken Smith would have done with Search for Tomorrow given how she did on Ryan's Hope? They aren't necessarily similar shows, but tonally very different from General Hospital and Days of our Lives. Falken Smith would probably have done very well with the Warren / Suzi / Wendy triangle if that had been going on at the time still. I also wonder how she would have done with Brian and Kristen or if she would have dumped them as well.
I think the Corringtons returning would have been wonderful, but I don't know if they would have written the type of show NBC was looking for in the mid 1980s. I do think they had a great understanding of what the show had been and had they arrived post-Gary Tomlin in 1984 I think they could have done some good work if they weren't stymied by Ellen Barrett.
The story was well set up for Travis to return in 1985 before Sherry Mathis left by Jeanne Glynn. I believe Glynn was writing with Tomlin when the backstory between the Kendalls and the Tourneurs was explained involving a failed business deal involving airplane parts that I believe resulted in the death of soldiers during World War II, the bankruptcy of the Kendall clan, and the patriarch's (Lloyd's father) suicide. This, along with the fact that Lloyd had raised Martin Tourneur's son Steve as his own was fodder for a long running feud between both families.
Having Travis die saving TR, Kendall's lost daughter, only would have added to that complexity and having TR wanting an insta family with Lloyd and Liza after Travis' death would have been brewing conflict between Lloyd / Liza / Travis if Travis were to return from the dead. I don't think Sherry Mathis would have been thrilled, but I think Jerry Lanning would have been a very different Travis recast if he has suffered a lot during his missing year(s).
Sherry Mathis, Rod Arrants, and Peter Haskell playing all those parts would have been ideal, but most likely unfeasible.
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