Old-School AMCers: Was Natalie a Threat to Erica's Popularity?

[VirginiaHamilton]

Reading the bio of Dimitri online, it gives the impression that Dimitri and Erica was a wonderful surprise and that he wasn't initially supposed to be her next big love interest. I'm not sure how much they expected him to spark with Natalie (it hadn't gone into that much detail), though I'll have to tune in to find out.

[Ann_SS]

I loved that Jack/Erica/Travis triangle. I was Team Jack and Erica all the way. I loved them, so much chemistry. I will never forget those great marriage counseling scenes with Erica and Travis. There was this one scene where Erica was early and she finally admitted to the counselor that the marriage had no chance and she wanted her to help prepare Travis for the divorce.

[VirginiaHamilton]

First marriage? Molly? Well, there's another storyline (or 3) that I need to bone up on. How popular was Barbara, anyway? (Again, I was under the impression that she was just a thorn in Erica's side and nothing more beyond being the woman that Travis loved before her.)

Thank you, again, ellabelle, for breaking it down for me. Wow, just wow.

[Ann_SS]

I loved that Jack/Erica/Travis triangle. I was Team Jack and Erica all the way. I loved them, so much chemistry. I will never forget those great marriage counseling scenes with Erica and Travis. There was this one scene where Erica was early and she finally added to the counselor that the marriage had no chance and she wanted her to help prepare Travis for the divorce.

[VirginiaHamilton]

(Nothing to see here)

[ellabelle]

You're welcome! I'm a bit of an Erica fanatic, as if you couldn't tell from my signature and profile pics.

Barbara was Travis's first wife before Erica, and interestingly enough, if you go to YT and watch the two full episodes of the very trippy dream Erica had before giving birth to Bianca, Travis and Barbara are actually together in her dream, when she's about to give birth (they're riding a bicycle built for two - I swear someone was on drugs when they wrote that dream and built the sets), and I wonder if it was foreshadowing of some great big plan to eventually put those two back together or if it was just coincidence.

I really don't know how popular Barbara was. She was the one who was supposed to be watching Tom and Brooke's daughter Laura when Laura was run over by a drunk driver - Barbara and Tom were together, and Barbara was trying to work and was distracted and told Laura she could walk across the street to a friend's house to play or something along those lines, and then of course she was run down and killed. My understanding is that Barbara felt horribly guilty over Laura's death, and I know people generally seemed to feel sorry for her over Molly being sick. I feel like she was given a bit of a pass on the infidelity with Travis because it was to make another baby, even though they slept together to do it. Barbara and Erica never really got along, not surprisingly. Between Barbara's business background and her basically on-going role in Travis's life even after their divorce, it was easy to see why Erica would perceive her as a threat - when Barbara, Erica, Travis and Jack founded Enchantment, Barbara was the one who wanted to name it that. Erica suggested they name the company after Barbara and call it "raging bitch." I think Barbara worked for Adam for a while too. She was pretty much known as a tough businesswoman, which was why it was so odd to see her on AMC in 2006/2007 as a bit of a pathetic lush who had cheated on Travis and just wanted to get Jack into bed. We saw Barbara a few times in the 90s, and she seemed to be a much better stepmother to Bianca then than she was alleged to have been in the 2000s.

I understand that moving Bianca to Seattle gave TPTB a convenient way to cover for Susan Lucci's vacation time - just send her to visit Bianca - but I wish they'd kept Travis and Barbara and their kids around because based on what little we saw of them from 1991 through Barbara's return in 2007, there was a whole lot to explore! Travis was supposedly still in love with Erica (no clue why), Barbara supposedly cheated on him. Sean felt his mother viewed him as little more than someone to save her daughter's life. Bianca felt ostracized by Barbara when she came out as gay and felt like Barbara cut her off from Molly, and we never did see what became of Molly.

[SFK]

I'm struggling to remember a single "warm and endearing" Barbara moment. I'm sure there were plenty with the sick baby and all, but...

One scene I've never forgotten was when pre-Dixie Tad was kind of crushing on Barbara and sort of became a confidant when she found out that she was pregnant. That was the first time I heard the expression, "Twinkie in the oven."

[ghfan89]

I have some from 88 I can post. Might take me awhile to upload this stuff.

[VirginiaHamilton]

Thanks, ghfan89. And thank you, ellabelle.

[cct]

This is ALL when I began watching, so YMMV on these random contributions:

ellabelle has it pretty much spot-on.

Another thing that possibly contributed to the shifting of Natalie from Erica's orbit was the introduction of Ceara. I think Genie Francis was a casting coup for AMC, and they tried to position her as a rival to Erica. (I think Jack sold his shares of Enchantment to her). I can remember a catfight between her and Erica where she ripped Erica's sleeve and when Erica ripped hers back, she said, "That was my best Donna Karan!"

Although Ceara had one "great" story (the incest storyline), the character never really flew and was gone by 93, I believe, to be Laura again on GH. Jeremy "left" with her. Interestingly, Ceara and Natalie were friends. By this time, Natalie had moved on with Trevor and Dimitri. Ceara was killed later on Loving, where the character of Jeremy had moved.

Bianca never really took to Jack. It was her "Jack doll" she set fire to and burned down Linden. Bianca, as played by Caroline Wilde, was a miniature Erica. I think the writers made the wise decision to have the self-centeredness "skip a generation." It made for greater contrast to play with. (although Tontz's version leaned more towards Mona than Erica) Wonder if the writers would've went this direction if Fra as Mona hadn't passed in 94. This is when Bianca began to soften through the portrayals by Chabert and Paulding. (There was another one between those two I think). I always find it interesting that ER's Bianca was so close to Jack, but people become older and mature, and time had passed, so I wrote it in my head that she just learned to accept it.

Jack and Erica broke up, because Travis was fighting Erica for custody and Jack wouldn't lie for her on the stand. This is what set her into Dimtri's orbit. First, Jack cavorted with Brooke, (which IMHO actually worked) and then moved on to Angelique after she was wheeled down from the attic. Shortly afterward he fell in love with the "leggy Laurel" (who was Hot Hot Hot!) before recast-LaFortune-Laurel ended up marrying Trevor. It was at this time (mid-90s) Jack started to move back into Erica's orbit. (UO? I was pro-Jack; my ex was pro-Dimitri)

Bianca was sent to Seattle, because as many AMC people were back then, they were sent to the West Coast to be "as far away from PV as possible." The writers believed Erica w/child cramped storyline possibilities. You can see afterward, she played with Dimitri off and on through a series of (horrible) visiting Biancas.

As for Trevor....as a straight male, I liked him. He was very different from most soap opera characters. I think he appealed to a lot of straight men, and widened AMC's audience in that respect. I even noticed my father briefly paying attention to him when he came onscreen. I was shocked later to learn of the Kiberd-Collins feud, and thought that KC was probably wronged in that respect, but in truth, the writers tried to bust up Trevor-Nat on more than one occasion, and the audience never really took to it (including me). Trevor-Natalie were end game; something had to give. (I would just LOVE to know why they feuded).

[Jonathan]

Kate Collins did an interview with someone in the last year (it may have been Michael Fairman) where she speaks fondly of James Kiberd. So they either buried the hatchet or those were just rumors.

[ellabelle]

Yes, Ceara was definitely positioned as Erica's rival, and that catfight was hysterical! Even David Canary was trying hard to keep a straight face!

I was under the mistaken impression that Jack and Erica split up immediately following the custody trial because of his refusal to lie, but someone kindly posted a compilation of some scenes from that time period on YT, and Jack followed Erica out of the courthouse and basically refused to let her push him away when she lost Bianca. They actually did stay together for a short period of time, but Erica was jealous because Jack had dated Ceara briefly before Erica and Travis's marriage fell apart, and Erica wanted Ceara gone from Enchantment. She made up some phony reason to fire her. Jack saw through it and as a large shareholder in the company, he demanded that Erica rehire her. She refused, he threw down a stupid ultimatum: rehire her or we're done, and Erica refused to capitulate. That was when he sold Ceara his shares for a dollar or something and decided he was done with Erica. It was a stupid reason for him to storm out on her, but then again, it was the sort of thing he repeated over and over again on AMC.

You're right - Bianca definitely did not like Jack for long portions of AMC. Gina Gallagher was the Bianca in between the two 'sweet' Bianca's (Lacey Chabert and Nathalie Paulding), and she was definitely more like Erica and more like Caroline Wilde's Bianca (who burned down her dollhouse). What was interesting to me was how ER's Bianca reacted to Erica's affair with Jack and her resulting breakup with Chris Stamp in 2003 - Bianca was really unhappy with Erica for screwing up her engagement to Chris. She'd been very unhappy about her mother screwing up her relationship with Dimitri, and she was not amused with the way her mother used her as an excuse to push David away in 2000 either, so I tend to believe that Bianca just wanted Erica to settle down and be happy with whomever she was with at the moment - and for a lot of AMC's later years, that was Jack.

Anyway, I totally agree with you re: Jack and Brooke. In a way Brooke kind of brought out a desire in Jack to be a father and in a low drama relationship, and I think they worked well together. I preferred Brooke and Edmund, but I liked the Brooke/Jack friendship, and I would have liked to see Brooke and Jack give a serious relationship another chance. Jack/Angelique and Jack/Laurel were boring, IMHO. This has nothing to do with the time period in question, but I would have loved to see Jack/Anna if Finola Hughes had been willing to stick around AMC longer.

[Steve]

Please post as much as you can!

Wow, I watched this whole story back when I was in college and I couldn't have explained it better!

I was a huge Jack and Erica fan. I never liked Travis.

[Khan]

To this day, it boggles my mind how Travis and Erica's relationship imploded like it did. Does anyone know whether they were set up to fail from the very beginning, or whether their break-up (as a result of Travis' faked kidnapping, not the final one that happened years later) was due to some BTS issues?

[SFK]

I have no idea, but AMC was my intro to Larkin, I didn't know about his EON and GL past with the leading ladies of those shows. In hindsight, I assume he was somewhat of a "get" for AMC so they probably wanted to milk the Erica/Travis pairing for what it was worth.