Retconning: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

[Khan]

 

You're right, that makes no sense, lol.

 

If they wanted to make Tad Damon's biological father in order to anchor Damon to the show, that's one thing.  Doug Marland was guilty of that [!@#$%^&*] all the time on ATWT.  But why make Damon Hillary's child as well?  Damon's mother could've been another woman -- maybe someone Tad met during those years when he was presumed dead/thought he was Ted Orsini -- and it wouldn't have affected the story at all.

 

Am I wrong, or didn't AMC, in its' final days, also reveal that Adam Chandler had an illegitimate, Hispanic son named (I think) Miguel?  To me, it seemed odd 1) that Adam would have found the time to father this kid, considering how heavily involved he always was in storylines and 2) that he would have known he HAD another kid out there but never bothered to claim him.  (Remember the hell he put Brooke and Dixie through just to get his hands on J.R.?)

[Soaplovers]

 

You aren't wrong... there was mention of an Hispanic son named Miguel Reyes.  I think there were rumors that Asher was going to be Miguel.. but it turned out he was a Cortlandt instead of a Chandler.

 

And then the writer change happened and the Miguel plot never was followed up on.

[You're Soaking in it]

Kreizman & Swajeski squashed both. Lorraine Broderick and Michael E. Knight both lobbied for Carmen Thomas to be brought back as Hillary (gorgeous Carmen Thomas, by the way), and were rebuffed to wait until K&S took the writing team helm. Yes, Asher was originally intended to be Miguel... and then he was, I guess, reassigned to be Michael Nouri's son, and a new love interest for Colby, because K&S wanted to ditch the Damon character completely. 

 

I thought Damon as Tad's son was great, and I think of him as being conceived during the Dixie hiatus years of the late-90's, when she'd moved back to Pigeon Hallow - and Tad basically had nothing to do, save for a brief fling with Gloria, and then a non-fling with Camille "Lurker Girl" Hawkins. Hey, with excitement like that in PV, why not look up your ex in LA to see if those embers are still crackling?

[robbwolff]

 

I could be wrong about this, but wasn't Opal depicted as racist when Dorothy Lyman played her in the 1980s?

[Vee]

The way AMC mishandled Finn Wittrock (Damon) was one of its last and most egregious late period mistakes. He was excellent. I did like the Hillary connection.

[Franko]

Well ... 

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What were her interactions with Angie & Jesse like?

[vetsoapfan]

 

God yes! I think most fans would understand that some very expensive music might be deleted in order to bring a series to DVD, but there are some songs that are so iconic and important to a series' identity, that deleting them simply ruins the DVD experience.

[Roman]

agree 100%. it never got a series finally did it?

[vetsoapfan]

 

It ended after the third season, with no real closure for the characters.

 

BTW, it looks like the only set of DVDs ever released for this show is the heavily-butchered, no-music edition.

 

https://www.amazon.com/Tour-Duty-Complete-Terence-Knox/dp/B00THX0T3Y

[vetsoapfan]

The retcon on a serialized drama that infuriated me the most (and negated the entire six-year run of the show), was the revelation during its series finale that none of the characters we had watched on St. Elsewhere, none of the events we had witnessed them go through, were actually real. They were borne from the distorted imagination of an autistic child. I think most fans loathed that pointless and stupid twist.

 

On Days: The man we had known for years as Dr. Neil Curtis is not really Dr. Neil Curtis, but an imposter who had taken over his life. Never mind that Neil's FATHER had previously been on the show, and never noticed anything odd about his "son". And after the truth was revealed, the revelation about Neil being a fake Neil was dropped, and went without any legal or person repercussions for the imposter.

 

On Peyton Place: The Next Generation (1985), Constance MacKenzie Carson tells her granddaughter Megan (the daughter of Allison MacKenzie and Rodney Harrington) about Allison's "last day" in Peyton Place, before Allison mysteriously disappeared and ended up in a coma for years.

 

Supposedly, Allison was pregnant by Rodney the night she went missing. Supposedly it was on the eve of Allison's and Rodney's wedding. Supposedly, hearing that she was illegitimate and the product of her unmarried mother's affair with Elliot Carson (instead of a non-existent "husband" Connie had invented as a cover story) drove Allison out of town.

 

Um...no. In the original primetime series from 1964-9, we never found out why Allison had vanished. She was last seen in an evening in 1966, wandering aimlessly around town, and then heading down a dim pathway, never to be seen or heard from again. No one ever discovered what had happened to her.

 

Allison had been told the truth about her parentage about a year and a half before she vanished. She had accepted Elliot as her dad and they had become close. The Elliot drama certainly did not make her run away. Allison and Rodney had never finalized wedding plans, either, and had never been on the brink of marriage. And while Allison and Rodney MAY have had sex, I find it hard to believe that she could have disappeared one night, ended up in a coma, and yet still given birth to a healthy baby girl. How good was medical technology in 1966/7?

 

In the daytime soap from 1972-4, Return to Peyton Place, the story went that Allison had been held captive by a drug-addicted (but hot and sexy-as-f*ck)  Benny Tate. She eventually got away from him, made her way back home, and resumed her relationship with Rodney Harrington. The show ended with a shot of the lovers on the dock, looking forward to a future together.

 

In the first made-for-TV reunion film from 1977, Murder in Peyton Place, Rodney had found Allison but no explanation about her disappearance was given. They were on their way back to Peyton Place when they were both killed in a car crash.

 

Then in the second reunion movie from 1985, The Generation, Allison was alive again (although Rod was still dead) but in a coma, and viewers were presented with the retcons/continuity errors mentioned above.

 

In both the primetime and daytime versions, Norman Harrington was married to Rita Jacks. But in Murder in PP, he was married to Jill Smith, with only a brief and vague reference about him having had "a first wife." Rita was nowhere to be seen.

 

Then in The Next Generation, it was Jill Smith's turn to be erased. Norman was suddenly married to Rita again (as he always should have been). 

 

The various incarnations of PP have all been a challenge to sit through, for nit-picky viewers with long memories..

 

 

 

 

[amybrickwallace]

 

Yup, that's another one for the "what were they thinking/smoking" files!!!

[Soaplovers]

I actually thought it was a clever way to end a show that had always been a little quirky and eccentric. 

 

Did you guys also feel the same way after 8 seasons of Newhart that it had all been a dream of the character from the original Bob Newhart show?

 

And I always viewed the Peyton Place soap, tv movies, etc... as sort of like a Choose your own Adventure.. where you got to see how different choices affected the show, etc.

[P.J.]

 

Now that you put it that way, I don't think I've ever heard or seen any criticism anywhere about the Newhart finale. But I also think there's a huge difference between a comedy full of eccentric characters and a drama tackling contemporary issues. 

[amybrickwallace]

 

Agreed.

[Soaplovers]

I think it was a creative way to end the show and it's still being talked about 30 plus years later (much like Newhart). 

 

It made sense this came from a mind of a child suffering from autism and people feeling ripped off that the characters weren't real kind of makes me laugh because they weren't real and I viewed the move as a wink to that.  But that's what makes the world a wonderful place... one event conjures up different reactions in different people and when that happens, then it's a success

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