It's funny. I will have to rewatch that interview because I could have sworn Marcantel complained about the 1993-1995 period saying that things felt so much more plot driven than it had in the 1980s. Maybe he enjoyed the Curtis in the cage stuff and I blocked it out lol. I remember because I was disappointed he felt that way because I found the Nixon period mostly enjoyable, but, in reflecting, a lot of Curtis' material in that period is bizarre. When I was looking for those end credits from August, 1994, yesterday, there was Marcantel's Curtis at the crash site dowsing the plane in gasoline, and I'm like ok I get it.
I thought the gaslighting story allowed Curtis to be a villain without making his actions too evil. He didn't know Trisha was alive so it was messed up, but, ultimately, he wasn't wrong. I also try to convince myself that some of Curtis having PTSD induced crash outs was a mix of the truth and deception like that Curtis probably was always struggling to keep it together, but that he would let go in order to emotionally manipulate Dinahlee and Trucker.
Honestly, they should have bit the bullet in 1994 and just recasted Trisha.
I just read a news account of Shana and Leo's departure. The show was claiming that they had no story for Shana and Leo until Patti could start to show outward symptoms of the developmental delays which was why they were being let go. When Shana and Leo leave, I'm nearly positive that it looks like Patti is on track developmentally, though they could have revisited it down the road. Also, saying there was no story was a cop out given Cabot's impending return and Ava gaining control of Burnell's. That was all material that would have kept Shana and Leo in the thick of things through the end of 1994.
Nixon's run had more pop ins from former characters, but I don't remember the interconnectiveness being much different than it had been in the previous year. Nixon had such a huge canvas.
Casey and Ally flounder under Nixon. I thought Casey's mental health crisis / drug addiction under McCarthy and Walsh was one of their strongest stories.
There are definitely parallels between Jeremy / Gilbert and Jonathan / Keith. When discussing this with you yesterday, it dawned on me that Nixon / Walsh / McCarthy basically are overseeing the show for most of late 1993 to early 1995. While we usually see Marland's name for 1983-1985, we also have more documentation to suggest that it would be more accurate to say Doug Marland & Agnes Nixon for 1983-1985 as we have outlines like the Jonathan story that start during the period preceding Marland's departure.
As I've stated, most of the Gilbert / Jeremy stuff doesn't work for me. It's very broad until the end, as I recall, but I really enjoyed the climax when Alex shoots Gilbert and the implication awas that Alex went to far putting Ava in the middle. LeClerc should never have been brought over to Loving in my opinion. If Richard Cox wanted to leave after a year, they should have recast Giff.
Nixon dumped a lot of what Taggart and Guza had set up with Angie and Frankie. I'm pretty sure the Angie / Trucker stuff started under Taggart and Guza before Nixon reset the story for Trucker / Dinahlee and then introducing Charles for Angie. They also seemed to be teasing a romantic tension between Alimi Ballard's Frankie and Amelia Heinle's Steffi which would have been very interesting given the conflict between Cooper and Frankie at the time.
I didn't necessarily see where they were going to go with Trucker and Angie nor was I overly interested. I was curious about Frankie and Steffi.
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dc11786 ·
