ALL: Short lived Headwriter stints

On 10/2/2024 at 12:32 AM, Paul Raven said:

Holloway made Bambi, a supporting character, pretty much the lead and introduced her mysterious past in a plot I've never understood from reading synopses. They wisely brought on Ann Marcus, who wrapped up the story but it was too late for the show by that point.

Holloway's "Love of Life" doesn't play out well in the synopses and I can't imagine it was much better onscreen. I think Bambi was a secondary players in Ray Slater's story and she had been something like a cocktail waitress or cigarette girl that Holloway elevated to the central heroine. She was beat up during some sort of mob conflict which led Ray Slater, who's large Italian family was introduced by Holloway as well, trying to track down her biological father. 

Other gems from the Holloway run were Timothy MacCauley chaperoning Ben and Betsy out on dates because she was in the midst of her divorce from Eliot Lang. Meg Harper was involved with businessman Scott Carmichael who seemed to be afraid of a commitment. I think in one of Holloway's final plots she introduced Lianne Wilson, the ONLY female intern at Rosehill Hospital.

Ann Marcus' version sounds 1 million times more engaging. I think there are an additional set of outlines written for "Love of Life" a week or two further into February, 1980 that weren't produced because it was cancelled. The only other show that I know for sure that happened with was "Tribes" which had nearly 20 unproduced or incomplete episodes (I think 5 partial episodes were in the can when it was abruptly cancelled which is why there is confusion over the number of episodes produced).