It was much easier to watch than I'd feared after hearing of this era of tumult. I guess the claims that things get much worse once the "massacre" takes place were correct. The only part which annoyed me a little was Margo and her baby voice, although it makes sense for how sheltered the character seems. Patty Weaver also has a much lighter voice here than she would on Y&R, which is natural due to aging, but I wonder if they were both trying to play younger or softer (the pigtails in Patty's hair).
You can see what a good body Richard Guthrie had in some soap magazine features, which I was reminded of again seeing what a nice ass he has here.
(if that's considered objectifying him, then I'll say Mary Frann looks lovely too)
The Mickey/Amanda scene was the highlight. It's very difficult for a soap to present two very different points of view and have both be right, but that's the case here. I could say Mickey is being hard-edged (which seems to be the case for the Hortons until their '80s reinvention), but he's not entirely wrong. Amanda and Chris dealing with the consequences of their "true love" affair is much more compelling than what we would have gotten in later years, where Amanda would have gone to visit Alice and Alice would have told her Chris was her soulmate.
The Anderson material is also really fascinating and shows you just what a horrendous decision it was to wipe them off the canvas and then gave Mary a botched recast as one last kick. Given how much some DAYS families cling on by their fingernails, I genuinely think the Andersons would still be there in some capacity if not for these choices. I've always wanted to see more of Brooke/Stephanie and now I have. Eileen Barnett is not as moving or raw as Adrienne LaRussa was, but she's perfectly fine. There was no reason to kill Brooke off.
I wonder how much of the story reason to separate Mary and Chris was down to the alleged dislike between the actors. It's unfortunate if this cost the show Barbara Stanger, who is very good.
(Tom should be written up for telling Mary her father's medical history)
It's disconcerting watching this and knowing just how much will be lost within six months.
I had a few questions:
Was that something the uploader did (they make a few changes sometimes for copyright reasons) having that weird shaking before Patty went into the lengthy flashback, or was that the show's actual flashback style at the time?
How long did the show have the format of commercial break, then one last scene going into the closing credits?
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DRW50 ·
