I believe Kane mentioned some of this already, but during the Buck / Stacey / Gwyn triangle was the last time I remember Gwyn's role being consistently mentioned. Gwyn comes to pick up Heather when Stacey goes on a date with Buck and Stacey snidely makes sure to call Gwyn grandma infront of Buck.
I think they missed the boat. I'm sure I've mentioned it before, but I imagined a storyline in an alternate timeline where J.J. ended up blinded at the Rodeo bar, or whatever the country western bar in Corinth was, after being involved in an accident due to poor construction because Buck cut corners and hired a shady contractor who used substandard materials. Stacey would have become completely devoted to J.J. in his time of need and Heather, feeling alienated, would have drifted towards Gwyn. While Gwyn wouldn't purposely sabotage the Heather and Stacey relationship, Heather would slowly over time prefer to be with Grandma Gwyn who could indulge her every whim because she had the time and the money.
The show spends the better part of 1992 trying to build a Stacey / Trucker dynamic. At one point, it seemed out of necessity as Noelle Beck was on another maternity leave and Trucker had little to do so they were investigating the mystery at the Tides together. Now, I wonder if this was also a backup plan in case Beck left. Christopher Cass is dumped in July, 1992, when everything seems to fall apart. At one point, I think there may have been plans for a Stacey / Trucker / Trisha / Jeremy quad as Jeremy had been presented as a pseudo love interest for Trisha in 1991 and her previous interloper, Giff Bowman, fell into the same role as an artist working at AU.
I appreciate the kind comments.
I think the changes are mostly superficial in the long run though, don't you agree? Granted, none of the Phil / Nick murder story happens, those characters remain for quite some time. Your recount did make me wonder more and more why there was never an attempt to bring back Amy to town after 1970, which made me realize there was no need for a mother figure for Phil because he had Ruth. I do think it would have made sense to bring Amy back in the late 1970s when Ruth had a biological child, Joey, and you had things like tension between Tara and Phil and Chuck over their son because that was a scenario she would have been familiar with in a slightly different way and may have had less sympathy for Tara than others. In addition, she probably would have made a nice complication to a Linc / Kitty / Nick storyline.
To keep this Loving related, this dynamic sorta plays out with Jack / Dane / Roger. While Jack's paternity is glossed over in the bible with a mention of him being the son of a couple who were friends of the Forbeses, there must have been the idea that they would explore that dynamic at some point. Dane's presence overlaps with Roger's only briefly (about 2-3 months) before Roger is jettisoned off to Washington, D.C., before being presumed dead in the plane crash. Like Amy, I think Roger should have returned at some point possibly in 1986 after Dane had departed and the show was thick into Shana / Doug with Mike and Noreen gone. I would have positioned Roger's return with a mystery involving the paternity of Merrill's child, who would have popped up with Merrill when Merrill was investigating the Zona Beecham murder case.
While I get the sense there wasn't enough character contrast between Amy / Ruth to maintain dramatic tension, though I could be wrong, I do think there was enough for Roger / Dane to have existed at a certain point. And it would have kept Ann from falling off into the abyss and never returning.
I think that writers were deeply aware of the story timelines back in the day because they knew they needed to plot around them. I think that balancing act has been lost over the years. Also, with the revision to the pilot's conclusion (Amelia, not Johnny, was the head of the prostitution ring) derails a bit of the story for Merrill, Roger, and Ann as I recall Merrill was helping maintain the secret that Johnny had died by suicide. This secret could have allowed some non-romantic tension in that storyline that it probably could have used.
Jane Elliott's A New Day in Eden character was a romantic interest for the show's adult lead, Bryan Lewis. The character's name Madge Whitehead is similar to Rita Lloyd's Loving character during the Jack paternity story in 1984, Millicent Whitehead. Millicent was the aunt of Linda Henderson's late husband Hemsely, who had revealed that Hemsely was impotent or infertile (which I'm now realizing might have been a way to tell part of the original Billy Bristow story) so it was impossible he was Jack's father.
Now that you mention the Vince / Nikki story, I wonder if there was any intention of trying Lily's Trista personality with Tony Perrilli. In the Italian episodes, Tony admits he has moved to Corinth to be with his college friend, Jack Forbes, which I thought was an odd level of devotion, but I could see how Tony might be a bit of a Vince avatar for the story. I think Curtis and Trista/Lily was a smart move, but the dramatic tension between Curtis and Jack was never consistently utilized. It is presented quite nicely in some of those late 1985 episodes where Ava is cozying up to Curtis while married to Jack and still claiming Johnny as her son. The Ava reset in 1986 perplexes me because, it does make sense given Ava's horrible crime, but it takes her out of a story orbit she was firmly entrenched in. Her next couple of love interests (Judd Beecham / Tony Benedict) are fairly forgotten.
The bible only alludes to, but doesn't full go into details about the events in the telefilm. The major revelation though is that Johnny Forbes was originally the head of the prostitution and was behind the murders. There doesn't seem to be an Amelia Whitley character at all. Johnny is described as a Joseph Kennedy type, a political mover and shaker with a bit of a shady criminal history. He was to die by his own hand and Merrill was part of the coverup to keep that information from the public. The impact on Roger's career is detrimental, but not completely decimating. I imagine some of this may have played into Nixon's original naming of the city.
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dc11786 ·
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