I tend to agree. She’s one of those unsung soap writers that just doesn’t get the wider attention she deserves for being great. Sam Hall too tbh. Maybe part of that is they didn’t hop to other shows and create magic multiple times like Marland, or create fully from the ground up like Nixon and Bell, etc. For a long time Nancy Curlee was in this category too, and I honestly think SON was a huge part in her being as well respected as she is now, especially online.
I certainly think her 1990 exit had a lot to do with her. When she came back she walked into a story already going where Tina had become less of an ingenue, and she really ran with it. You can tell she made choices to play scenes with some humor, and gave Tina a rooting factor even when she was scheming. She sometimes played dumb for the other characters, but also showed the audience she was fully engaged. And I even liked Witter’s recast, but Evans was singular.
My feelings about Lorne’s eventual exit are strictly practical. Much like Bill Bell was the only one still standing as a singular creative force with actual power when he retired, Lorne is the only one left in all of broadcasting with the kind of clout and old school investment in pure creativity from every department that he has. Sometimes a team of people put on prosthetics in minutes between sketches. That kind of skill and thriving in the pressure is singular to his SNL. We watched Y&R be dismantled by internal power struggles, production/network interference, and it simply would not have happened the same way before Bell retired.
Yes, add Gordon Russell to my earlier comment about Hall and Peggy.
Thank you for the link!!
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titan1978 ·
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