All Episodes Talk

[dubbel zout]

1 hour ago, peachmangosteen said:

I'm sorry, but Bob Woods can still get it lol.

Now and forever!

[Gigi43]

I haven't watched the OLTL reunion yet and just saw this distraction on Twitter that Michael Fairman has a 40min interview with Erika Slezak. I'll probably binge on both tomorrow.

 

 

[boes]

I enjoyed "The Story of Soaps" on ABC but it didn't have anywhere NEAR enough OLTL stuff.  Again, the show is treated as an unloved stepchild.  It's always good to see ES, but damn, the show could have done better by OLTL than it did.

[Hiyo]

Quote

I'm sorry, but Bob Woods can still get it

He can get it from me anytime he wants to...

[dubbel zout]

10 hours ago, boes said:

I enjoyed "The Story of Soaps" on ABC but it didn't have anywhere NEAR enough OLTL stuff.  Again, the show is treated as an unloved stepchild.  It's always good to see ES, but damn, the show could have done better by OLTL than it did.

I thought the whole show was kind of lame, TBH. Maybe if I didn't know the history of soaps I'd have been more interested, but this was so basic.

They kept showing Felicia falling to the floor when she finds out Maxie got BJ's heart, but if you didn't know the context, you didn't know what that scene was about. 

Did the GH AIDS story come before or after Pedro on The Real World? Because GH got very short shrift there.

The whole thing was a disappointment for me. And no mention of the digital soaps at all! I didn't expect to hear about PP, but there are other digital soaps doing pretty well.

And yeah, OLTL was barely shown, even with Erika Slezak being one of the main interviewees. Wasn't OLTL one of the first soaps to have AA characters who weren't just household help? I don't get its exclusion.

Edited May 22, 2020 by dubbel zout
added a bit of topicality

[UYI]

My teenage girl self would be so confused seeing her crush JDP in a fucking monocle and wild long dark/gray hair, but somehow, yeah, I think I still would (and I'd still pick him over RSW for that matter, at any age, FIGHT ME).

I do wish we had gotten a bit more talk about their other co-stars (save RSW talking about PC and CR, of course), but given that Alan's main soaps were/are ATWT/GL, that doesn't surprise me; he does tend to be more detailed and varied on topics for those shows when talking to members of those two casts, but again, those are the two shows he actually watched; it's to be expected.

One thing that did surprise me: Jim directed the love scene between David & (Krista Tesreau's) Tina when Tina still thought they were brother and sister! Sometimes I'll look at the old archived posts on TWOP; on the Soap Dish thread, there was a discussion of racy love scenes, and their scene was brought up, and specifically the part where Tina is briefly seen in the mirror on top of David after a commercial break, before moving to lie next to David in the bed. It was discussed in that thread at the time as a possible editing mistake, but knowing that Jim directed it now and how he and Tuc talked about it yesterday...yeah, I think that was all on purpose. (Shout out to @Dandesun, one of the people who discussed that scene in the archived thread!)

And everyone yesterday was right: Tuc still looks EXACTLY the same (as does Hillary minus the glasses, and Kassie except her hair is longer now). 

 

Edited May 22, 2020 by UYI

[UYI]

@Gigi43, that ES interview with Michael Fairman puts to rest any theory I had about her not being enough of an online person to do an interview with Alan Locher! Maybe a reunion with her and Robin in the Locher Room is possible after all! *fingers crossed*

[Hiyo]

Given how fickle and short term most Hollywood marriages are, I was very happy to learn James and Kassie are still together, and happy to boot as well.

And yes, can someone please share the unicorn blood Kassie, Tuc, and Hillary are drinking from to stay so young and fresh looking?

[UYI]

One thing I do have to say regarding the lack of One Life to Live on the Story of Soaps special/its red-headed stepchild status in general:

I have a feeling that came from the top: in this case, Agnes Nixon herself. Yes, she created the show, but she also created AMC, and she left the former fairly early on to focus almost entirely on the latter, seemingly without leaving OLTL with a clear successor or vision that might keep it from running amuck in terms of focus (although it certainly made the history of our show that much more interesting and varied). She actually created AMC first: In the mid-60's, while she was still the head writer of Another World, she came up with the "bible" of AMC and submitted it to Procter & Gamble, but they turned it down. A few years later, she created OLTL, and after it had so much initial success (especially with Carla's story, which I'll come back to in a second), ABC asked her to create a new show--which she responded to by pulling her old AMC "bible" out of the drawer. 

Going back to Carla's story: When Ellen Holly and Lillian Hayman were fired by Paul Rauch in 1985, the former called Agnes up, in hopes of getting an intervention of some sort on their behalf, given how they had been with show since the very beginning (or in Ellen's case, a few months into the show's run). She responded by saying that there was nothing she could do, as ABC now owned the show, not her. She did ask both of them to cross over to her other show, Loving (which she maintained ownership of to the end), where they could continue as Carla and Sadie, but each declined her offer. 

I think that was a telling statement on Agnes' part: she had more or less "divorced" herself from OLTL, but of course she intervened on behalf of/ghost wrote AMC many times after she officially gave up her role as head writer of that show (although her successor was Megan McTavish, so maybe she should've been paying more attention, just saying--in fairness, with a good EP over her shoulders, MMT could be just fine), and I could see how that attitude towards a show she created, combined with other factors beyond the show's control (AMC/GH having characters transcend soaps with Erica Kane/Luke & Laura respectively, OLTL's time slot smack dab in the middle of the afternoon, rather than during the lunch hour/after work or school let out), may have contributed to ABC's blase attitude towards the show as well.

That's one reason why I loved JDP mentioning that OLTL was always his favorite soap, having watched the entire line up with his mother back in the day--he has mentioned OLTL's red-headed stepchild status in the past, and as someone who came to the show as a huge fan beforehand, of course he would get it. He's with us. <3 :) 

 

Edited May 22, 2020 by UYI

[dubbel zout]

OLTL was the first soap I watched. The sister of my best friend got us hooked one summer when we were in junior high. For a while I'd watch the entire ABC lineup, and then it went to OLTL and GH, and then just GH. I don't remember why I stopped watching OLTL for a while, but I did eventually pick it back up.

[Hiyo]

Well...if we're being honest, as much as I like OLTL and enjoy it, and while it would make my top 5 list of soaps overall, it wouldn't crack my top 3...but GH and AMC would (along with B&B).

[UYI]

3 hours ago, Hiyo said:

Well...if we're being honest, as much as I like OLTL and enjoy it, and while it would make my top 5 list of soaps overall, it wouldn't crack my top 3...but GH and AMC would (along with B&B).

And I could see that, given how consistent in quality both GH and AMC were thought to be for so long; OLTL's underdog status could also cut both ways in terms of quality: it wasn't always recognized when it was better than the other two shows (as at times it was), but it probably also hurt them when they were considered the worst of the three (which it was obviously was considered at times, too, especially during the JFP era from 1997-2001--they went without a head writer for several months in 1999 after Pam Long was fired; JFP was the de facto head writer until Megan McTavish was hired in the fall), and probably fueled ABC's treatment of it even more, justifying their decision to mostly ignore it. And of course, the Paul Rauch era (1984-1991) was EXTREMELY polarizing, too. 

Edited May 23, 2020 by UYI

[UYI]

On 5/22/2020 at 2:48 PM, Hiyo said:

Given how fickle and short term most Hollywood marriages are, I was very happy to learn James and Kassie are still together, and happy to boot as well.

 

The fact that OLTL was taped in New York City was probably to their advantage. ;) 

[UYI]

Fair warning: There are sound issues during the first half hour or so here and there, but it gets MUCH better after that.

They all look amazing. They all SOUND amazing. And Fiona...what can I say. I'm over the moon that I got to see her again after all these years. To hear about her work doing plays with kids at a private school in New York (and the show she, Andrea, and Jim are planning on doing...SQUEE!), and how they've transferred everything to Zoom since quarantine started, and how she, her husband, and her college age sons are all together during this time right now...hearing that accent again...just wonderful. And she'll be in an online reunion for Guiding Light soon, too! Yay. :) 

Edited May 29, 2020 by UYI

[TeeVee329]

Aw, happy for you @UYI!

In completely unrelated news, I stumbled across this, which I had kinda forgotten happened:

Rex and Gigi were such unbearably smug assholes during the truncated Sierra custody story so this scene of Kim waltzing in and popping their balloon by announcing her marriage to Clint was a little delicious.

[UYI]

Andrea Evans' current profile picture on Twitter:

 

 

[Sake614]

Did anyone see this? I stumbled across it this afternoon. Awesome interview! Or should I say, awesome interviewee 😀. My favorite part is when she said she’s sorry Vikki never married David Vickers or Asa lol!
 

 

ETA just noticed above that this was already posted. I also thought it was interesting that she said Frons didn’t have the power to cancel the shows. That it came from the very top and was purely budget related. Even though they were #3 in ratings, they weren’t bringing in the money they had in earlier years. I also like how she took a swipe at the Stupid (and short lived) talk show that replaced OLTL. 

Edited June 6, 2020 by Sake614

[TeeVee329]

This compilation of early Kyle/Fish moments starts with their first on-screen meeting and it really is so interesting:

I'm pretty sure Scott and Brett didn't know the backstory here yet, and maybe the writers didn't either (this was not long after Fish slept with Stacy the first time).  And they were being bounced off each other here to paint one or both of them as KAD Killer red herrings.  But this interaction, the awkwardness and the sense of history, really does a nice job of setting up what's to come.  I also really love the way Kyle, once Fish is gone and he can let down his guard a bit, slugs the boxing bag.  Poor Kyle, he's got a rough few months ahead of him from this point lol.

ETA...oh, and there's Kyle using Fish's last name at this point and not calling him Oliver.  I feel like I remember reading that Brett Claywell was the one, once he knew where it was going, who suggested that change.

Edited June 11, 2020 by TeeVee329

[TeeVee329]

Just found another early on in Kish clip that featured three interactions I really loved:

1) Schuyler and Kyle's confrontation at the gym re: the Morasco Fiasco.  Schuyler holding the bench press bar down on Kyle and them then getting in each others' faces is both heated and...kinda hot lol?  I just love the dynamic these two have, I really wanted so much more of them as frenemies, or even pseudo-brothers through Roxy.  And it's interesting having this scene here of Schuyler berating Kyle's moral character (and Brett Claywell does such a nice job showing Kyle wrestling with his guilt while sticking to his self-serving guns) to juxtapose the later scene of Kyle finding out about Schuyler being the "father" of Stacy's baby and noting the flip in their moral positions.

2) Kyle and Fish's encounter at the gym.  I love, love, looove the way Brett Claywell delivers Kyle's line, "Lucky you, man, she's beautiful" after Fish puffs out his chest about dating Layla, and then the way he kinda eyes Fish down over his shoulder as he goes back to his workout.  And then Fish's little "Eek!" face.  I always thought the show did such a nice job laying the groundwork here, that it's clearly setting up what we knew was coming between them, while also making plausible a misdirect that a woman came between them back in the day instead.

3) A very cute early Cris/Layla moment, with him teasing her about becoming a police officer and her mock punching him and sticking her tongue out at him.  Forgotten about this one.

[TeeVee329]

Watching old clips online, I stumbled into the original Tess story, which I haven't seen much of.  And my first impression was, wow, Forbes March is so hammy and horrible as Nash!  Observe...

People liked him, right?  Am I missing something?

[Melgaypet]

Nash benefited greatly from comparison to Antonio, I think. I was pretty neutral on him overall. I liked him with Jess (not Tess, I despised her, in concept and increasingly in execution), even if they were, as a couple, often smug and stupid. They had a cute Lucy and Ricky thing going sometimes.

And yeah, Forbes hammed it up a lot.

[TeeVee329]

On 6/14/2020 at 8:14 PM, Melgaypet said:

Nash benefited greatly from comparison to Antonio, I think.

Oh that's a great point.  I'm not feeling FM's ham sandwich energy in the clips I've seen, but I'm sure it was such a relief to get that energy after so much of Antonio's sullen gloom.

And this Tess/Nash stuff happened right after the Santi mess, right?  So no doubt people were ready and eager to embrace anything else.

[TeeVee329]

Going even further back in Jessica history, there were some fun tidbits in this clip from Jessica's adoption party (prior to the twin reveal/retcon):

1) Asa being forced to cater waiter the party as part of his community service punishment for faking his death was pretty fun.  I mean, I didn't care about him and Ben having A Moment about it, but Nora needling him was just delightful.

2) This is apparently Todd and Natalie's first meeting.  Her being all, "Yeah, you're the rapist" when he introduces himself is great, that's how everyone should react to Todd!  I'm sure fans at the time were just horrified at Nat for being so mean to Todd, but I dig it.

3) That said, Renee politely asking Todd to hand her something and him not only ignoring her, but planting his ass on the kitchen counter was dickish, but quite funny.

[TeeVee329]

For Father's Day, it's Fish and Kyle getting custody of Sierra.  Unbelievably, given I've watched this a time or two, I had some new thoughts:

1) Brett Claywell is seriously so cute with that baby.  I remembered he kinda cutely fussed over her outfit after passing her to Scott Evans, but this time, I noticed that a beat after he sits back down, he reaches back up and gives her hand this little tap that is so adorable.  And every time they go to a wider shot that he's in, you can see him grinning big at the baby, oh it's the best.

2) Speaking of Brett Claywell faces, there's another great one when Gigi pompously declares that "Sierra belongs with you."  It cuts to Fish and Kyle and Kyle has this great expression on his face that to me says, "Yeah, f-ing duh."

3) Speaking of Gigi, I still hate how much this is about her/Rex.  How fast the camera zooms away from Fish and Kyle embracing after the judge's ruling so we can see Gigi and Rex hug from three different angles (not in this clip, but trust me, it happened) is so gross.  But upon repeat viewing, I actually think Farah Fath does a nice job showing that Gigi's heart isn't in it, and showing how the last bit of resolve drains out of her as Eli starts making her case until she finally pipes up to stop him.

4) And finally, speaking of Eli, he's not THE EVUL yet here, but his line that "these two gentlemen had no expectations of and made no plans for EVER having a baby," basically implying that Fish and Kyle threw in the towel on ever being parents because of their sexuality, really hit my ear this time.  Not cool, Mr. Clarke!

Edited June 22, 2020 by TeeVee329

[TeeVee329]

So I was reading that the upcoming Eli/Lani wedding on "Days of our Lives" is the first on-screen wedding in the show's history of two African-American characters, which kinda blew my mind.

And then I took it back to OLTL.  I feel like there have been weddings between African-American characters in the show's history - Carla and Ed Hall, right?  And Hank married someone on-screen at some point, right? - but I can't think of one in the time since I started watching (around 1999) through the end.  Am I forgetting a couple?

[Hiyo]

Quote

Carla and Ed Hall, right?

Bingo.

 

Quote

And Hank married someone on-screen at some point, right?

Bingo, part deux! It was to Sheila Price.

 

[TeeVee329]

Hey, I remembered a thing! 

But none between 1999 and 2012?

[Hiyo]

I stopped watching in the early to mid 2000s, so not the best person to ask lol

[UYI]

I'm like the resident TV Trivia Queen here, regardless of when/if I've watched a show, I generally know something like this about it (what I can say, it's my superpower), but I'm pretty sure Ed & Carla and Hank & Sheila are it for all black couples who were married on OLTL. 

I DO know, however, that Sheila debuted as a character in 1990, during Paul Rauch's final year on the show as EP, and when Leah Laiman and Craig Carlson were the headwriters; Troy Nichols was also a black character created during that same time, and he and Sheila were involved prior to her and Hank, who was created in 1992 by Michael Malone. 

Edited June 27, 2020 by UYI

[tessaray]

I always appreciated OLTL's matter of fact handling of inter-racial relationships but never thought much about the flip side and how it affected the portrayal of Black families/issues.  😞

[TeeVee329]

It's crazy to me that the show never invested in Rachel enough/long enough for her to make it down the aisle.

And I'm running through the list in my mind and I can't even think of an African-American character who got married in an interracial relationship in the years I watched.  Evangeline, no.  Layla, no.  Rachel, no.  RJ, no.  Keri...no, right, I think she and Antonio were maybe just engaged.  Greg, no.  Shaun and Vivian did get engaged, IIRC, towards the end, but that relationship was mostly an afterthought.  And I guess we heard on GH that Matthew and Destiny are also now engaged, but that doesn't count.

[tessaray]

All true. But I wasn't thinking of marriage exactly, just front burner relationships.  (I do think Nora and Hank were convincing as exes, at times.) 

Although the Vega brothers both got married, didn't they? I'm not sure if that's a plus or a minus for the show's writers if we are counting marriages as validation for the importance of a minority character. 

Has any show - daytime or primetime - ever done a good job in this respect? I don't watch enough tv to answer that but it's a sincere question. (That I should probably take to another forum. Oops.)

  

[Hiyo]

I guess Young and the Restless?

[TeeVee329]

40 minutes ago, tessaray said:

All true. But I wasn't thinking of marriage exactly, just front burner relationships.  (I do think Nora and Hank were convincing as exes, at times.) 

Although the Vega brothers both got married, didn't they? I'm not sure if that's a plus or a minus for the show's writers if we are counting marriages as validation for the importance of a minority character. 

Oh, I get what you were saying about interracial relationships on the show (and I agree), but it was just striking to me that, even in that arena and even though, for example, Evangeline had multiple popular pairings, an African-American character didn't get married on-screen in all those years.

Edited June 27, 2020 by TeeVee329

[UYI]

51 minutes ago, tessaray said:

 

Although the Vega brothers both got married, didn't they? I'm not sure if that's a plus or a minus for the show's writers if we are counting marriages as validation for the importance of a minority character. 

 

  

Antonio (Latino) & Andy (white) got married, and of course Nat & Cris, not that it lasted long. 

[TeeVee329]

And Antonio did get married to Jessica, right?  I remember it bringing me joy when annoying Teen!Jess found out about that, and about Natalie having been married to Cris.

[Hiyo]

A bit before that era, ok, long before that era, in the early 90s, but Blair 1.0 was biracial...and did marry Asa.

[Hiyo]

Ok, that wasn't a marriage of love, so maybe not the best example lol But that Blair was front and center in many a storyline...her revenge on Dorian, scheming to get some of Asa's coins, her affair with Max...

[dubbel zout]

12 minutes ago, Hiyo said:

Blair 1.0 was biracial...and did marry Asa.

Which much later on led to one of the greatest inside jokes/flashbacks at Asa's fake funeral, I believe, and Blair is thinking back to their wedding, which is when Mia Korf played the character, and we go back to Blair, who checks her compact mirror and has a puzzled Jigga-wha? look on her face. Hee.

[Hiyo]

Yeah, that scene is great. I love it when soaps occasionally take the piss out of themselves.

[TeeVee329]

14 minutes ago, Hiyo said:

A bit before that era, ok, long before that era, in the early 90s, but Blair 1.0 was biracial...and did marry Asa.

As much as I love KDP as Blair...talk about something you could N-E-V-E-R get away with today.

[Hiyo]

It was actually a montage of all of Asa's prior weddings on the show.

 

[TeeVee329]

The face KDP makes after looking in her compact, oh I love it.

[dubbel zout]

I love that they got the original (save for MK) actors back for that.

[UYI]

I have to say, while I understand the anger from fans of Mia Korf on her behalf by doing away with a Japanese-American character (based on her last name, I'm guessing Mia's Japanese side was through her mother), the fact that said character was conceived when her mentally ill mother was raped by a Japanese orderly is...gross, so while daytime losing an Asian-American character was unfortunate, getting rid of the ickiness in the character's back story in terms of race was DEFINITELY a positive. No more unfortunate implications if the guy was a white orderly once Kassie started playing her. 

Edited June 27, 2020 by UYI

[TeeVee329]

It's kind of a catch-22 situation, 'tis true.  

That backstory is a pretty...stark?...choice.  Because the audience had never seen or heard of Addie before, right?  So there was nothing really to retcon to allow for Blair.

And it's strange how many Cramers have parents who we know nothing about.  Blair, Kelly, Paul.

ETA...adding to the list of things I didn't know, there was a Paul before David Tom?  Huh.

Edited June 27, 2020 by TeeVee329

[tessaray]

Kelly's mother was Melinda, right? I think she was part of Dorian's story from the beginning. 

eta: I remember Jane Badler in the role. I am so old...

[TeeVee329]

Yeah, Kelly (and Paul) are Melinda's kids, but I don't believe we were ever told anything about their fathers.  Paul in particular just popped up out of nowhere.

[Hiyo]

Here is a scene between original recipe Blair and Elaine Princi's Dorian (who, it must be said, was one of the best recasts ever).

 

[UYI]

When Dorian (then played by Nancy Pinkerton) and Melinda were first introduced in the early 70's, it was said that their younger sister Agatha ("Addie" for short) had died when she was 13, and that their parents had died when they were still fairly young too, and that they were each other's only family.

Blair's introduction led to the revelation that Dorian and Melinda's parents had lied about Addie's death--she had actually had a nervous breakdown, and they put her in a mental institution. And then, of course, in 1998, their mother, Sonya Cramer, turned up alive, too (but not for long).

Kelly is Melinda's daughter, although like with Blair, we never knew who her father was--and unlike with Blair, we never even found out the circumstances surrounding her conception or birth (ditto Paul). Long time fans always retconned her as being from Melinda's marriage to Peter Janssen, her most significant relationship on the show--although Dorian (then played by Claire Malis, who later played Jo's mom Rose on The Facts of Life) wanted him, too. Sharon Gabet (Raven on The Edge of Night) played Melinda briefly in the late 80's, but she had no kids at the time (and no nervous breakdowns, unlike all other incarnations of the character).

And that's not even going into the introduction of Cassie in 1981, and her role in Dorian's back story, too. 

I know...it's a lot! :P 

 

Edited June 27, 2020 by UYI