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ANOTHER WORLD |
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I watched this show throughout most of high school & for a few years afterwards, then gave it up because I had too many jobs and no VCR. In college I got a summer internship in the AW writers' office and that was that: I was hooked once again, and permanently, until the show went off the air. Okay, so it was a soap opera. Okay, so I loved it. I'm not claiming it was the highest quality programming in the world, but my weekdays weren't complete without it and there was nothing better than coming back from a few days away to have HOURS of it stored on tape. Sure there was temporary amnesia and dementia, and people who went blind for brief periods of time, and incurable diseases that were cured, and kids who aged 15 years in about a month, good twins and bad twins, and kidnappings on a regular basis, but it was all glorious. (At least it was up until the very end, with that supernatural Lumina business, and I'm still trying to forget the guy in the gorilla suit in the final episode, and the way they forced the whole cast to sing a James Brown song to woo it off the roof.) | |
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The fact is, I still miss this show and it went off the air years ago. I hear Jake McKinnon, in character, is on As The World Turns now but I just can't bring myself to watch it, I want to see more than Jake. I need Jake & Vicky together again, and Donna stopping by to interfere with everybody, and Paulina and Joe and Cass and Frankie and Felicia and Ryan, even though both Frankie & Ryan were (unforgivably) killed off. |
I also think AW generally used better actors than most soaps, unless it was just that I got used to them. But I remember when Morgan Freeman was on, and Kyra Sedgewick, and Anne Heche was working  double-time
to play two leading characters, and Paul Michael Valley was just glorious
as Ryan, I swear he's going to get famous eventually.  Charles
Keating as the evil Carl Hutchins used to scare me so much that I had
bad dreams about him, and even though they redeemed him at the end, I
liked him best as the nastiest but most cultured villain on television.
I loved that whole split personality story with Sharlene/Sharly, even
when she went out one night for romano cheese and didn't come back for
2 years and when she did she'd dropped both Sharlene & Sharly and
was some entirely new personality named Kate, who was a brunette instead
of a blonde but used exactly the same cookie recipe as Sharlene, thus
enabling her husband John to track her down. There were other story highlights
across the years: Jake got shot, ended up in a coma for months, and was
so hated in Bay City that everyone in town was acting guilty. . .Frankie's
childhood friend Christy showed up, fell hard for Cass, and framed Frankie
(actually, she framed Frankie Frame!) for her husband Douglas' murder.
. .Felicia found her real long-lost daughter Lorna just months after adopting
16 year-old Jenna. . .Ryan pursued arch-criminal Carl relentlessly only
to find out Carl was his father. . .Donna finally confessed to Marley
that she was Marley's mother, not her sister, and they subsequently discovered
Marley's identical twin Vicky, who came to town to steal back the fortune
she felt was hers. . .switched babies, switched allegiances, switched
twins, switched bodies, switched evidence. . .it was a wacky world &
I loved every minute of it. (Okay, almost every minute. They lost most
of their momentum at the end, especially when carpenter Bobby Reno was
revealed to be a racecar driver and then re-revealed to be Dr. Shane Roberts,
surgeon extraordinare. And he had a fatal illness, incurable of course
until it was cured, only to have him killed in a car accident about five
minutes later.)
But it was all worth it. I haven't even mentioned other characters
I loved, like the original Maggie Cory, played by Robyn Griggs, who
got fired for spending her off-camera time with John Bobbitt. And Iris,
who was sent off to jail for a crime she didn't commit, and never returned
even after they figured out she didn't do it. I could go on for hours. I won't. Suffice it to say that if someone started airing that show on some syndicated channel deal, I would be riveted once again. I would happily watch it all over again, even if I did have to fast-forward through some of the fake Matts and that creepy day that Ken Jordan & Rachel were doing it in every room of the house, including on the stairwell. I'd sit through murder trials and mistaken identities, and spouses returning from the dead -- which happened to Cass TWICE -- and all the subterfuge. And I'd still be wishing things turned out better for Felicia, and for Frankie, and wondering what happened to Morgan Winthrop (who seemed to just fade out of all the stories until nobody mentioned him again). Can't someone just find a way to air this again? Please? |
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guess they just forgot. Frankie & Joe's detective agency was a favorite,
especially when Joe took on Paulina's case, started searching for her
missing husband Jake, and fell in love with her. Jake was pronounced
dead, Joe proposed to Paulina, and just before they said their wedding
vows, Jake walked in the door. And Vicky, everything about Vicky, every
story she got and almost every actress who played her. And more on Jake,
because he managed to marry each twin at one time or another AND sleep
with their mother? I've left out Kathleen McKinnon, and Perry Hutchins
& Nancy McGowan, Joe Carlino and his dad, Josie before she became
a moron and the whole Olivia/Sam storyline, Peter Love at his creepiest,
Laura Moss' Amanda Cory, who managed to triumph over some really bad
storylines & make me like her, only to get replaced by the original
actress. I even liked when Victoria Wyndham, Rachel Cory ever since
the mid-70s, got to branch out and play her lookalike evil rival, Justine
Kirkland, who kidnapped Vicky, gave Spencer a stroke, and ended up getting
my fave, Ryan, shot & killed by his brother Grant just hours after
he rescued a starving Vicky from her sealed-in basement prison. I was
crushed when Ryan was killled -- have I mentioned yet that I really
liked Ryan? -- but I was riveted to that story, it was ridiculous but
just SO much fun. And the side characters were a blast too, like Bridget
Connell and Vivian the maid, and that guy Francois who used to be the
maitre'd at Felicia's restaurant. 
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This show intially reminded me of the old Dabney Coleman show Buffalo Bill, until I realized it was about a hundred times better. In fact, it's the reason I first ordered HBO. Garry Shandling, who I never used to like, was perfect as Larry, the narcissistic, Letterman-like talk show host who gets the best ratings and the best guests but is constantly concerned about the size of his ass. He's so self-absorbed that he's completely oblivious to anyone else's needs or feelings -- in fact, he's oblivious to just how much energy everyone else has to focus on him just to keep him going. Rip Torn is so perfect as Artie the producer, he was my favorite character of all time, with Janeane Garofalo's talent booker Paula running a close second. He was this big drinker with a legendary past who knew exactly how to handle Larry AND pacify guests AND be a hardass and keep the show running. (Typical quote: "It's a salty dog. Drink it, you pussy!") Jeffrey Tambor was brilliant as Hank, Larry's on-air sidekick, forever trying to cash in on his almost-celebrity and getting even more pathetic in the process. I liked the original writers, Jeremy Piven & Wallace Langham, although eventually Jeremy Piven left. They were such assholes, honestly. I've dealt with a room full of male TV writers and these guys had it down. And Hank's assistant was originally Linda Doucett, who was SO funny because she was this pretty blonde girl who just worshipped Hank and totally believed in his own delusions about his grandeur. I think they canned her because she was actually dating Garry Shandling, and then they broke up. Hmph. I was sad to see her go, but they made a brilliant decision in replacing her with Scott Thompson, one of my favorite Kids in the Hall. He was SO perfect as Hank's assistant, and I loved that it led to the famous line by Hank...."Elton John. . .is a gay!" And Larry's assistant, played with perfection by Penny Johnson, was one of those unsung heroes, the woman who does everything for him and barely gets acknowledged. They had great celebrity guests, all of which made sense because it was a big #1 late night talk show. Elvis Costello, of course, was a big favorite of mine. He did two episodes. In one, the whole staff was SO excited he was coming and Paula had to keep telling them NO autographs and DON'T bug Elvis, and then when Elvis came, he got pissed off because nobody came up and asked him for anything or said hi or indicated they liked his music, and I think I'm remembering this right, Larry talked the whole time while Elvis was performing. So he trashed his dressing room. And in his other one, he sold Hank a vintage car that broke down after the first time out. David Duchovny was always great because he'd come on to Larry and make him incredibly uncomfortable. And I think when Ellen DeGeneres came on, she actually slept with Larry. And I remember a two-parter where Larry was having an affair with Roseanne. But it wasn't just the guests that were so great. There was a great early one when Larry's wife at the time, played by my husband's fave Megan Gallagher, invited Artie over to dinner. This freaked out Larry, who never invited anybody over. Soon it got out of hand and became a party that various staff members were invited to, one by one. My favorite scene EVER was when Paula, who hadn't been invited yet, stepped into Larry's office and said something to the effect of, "I just want to know if there's something I did to offend you," and started crying. It was just so perfect. Funny in a hard-core kind of way, very unforgiving about people's personalities. And beautifully written, and acted. It was originally on HBO but I know CBC aired in it Canada. I bought the first season on DVD and now Bravo's showing (edited) episodes weeknights at 10:00 p.m. Fox has it at midnight on Saturdays too. |
MY SO-CALLED LIFE |
 (click picture for a cool My So-Called Life site) |
| I still can't believe that they only made 19 of these shows. |
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p.s. Anybody bought the DVDs yet? |
