Note: Due to traveling, I could not send this off yesterday.
Dear Doug,
Today it's been thirty years since you died. How ironic it's a Monday. It's been a few months since I've done a Marland Monday, my ongoing essay series exploring your career. I am still trying to figure out who you were and why I am fascinated by you and your writing. It could've been Eudora Welty Wednesdays, Anne Tyler Thursdays, or Armistead Maupin Mondays. But for whatever reason, in June 2021, I started writing about you and your writing. I didn't know what I was doing per se, just that I missed your writing. I also wanted to know so many things about you. The biggest one was this: why in the last years you wrote As the World Turns, why were the storylines so dark and sad? I'm still trying to ponder this one.
After I graduated high school, I started watching As the World Turns on a full-time basis. My junior and senior years were busy, so I took only nine units that first semester. I took classes early and mid-morning to watch ATWT when I got home. I know, I could've taped the show; I had a VCR. But I loved watching it live. No delays; just watching it. But that year and a half I watched it on a regular basis, I noticed something: all the storylines were so sad.
Of course, soap operas are not known to be chuckle fests unless it's supposed to be funny (Susan Harris' Soap, Linda Bloodworth Thomason's Filthy Rich, and of course Norman Lear's sublime Mary Hartman), but some characters are happy, or content. Or some characters were meant to be comic relief- Rosa the cook (Antonia Rey) was going off Dr. Dixon, or Meg in the early years having fantasies about being rich and married to Dusty Donovan. Of course, when you were writing Guiding Light, you had Nola (Lisa Brown) as comic relief, pretending she was in Casablanca or Ships Ahoy, always the star. But I didn't notice any of that when I was watching on a regular basis again. I just watched it and thought, man, is it just me, or is everyone depressed and sad?
It wasn't just that year, though. For several years, it was one sad storyline after another. There was Casey's death when Margo pulled the plug on him, Andy's drinking, plus Bob and Kim's constant fighting about his affair with Susan Stewart. I'm not even going into the incredibly long snooze fest of Carolyn Crawford's murder, especially the long story of Aaron Snyder's paternity. The storylines went on and on, not letting up on the misery.
I'm not saying the storylines weren't good. Margo getting raped was so well done and heartbreaking. Andy's drinking storyline was so realistic and good. In the next couple of weeks, I will write about the storyline you wanted to use while writing Loving, but instead, you wrote it in ATWT. Not going to spoil it, but it was probably the reason why the show won Best Daytime Drama in 1991.
A respite in the darkness came in Tess Shelby by a newcomer to daytime. Her name was Parker Posey. Posey's Tess liked Hutch, but she also liked other boys too. I would watch her and think she's going to be famous. I liked her simply because she wasn't a tragic heroine. She just wanted to have fun. Two years later, I saw Dazed and Confused in the theater and saw her on the big screen. By then, you had been dead for six months.
I found out you died by Air Mail. I was in London, spending a semester there. Mom sent me your obituary, and I was devastated. I couldn't explain it to others, especially in London. After I came home, the sadness about your death continued. I couldn't explain it to anyone else. It wasn't logical. Hey, the head writer of the soap opera I watched died. No, never met him. But I was just sad you weren't here with us. I nearly wept when I saw the credits for the show, and you weren't credited as head writer.
Mostly I was left wondering why? Why were the last years so depressing? What was going on with you? I know 1993 was starting off so well: you received the Soap Opera Digest Lifetime Achievement Award. And yet, I am still trying to figure out why the writing was so dark and heavy. I've always hoped that someone would write a biography about you and the answers would be revealed. Then I would put the book down and think Yes, that makes sense! I understand now why it was so sad.
No one has written that book yet. I am still trying to figure out what happened in those last years. I wish I had answers, especially today. I hope someday soon, the answers will come.
love,
Jennifer