One Life to Live storylines (1990–1999)
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[edit] One Life to Live (1990-1999)
[edit] 1990-1994
After Megan married her true love, rough-and-tumble Jake (Joe Lando), he went on frequent international trips to make money. He was held prisoner in the wartorn country Jaba. The news was too much for Megan. In spite of recently discovering she had lupus, Megan began partying and drinking heavily. She went into kidney failure; although her mother Viki donated a kidney, she took a turn for the worse (Tuck wanted Megan to die of AIDS, but Malone felt lupus provided symptoms which were better for soap drama).
One Life To Live celebrated its 25th anniversary with a weeklong series of episodes where Megan's friends and family sat by her bedside, telling her stories of their past (with flashbacks) to keep her alive until Jake could be found. Recently arrived reverend Andrew Carpenter (Wortham Krimmer), who had fallen in love with Megan, risked his life to rescue Jake. Jake returned just in time to hold Megan in his arms one final time. As they looked at the tree which had been planted during their wedding, Megan took her last breath. This tearjerker, considered one of the show's best stories by many fans, also introduced wild child Marty Saybrooke (Susan Haskell), who started out as Megan's hospital roommate would later become the show's central heroine.
OLTL was the first to deal with many social issues, including teenage homosexuality. Ryan Phillippe played the role of Billy Douglas, a gay teen dealing with the difficulty of coming out to his parents and friends. The resident bad girl, Marty Saybrooke (Susan Haskell), accused Andrew of having a sexual relationship with Billy. This story affected the entire town, including Viki, as Andrew's stern father Sloan (Roy Thinnes, in his second One Life to Live role) arrived in town to teach a college class and write an expose of Victor Lord. Sloan and Andrew had been estranged ever since Sloan's oldest son, William, had died of AIDS. Finally, as Llanview held a ceremony for the AIDS quilt which was briefly displayed in their town, Sloan broke down and mourned his late son. Viki, who had been increasingly estranged from Clint due to loss of passion as well as some homophobic statements on his part during the Billy storyline, committed adultery with Sloan. Dorian Lord arranged for Clint to find Viki and Sloan together; after he did, he left the canvas for a while (Clint Ritchie had been seriously injured in a plane crash) and Viki married Sloan.
Marty eventually had an epiphany about her ways, but it only came about after she was brutally gang-raped, which was led by Todd Manning (originally portrayed by Roger Howarth), Viki's half brother. Todd hired Nora Hanen (Hillary B. Smith to defend him when Marty filed a lawsuit. They nearly won the case until another woman claimed Todd raped her as well. The original plan was for Todd and his frat brothers to be acquitted, but Hillary B. Smith felt that would send a message, so the writers had Nora realize shortly before her closing arguments that Todd had a history of rape. Nora tried to persuade the jury to find Todd guilty, and a mistrial was declared. Soon after, Marty got Todd's confession on tape and he was sent to prison. He attempted to rape her outside a radio station, but Luna (Susan Batten) hit him in the face with a pipe, leaving a scar that would last throughout Howarth's tenure on the show. Todd swore revenge on Nora and Marty.
Nora's rivalry with her ex-husband Hank (Nathan Purdee), also a lawyer, provided for more story. Nora and Hank had a daughter, Rachel (Ellen Bethea, Mari Morrow, Sandra P. Grant), who was a law student but ended up becoming addicted to drugs.
When Bo's beloved wife Sarah (Jensen Buchanan, Grace Phillips) was killed in a car crash, Bo nearly committed suicide (a story actor Robert S. Woods abhorred). Eventually he fell in love with Nora, and Nora, who suffered from blackouts, thought she had been the driver who had killed Sarah. Woods told the writers Bo would have a hard time loving his wife's murderer, so the story was changed. After Nora was cleared, she learned she had a brain tumor, and went blind while recuperating from the surgery. Alone at the beach house, she was nearly killed by Todd (in a homage to Wait Until Dark) until Bo saved her. Todd was sent back to prison but was pardoned after he saved the lives of Tina's children and Marty. As Howarth's performances captured fan attention, Todd became more and more important to the show's tapestry, and was revealed as Victor's long-lost son.
After Sloan died of Hodgkin's Disease, Viki's hold on reality began to crumble. Around this time David (Tuc Watkins) falsely claimed to be Victor's long-lost son (Tina slept with him even though at the time she thought they were siblings, a story that went too far for many viewers), and Dorian had just been freed from death row after David's diary forgeries cleared her of Victor's murder. Viki was incensed at Dorian's freedom and when Dorian causally mentioned to Viki that Victor had sexually abused Viki as a young girl, Viki splintered into multiple personalities (Tommy, Princess, Jean, Tori, and of course Niki). "Caretaker" Jean kept Dorian locked in a secret room for months, and broke up Tina and David. Angry Tori helped Todd start up a rival business to destroy The Banner and burned down Llanfair. Finally, Viki realized the horrible secret she had been keeping was that she, not Dorian, had suffocated Victor in 1976. One final alter, Victor, appeared, urging Viki to kill herself, but she managed to integrate him and all the others. The story garnered strong critical acclaim, due to Erika Slezak's bravura performance, but some fans (and Robin Strasser) were not fond of the massive history rewrite. This story was planned to put to rest Victor's murder and Viki's personalities, but later writers revived both story points, to the irritation of the audience.
The storylines during this era (1992-1995) were executive produced by Linda Gottlieb and written by Michael Malone, who later formed a partnership with Josh Griffith. Their stint on the show is generally regarded as the renaissance of the series, although they were not universally popular with fans or cast (at one point, James DePaiva reportedly reduced Gottlieb to tears). Griffith left in early 1995 and Malone a year later.
Gottlieb was replaced by Susan Bedsow Horgan who was replaced in 1996 by ABC executive Maxine Levinson. Around this time the network made major changes to all their soaps due to falling ratings. New headwriters (Leah Laiman, Peggy Sloane and Jean Passanante) focused on romance and supercouples, but the stories were criticized as cliched and repetitive (featuring a nun who left the convent for a man, fake paralysis, fake pregnancy, and a poet who recited "Brown Penny" to his lady love over and over again).
Many viewers also felt the writers were ignorant of past history — one of the most glaring examples was the return of Bo and Asa's former wife, Becky Lee Abbott Wilde (Jill Voight, Mary Gordon Murray). During her previous stint (early-to-mid 80's) Becky Lee had been a sweet, kind country singer who genuinely loved both Buchanan men and never wanted to hurt anyone. Her '96 return cast her as a sarcastic con artist who was embittered towards most of the town for no apparent reason. The character was quickly written out, and on future visits (such as her son Drew's funeral) behaved more like her old self.
In 1995, Roger Howarth had left the series due to disgust at plans to pair Marty and Todd romantically (at public appearances, some fans cried "rape me, Todd!", which unnerved him all the more). When he returned due to the new headwriters, Todd had no sex scenes (reportedly due to a contract stipulation on the part of Howarth) and remained perpetually self-destructive and unhappy. Todd returned from the dead only to find his wife Blair (Mia Korf, Kassie Wesley DePaiva) had been impregnated by Marty's true love, poet Patrick (Thorsten Kaye).
[edit] 1997-1999
In 1997, new headwriter Claire Labine "solved" the problem by having Blair's cousin Kelly crash into Blair and Patrick's car. Blair's unborn baby died, and she lashed out at Todd before going into a coma. Desperate to keep custody of their other child, Starr, Todd then married a woman he barely knew, Tea Delgado (Florencia Lozano) who accepted a million dollars to make a fake family life with Todd and represent him in the custody battle. Todd also got a parrot, and spent a number of scenes talking to the parrot about his life. Other stories at the time involved Marty and Patrick's wedding ending in a hail of gunfire and blood, Dorian's struggles to hide her dark family past, Nora struggling with peri-menopause, RJ opening a new bar with a transvestite mixologist, and most bizarre of all, Maggie Carpenter (Crystal Chappell) leaving Llanview to open a clown school in Paris, France.
The stories wandered aimlessly, and in early 1998 ABC hired Jill Farren Phelps as executive producer and Pam Long as headwriter. Neither woman was a stranger to controversy, but the first few months of their tenure (featuring a mystery over who killed Nora's crazy assistant Georgie - the killer was roommate Rachel) were well-received. Fans began to complain when core characters (such as Dorian's husband Mel and Bo's son Drew) were killed or (such as Dorian's daughter Cassie) written out, while longtime characters like Nora, Jessica and Viki were only given stories which revolved around the new Rappaport/Davidson family.
Phelps hired many of her favorite actors (Mark Derwin, Kale Browne, John Bolger, Timothy Gibbs) to fill roles. Moments like Todd punching Tea in the face and Nora sleeping with her former lover Sam to give her sterile husband a child provided some powerful drama, but to many viewers, came at the expense of character integrity. Beloved couple Nora and Bo split bitterly and Hillary B. Smith was so unnerved by her character's behavior she actually lobbied Phelps (unsuccessfully) to kill Nora off.
Meanwhile, beloved teen heroine Jessica (then Erin Torpey), who had worried about whether or not she wanted to sleep with boyfriend Cris (Yorlin Madera, David Fumero), lost her virginity during a drunken night with Will Rappaport, the stepbrother she barely knew. She then became pregnant, but Dorian ran her down as she was about to give birth; the baby died and Jessica had amnesia, then began stalking Dorian. Soon she went on the run to Ireland with Cris and fugitive Will, singing in a rock'n'roll band. Throughout there was little to no mention of Jessica receiving therapy or counseling for all this trauma, and she spent far more time swapping beds with Cris and Will than she did thinking about what she had gone through.
In early 1999, Long left, and Phelps (with some help from Harding Lemay) was essentially headwriter for an entire year. Eventually Megan McTavish took over as headwriter and created a series of dark storylines involving mobsters, the search for Asa's real son, and tortured love triangles (Kevin/Kelly/Joey; Max/Blair/Skye). The latter meandered for more than a year, as Max faked being Asa's son, developed a brain tumor, strung both ladies along, and was then shot in the back by Blair.
