Watching PEYTON PLACE

[SnarkyOracle!]

It's a mood evident even in B&W domestic TV sitcoms of the time --- a certain almost-cozy but poignantly sad tribal atmosphere... And it's certainly present in widescreen, technicolor films like this one, all awash in (yet subversive in regards to) the era's myths of Americana.

My God, but you're brilliant.

[sunshineboyuk]

Oh God I can't wait for my DVD to arrive , its all so exciting ..... I'm not going to read any more reveiws until after i've caught up , its all sounds really repressed and dirty .

[JROG]

Episodes 1-75

What? No fair!

DDD

[JROG]

Oh God I can't wait for my DVD to arrive , its all so exciting ..... I'm not going to read any more reveiws until after i've caught up , its all sounds really repressed and dirty .

Yes, I can't wait for September to come so that I start my bi-weekly watching of PEYTON PLACE!

DDD

[sunshineboyuk]

PEYTON PLACE will start aring on Sunnynet. tv from next Week , tentatively scheduled for a weekend omnibus for 4 episodes to replace HOME AND AWAY , excitingness .... It's like the cylons returning to nuke their parent humans. Or maye not.

[James from London]

Episodes 76-165

Dr Morton's daughter and the Schusters were duds

Agreed on Dr Morton's daughter - though her story is livened up considerably by the arrival of Leslie Neilsen, of all people, as her estranged doctor husband. I guess I already knew there was more to Neilsen than Inspector Drebin and the NAKED GUN movies, but I was still taken aback to see how different he is here: angry, rugged, cynical, and very good. He even turns up as his own twin brother, making a grand entrance in a helicopter that lands in the middle of the town square (very DALLAS Season 4).

A youthful Richard Dreyfuss also appears in a small, funny part as a whiny cloakroom attendant at Norman and Allison's prom. The ubiquitous Bert "Dandy Dandridge" Remsen shows up too, as a private dick retained by Steven Cord to dig up dirt on Stella Chernak. Remsen must be the only actor to appear in three of the 80s prime time soaps, PEYTON PLACE and MELROSE PLACE.

I ended up really warming to the Shusters. Some of the emotional scenes between the couple are surprisingly raw. The actress playing Doris Shuster has a neurotic, kind of Gena Rowlands quality about her. And it's fascinating to watch William Smithers playing somebody other than Jeremy Wendell. As David Shuster, he's far more three dimensional than he was ever allowed to be in DALLAS--he's a caring family man, for starters--but he still has that coldly reptilian quality that made him such a compelling villain later on. He has this way of appearing perpetually preoccupied--is there any other TV actor who looks at his watch as much as he does?

There's so much bubbling under the surface of the Shuster marriage: a discussion about one issue almost always turns into an argument about another, which feels very real. I particularly like the way the show doesn't gloss over the pressures that a disabled child (in this case, a deaf daughter) can place on a marriage: guilt, blame, even rivalry dog their relationships both with their daughter and each other.

Lee Grant's arrival gave the show a jolt

Word! She's utterly compelling as the hard-bitten yet vulnerable Stella Chernak. Back in Peyton Place with tales of Californian disillusionment, there's something positively Tennessee Williams about the way she leans restlessly against the walls of her immigrant parents' cramped living room, pouting.

the show does pick up soon

It sure does - with the killing of Stella's brother Joe. Given that he's fairly minor character who interacts with less than half a dozen of the regular cast, the impact and repercussions of his death are huge, especially when Rodney Harrington (Ryan O'Neal) is charged with his murder. Everyone from the Shusters' deaf daughter to reclusive tyrant Martin Peyton becomes involved.

the best is yet to come for Allison Mackenzie.

Allison's off screen hit and run accident, which happens out of the blue and plunges her into a prolonged coma, would seem to have been hurriedly introduced to give Mia Farrow some time off, (not sure why; she doesn't get raped by the devil in ROSEMARY'S BABY for another three years) but it works far more seamlessly than the rubbish car crashes that wrote Pamela Sue Martin and Victoria Principal out of DYNASTY and DALLAS. That it should happen slap bang in the middle of Rodney's murder trial story seems so strange ... until it's revealed that the hit and run driver is the prosecuting attorney's wife!! Complicating matters even further is the fact that the prosecuting attorney's father was the judge duped into sending Elliot Carson (Allison's father) to prison for murdering his wife eighteen years earlier, thanks to a cover up instigated by ... Rodney's father. Wheels within wheels within wheels.

And how poor Rodney suffers through his trial and Allison's coma, not to mention her subsequent amnesia when she forgets she's in love with him. Ryan O'Neal is awfully good, looking as sad and beautiful then as he does sad and bloated now.

The genius of PEYTON PLACE seems to be its ability to expand at will, to include never-before-seen characters and locations that we willingly accept were part of the town all along. Ada Jacks' bar, the wharf, the Chernak family, DA Fowler and his too perfect wife - all are folded seamlessly into the show's history and ongoing narrative. That said, Rita Jacks, as Norman's girlfriend from the wrong side of the tracks, (an even wronger side than Betty) is a little wet for my tastes - but she serves a purpose. After all, had she not dumped Joe Chernak for Norman Harrington, Joe never would have ended up dead.

You also haven't met Steven or Hannah Cord, a mother/son team that evokes the darkness of the earlier episodes.

They're great. As Martin Peyton's housekeeper, Hannah Cord is a more glamorous, but no less forbidding, version of Mrs Danvers from REBECCA, while Steven Cord replaces Paul Hanley as the town's Angry Young Man. The housekeeper's son who grew up in the servant's quarters of the Peyton house, he's now a steely, ambitious lawyer with a chip on his shoulder. In other words, he's Kirby and Adam in DYNASTY rolled into one, only better. When he's called upon to defend Rodney, aka the poor little rich boy whom he has detested since childhood, at his trial, it's juicily ironic. And pairing Steven up with Betty Anderson is a great way of reawakening her dormant Maggie-on-a-Hot-Tin-Roof ambition after her brief spell as a good girl nurse.

And then there's always Martin Peyton, the Angela Channing (moreso than JR IMO), of Peyton Place.

Yes, he's closer in spirit to Angela than to any of the other prime time soap villains, in that he seems to hate everyone but his dead daughter whom he refuses to accept was a killer. I particularly like Elliot Carson's description of him as "a 19th century tyrant right out of Henry James novel." He intimidates the crap out of everyone but Betty. When she tells him she doesn't like sick people, he asks her to be his nurse.

Dorthy Malone had some nice moments, but the writers lost interest in her fast. I don't recall her doing much other than wringing her hands, for the most part.

Yeah, I've reached the part where Lola Albright has the thankless job of temporarily taking over her role and you don't really notice the difference - except Albright's eyelashes don't flutter as much as Malone's.

everything I've read about it makes it sound ever so good!

It is, it's unexpectedly good; much, much better than I expected.

Picked up the DVD of the original film too a few years back when my Mother pointed it out to me on sale in my local HMV, and, being curious about this show, I bought it.

What a wonderful story.

[SnarkyOracle!]

The genius of PEYTON PLACE seems to be its ability to expand at will, to include never-before-seen characters and locations that we willingly accept were part of the town all along. Ada Jacks' bar, the wharf, the Chernak family, DA Fowler and his too perfect wife - all are folded seamlessly into the show's history and ongoing narrative.

I always wanted DYNASTY --- the estate in DYNASTY, especially --- to do this, to reveal one new ornate room appear per season, with the family pretending it had always been there.

Not the same thing, I realize. But it would have been nice.

It is, it's unexpectedly good; much, much better than I expected.

I've never really seen the '60s series, and understand that its schedule increasing from one to two and then three times a week helped burn it out too fast.

But I can imagine it was better than one might expect... There was always a kind of haunted " '60s energy" that seemed like it might very well work with stories about small town mystery and hidden agenda, but nearly all TV at the time was episodic, so prim and deliberately simplistic that much of that potential was lost. So I could see why such a uniquely structured (for American television at the time) multi-layered show in that era might have achieved something quite effective.

One can only imagine how good DARK SHADOWS might have been had it been a primetime soap like PP, and not the shoe-string budgeted mess it was as a cheap, quickly made daytime show; how much of DS' creepy appeal was provided by having that shoe-string, Z-grade budget we'll never know for sure.

[James from London]

Episodes 166-267

The story of Rodney's trial for the murder of Joe Chernak is really well done. As soap murder trials go, it's perhaps second only to Blake's in DYNASTY. This story-line actually seems to benefit from the increase in weekly episodes from two to three, as all aspects of the trial are explored in fascinating detail: jury selection, media spin, class perception, ("Rich boy kills poor boy") - while the morality of the times brings an added gravity to certain events, such as Rita Jacks contemplating suicide the night before her testimony, lest the world find out she had three boyfriends in the space of year. The trial itself spans a remarkable four months and fifty-five episodes, yet never drags.

The rest of the drama continues alongside it, often impacting on the trial itself: Gus Chernak, luckless father of the "murder" victim, keels over and dies after breaking into the Peyton mansion to confront the accused's grand-father Martin Peyton; two key witnesses, Norman Harrington (the accused's brother) and Rita Jacks (the victim's ex-girlfriend) elope the day before Norman is due to give evidence; Marion Fowler, wife of the attorney prosecuting Rodney, confesses to being responsible for the hit and run accident that put Rodney's sweetheart Allison in a coma ... and so on.

And the complications don't stop there: We learn that when Marion hit Allison, she was driving her away from the apartment of her lover, Russ Gehring -- a dark, dark character, who also just happens to be ... the physical therapist who ministers to Allison in the hospital.

Allison's slow recovery, impeded by selective amnesia and partial paralysis, coincides with Mia Farrow's infamously daring decision to cut the long blonde hair that hung halfway down her back to less than a few inches in length. Apparently, fans around the world were "shocked and astounded", Salvador Dali going as far as to describe it as "mythical suicide". Even now, there's something almost brutal about Allison's sudden transformation from a dreamy kind of Alice in Wonderland to an almost frightening Biba-meets-Belsen creature. It mirrors her development into a much darker, more complex character - the formerly angelic Allison exhibiting behaviour that is selfish, spiteful and manipulative, not because she has suddenly turned "bad", but simply because she is human. Most interestingly of all is when the other characters call her on this behaviour. It's like when people in KNOTS LANDING actually articulate the fact that Valene is a high maintenance, self-centred neurotic. I'm reminded of both Val's ugly, messy post-breakdown recovery in KNOTS Season 6, and Farrow's own role in HANNAH AND HER SISTERS, where Woody Allen ruthlessly exposes the underside of her sweetly delicate persona. (I think that was the first time I ever heard the term "passive aggressive")

Presumably, Farrow/Allison's haircut came as much as a surprise to the programme makers as it did to the public. Her picture in the opening credits is hastily updated, and one can sense their disapproval through the other characters' reactions to Allison's new look. Generally, they agree with Dali: that Allison cutting off her hair is a self destructive act, a way for to punish herself for her recently-discovered illegitimate status.

When town patriarch Matthew Swain departs on a Miss Ellie-style never ending cruise, (while still providing the off screen narration at the beginning of each episode) Allison's father, fiery-but-fair Elliot Carson, takes over his position as editor of local newspaper, The Clarion. Elliot's twinkly-eyed father Eli, meanwhile, replaces Matt as the show's moral centre, only in a less pious and more likeable way. Only when Eli is occasionally used as comic relief - usually in conjunction with newlyweds Norman and Rita - does he become tiresome. If there's one thing this show doesn't need, it's comic relief.

Twenty-two years before Linda Gray lays the cruellest of smack-downs on William Smithers in DALLAS ("I'd rather sleep with JR than sleep with you, and I'd rather sleep with a carnival geek than sleep with JR"), Smithers himself delivers a similar put-down to town tyrant Martin Peyton: "Mr Peyton, as a business man, no one can touch you. As a human being, I doubt anyone would want to."

Episode 200 is distinguished by Steven Cord proposing to Betty Anderson, who reveals in an Abby Ewing-like moment, the extent of her ambition: She wants to be King of the World - no more, no less.

Rodney is found guilty of murder, but later exonerated when Stella Chernak admits she perjured herself on the witness stand. No sooner is Rodney released from jail than he finds himself in a different kind of prison. In order to regain control of the Peyton Mill, his father Leslie Harrington strikes a bargain with his grand-father, Martin Peyton whereby he 'gives' Rod to Martin to mould in his own image. It's all very FALCON CREST, only much, much better.

The resulting dynamic between the Peyton/Harrington men (including Rod's younger brother, Norman) is fascinating, with all kinds of divided loyalties and deep-seated resentments.

With the resolution of the murder trial story-line, time suddenly jumps forward, from winter to the spring wedding of Steven and Betty (who admits to her mother on the morning of the ceremony that she is still in love with ex-husband Rod). As a result, several characters abruptly disappear without trace. The biggest loss is Stella Chernak - we never learn of her fate after she is charged with perjury. Similarly, we don't find out if DA Fowler and wife Marion split up, and/or if she goes to jail for hitting Allison. Somehow, these unresolved story threads don't matter too much. What matters more is that these characters' emotional stories have been told. At least David Shuster (William Smithers) gets to delivers one great last speech to Rod before leaving town:

"When I came here, I thought I was coming to a hick town, frankly. But I was walking right into the middle of a Greek tragedy. Everyone's fate is predetermined here. Everyone is covered with guilt here. You people are strangling each other. You don't really love each other, you don't really hate each other. You possess each other. You strangle each other and strangle the town. Get out of it, get out of it now, or you never will."

Remarkably, for a show made over forty years ago, there are still some terrifically surprising, gasp-out-loud moments. One of the most shocking takes place at the Shoreline Club where trampy Sandy Webber and newlywed Betty Cord get into a frenzied, and highly sexually charged, dance off over Betty's ex-husband Rod. Rod's girlfriend Allison, Betty's new husband Steven and Sandy's violent husband Lee look on with varying degrees of mortification.

Instead of getting out of Peyton Place the way David Shuster warns him to, Rodney becomes more involved with Allison, and after she recovers from her accident, they briefly become lovers. Not in so many words, of course. Nevertheless, it being 1966, ithis is a huge deal dramatically. Yet the show never moralises or judges its teenage characters. Instead, it treats their feelings with a touching solemnity. We learn from Allison that sex is like an Ingmar Bergman movie, "beautiful, but hard to explain." Ultimately, the experience proves too mind-blowing for her - "I haven't the courage for reality," she tells Rod sadly. Unable to turn the clock back to a more innocent time and with Rod unwilling to consider marriage until he has proved himself to his grand-father, they split up.

In an effort to assert his independence, Rod uses his mother's inheritance to buy a local garage. Just as the shadow of Elliot Carson's trial eighteen years earlier (when he was framed by Rod's father for a murder committed by Rod's mother) hung over Rod's trial, so the ghost of Joe Chernak looms large over Rod's involvement with Lee Webber, a surly mechanic who works for him. Rod attempts to atone for Joe's death by tolerating Lee in much the same way Gary Ewing tries to make amends for Cji's death in KNOTS LANDING by helping Cathy Geary.

Lee is a key player in the next knotty saga to unfold. Ann Howard-nee-Colby (first the Harringtons, now the Colbys - mere coincidence?) returns to Peyton Place after an absence of seventeen years to found out whether or not she really is guilty of the crime she was accused of as a child: pushing Lee's younger brother Chris off of Sailor's Bluff and onto the rocks below, permanently blinding him in the process.

This is clearly a "major new story-line", but it's initially unclear as to how involving it will be. Sure, Lee Webber is an agreeably disagreeable bad guy--all sneer, tight jeans and quiff--and his wife Sandy (Lana Wood, aka future Bond girl Plenty O'Toole) is enjoyably slutty, but it soon becomes apparent Wood isn't as strong an actress as the other women on the show (or even her big sister Natalie, come to that). And Ann Howard herself, around whom the drama revolves, is a somewhat generic character. No Stella Chernak she, her character is more or less solely defined by what happened to her as a child (which, admittedly, is kind of the point of the plot).

However, the story takes on an unexpectedly intriguing dimension when Steven Cord agrees to investigate the case on Ann's behalf, and it becomes clear that Steven's mother Hannah and ward Martin Peyton have a pretty big secret to hide, which somehow involves the truth of Steven's paternity. The writers have been hinting around this subject for quite some time. In fact, Betty married Steven half-believing he would turn out to be Martin Peyton's bastard son--and what a delicious irony that would be: the downstairs boy who envied Rodney Harrington his whole life turning out to be his uncle! However, cryptic conversations between Martin and Hannah reveal this not to be the case. Instead, the big secret seems to be that Steven and Ann Howard are brother and sister, which as revelations go is pretty anti-climactic.

Oh but wait, there's more: One night, chilly Hannah goes berserk and slashes the painting of Martin's dead daughter Katherine that hangs in pride of place in the Peyton living room. An act so heinous, (imagine it happening Jock's portrait in DALLAS!) she then attempts to conceal her involvement by staging a break in. It then becomes evident that Steven and Ann are the offspring of an illicit affair between Hannah's long-lost husband and Martin Peyton's daughter (which means that Steven is not Rodney's uncle, but his half-brother, and that Betty's is her own ex-husband's sister-in-law!).

While waiting for this secret to be revealed to the characters at large, we're also introduced to Lee's brother and Ann's apparent victim, Chris Webber. Blind from childhood he might be, but that doesn't prevent him from being a first rate law student or a gifted pianist. Yes, he initially comes across as one of those too-perfect disabled types beloved of Hollywood--they might be blind on the surface, but really they see more clearly than the rest of us. Fortunately, this only lasts a couple of episodes, after which it becomes happily apparent that Chris is as screwed up and bitter as everyone else in Peyton Place.

The 250th episode sees Lee Webber confessing that it was he who pushed Chris off the bluff all those years ago. "I didn't mean to hurt you!" he yells, while simultaneously slapping his blind brother across the face--a genuinely disturbing scene. In the same episode, an exonerated Ann Howard learns that good friend Steven Cord is her long lost twin, and then tearfully accepts a proposal of marriage from Dr Michael Rossi. (Rossi has made something of a speciality since arriving in town of falling for troubled women--Constance Mackenzie, Dr Morton's daughter, Stella Chernak--only to lose them before getting to second base.)

All the signs point to a neat and tidy resolution of this story-line. Who could foresee that a mere two episodes later, Allison Mackenzie would find Ann Howard's corpse at the bottom of the bluff. Did Ann jump--having been rejected by the woman she wrongly believed was her mother (Hannah Cord)--or was she pushed (by either Lee or Chris Cooper, or the demented Hannah)?

All of which leads up to one of the most hauntingly bleak and melancholic TV departures of all time. Having been told by spurned blind boy Chris that she is incapable of loving, and then finding Ann's body, Allison lapses once more into depression. A grief stricken Dr Rossi shouts at her that she just needs to grow up and stop being so bloody ethereal. Then Rod finally proposes marriage to her. She turns him down on the grounds that he just feels sorry for her. "That's all right," she tells him cruelly. "I feel sorry for you too." Her worried parents have her hospitalised, but then she slips away from the hospital and wanders slowly out of Peyton Place, accompanied by voices from the past, never to be seen again. And if that weren't enough ... the show then turns colour!!

I've never really seen the '60s series, and understand that its schedule increasing from one to two and then three times a week helped burn it out too fast.

Well I'm past the halfway point of the series, and I'm still waiting for the decline to begin. Inevitably, the introduction of colour and the departure of Mia Farrow make for a change of atmosphere, but it's too soon to tell how much.

[SnarkyOracle!]

Instead of getting out of Peyton Place the way David Shuster warns him to, Rodney becomes more involved with Allison, and after she recovers from her accident, they briefly become lovers. Not in so many words, of course. Nevertheless, it being 1966, ithis is a huge deal dramatically. Yet the show never moralises or judges its teenage characters. Instead, it treats their feelings with a touching solemnity.

This may touch on something I've been thinking about recently, the increasing duality (read: "hypocrisy") in American culture over the years regarding sex --- certainly teenaged sex --- especially as it's handled in television.

I remember several years ago watching an old 1965 episode of GIDGET in which Sally Field just doesn't seem to be her same old plucky self... Yes, the TV medium was still very, very prim about such issues (sex really wouldn't be addressed directly until the early-'70s) and yet certain things were more understood and assumed then than would be allowed today... Anyway, there is a matter-of-fact comic discussion between Gidget's boyfriend and her father (!) that perhaps 15-year old Gidget's problem could be "sexual frustration". No one blinked an eye and the dialogue quickly moved on to something else.

You were infinitely less likely to see or hear any manifestation of prurience on TV at the time, and yet it was taken for granted that 15-year olds could experience "sexual frustration": just so long as no further details were involved.

Today and for the last 20 years, you probably couldn't get a line like that past the censors. Not for broadcast network TV. Seriously. You could see teenagers physically engaging in at least heavily-suggested sex, but if they were that young it would be communicated to the audience that either the participants were "fallen" teenagers or one of whom was a "victim" of the other in some way... But the very implication verbally that 15-year old girls in particular might have any kind of normal sexual impulse that left them frustrated would leave the network in question so fearful that such a line might bring a significant response from media watchdog groups and public outcry that line would almost definitely be changed.

Yet 40+ years ago, you could say it as assumed. Just as long as it went no further.

Interesting.

Well I'm past the halfway point of the series, and I'm still waiting for the decline to begin. Inevitably, the introduction of colour and the departure of Mia Farrow make for a change of atmosphere, but it's too soon to tell how much.

And perhaps the quality doesn't slide. I can't say. "Burnout" may simply have been manifest in oversaturation. Who knows. But losing that end-of-the-world early-60s B&W vibe as it shifts into late-'60s color really does change things, the mood, for most series -- although there's a nice, brief 1966 post-apocalyptic tone that not everyboyd would be sensitive to but I find helps in making the transition. My guess is that PEYTON PLACE likely reflects that, but I don't know.

[Afton]

I'm so deliciously addicted to this show at the present. I'm right in the thick of the whole murder mystery plot.

Are you still watching, James?

[James from London]

I'm right in the thick of the whole murder mystery plot.

Which one??

Are you still watching, James?

I absolutely am.

[Afton]

Which one??

The Elizabeth Carson one. It has now been revealed that Leslie Harrington was one of her lovers (though they would never come out and say that ) and he's now a suspect.

You must be nearing the end now. Has the quality of the episodes wavered at all?

[James from London]

I'm up to 361 (out of 514) and it's holding up very well. Maybe not quite as knotty as it was, but still full of surprises and twists. The characters are just as rich as ever.

[Afton]

Wonderful! I look forward to you next review.

[ChrisSumnerMatheson]

I only had the black and white episodes and recently purchased the entire series. I'm around episode 270 right now, just getting a handle on the color episodes. Everyone is still looking for Allison, Connie just gave birth and Lee Webber is on trial for Ann's murder. So far everything still seems good and from what I've read it sounds interesting, but the final season is when things get muddied. You have lots of cast changes and I think the success of that year will depend on how much I like the new cast members. I'm looking forward to it. Especially the black family who caused outrage simply because they shared scenes with the white characters.

I also can't wait to see Joan Van Ark!

[Mel O'Drama]

I used to love PP. I watched every episode when it had an airing in the early 90s on (IIRC) Sky Soap.

Does anyone know if there are any plans for a Region 2 release, or whether the dvd's are region-free?! I'd rather not get the Region 1's unless I really have to, as only one of my players is multi-region.

I've sent messages to Shout, but with no response (surprise, surprise).

Actually, I wonder the same about the Return To Peyton Place movie too. It's never been released in the UK on dvd. If anyone knows anything about it, I'd be really grateful.

[Lancepat]

James from London - a round of applause for your excellent review.

[Afton]

One thing I've noticed about Peyton Place so far (or maybe it's just this particular storyline) is that there is no real satisfying resolution. I just finished the Elliot Carson storyline and it jumps from Leslie Harrington going to get him free to his wedding to Connie. Not exactly a big deal but it would have been nice to see Paul Henley confronted for his part in Elliot getting shot and his railroading out of town.

[ChrisSumnerMatheson]

I'm still with the episodes dealing with Lee Webber's trial, but they're introducing new stories like the arrival of mysterious Rachel Welles. I found it interesting that they introduced her via Norman and Rita. I thought the show was finished giving them things to do. I'm crazy about both so I hope this goes somewhere. It was nice that the show remembered Alison and Norman's friendship and tied him into the mystery of her disappearance. Leigh Taylor Young is better here than I've ever seen her. Dallas. Passions. Sunset Beach. I hope this child-like behavior ends soon and she settles into Peyton Place and starts interacting with more people. I don't think I'll be able to stand a year of her throwing things and running around like an animal.

Going back to Rita, it seems clear she wants a baby. She seemed bored and lonely. Going from place to place looking for someone to pay attention to her, a purpose. Very curious about this. Connie seems to be getting more screentime than she usually does as well. I wonder how long this will last?

So far this transitional period is nice. They're integrating the supporting characters with the main cast and utilizing everyone better. Before it felt like this outsider would come in and everything would be about them. The show also looks absolutely beautiful in color.

[ChrisSumnerMatheson]

I wonder how Martin Peyton would've been as a young man. I so wish there was a prequel showing the exploits of Martin Peyton, Hannah Cord and that demon child Catherine. I felt she died too soon, but she's worse than any ghost I've seen. My goodness. I love that they've actually remembered and acknowledged Norman's connection to his mother in the reveal that Steven and Ann are Catherine's children. I do feel like he's often forgotten in the Harrington scheme of things so this is nice. So great scenes between Norman, Rita and Rod and Rod and Leslie and Rod with Martin Peyton.

I'm continuing to enjoy every bit of Connie and Elliot that I get right now. So weird to think they were ever written off. My love for Hannah Cord grows each episode I watch. Ruth Warrick is just a genius actress. Makes me wanna look up her old work on All My Children. Something that I really look forward to is seeing how the rewrites work in The Next Generation. I know Martin Peyton and Hannah Cord are now Steven's parents. It'll be interested to see if they develop relationships with his brothers and how that changes in the new film. Also interesting to see how Matthew Carson turned into a girl. Maybe he was inter-sex.

I thought about jumping ahead and watching the reunion now, but not sure yet. I did watch Murder In Peyton Place which was worse than I ever remembered. The tone was completely off, you had Norman but not Rita (she's mentioned briefly as his "first wife") and not sign of their kid (two if you count Return to Peyton Place). Of course Rodney and Allison aren't around, but I didn't expect that. The movie is centered around Stella Chernak, but they recast the role so it's pointless. I also hated the flashbacks with Stella Stevans inserted over Lee Grant. Betty and Steven were also poorly recast so the movie as a whole felt pointless. Norman's new wife was a later character who was only briefly on the show. It just seemed thrown together. I watched the opening scene of The Next Generation and it looks much better. The Allison look-a-like is truly a dead ringer in that first scene. And it looked more like Peyton Place.