20150530

SONS AND DAUGHTERS

Dr. Herbert Marshall McLuhan had been described as "the most important thinker since Newton, Darwin, Freud, Einstein and Pavlov." He had said, "I've made a strange discovery about the rear view mirror...I've discovered somewhat to my surprise that when you look into the rear view mirror you do not see what has gone pass, you see what is coming. The rear view mirror is the foreseeable future. It is not the past at all."

Marshall believed the electronic revolution had turned the world into a global village (because just like a village, anything that happened affected everyone everywhere at the same time). "TV has brought the outside inside," he observed. However, "when everybody is deeply involved in everybody else life, all sorts of strange things start to happen. Man is losing his private identity, his private goals, as he gets involved with other people...The loss of identity creates huge violence...It's like inflation...people want to know who is responsible…"

Lorenzo Lamas believed, "Acting and driving are very similar. Both take tremendous concentration and discipline. (In the 1985-86 season) I started finding bits of humor in the mundane dialog we have to use. I began to see a little humor in the fact that Lance, the character I play, is completely unaware of everything around him. He's in his own little world and nothing touches him. I found humor in that and played on it." 

For many viewers, "'Sons and Daughters' became a way of life...The whole show has concentrated on human emotions." In the 1983 season finale, 'Sons and Daughters' ended its cliffhanger similarly to 'Falcon Crest' with 5 people - 2 were best-loved characters - being held hostages by a mad gunman. Danny Adcock played the villainous Joe Parker.

Marshall described the television age as the 4th world and maintained "the medium is the message." It was said, "TV has the special gift of grasping more than one of the senses and affecting the viewer's whole pattern of perception, regardless of what gets into his mind." One commentator once remarked, "Today storytelling has often seems just another tile in a massive cyber mosaic of contents. Art is often evaluated on whether it meets our daily cultural requirement for edginess and attitude. Against this backdrop, the world created by writer Earl Hamner, jr. seems to exist in a parallel universe." 

It was reported, "The biggest nightmare that faces a producer is the cancellation of filming schedules. Episodes of 'Sons and Daughters' are churned out at such a rate that no cast member can really afford to be sick." Thomas Richards played David Palmer remembered, "When you're doing a show; when you're acting, you don't really get that feeling until you see it on air; when it's been cut together." 

Belinda Giblin played Patricia Hamilton - Mark II recounted, "Let's face it, it's a character brought to life by Rowena (Wallace) but, nevertheless, it's a character created by writers and I'm doing what the writers have written for me." Belinda first turned down the offer to play Patricia, "Originally I would have just come in and replaced her after a very short time.

"This time - and this is the stuff of soap operas and requires a suspension of disbelief - there's the old plastic surgery trick. I thought it was an outrageous idea - and I still do - but then it became a more interesting proposition. Coming in as a sort of new person (Alison Carr) gave me a fresh approach I think...I came into the show 4 years after it had started (in 1985), and that takes the edge off it."

At the time, she confessed, "I like the fact television is not repetitive and I enjoy working with the camera and the subtlety it can afford. I relish playing with cameras and experimenting and I really enjoy the magic you can create in front of a lens. Theater is good for every actor - my voice improves 20 times. With television you tend to get lazy and your breathing goes out the window. You spend a lot of time on television and film holding back."

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