Who was your show's Charity Rahmer?

[R Sinclair]

For a while, I thought AMC's Sabine Singh was a tragic Greenlee recast (regardless of the disgusting way she was treated by ABC at the end). Then along came Brianne MonGrief as the Colby recast and I took it all back.

[Vee]

The answer is - at that time the online fandom was (and may still be, IDK) overrun with kids who had hazy memories of the "golden years" under that lunatic Reilly that entertained them when they were aged three, six, and eight. They were desperate to recapture that feeling or vibe by any means necessary so they turned to making some sort of wacky character, any sort of wacky character happen. Jan Spears was the one they went with. It was a dreadful character in a dreadful story on a dreadful show, but there was nowhere I could go online to escape the repetitious, desperate, flop-sweat frenzied proclamations that DAYS IS BACK!!!111

[Gray Bunny]

I hated that era with a passion (though I admit I loved his first run in 1993-1997). I could go on and on about the regression that so many characters made (Sami being No. 1), as well as the show overall when he rejoined the show in 2003. To me, the Bonnie Lockhart character represented what Reilly thought of us viewers: idiots.

Back on topic: There was an actress that played the role of GL's Marina Cooper for like 2 months in between Aubrey Dollar (the best!) and Mandy Bruno (ugh...).

[All My Shadows]

I had never watched DAYS until late 2003, but I loved Heather Lindell's Jan! As silly and ridiculous as her storylines were, HL was a pretty good actress and definitely miles ahead of her replacement. I'd love to see her turn up again in something.

[Vee]

IIRC, Lindell was the replacement.

Neither were good, but the original - Olsen? - was terrible.

[~bl~]

Kit Paquin was her name. She was a GL fan before she was on the show, so I felt kind of sorry for her. She gets her dream and it becomes a nightmare.

[All My Shadows]

Yeah, that's what I meant. She was a vast improvement over Olson/Olsen/irrelevance.

[chicklitsandfantasies]

She was horrible!

[jo.frank88]

The only time I remember seeing an actual acknowledgement of a recast was when they abruptly had to recast Jennifer from Melissa Reeves to Stephanie Cameron, and they had it written at the bottom of the screen in DAYS' usual yellow letters that the role was recast.

I remember one more time - though she was really a minor character.. Susan, one The Last Blast teens (circa 2000-03) was recast pretty early on during the character's run and at the beginning of the episode when NuSusan made her appearance (right outside of DotCom if I remember correctly) an announcer said "The role of Susan is now being played by...." (I would have to research to remember the names of the actresses who played the roles of Susan.)

[P.J.]

Ann Hamilton as Mindy Lewis. TIIC had clearly lost their minds (petite and bed-hopping Mindy suddenly decides to skeet shoot----and ruin her manicure? Not likely...) but I'd never heard of a black hole trying to act either.

Amanda Seyfried as Lucy Montgomery. I didn't believe it, but I know she's repeated it a couple of times. She was fired like after three days. And Goutman put up with a LOT of green actors, so whatever she did must have really pissed him off.

[juniorz1]

I liked eye candy Ken Kenitzer and though Timothy Gibbs was a completely different Kevin, I think he's a terrific actor and played the hell out of all the material that he was given, which is more than can be said about many soap actors of the past decade.

Bruce Michael Hall was AWFUL on OLTL and on Passions. And while Don Jeffcoat was ok, Nathan Fillion was just so perfect as Joey that I never could accept anyone else playing that part. It's kind of what sucks about soaps- some actors are so good in a role that their careers take off. What these shows need to learn is that some actors make such an undelible mark on the role that they are unrecastable. It's unfortunate coincidence that Joey was a legacy character and that Nathan Fillion was just perfection (albeit green at first) in the part.

Now I remember. It was a joke that had already been done- on Santa Barbara (duh! everything funny on soaps stems from Santa Barbara guys). Terry Lester was playing Mason in one scene and after commercial, Gordon Thomson took over the part. I think Mason got punched out and when he stood back up, it was Gordon Thomson. It was HILARIOUS at the time and so darn clever.

Seeing it done on DAYS and AMC and whatever other show copied SB's very original way of recasting a principal character became old hat. A joke is only funny once, a good one anyway.

Carlos was at least better than the AWFUL Juan Pablo, who someone already mentioned.

Again, Lisa Rinna just WAS Billie at the time and Krista Allen wasn't. Porn Billie, yes, but Billie Reid? Just, no.

Julie Pinson, on the other hand, had an excellent handle on the part.

Amen! That one I know for sure.

So much word to this post!

I was SCREAMING that at the time. I wanted to like the original Reilly era and be excited about all the returns but the dialogue was atrocious and none of the characters remained in character. Hope wasn't Hope. Billie (once Allen arrived) wasn't Billie. Tony was once so intelligent and witty and was brought back as a pod and a fool. Stefano always had a plan that we never got clued in on. It was all part of his plan but yet nothing was planned out. Marlena got POSESSED! And I knew right away that she was the Salem "vandal" because she'd never appear in the episodes, just like she never appeared in the episode when JER penned the SSK storyline.

Plain and simple, the only actors that shined under Reilly were Deidre Hall and Eileen Davidson. Maybe it was their ability, maybe it was their performances, maybe a combination of both. But they were the only interesting thing about DAYS, besides the weeks when a storyline would finally climax.

Those kids didn't watch DAYS in the golden era (neither did I- it was the 60s and the 70s), but the 80s were still solidly written and that's when I started. Stefano was menacing. Hope was a spitfire heroine. Bo was a rebel who NEVER got along with Roman but they so clearly loved one another- they were the perfect depiction of brothers. Julie, Doug, Renee, Liz, Neil Curtis, Gwen Davies, RealMarlena, Anna, Tony- THAT was the Days of our Lives. JER's 90s run was all plot and no substance and when left to his own devices, that's exactly what his shows are. Plain and simple, it's Skinimax.

To this day, I admit that I was convinced that PASSIONS was gonna turn into Gay Porn on DirectTV

[JackPeyton]

Oh, god, yes.

In terms of the I Wanna be a soapstar show, I really liked the girl who got the job on Days, its a shame they wasted her.

[will81]

juniorz1 - I agree with your assessment of JER's 90's Days (never watched his second run, only seen clips) though I did love it and still do, I have to watch it as almost a separate show to the one I grew up on. It's true that characters were sacrificed for story. It amazes me that JER wrote the same show in 93/94 as I think that it was perfect and kept so much in line with what Days and the characters were, then in 1995, especially late 1995 it all changed.

[DRW50]

I don't think Joey was unrecastable. Other than the story with Dorian, I actually can't think of anything Nathan Fillion did in the role that a dozen other OK actors with a little charisma could do. He did nothing with Kelly that I cared about, he did nothing to elevate the boring Cameron/Olivia story, and I had no real connection to his Joey in scenes with his family.

For me, if anyone was the ideal actor for the role, it was Chris McKenna.

I thought BMH was OK and just never had a shot, thanks to terrible writing. The last Joey was the same way.

Joey shouldn't be a difficult role to cast. A little charisma, a big heart, a sincerity. But that is anathema to soaps today. On soaps today, most men have to be assholes or they are seen as boring. That was especially true for OLTL once Todd arrived.

[will81]

True, I take back the wooden comment for her, that clip is a great example, it literally felt like the next scene would be Hope turning up on the pier with a stick of butter and smiling coyly at Billie (the smile with the arched brow) while Bo hid somewhere and watched.

Funnily enough I ended up accepting Austin Peck and Krista-Allen as their characters, but I think part of that was the fact they (the writers) changed them just enough to not remind me too much of the original actors.