All My Shadows

The original specials definitely used only people who were currently on TV, but I honestly doubt that's an option these days. Your biggest TV shows/stars are no longer on ABC, CBS, or NBC, and so many of them would probably never sign on to do something like this. Plus, the TV landscape is just so big. Look at the cast list for the first BOTNS, and you have Farrah Fawcett, Penny Marshall, Robert Conrad - people who were HUGE at the time. Even if you didn't watch their shows, you knew who they were. We don't have that anymore.

I wouldn't necessarily call it discriminating, but no, I don't believe any soap stars appeared on the specials, which is surprising considering they were produced when soaps were at the highest level of mainstream popularity. If anything, there could have been a one-off daytime special featuring just soap stars.

I'm sorry, but that article has me all kinds of hyped up. It really looks like great fun! It was a brilliant idea to bring in past TV stars because most of the audience is tuning in for them.

And I will be watching very intently! ABC/SOAPnet missed the boat on a Battle of the Soap Stars 10-15 years ago.

The Audience Network is basically the same network that picked up Passions and Friday Night Lights when they were ditched by NBC back in the day.

In my eyes? Absolutely not. Those were never my style, as a kid or now.

Yes! No sitcom of the last 30 years will ever top those seasons of Roseanne. Nothing since as ever been so unashamedly real and honest, and if that's what they're going for with the new show, then I'm 100% in.

Thank you. I tried to piece together a response to that absurdity yesterday, but I couldn't hack it. This has the eloquence for which I was trying.

"Love is alive, and it's made a happy woman out of me." You just can't beat the conviction in that line.

So wait, now it's Jean Passanante's fault that Hogan Sheffer was a sh!tass headwriter? I think it's highly unlikely ATWT would have ever continued past 2010 regardless of who was writing or producing.

Jerrold Immel did a fabulous theme song for King's Crossing that ranks right up there with his themes for KL and Dallas.

I don't know if this has ever been posted. It was uploaded over 4 years ago, but I just came across it for the first time tonight. Some quick thoughts: nobody wanted to meet Nancy? Also, I'm pretty sure the music playing throughout is the GL theme from the late 60s.

And on that point, I completely agree with you, but the show had failed on that front time and time again over its last 5-10 years, so I guess by the time it ended, I just knew not to expect it. I wasn't entirely disappointed with the end because I didn't have too many expectations going in. I agree with most of what you're saying here. Like I said, if it fits the story/scene/moment, then I'm 100% all for it. I'm a complete nerd for soap history just like most of us are, so I would never shake my head at a logical conversation about a character's history or characters' shared history. I agree with you about Kim and John mentioning Andy - one of my biggest pet peeves with ATWT was that once characters left, they were seemingly forgotten, even though they were parts of these huge families. It costs absolutely nothing to write in a mention of a character. By the late 2000s, though, soaps were no longer written in a way that conversations that are completely normal and commonplace in real life would also find their way into character dialogue. The more time you focus on stupid, complicated, repetitive plot lines, the less time you have to acknowledge impactful characters who are no longer on the canvas. I wasn't referring to Dan in regards to the Bus episode. I assumed tune_in_tomorrow meant their 1990 feud over Bob, which was flashbacked and discussed in the Bus episode and used kinda cheaply for comic relief in the "OMG Bob and Kim are divorcing!" episode. I think it would have been petty for either Kim or Susan to bring Dan up after he'd been dead for so long, but I would've been okay with Kim bringing him up in regards to Emily. All those are things that were NOT really happening much at all on this show anymore and hadn't been happening for a long, long time, though, so while I absolutely agree that it was ignorant of the show's great history, if I'm strictly assessing the finale and the weeks leading up to it, I can't really point at that as a big let down. We all knew that we weren't going to get much. Maybe GL's literal "come to Jesus" the previous year had gotten some people's hopes up, but I wasn't one of them.

......."almost" universally praised. "Almost." Meaning not entirely. I never understood why so many people need characters to talk about things that happened 20+ years ago. If it makes sense with what's currently playing out, then it's great, but anything else borders on gratuitous. What exactly was there to revisit in regards to Kim and John in 2010 considering they hadn't been in a relationship with each other since the 70s and she'd been married to Bob for over 20 years? If they hadn't resolved Kim and John's story after 30 some-odd years, that's indicative of bigger problems. The Kim/Susan feud was addressed during the 50th anniversary and then in that one-shot ep with Kim and Bob's "marital troubles" a few years later. Bringing that up again would just make both women look supremely immature. ATWT screwed up a LOT in its last few years, but not having characters randomly discussing events from 1976 with little to no context isn't an example of that IMO.

GL also got very bogged down by gimmick after gimmick after gimmick. The "Inside the Light" episodes, which weren't all bad but a misguided attempt at addressing the show's issues without really addressing the show's issues, the superhero stuff with Harley which was embarrassing, and of course Peapack. The only gimmick out of the era that I think worked, and I believe it was almost universally praised, was the 70th anniversary special with Beth Ehlers as Irna Phillips.

But this is exactly what I meant when I said that there were huge missteps. When I say the ending wasn't hollow, I'm personally meaning that what we saw - the characters, stories, etc. - wasn't thrown together as a show of pretense to conceal what had been a completely different program over its last few years. They may not have brought back Ellen to be with Susan and Emily, but Susan and Emily were there and had been there, and any viewer who'd been watching for 3 years or 30 years knew who they were. They didn't need to be "brought back" because they'd never left. TPTB's massive skimping on returns didn't leave the show with a dearth of long-standing characters at its end. ATWT was still filled with ATWT characters and families, so regardless of how crappy some of those final storylines were, had the show lived, things were always lined up for ATWT to truly be ATWT again. I feel as though GL, on the other hand, did a great job at bringing back characters at the last minute and delving into the past, but they never should have been in a position to have to "bring back" characters like Ed and Holly, and I figure the chance of them coming back without a cancellation notice was slim to none (obvious exception being Grant Aleksander and Krista Tesreau). To me, as nice and neat as GL's ending was, it did very little to hide the fact that the show had been running aimlessly and desperately on fumes with no sense of self for years. What they did in the last few weeks could have been the show through a lot of those years. I guess what I'm saying is that GL might have gotten the "ending" right, but ATWT had tons more going for it at its end.

I'm in major agreement with all who've said that ATWT was still very salvageable at the end. GL was a dead soap walking for at least 5, but I would say closer to 10, years before its cancellation. I mean, its continuity throughout its entire run was pretty weak. They jumped location several times and refocused the show about just as many times. By the time it hit television, you had the basic foundation of the Bauer family, but there were no stable supporting families until the 70s and 80s, so in 2009, we had a 72-year-old program ending its run with only about 30-35 years of it in tact. Sad. Say what you will, but ATWT ended with its original family, and the last character you saw was an original character played by someone who'd been there for all but four years of the show's life. You had major characters from every single era of the show present and still regularly seen. I know they misstepped a LOT in closing the series, but one can never say that ATWT's was hollow.

I feel as though Angie Dickinson as Krystle would have been a bit stronger in regards to her interactions with Blake and Alexis. Not that LE was always a weak flower - lord knows she played Krystle's growing strength against Alexis wonderfully - but I'm not sure Blake would have been able to boss around AD the way he did LE. Linda always seemed a little bit older than she actually was. She was in her very late 30s at the start of the show but easily played 5-10 years older. I think the number one thing that they have to get right as far as ages are concerned is that Alexis and Blake were much more closer in age than Blake and Krystle were, BUT the Alexis/Krystle feud was never about Krystle being younger.

Sean Connery and Roger Moore are both older than Joan flipping Collins. Please.

I'm pretty sure the "Sam" character played by Rafael de la Fuente is actually the new, male Sammy Jo(e). At least that's what The Futon Critic has, and it makes sense from the character description in the article SFK originally posted: "a cute schemer who has a one-night stand with Steven." Also, based on ethnicity, I'm assuming he'll also be related to Krystle. Not sure how I feel about it quite yet, but I think it's a positive sign for those who were worried that they would downplay Steven's sexuality.

If he's not our Steven, then I want Kevin Schmidt from Y&R.

Who's the young guy with Andrea Evans? OLTL had so many kids running around at the end, I forget some of them even existed. Or is that a family member of hers? I'm always looking for what happened to random soap kids from the last 5-10 years of the genre to see what they look like now. Mick Hazen (ATWT's Parker) is looking fine as hell at nearly 24. Didn't realize he's only barely 3 years younger than I.

I feel as though what might happen will be worse - they could just skip the episode altogether and pick up with the next regular-length episode.

Right, I barely even recognized him. I hope his character doesn't go the way of Ted Dinard.