DRW50

I can see what he meant about tonal whiplash, but it works because you know you are watching a very large and complex group of characters. In later years, the balance was more difficult to find. McTavish was especially frustrating because I think she did get that element of AMC, but her tapestry was often incredibly depressing - by the end of each of her runs there was no joy to be found (I was taken aback at how dark even one of her 1995 episodes was, going from Dixie dealing with not being able to carry a child to a patient crying to Julia because he was dying of AIDS). You're right, the original plan for Janet was the bomb. I do appreciate the effort they made reintegrating Gloria into the canvas. I know Teresa Blake nearly left around late 1995/early 1996 due to not being used that much, but she ended up re-signing.

It was, yes. She was asked in the interview about having to adjust to recurring. Blake/Matt as an endgame pairing would have made sense, although I think she would have gotten bored of him judging her.

Vincent Irizarry's son is really moving up in the world!!! https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jun/02/january-6-rioter-elias-irizarry-counterterrorism

Rest in peace, Peabo. I know you found the rainbow's end.

That makes no real sense to me but oh well. I just hope they aren't going to pair her with Rocco.

Thanks. I suppose she will be playing a few years younger than her age, but I still think it's a mistake having her so close in age to Danny.

I did remember that from your recaps, but I guess they could have just ignored it. Sadly, Blake is not that big a character by the end of GL, but she is much more present in that last year than she was before (I think - someone can correct me - at one point she was in a coma for a year). I wonder if the story with Ben tormenting Blake/Ross was meant to happen, but they weren't actually meant to be paired up. Maybe they originally planned a Ben/Beth pairing which we never quite got properly.

How much of an age jump will that be? It seems like a questionable choice to age Scout that much when Danny and Rocco aren't that much older - the dynamics will be off. It will also make her around Charlotte's age. Everything will be a blob. Or even more of a blob. I've seen some fans ask what this means for Georgie. I wonder if they will just stop showing her entirely as Maxie and Spinelli are essentially gone. Then there's Avery, who also never appears.

More of the old Peapack interviews from summer 2009 are being reuploaded. (there's another with Rob Bogue and Mandy Bruno). I wish she'd been right about GL coming back, although I think at that time some of us were clinging onto delusion. She was right that they should have brought back the twins. @alwaysAMC She says a few things in here you may be interested in. The whole twins with two fathers story was her favorite. She says she never believed that Ross was Kevin's father because it was just Annie's word and she thought that would be a good story idea for the future. She also said that falling in love with Ben was her least favorite story, as she felt Blake falling for him was much too rushed. She said that only happened because another story fell through.

Oh I think you are completely and totally right. I suppose part of the reason is down to those shows being huge watercooler programs while The Pitt is, for the buzz it gets, is still more of a niche program in comparison, but they are probably terrified. They also have no interest in a doctor being a central character in a way which can capture medical stories. They could with Patrick and Robin. What do they have now? Britt is a lead "heroine," but no one in the audience is going to buy her on cases.

Thanks so much @Paul Raven . Sadly, this is the closest we will ever get to seeing most of that run, aside from clips (and RH, which I agree was hurt due to cast turnover, although was still a good year overall). I find the comment about GL's weak plotting interesting - I guess most of it was building up to 1979. The backhanded praise of ATWT's attempts at modernization sounds about right.

Thanks @Paul Raven for the KLG interview. I love her response to being asked if she's a star - "I'm just one of God's little creatures." That would be a meme today. I agree with @Soaplovers that KLG was fine in the movie. She was aloof and weird but that fit the character. This was not a movie about women, to put it kindly. Maybe she didn't have as much charisma as she could have but that would have overshadowed Travolta. The movie is very complicated, and she suffered from it being bigger than anyone likely imagined - many ended up taking it as some kind of fun disco coming-of-age flick when it's actually about Tony realizing his entire upbringing has been a lie of racism, misogyny and repression. He does not realize until the end of the film that in order to survive he has to not be with Stephanie but become her - running away from the old world, the old life to a fragile but more open-eyed future. If they had kept the original scenes where he more forcefully gets into her apartment that murky message would have been even intact. @EricMontreal22 I appreciated your writeup on the show, maybe more than if I had watched the episodes over myself, as I find a number of the leading characters at this time tough to take on a daily basis. I also think what you said about intertwining of many stories was beautifully stated and was something which AMC wore proudly through much of the '80s and '90s. Many of the stories were not the best but the tapestry makes the show, more than the periods when the show gets streamlined (or made into some Frons-shaped blob and whatever the hell was going on in 2001) I saw a clip which had both Michael and Kendall, and it was incredibly disorienting.

Other than the Labine era, possibly, I think GH would have always avoided those issues.

It's a shame Mary was never on any soaps again after her primetime career ended. I first saw her on Duet. I really liked her, even though Chris Lemmon and Alison LaPlaca were viewer favorites (and took over the show).

You're right. This is down to ageism, sexism, and also the midlife crises of producers. Viki became much weaker as a character in the mid/late '90s and never recovered. Erica at least I could say was meant to never grow up, but it still felt increasingly contrived seeing the show come up with the thinnest of reasons to destroy her life. They learned the wrong lessons from aging characters up too much in the '60s and '70s. Of the current soaps Y&R is probably the most badly affected as there are no Katherine type characters or Liz Foster type characters. And some, like Nick, Sharon and Phyllis are deeply, deeply sad.