DRW50

As for "fake," I meant mostly in the whole musical instrument playing, happy-face stuff, covering a self-righteous persona. I kind of just wanted someone to smack her at those moments.

I'm not sure if Ginger's past was more fabricated than Karen's or Laura's. All we knew about Laura was that Richard resented her father, and that her mother had died young. We knew Karen was an activist and that Sid had been married before. Laura was, on paper, the most undeveloped character when the show started. It's one of the reasons I don't love a lot of her first season stories, where things just sort of happen to her or she reacts to things happening to Richard. Constance McCashin is a much better actress than Kim Lankford, but part of Laura's success was they did try to show her character grow. I never said I would write Lillimae out permanently - I would have kept her as a recurring guest. I don't think it's as much about who is the better actress, because it's about the character's role on the canvas. Nicolette Sheridan is, IMO, a weak actress, but she was wonderful within the range KL gave her once Paige got out of the brooding daughter role. I just didn't think that Lillimae hovering over Val, babying her, and snapping at Gary/Abby/etc. brought drama. I thought it stifled Val and kept her from having more of a voice of her own. I'm not saying that Lillimae was a huge drag on the show, or that the writing issues with Val were her fault, but I think that Lillimae should have come and gone. They could still have stories like Chip, and Josh, with some breaks. It was the day-to-day existence of Lillimae on the cul-de-sac which didn't work for me.

That's interesting. I always heard that the Bachman story was the best part of the show. Did Edelstein write any other soaps? This show has always sounded to me like it may have been better as a mini series.

I didn't know that. He looks like Glen Campbell. How many recasts did Somerset have? If there are any articles you want to post, let me know, and if I have them I won't post them.

What if you could time travel in the kitchen? I always get the feeling that the actors mostly made the Mr. Big stuff popular. ATWT's other forays into the fantasy realm, like Barbara's past life, didn't seem as well-received.

Doesn't that make Romney clinging to him even more bizarre? Some in the media are even praising Romney for this strategy, saying that he gets to appeal to the base without having to say the words himself. The main problem with the economy is that as long as we keep focusing on what we have to cut, nothing will ever improve. That's all we ever hear about. Cut, cut, cut, cut. Both parties do this. Where has it gotten us? Where has it gotten Europe?

Considering that Romney is still using birther surrogates, you can't be surprised if people blame racism, can you?

I wonder if the media will be as outraged over this as they were with Edwards. http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/ct-met-mark-kirk-coins-20120601,0,7002071.story

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eIfIxkWRYxg

To me, Ellen and Scott's Margo and Tom were fun and believable - when I started watching, they were the only Margo and Tom I'd seen. I do agree that the rape and HIV stories took a lot of this away, but it wasn't until the plane crash story and the PTSD story that I thought they became so shouty and dour 24/7. That's how they stayed, until the show ended. I saw a letter in a soap magazine from the early 80's, blasting the comic Margo/Tom scenes in the Mr. Big story, and asking why we can't go back to Nancy's kitchen. I thought of this thread.

March 1973 Daytime TV

If Brenda Benet had lived, what do you think DAYS would have done with Lee? How long would she have lasted? What stories would you have done with her?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=40cqrEU3F1w

Who was Billie on ATWT?

And she's breathlessly hyped as a moderate. This is what moderation now means.

I guess we'll never see Shabnam. Some comedy with the Masoods will be nice (although of course he has the dark secret). I wonder how many will blast this as a stereotype.

The Tom/Margo souring always bothers me. It's one of the reasons I lost interest in ATWT. By the late 90's all they did was cry, scream, and have breakdowns. Then they just showed up in the last decade to be disapproving and shouty. I can see where the characters became unplayable. Marx and HBS had a lot of tears and breakdowns while in the roles, but ATWT still remembered to give some humor and warmth. Sadly, no one in ATWT's last 10-15 years gave a damn.

From what I've seen, Chase just doesn't fit in to the best parts of the show. He's stuffy and self-righteous, and way too earnest. I think we know as much about Ginger as we did about Karen and Laura. Ginger was naive and vulnerable. Ginger was emotionally scarred from the abortion she regretted. Ginger was emotionally scarred from a distant relationship with her mother. I do think that Constant Companion was a haunting episode. Ginger had a lot of regrets and pain, and this was brought to the forefront by her ex's mother. She met this woman (played beautifully by Priscilla Pointer) and this was the closest she could probably get to saying goodbye to this past. I liked that it was subtle. The Karen episodes in the first season often had a lot of LOL moments which didn't necessarily seem to be intended, like the OTT scene where she reacted to having a miscarriage, or the scene where Karen Allen called Karen a whore and Sid slapped her on the face, or when Karen Allen and Diana were staggering around drunk. Don't get me wrong, I did enjoy those episodes, I think the first season was something to be proud of, but with Karen there was often this DRAMA DRAMA THIS IS A DRAMA!!! atmosphere. I prefer the quieter stuff in the early seasons. To me, it just didn't seem like equal airtime. I felt like the closest to this was in the first season, but even then, she and Laura were the supporting players to Karen and Val. After this, Ginger had even less to do. I agree she was realistic, I just thought she was unpleasant and grating to watch. I think there was way too much of her throwing fits and the character became one-note. I much preferred Karen's relationship with Eric, which sadly, the show never had a lot of interest in. I guess the way I see it is that Knots had the budget in the early-mid 80's to keep some people on even if they weren't the main players. I would have kept Ginger on and used her in that way - as a supporting player who sometimes had a big role in a story. I don't think it would have been trying something which hadn't worked. I think that they just never truly tried to identify her as a character outside of Kenny. Kenny was the drag, although I thought James Houghton did a good job. As for Lillimae, she just got on my nerves. I thought she was fake and sanctimonious. I liked her better when she was called out on this in her first episode. I think Val accepting her back just weakened Val's character. Julie Harris was a good actress, a great actress, and there were some funny little moments I enjoyed, I just don't think she should have been a permanent character.

Plenty of shows kept dead weight characters around that long, or people who some might say weren't working. Dynasty kept Steven long after his expiration date, they kept on trying with Claudia, Falcon Crest kept some dead weight like Chase, etc. I guess I don't see that Ginger didn't work as a character. I liked Constant Companion. I thought it was a good episode, with a good performance from Lankford, and a strong, haunting storyline. I preferred this to the Karen episodes in the first season, which were often very hammy. Most of Ginger's story always felt like a B story to me. She was cheated on. She tried to move on but she was pregnant. Then she sat in the background until the Ciji story. I never felt like there was a huge push to make her a big character and that this failed (I think that is more true of characters like Diana). I think she was always the one of the four who was created to fill out the cast, the original "four couples" concept, and they never tried to move her on from this. I liked a lot of the small amounts of story she got. For instance, I really liked her bond with Karen's brother. This type of small, poignant little story is what helped get me hooked on KL. This was around the time I first started watching the show, and it, along with Laura, helped draw me in. I think it's what the show needed. I don't think the show was the same when they became too dominated by the colder, business figures - they still had people like Val who were more everyday, but there wasn't a great balance. I don't see anything about the Ginger character which could not have transitioned. They transitioned Laura, and Val, who were not exactly suited to a glam format in the show's first years. Cathy was OK. She sang a lot, and things happened to her. I mostly felt like she was there because the show regretted killing Ciji off. She just did not have the spark Ciji had, and I mostly felt like she was a very passive character. I thought the Joshua story was rushed, and after that ended, they had no idea what to do with her. I did not like the Ben/Cathy story, and I think they should have focused more on the Cathy/Laura relationship, or even Cathy/Gary. Overall I just felt like Cathy was a character created to keep an actress around, not a character the show had plans for.

Was this when Mack started having barbecues all the time, or had they already been doing that?

I don't think they really tried, especially not with Ginger. They mostly just had one long story. The last story, with Ciji, had real potential for Ginger. I would have kept her and written Kenny out. I think Ginger could have fit into the middle years of the show. I could have seen her in Cathy's place in the Josh story. Cathy IMO never worked.

Oh I know, I just meant I'm glad of the early 80's ones, as I've never seen them. I've seen the late 80's.

I guess it worked out for the show in the long run, although Stauffer in the role makes more sense with the character outline than studly RvV did. I wonder if he kicked himself later on, as he and Jarrett were not married too long.

Wasn't she mostly a theatre actress?