DRW50

I wonder if they were afraid of Harley having a daughter who was too old. Or they just wanted more characters in that age range. It made no sense. They probably assumed viewers wouldn't notice as Susan had been gone most of the decade. Meanwhile, Rick and Mel had a 16 year old daughter overnight....

McTavish did create the family, first through Maria. When Maria became more popular with viewers than originally expected, her parents arrived, as did Julia (I don't know who was first). I think one of the parents' main purposes was to object to Maria marrying Edmund as well as setting up the whole story of Maria aborting her fetus in the bathtub. Mateo and Anita made brief appearances in 1994 and 1995 before being properly recast. If Mark Consuelos started in February 1995 then I wonder if McTavish did have larger plans for him that Behr and Lorraine Broderick expanded on. Broderick and Behr is when Anita and Mateo got more story and the family was a full unit. I didn't realize Priscilla Garita and Jordana Brewster played Anita before Darlene Dahl. Garita would have been a better choice than Dahl. (I assume Brewster left for ATWT) I see that a Tito Ortiz played Mateo in 1994. I wonder if that is the MMA fighter.

These weren't my first soap memories, but my first memories of watching specific shows: Y&R - Cassandra being tied up with the gun melting in hot ice aimed at her GL - Reva bringing Samantha to the Florida Keys (and soon, driving off the bridge) ATWT- Margo pulling Casey's plug. B&B - Caroline trying to hide her cancer, and Ridge giving her the charm bracelet (as it turns out, the best work Ronn Moss ever did on the show)

I think the show tries to have more humor than Corrie or Emmerdale these days (Emmerdale in particular seems to have become even more downcast than it was in the '70s). I just don't really feel any interest in the characters anymore. I struggle to believe in most of what is being told. Tommy, for instance, I just don't think the role was well cast and they rushed through the story of him abusing Kat. I know Jessie had to be written out but that's not enough of an excuse. I think EE did lose its compass around the late '90s with John Yorke taking over, but I think the show still felt like itself until the mid '00s. The Six is one of those ideas which was created for press stunts and did nothing of value on the show. Kathy was especially damaged. I agree about the problems in Santer's era. We're back there again as many fans seemed to worship Clenshaw the way they worshiped Santer, which means they are likely going to take their disappointment or anger at his exit out on Ben Wadey, as they did with Kirkwood (Kirkwood doing no favors for himself).

Sometimes I think people spend more time hate watching Corrie than caring about EE (beyond the adoration of various memes and camp). When EE is spoken about it often seems like running cover or lowering expectations for choices made rather than genuinely appreciating the content. Now that Martin's been dead several months does it really feel like it mattered, even with his being an original character? If Cindy's return had been done on Corrie or Emmerdale, could we more easily say that pretty much every aspect has been a failure?

I've heard that but mostly I see people tearing apart the writing and lack of purpose of the character or story he's in. I'm surprised partly because they have stuck with him for this long but maybe they're in a budget crunch.

I had no idea just how many soaps he was in. I can't say I was ever into the Kipling stories (I don't think they were the best fit for the show) but I should watch more closely sometime. Betts was a very striking presence. He was born for Dark Shadows, even if he was never on Dark Shadows.

From what some of you have said the main issue with that part really isn't the acting is it? That does seem more likely. GH tends to float recurring actors around for years but the chance of him having any real purpose is probably gone. A shame, as I do think he made Cody work in spite of many poor and confusing choices. It's not as if the canvas is flooded with male talent either so I am not even sure who else would take his spot. We're not going to get much more out of Joss' WSB cohort or Brennan, and Isaiah and Marco will suffer from what anyone who isn't white suffers from on the canvas (doubled by Marco being gay).

Josh left town in early 1991 as he had been told by Sarah and Billy via a travel video that Reva might be there. Sarah and the kids eventually joined him. It's the same actress. When Reva came back, I was very annoyed that Sarah didn't ever reunite with her oncamera...and when she did have scenes with her it was to die. Kim Zimmer also said it was a mistake to kill Sarah, IIRC. Get used to that "find him for me Reva," clip. Don't get used to having an opening credits sequence. At the time a number of fans praised Josh Taylor and said they wished he had stayed as Quint. It made me feel a little bad for Michael Tylo, who was trying, but hurt by losing most of the spark he'd had in the early '80s and Quint being so trashed and then mostly there for bitty scenes with Nola. Also kind of ironic considered Josh rejoined DAYS less than a year later and rarely if ever got any praise for his work. I missed this so wanted to say thanks for summarizing the chapter. Kim was smart to not go for the obvious with her first Emmy reel. The material was good Emmy bait, and she did well, but I don't think they were likely to reward a lot of sci fi (as shown when Deirdre Hall didn't even get nominated the year of the possession). That and she had already won three times.

I don't mind if they have a fun story in place. I know a lot of her fans don't like it, but to be honest I don't think any stories with this character work outside of Maura and the chemistry she shares with certain others (like Trina or Ric), so it doesn't bother me, as long as there's a spark between the actors. Some kind of messy and ill defined grouping of Molly/Cody/Ava/Ric/Liz could be interesting.

Gabrielle Carteris was also a part of that story set. Whenever I see Kathryn I think of her role on Oz.

The whole thing was even worse because it just seemed predicated on Geary's many issues, not any story sense. Among other things a desperate attempt at recreating JJ Lucky, just older and even greasier. If they had really wanted Cody to have a downward spiral at least that would have been a story, but what they tried to tell didn't work (although his punching Drew was fun) and now he's back in the perpetually hesitant place the character is often stuck in.

It still doesn't make a lot of sense to me...clearly Holly and Scorpio have fans (especially Scorpio as he was never really tainted the way Holly was in later writing, aside from a few blips) but they aren't moving numbers. It's not 1984. I don't even know if they have mentioned them in this baby story. Sometimes I think they just needed a reason to break up Cody and Sasha. It would have made more sense with the whole pregnancy lie if she had slept with Michael while she and Cody were broken up and then when she got pregnant and Michael was on fire, she and Cody lied that he was the father.

I'd forgotten about them as the story moved so fast past that early sex point. You're right - in spite of not believing Cassie would be with him, they did have chemistry. Laura Wright's performance style had shifted around that point so it worked more than it would have a few years earlier.

Beyond putting more focus on Clint Buchanan (which didn't last long as Clint Ritchie was let go), I can't think of anything she did on OLTL that was similar to her past work. It was a very dark, ugly show - literally ugly. McTavish said in her memoir that JFP likes to just tell writers what to do, or write the show herself, and that is likely what was going on during Long's tenure.

There were also some nude photos of Grillo from earlier in his career that came out around the time he was on GL (tasteful nudes). He was always full of surprises. I'm glad GL ended before the Botox, facelift, eyelift obsession wreaked even more havoc on soaps...as you said, so many heartbreaking death masks on GH and the Bell soaps. That was around the time the P&G soaps were starting to experiment with male nudity. I can't see that lasting even without Nipplegate, but I do wonder what might have happened. One of the problems is by that point the show didn't have any hot couples anyway (sorry to Shane/Marina fans...).

Thanks. For some reason I thought this was her exit and then the baby ends up being left on Carol's doorstep. It feels like they were rushing the story with the way Natalie's secrets were exposed. Thanks. I'll have to try to remember that. She was a lot of fun as Marcy.

I wasn't watching in that period so I had no idea they'd done jokes about it for years. I'd think a gay producer would know better than to have that type of material on a show mostly for straight viewers, but clearly not. I wonder why they cut the Laura scenes but not Lucky finding out. Did most of the latter happen after the election? The character could be interesting, someday, I suppose, but it's hard to imagine. I'm surprised they even have done as much as they have with Lucas, and that's not very much either.

For daytime, probably Santa Barbara - Eden describing a memory of a murder. I think that must have been part of the Robert storyline. For primetime, probably something from Dallas or Falcon Crest. I remember being horrified by Maggie's drowning.

I wouldn't be surprised.

It was always forced, especially in the '90s when suddenly 25-30 year olds with bosoms aplenty and killer abs would be all over the screen, many of them lucky to get their lines out. That's one of the parts of soaps now being so much more geared to older people (other than DAYS, maybe) that I'm not sorry about. I just have a hard time imagining Frank ever wanting to tell any story with Tobias and Aiden. I am surprised they even made Aiden gay. That seemed to be something that slipped through during the strike. Maybe Frank figured Aiden is never going to matter anyway, so why not.

The biggest issue for me with the Aiden recast was he looked too similar to the age of his onscreen parents. And there just was no real reason to recast him for the amount of story he has. It came across as defensive, like they thought they needed to cast an older looking actor for the part as they had decided Aiden was gay, even though we see almost no focus on him being gay. Now he's just there, likely being seen even less. The UK soaps do like to focus more on teen characters...unfortunately that often just means interchangeable stories about bullying, drugs, and pregnancy, most of them not very good. I wish GH could find some kind of balance, as they did with the teens in the late '90s (other than Nikolas, who always seemed older and a bit out of place to me with that set), but I suppose when you are more focused on a much older cast and older viewers, they don't really want to see teens. In another era they never would have let Joss stagnate to whatever she is now (sadly, any GH era would have treated Trina the way she is treated).

Thanks @Paul Raven Nice to see them still getting use out of the Look to This Day poem...words Joyce probably should have thought about more frequently. They should have utilized Joyce's bond with Dawn later on. Imagine Joyce getting involved with the James harem to try to help Dawn but also developing feelings for him. Or maybe seducing John to protect Dawn. Or killing Brad... This is Natalie's exit from the show, isn't it? It reads as very rushed. Odd choice to have Mary and Sandy on the show at the same time with stories about a bit player husband who dropped dead. They even looked alike to the point where I confused them in the 1978 episode - the only way I could tell them apart was teeth and that Mary was duller. I guess Dan wasn't gone for very long with the recast.

Speaking of that, has Leo been shown to have any reaction to finding out he has a new...what is Gio to Leo again?

IIRC, Tony Geary used to do this. I can't remember if he told the women beforehand. I remember some wild rumors about an AMC actress in the mid '80s who insisted on filming her love scenes nude for the sake of realism. I don't think that would ever fly today, what Kim did, but I suppose she asked Larkin and the crew/production beforehand. I imagine he stayed as long as he did because he was easy to work with. It sure wasn't due to being suited for the role. I can't see Billy as being Reva's best lover either. Maybe they burned up the sheets back in the day, but I can't recall Reva ever feeling any sexual attraction toward him from when she arrived in Springfield. She seemed to love him more like a brother. @alwaysAMC Thanks for all the time you are taking on these summaries. I feel like any time you write these out I pop up with a dig about Kim, but these I mostly just enjoyed...and I appreciate her honesty about her behavior on Oprah. (I never even knew she was on Oprah)