DRW50

That awful wink is always my favorite part. The guy who played Dave was wooden but he had a presence that most of the other younger men on the show didn't have, aside from Ridge. I wonder why they let him go.

Taylor basically replaced Caroline (although I thought Taylor was a sanctimonious hypocrite from early on, which I never felt with Caroline...but then, the writing was better early on), so I guess they may have had some of the same stories. I do think Hunter Tylo's exotic beauty - she was, at one time, probably the most stunning woman on TV - helped give a real contrast to Brooke and made the eternal triangle more believable. In the long run Caroline was probably a character B&B couldn't have sustained, and she was better off leaving after a few years. It's interesting how that story starts in one of the very first episodes (Stephanie gets a phone call and she says never to call her at home). I wonder if it's all online. I know the story mostly because of how much Susan Flannery hated it. She said that the line about Angela's death - "she rolled all the way down 7th Avenue" - is one she used for years any time she thought a story sucked.

Thanks for starting this. That tagline for the ad always seemed tawdry to me, a weird contrast to how uber-serious the show was early on. For me the show was the characters that Bradley Bell likely had little use for - Sally, Darla, Bill Spencer (killed off for no good reason), Felicia. Characters like Taylor and Eric and Donna are one-dimensional and unfortunately so are most of the people they share story with. That and the show's inability to actually develop characters or tell stories mean that they just have to rely on stunts. I doubt I have as much as you do but I hope to post some stuff when I can find it again. My B&B favorite will always be Joanna Johnson. So regal, and pretty, yet never the typical weepy/dull soap heroine.

Sorry, I'd forgotten I hadn't finished the Anne Burr article.

The last episode. I think the last scenes are quite touching. It's a nice tonic to what soaps have become. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a5O6BknvMXs&feature=mfu_in_order&list=UL http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJ31mviiccE

I'm always so confused by the timelines with the Aaron story. I know in some mid-1993 episodes John and Iva are back together. I can't remember if he knew by then. In late 1993 he was going to sue her for custody (perhaps that was just for MJ). At the time did you think they had Iva get pregnant with MJ to somehow make up for the impending loss of Aaron? I have wondered for a while what the story plans would have been for Iva if Doug Marland had lived. He and Lisa Brown were very close friends and I don't know if he would have let them write Iva out, if he had any say in the matter. What I hated most about the Aaron story is that after Holden took Aaron I don't remember him spending any time with Aaron at all. He just dumped the kid off on people. At the time that infuriated me, especially since Iva was gone and that meant a year and a half of Holden moping about Lily and staring into space. No thanks.

I was so busy reading various boards talking about the episode that I never had the energy to comment on it myself. I thought it was pretty good, excellent in places. The only real complaint I have is in story mechanics - it was all too distracting, I was constantly reminded I was watching a TV show (a character is created just to overhear a conversation and blurt out a secret; Denise destroys a table of food; Yusef's cousin has to very blatantly, and repeatedly, tell us that Yusef started the fire). That aside, the Masood drama was top-notch, with wonderful performances from everyone, and high drama all around. Hamesh Patel's best performance so far was the scene where he told everyone he and Afia were already married. The scene where Masood punched Yusef was sudden and brutal - exactly what soap violence these days often is not. Seeing Christian and Syed integrated more into family life is a smart decision and it's been very well-paced. Syed is more of a mommy's boy but his steadfast support of Masood in the last few months, in spite of everything Masood has done to him, is touching, and I really wish we could see some more Syed/Masood scenes on their own.

Given that Santer utterly destroyed Tanya and made Max totally irrelevant, I can't imagine what he would do with the characters at this point. I'm just sorry they have, yet again, made Max all about Tanya. He's a very isolated character and he's gone from my favorite person to watch to someone I barely notice. That's the "Tan" touch. I hear a lot of talk about how Max drags Tanya down, but she interacts with a variety of characters, she has a great new friendship with Syed. Max has...

Oh. For some reason I thought the affair wouldn't come out until after she battles cancer. I didn't read closely. I think that there were many issues going on with Ryan onscreen and off that doomed him, and I have mixed feelings on Vanessa, but I would have kept Greg and Mercy, definitely. Greg is a very rare male character for Eastenders. I have no use for more "bad boys" or "hard men" or "ladykillers." I miss the days of Lofty Holloway.

I kept thinking this would be more than a pregnancy. I'm sure Jake and Jo will do a great job. I wonder how this will affect Greg's character - I can see him smothering Tanya and she pushes him out of her life.

I knew he was on by the mid-60's because of the books and the story and script breakdowns I posted some pages ago from that Mary Hartman Mary Noble book, but I didn't realize he was on from 1960. That's quite a run. How many Ricks were there again?

I do wonder about what was going on at the show at this time. This is a decided move away from the 50's episodes I've seen, which are much more full of clear "good" and "bad" characters. How did viewers adapt? What did they think of people like Barbara and Rick and did they miss Meg, or Paul? How long was this after Meg and Paul were gone? 2-3 years? Was the older woman the one who had an evil twin? I can never remember the stories. I have to admit that I wasn't overly enthralled with Rick and Barbara here, but I know how important Rick became later on. The older characters are the ones I was most interested in in this episode. I'd love to see the blooming flower one.

saynotoursoap has put up a 1960 episode which gives us our first glimpse (if we weren't watching the show back when it first aired) of Rick and Barbara. I wonder how long this theme lasted. I don't like it that much. I keep expecting to see Doctor Who grinning at me. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oXhKHSAUiCw&feature=mfu_in_order&list=UL http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CrGISjyL8n0&feature=mfu_in_order&list=UL

I've always wondered what happened with Rick Ryan when they brought Gary Hudson in in 1982. That ended up being so short-lived.

I'm almost done with this - sorry it's taken a while to type up. Did you see the Search article I posted yesterday?

I think the problem with B&B is overusing the same Forresters. There are a lot of Hughes that didn't need to return, but Frannie, or Andy, for instance, could have easily fit back into story. Why not do that instead of bringing back Meg as a brand new character. I also wish they had brought in Edith Hughes or her and Chris' brother. saynotoursoap uploaded a very rare 1957 episode that shows us more on these characters. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3_k8oF82bvQ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=loGVdFM5q04&feature=mfu_in_order&list=UL

February 1957 TV Radio Mirror

February 1957 TV Radio Mirror.

I thought the biggest problem with Jack and Carly was the material - they had the same story again and again. The show never really let them mature, the way Tom and Margo did throughout the 80's. The worst part of the attempts at EON is that Sheffer and Goutman were woefully unsuited to that type of material. I don't remember any story in this time ever having any good ending or followthrough. I never knew why they were so reluctant to bring back any Hughes (except for Chris, again and again). I think they just assumed viewers were too stupid to know the show's history and were ashamed of the soap format and the show's legacy. Even at the end, when Nancy passed away, there was not one mention of most of the family. They somehow managed to mention Susan Hughes, who died before the show began, but nothing of people viewers had seen onscreen and would know.

GL re-used that "they're at Company" thing with the Reardons when Maureen died. I think it's cheap. Bolger has more exotic looks than Aleksander but it does seem like Aleksander was more suited, talent or charisma-wise, to a darker role, whereas Bolger, when JFP tried to make him seem dark (on OLTL), never worked. But I do wish he'd stayed at GL a little longer, or had more to do. I remember how good some of his scenes with India were, when he wasn't acting morally superior to her that is. The desk sex scene is very hot.

Thanks so very much for the writeup on ATWT. It's a good reminder of when networks had patience nad support for soaps, and didn't expect quick miracles. And of how unique ATWT was. Of all the soaps that have gone off in recent years ATWT was the one I still felt had the most life in it, even if the last 15 years of the show I was often so upset by.