DRW50

I think there were a number of little moments, some good performances, etc. I appreciated the return of Jordan Clarke, an actor I adored and never thought would be back, and somehow, he stayed (off and on) for another 13 years. I appreciated getting to see Tammy Blanchard and Matt Bomer learn how to act. I was very glad to see Vanessa written like her old self again (in the last few years of the show), which I didn't ever expect. Amy Ecklund gave some very strong performances as Abby, from the rape storyline to Abby leaving Rick. I liked that the show brought Mindy back several times after the character was consigned to the wastelands when Barbara Crampton left. She was used just enough to remind of what a good presence she was but not enough to be ruined. Ditto for India (I am disappointed we never saw India in the last few years though). The 60th and 70th anniversaries were well done (better than many soap anniversaries). Mary Stuart had some wonderful moments in an otherwise very rough period for the show. I'm glad she got to spend her last few years reminding viewers why she had been a soap icon for generations. I was always glad to see David Andrew Macdonald, even if he rarely got material up to his charisma. Ditto for Paul Anthony Stewart, maybe one of the biggest overperformers in GL history compared to what Danny should have been. There were good moments here and there with very squandered characters like Holly and Ed. I was always glad to see Ross, even if Jerry was so wasted. I appreciate that the show somehow made me care about Dinah, a character I wanted to shoot out of a cannon for the first 2-3 years of Wendy Moniz's run and a character I blamed in part for the decline of my beloved Vanessa. As others have said over the years, I'm glad GL eventually shook off a lot of the gloss and airs put on Reva. I will always appreciate the returns of the finale weeks, even if some weren't what they could have been. Even after all this time I'm still touched by the beautifully character-true and perfectly pitched farewell for Nola (I'm guessing Lisa Brown did the whole thing, not the script, but I don't care). The show ended with a lot of love and a lot of heart, which is not as common as it should be for soap finales.

SNL almost always makes their musical performances private after a week or two.

Thanks. I guess they knew most fans weren't going to pay attention, even in the VCR era.

That's a good way to look at it. Both Ally and Shana interacted with AMC characters too (I wonder if that line was before or after Shana actually met Trevor).

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/tony-roberts-dead-woody-allen-annie-hall-1236130177/ Tony is listed as playing a doctor on the November 1, 1994 episode. Was it just a small part?

There's another episode up now. I think I've figured out what seems odd to me. Have they used some kind of AI to upscale the thumbnails?

It was killing off so many characters, the lack of characters I could care about (beyond Victoria, I suppose) and just finding the story very heavy going that made me check out of the revival as it went along. I remember the DS anniversary book that came out in '91 or so suggesting that House of Dark Shadows being so dark was why the show lost more viewers. I don't think that's entirely true - DS was a fad with a lot of young people who were growing out of watching and the pace of the show also couldn't be sustained - but I do think DS at its core is extremely dark in ways that the ridiculousness the show could veer into post-1795 or so managed to mask or balance. The revival being more polished meant the ridiculousness was gone. The Big Finish audios, the few I've listened to, are the same - good, but incredibly bleak. I know the Tim Burton film is campier, but I have no real interest in seeing it, especially after Lara Parker's comments about hambone Helena Botham Carter being two-faced. Holy hell - as I was finishing this post the old commercial reel I was watching had KLS selling houses for Century 21. How eerie. How fitting for DS.

I think this was the scenes that got laughs at the time because Alex was holding Andi hostage with a curling iron or something along those lines. I am not sure if Alex was in those. I did wonder if they might have been thinking of moving Alex over to OLTL. I think it was around March? I can't remember.

@EricMontreal22 A lot of AMC was purged from Youtube, at least the full episodes, although some is back. There is or was a lot of '80s AMC on Archive.

Kamar going to PC to help kick the show off would have been a good idea, if it had worked out, although there was probably too much going on to really fit him in. I had forgotten about the Nora and Gannon crossovers to AMC, which may be for the best as IIRC the Cutting Edge one isn't great. I also did not remember Paul Martin returning to OLTL in 1983. That must have been difficult for Paul Mooney. I think they missed Alex appearing on OLTL in 1997. The only reason I know about the Princi Dorian/Adam Chandler crossover is the AMC cards I used to have. Jake doing a stint on GH with Lucky Lippman could have been fun, although if this was during the big Monty changeover I'm not surprised she wouldn't go for it.

They were there for the Dolly story - I am not sure if that was down to them as someone at the network pushed it (then again, they did supernatural stories at PC). I think Lucky Gold was there for the portrait story. Ghost Reva was right before McTavish, I think. Wiki lists her as starting right after Douglas Anderson, but I could have sworn there was some gap in-between. Maybe not. You're not wrong about the tone of GL at that time.

@EricMontreal22 Thanks! Kamar going to PC to help kick the show off would have been a good idea, if it had worked out, although there was probably too much going on to really fit him in. I had forgotten about the Nora and Gannon crossovers to AMC, which may be for the best as IIRC the Cutting Edge one isn't great. I also did not remember Paul Martin returning to OLTL in 1983. That must have been difficult for Paul Mooney. I think they missed Alex appearing on OLTL in 1997. The only reason I know about the Princi Dorian/Adam Chandler crossover is the AMC cards I used to have. Jake doing a stint on GH with Lucky Lippman could have been fun, although if this was during the big Monty changeover I'm not surprised she wouldn't go for it. I don't know if I buy that about Ceara and Jeremy being a popular couple... I didn't know Deborah mentioned Erica being on AMC. That's a very sloppy line that should have never gotten through. Erica was even mentioned on Loving as a real person after Jeremy died.

Most of them want Democrats to lose. They hate them. They hate us. They hate America. They love Trump because he has done more to end the "American empire" than anyone outside of Putin, and because he gives them permission to be bigots - he makes it cool and fun. They continue to insist that Harris lost because she didn't do all they wanted, because they can't admit how little power they have in this country outside of an increasingly tiny social media following, and half of those are Nazis.

He can always hope for another Big Brother guest hosting stint. I'd never heard of most of these shows. I'd say Extra possibly ending is an end of an era, but that era ended 10 or more years ago. These days people just go online for celebrity gossip.

I was more for Boonie. Adrienne Barbeau was also in that Balkan story. I do think some of the Zacchara dynamics worked, at least with Johnny and Claudia (I think Weitz was miscast). I remember, from the bits I watched, Benzali doing a good job, but I just didn't care. It came across to me as Guza being more ashamed than ever of having to be on a soap instead of getting to peddle his leather jacket publicity photo in primetime.

Thanks. That was all past me.

Me too. That was the role most suited to him as he could generally brood and provide the right atmosphere for the show, when he wasn't man #394 in love with McMurphy. I do feel a little bad for the actress who played Blaze that they are bringing in her whole family and shitcanned her. I'd rather they just write them all out for the sake of fairness.

Thanks for sharing that. I'm glad it was her choice and she's happy with where her life is now.

The initial story of Justus working with the mob, spurning everything that had been taught to him, could have had potential, with the Quartermaines as well as the triangle with legal eagle Dara and cop Taggert. As you said, they just didn't care. Someone also decided that Joseph C. Philips was wrong for who Justus now was, and brought in Monti Sharp, who, similar to his brief ATWT run, seemed to have lost most of what made him special on GL and just seemed slimy. I wasn't surprised he was only on for a short time. I don't even know what they did with the last Justus, beyond being a monk and being killed.

They've done a number on Chris' kids - Phoenix became a drug addict and committed suicide. Finn was physically abusive toward his wife Esther (although they made peace in his later guest appearances). In the finale, Harry was brought back to Ferndale (after the family had paid his way in spending most of the year on the run), and Chris, along with Finn, insisted he must face justice. Chris' brother Guy, and other son Frank, wanted him to get help but not go to the cops. After Harry held Chris at knifepoint, they finally agreed that Harry needed to be arrested. Sass, maybe the only one who could have added some personality, wasn't able to make it - I guess the actress wasn't available. Due to her absence, you had various Warner men with the designer stubble of angst, and Chris saying they were all cursed because of his father and the usual soap routine of rich families being damned and evil (sadly, no scene of him beating a tomb with a crowbar). He told them that he wanted to dissolve the family trust and give all the money to charity. They said, basically, lolfuckno, and removed him as head of the trust. And yes, the show has often had almost nothing but bleak material, even though a number of fans have told me the show often had comedy for many years. The nadir was 2023 when the "meet the new residents" program (Harry's reintro) led to none of them staying on the show, one being gunned down, and another having his hand smashed to pieces and becoming a drug addict. But the good news is he returned for about two days to have sex with Phil and then disappear.

That SNL is something many modern viewers probably wouldn't be able to process anyway. I think the show still has some good moments, but there's a huge dividing line between the first 25 years and the second 25 years.

She still had her moments, but they really bogged her down with too many stories about leaving the kids, struggling with the kids, and cheating. She began an affair with another woman this past year, named Phil, who was an awful mess of a character (she started on the show a few months earlier in a "no labels" relationship with a male doctor - in no time she was aggressively pursuing Harper and we were meant to feel sorry for her, to the point where she was given a miscarriage, a past suicide attempt, a past abusive boyfriend, etc.). They got a lot of fans, as those pairings always do, but the show ultimately had Harper return to Drew before she died. They died in a bike crash, which I don't think was all that well done, frankly, especially the choice to have wacky music play right before the crash. They also kept having Harper run into injured or dead mothers before she died, which I found somewhat trite. TK's exit leaves a bad taste in the mouth, because he has not been seen since he and his wife (who should have stayed on the show) move back to his old homestead, but we hear every month or so that he is depressed, still can't walk, and Esther avoids seeing him because it makes her feel sad. A great way to treat a character who was a lynchpin of the show for decades. When I was writing up my comments above, I forgot to say that the story with Chris' mental breakdown over his son Harry being a murderer was also a strong plot, even if I disagree with the decision to make him a serial killer. His on/off girlfriend Selina's breast cancer story was also very good - I don't remember if you were watching when the wretched Desi was there, but Selina is Desi done right. Thaddeus, the show's Damo knockoff, is also very likeable, or would be if he was not constantly given terrible plotlines with exhausted characters.

Nicole had been going through a year of hell, starting with not liking or trusting the girl, Cassie, who had Maeve's grandchild and was living with them. Cassie had used drugs during her pregnancy and woke up in the park believing her baby was dead. As it turns out, a nurse at the hospital (the actor actually had been an extra on the show for several years as a nurse) had taken the baby and given it to his wife, Louisa, who had not been able to cope with their baby dying. Louisa tried any trick she could to stay close to the baby, including secretly breast feeding the baby. She was finally sent away to get help. The story then began to focus on Nicole's financial worries, as well as her depression over Leanne dying of cancer. The best part of the story, mostly due to the work from Sally and Jennifer Ludlum. The aftermath of the story included one of the worst scenes of any soap I watched last year, where we suddenly learned that Leanne had a priceless vase handed down generations so that Nicole could smash it...moments before learning the vase was hugely valuable. I HATE this type of writing. Nicole began to confide in a grief group chat, telling them everything...including that in a weak moment she kissed Drew. They also convinced Nicole to put spy cams in the house because Nicole was convinced Cassie had stolen jewelry from her. One of the people in the chat then spilled all the beans to Maeve, including about the kiss, wanting to show Maeve how much she had hurt Nicole. That person was kicked out of the group, and Nicole continued on with her good friends. Now we come to the part that should have been brilliant - the reveal that the group chat members were all Louisa, to gaslight Nicole and cause more instability that would lead her back into the baby's life. Unfortunately, they chose to have Louisa return to town about a week before the reveal, and as soon as she returned, I knew it was her. Using the group, Louisa lured Nicole to an abandoned factory. She held her hostage unless Maeve agreed to get her the baby. Maeve conned her with a fake baby and while she and Nicole were left at the factory together, Nicole managed to escape (not bothering to help Maeve). Louisa had realized the con and gone to the house, where she was harassing Cassie to give her the baby. When Maeve finally got there, she found Nicole trying to keep an injured Louisa alive. Louisa was taken to the hospital and soon died. Nicole and Cassie both told the police that Nicole had tried to keep her away from the baby and pushed her, leading her to hit her head on the counter. The autopsy said the injuries were more severe than that, and after a lot of angst, Nicole was arrested. There was then a lot of doubt about whether or not Cassie had killed her, and Nicole was covering for her. Maeve was torn between them. Nicole went on trial (a trial we actually saw - I guess that's where the budget went) and was acquitted. Cassie by this point had run away after Maeve had caught her with an urn with Leanne's ashes, which she'd insisted Nicole had killed Louisa with. Nicole insisted this wasn't true. But after she saw Cassie was back, she was so angry, she almost picked up the ashes and hit her too. This is when her mental block faded, and she remembered hitting Louise with the urn. Nicole spent one last Christmas with her son, Pele, and with Maeve, and said goodbye to Harper (not telling anyone of her plans), before telling Maeve that she had called the police as she was too unstable and needed to be locked up. Maeve was, of course, devastated, and the two had a teary goodbye. Now Maeve will be raising Pele, I guess, unless he's shipped to Nicole's mentally ill brother who hasn't been seen in a decade, or cute Eddie, who did make a cameo via Skype but otherwise is barely seen or mentioned and probably wouldn't be able to raise a child (Esther is happy enough to ignore that he is her son's father). The story, along with the story about Harper cheating on Drew and him having a breakdown, attempting suicide, blaming himself for the death of one of Boyd's children (a story badly truncated because the show would only keep Boyd on for a few weeks at a time, presumably due to financial reasons), took up so much time in the year, and was a huge slog. They wrote Nicole into a complete corner to where she and Maeve had no personality between them beyond tears and misery. If the show stays on I could see her returning, but it would have to be a hell of a lot better than what she's had on the show in recent times. If you want to see any of the clips, there is someone on Youtube who exclusively clipped Nicole and Nicole/Maeve stuff. If you ever want to know what else you missed this year, I'll just say try to look for the stories involving Emmett and Nazar and avoid most of the rest.

I think @Vee used to mention some lines from Tracy taunting Rae that it could have been something she met while trawling the docks.

Even all these years later I'm still impressed with the dogged work the man who ran the channel did, not only with so many classic clips (most of which I'd never seen until I found his channel), but he also had a blog where he tried to find positive moments in the show's last years. He truly loved the show. It was awful to learn he'd passed away, but at least he never had to see GL end.