DRW50

I never really felt onscreen that it was a younger man/older woman story. Of course it was, but Derwin seemed older than his age while Erika Slezak aged well and managed to maintain a certain vitality that never moved into the Sally Field Soapdish mode of desperation. That may be another reason I didn't care about the story - there was no believable conflict. I'm not saying I would have wanted her paired up with Jason Webb, although that would have been preferable to many of the choices made with Viki in OLTL's last few decades. It's always interesting to see opinion now compared to the time. I remember some fans who VOCALLY loathed Clint and the Clint/Viki relationship. They thought he was controlling and abusive and were glad she got to move on. I always liked Clint and Clint/Viki, but then I started OLTL much later than they had - if I'd watched all through the Rauch years or the early '90s when they made Clint a homophobe, I might have had a different view. The Rappadavidsons and other toys like Tim Gibbs' godawful Kevin were a forerunner to the divisive, cynical approach of soaps in the last few decades, and of JFP as a producer - to try to make them popular she was willing to trash large portions of the canvas. And they were popular only with a subset of fans who only seemed to watch for them (similar to many fans now), which meant when Gary Tomlin booted their asses, many fans didn't seem to care. (I will say I never even saw a single fan of Gibbs' Kevin) She also tried hard to use Asa as a boo hiss baddie to make viewers warm to them, as had been done in the past with characters like Lee Ann, but for the most part I remember fans siding with him. IIRC, once Tomlin comes in, Ben does become a more palatable character, but he was also heavily backburnered as it was clear Mark Derwin was leaving.

@Liberty City Thanks for the article. Another reminder of how important soaps are in keeping actors going. The part about Justin paying her SAG dues even when she had decided to leave the industry is sweet.

That does make more sense. That's true. I have never been sure how popular the Phil recast was, but I know Linc and Kitty/Kelly had a following. I suppose Agnes felt after all the turmoil there was nowhere left to go, and ageism may have also played a factor. I do wish they had tried to keep Linc as a more active part of the canvas, as White had a unique presence I don't think Richard Van Vleet quite had.

Thanks. As we age we lose more memories but it's kind of shocking self-professed soap fan Andy Cohen did not know SMG played Kendall and thought she played Bianca. I suppose it was more of a jolt for Y&R fans because Jaime Lyn Bauer was still there. Other than Paul, all the members of the Tyler and Martin families who were written out were not played by anyone viewers cared about.

The show has such a terrible history on this front. They had the social issue pairing of Simone and Tom, which they never seemed to take seriously as an actual couple, and then we start getting the couples where you get the sense that they are just default pairings, and the show would rather find a more "suitable" white partner. I guess Nik and Gia might be the most prominent exception, but not much of anyone cared about Nik during that period of time due to the recast.

Given the current climate I am unsure if there will ever be a major interracial relationship on GH again (there were very few in the first place). For many years I've resented Steve Burton's presence on GH because I feel like he has often done the bare minimum and any time he manages more it's seen as a miracle, but I do think there's a more open path for him these days with many of Jason's key relationships gone (Robin, Sam) or just not as important anymore (Sonny). The scene where he whooped Drew's ass was effective even if the story isn't anything special because you were reminded that isn't Jason Morgan very often now. I wasn't exactly a steady viewer during Sam's heyday, but I think there was something unique about Kelly - a mix of intensity and vulnerability. As time passed, this seemed to just fade away to sleepytime. I still would have kept Sam over a number of other spent characters, but in theory, there is so much more story for her dead than alive. If only I thought they would make the effort.

I do think the show in that period tried to write Lily as more mature - one of the few positives of the nasty story with Molly drugging Holden to lie that they had had sex was Lily did not believe her and soon found evidence proving Holden's innocence - but returning Lily to being hysterical was an inevitability. Darryl being the killer would have been a fitting finish, but I don't think it was the reason the story didn't work. The whole thing just ran too long. Even then, if Frannie had remained on the canvas, there would have been a powerful story, not just in showing her getting over what happened, but also her hostility with Barbara. I felt like they might have been teasing a Frannie/Hal pairing too. I'm sorry Marland's likely plans to bring Frannie back never got to happen. That was a real mistake and made the whole Darryl story seem like a waste of time.

The Brent/Marian story, if we're mentioning GL, falls into some of the same pulpy and very charged material. There's so much that I don't even know if I could rewatch and was disgusting from a writing standpoint - even having Brent fake HIV results to make Lucy think she was positive - but it was a very strong story in performance and atmosphere most of the way through and easily the highlight of Sonia Satra's tenure. The show may have been canceled if not for that story. Frank Beaty was an extremely rare talent and McTavish used every drop of that talent. It did seem obvious at the end of the story that they were planning to keep him on if they could, which would have been a horrible choice, no matter how superb he was.

I'd forgotten the David stuff. At least it gave Vincent some good scenes for an episode or two before he just became a Babe prop. I agree the 4th of July aspects were a strong return to AMC's core. The scenes with Bianca, and then the aftermath, were also powerful, although the whole thing was grotesque. Few soap writers gave me as many conflicting feelings as she did.

Megan McTavish did many horrible things in her daytime career, and I realize how patronizing it is to repeatedly say oh if only she'd had a handler. However, I do think that as much as she brought a very amoral, corroded atmosphere to AMC, she "got" the nature of the show more than many of the headwriters of its last decades (not counting Lorraine Broderick). It would be extremely hypocritical of me to praise the Bianca rape story after I trashed the Viki sexual abuse story, so I will just say the story did turbocharge AMC after years of malaise and provided tons of material for the Kane family. I give her a lot of credit for putting Kendall into a tricky anti-heroine role - she was one of the few who ever knew what to do with the character. There were a number of smaller character moments and pairings under her watch that I appreciated, like Stuart and Marian. And I appreciated that she gave Gloria a good sendoff after years of neglect.

Jim Muneco has uploaded three June 1985 episodes. These have been up before, as the great Loving blog recapped them, but I hadn't seen them, so I'll share them in case you hadn't either. @dc11786 @slick jones @Paul Raven @Sapounopera @NothinButAttitude @Vee @TheyStartedOnSoaps @Manny @Franko @Maxim @Forever8 @te. @SoapDope @Matt @Joseph @John @Contessa Donatella @j swift @Khan @BetterForgotten @chrisml @Soaplovers

It would be nice for Liz to have a daughter. I wondered at times if that was the plan for her with Violet but Liz was there just to play handmaiden to Finn.

I do think this hurt a number of shows. The cuts on GL from 81-84 did damage they never recovered from. It didn't hurt OLTL, although it is a shame longtimers like Rafe did not get proper exits.

Was there even much reason to have Lucas blame himself for Sam's death for such a short period? Just another reason I don't believe he's going to be around long.

I saw a tweet about how they were making people forget Emme. Nothing against Emme, but that's not overly difficult...

Rex's death would have made more sense to me if it had produced strong story for Jill and for Katherine, but it did not. Katherine had scraps for years, and if Bill had remained fully in control of the show, I wonder how much longer she would have lasted given how comfortable Jeanne was blasting the show to the press.

Going through the worst mistakes by good talent thread, I am reminded of how dark AMC was for much of the mid/late '90s. I sometimes wonder if that is the reason the show lost some of its place in the public consciousness, even if it always maintained a certain cachet compared to many other soaps. Even when Broderick, a better and more balanced writer than McTavish (I am fonder of McTavish's AMC than many but I can't deny how bleak it would become - beyond all the rape and miscarriages/stillbirths, I still have the memory of an episode with a young gay man screaming and sobbing to Julia that he didn't want to die of AIDS), took over, the show could not seem to resist succumbing to darkness much of the time. AMC had had a certain level of darkness in past years, but much of that came into the gothic tones Agnes Nixon loved. Even when '90s AMC had those tones, all at Wildwind, it was never quite the same, as those extremely difficult scenes of Erica's miscarriage remind me. I wonder what people would say marks the start of the shift. I would say Kendall's arrival, as in the '80s Erica's plots could often be a balance to some of the grittier material.

Hollyoaks did this with a number of longstanding characters (far more than yummy Father Tony) in 2010 when hack Brian Marquess took over - there was a scene of them sitting at the bus stop and leaving. Soaps are much more averse to that concept now, for whatever reason (maybe guarantees).

You could go all out and have Kristina seduce her and Alexis ends up going full Cassadine with Natalia dying in a mysterious car accident not long afterward...but that's probably best left to AO3.

I know it would play into the homophobe = gay trope, but I just think it would be very funny. And Natasha + Natalia - it all fits.

She should hook up with Natalia.

As Kevin's ex Marie was short term, the only other option would have been Shannon. I think keeping the feud between them going longer and allowing Shannon to remain a more secretive, complex character would have benefited her, rather than going from hijinks to misery as she lost more and more of her own voice. I do think the decision with Barbara made sense in the long term, and he gave her more layers than he gave most of his other vixens (maybe because they were good friends).

That likely is when the antipathy began. I was barely bothering at that point. I have a vague memory of a scene where he was carrying Alexis out of a room... The main problem with Chloe was trying to replace Brenda in Jax's life. She was perfectly pleasant, but it was an impossible task for the viewers who loved Brenda. I think it made sense to go with someone who was very different to Brenda, but the pairing also underscored that Jax just wasn't very compelling without a strong scene partner. I was not really into Jax/Brenda either, but I can admit now that Vanessa did a lot of heavy lifting. Tava Smiley couldn't. I think NLG could have, but the show wasn't going to go there, for whatever deeply sad reason. The story also seemed to go on and on with an underwhelming conclusion, because in a story like that, when you have mixed marrieds, you expect more tension and maybe a surprise ending. Otherwise why are you telling the story? They never had a story where Sonny married Lois and Ned married Brenda. I don't know if it is the writers' fault, or anyone's fault, per se, about Ned post-Lois. I do think the decision to focus on his self-imposed martyrdom to the Quartermaines and being a sanctimonious ass was extremely tiresome. As I also had little interest in seeing Wally Kurth rock out, there was little of value for me with the character. I think Ned just wasn't an interesting character most of the time and it was only the Lois period that truly clicked with a lot of fans.

Under Malone she was just there to party. Then she became a supervillain under Tomlin. I thought Tess was cartoonish under Ron, especially when they brought in the very silly Bess element, but I haven't gone back to watch.