DRW50

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.

If it was going to happen, Billy might be the best choice.

Thank you @Paul Raven I am always hoping one of the Holloway era's episodes pops up. Thank you for all the articles you've been sharing recently.

I think Stephen was wonderful in his first year or so as Stefan - smoldering, easy chemistry with everyone, and a genuinely mysterious figure. The Stefan/Katherine nonsense took most of his edge away, and even though Guza created the character, I don't think he ever found him again after returning to the show. I lost count of how many times they retconned Nik's paternity, Helena overshadowed Stefan, and he felt emasculated. The complete tedium of Stefan/"Lasha" did not help, but it was beyond that - the Cassadines in general seemed to lose the sense of dread they brought to the canvas in 1996, and it never has returned. That's one of the reasons I don't care that much about a revival. The only one in the long term who kept that menace was Constance Towers, often in spite of the show's best efforts (like Luke humiliating Helena by showing her nude portrait). Ned and Alexis weren't unpopular with fans, but I mainly remember a great deal of apathy surrounding them, and with most material surrounding Ned post-Lois. I felt like they became a default pairing. That's one of the reasons Jax/Alexis were so much more vibrant to me early on, before it became obvious, like with Jason/Carly, the pairing would never happen, and there were some misogynist reasons as to why (allegedly). DAYS is right up there too. (not getting into canceled soaps - if we were, Loving would be in the mix too)

Thanks for mentioning this. I hadn't thought about it in many years but this sounds familiar.

It was also after my time. I remember reading about the change for years before I saw those episodes, what I have seen of them, as it is treated as a seminal moment. I just found myself not enjoying the story much at all when I got to see some of the surviving material. I think the Tom/Margo portions are what bother me most as I don't believe them. I think they were too strong to fall into those traps.

With yet another name (Charles R. Cooper). Did he ever say why he changed his name so many times? I actually thought Jerry worked well enough in this after a rough start. She brings a sweet quality to the role. Where I think they go wrong is it takes so long for Dinah (who is also very good) to start genuinely being kind to her instead of resenting her and trying to steal her offcamera boyfriend. (I wonder if they were holding out for Mick to appear in the part) Still, I thought it was a decent pilot and I'm sorry it didn't get picked up. Dinah got Empty Nest a few years later but I thought they wasted her talents. Thanks @Franko. I never would have heard of a number of these pilots without you.