DRW50

@dc11786 Thanks so much for your help with the date. I have not watched a lot of the Karen Harris period of PC but I need to. My main viewing was the Latham era (which felt very unpleasant, dark [who wanted to see Lucy blind her daughter???], and full of agendas) and the Hamner era (which was just a big mess). Then some of the arcs, most of which weren't that good aside from Time in a Bottle. You are right that too much of The City focused on unpleasant younger characters sniping at each other. I think the young people they created for the end of Loving to take over to The City weren't the best choices - I don't know what happened with Alimi Ballard but Frankie should have been a no-brainer. Characters like Danny were powered solely by the charisma of the actors and had little to offer themselves.

I'd never seen this before today. I don't think whoever wrote it was jabbing at OLTL itself, just taking cheap shots at all soaps, but still, I feel some satisfaction when I see shows that went after soaps in such lazy terms and then flopped. (I still find Susan Powter hilarious though, so this isn't an attack on her)

It was, yes. I do wonder how it played onscreen - on paper it's just another reminder to me of what a hollow core AW had by that point. You have a major Hollywood movie, gangsters gone wild...what IS your show? At least when Lemay made the show more Transatlantic and threw in the Chadwell scenes too he still seemed to try to tie into bread-and-butter moments in Bay City. You're right about Vicky. The twins were kind of a dumb idea when you think about it. I think RKK did a good job as Sam but I agree the character didn't need to return. It's just if you are bringing him back, I think you may as well bring him back in that part, especially as (even if she wasn't on the show then) Amanda was still an important character. It's not like Sam had a rich backstory and he also had an edge to him so if they wanted RKK to come in and smolder and be bad-ass and rock his beard and all the rest they still could have done it. They even could have paired him with Vicky if they wanted it that much. Imagine Amanda's fury over that.

Thanks. I did too. They have changed the photo again, this time to a solo photo (the last was of Esta and Amelia Marshall at an awards show).

That's a lovely tribute. I'm glad they were still close. Thanks for the education. It's been changed now, thankfully.

Thanks. That makes sense. I wonder how that happened. AI again? I guess they were at the same awards function and that's all it took. After the way he treated her I lost interest, but there's no denying they had the most chemistry together of any of his pairings (she never really had any other proper pairing).

Deadline's obituary doesn't even have the right photo. (I think that's Lauren B. Martin, Camille from ATWT, among other roles). Kind of says it all about the view of daytime in the industry. https://deadline.com/2024/07/esta-terblanche-dead-all-my-children-obituary-1236016866/ Thank you for the extra details. I remember that Tad scene now. The last few years before that character was trashed.

That would be Broderick. I don't remember a lot about Tad but I do remember her trying to get close to Edmund (or I think I do, anyway). Late Broderick also had Tad and Edmund going to save Gloria from Dimitry and get the baby back from him. I am not sure if she would have reunited Tad/Gloria or if Teresa Blake was leaving anyway.

I had forgotten about the Tad part. Edmund ends up having a fairly decent (for soaps) mourning period until TKFP fiasco... I imagine some people just thought she had some generic Eurotrash accent especially as the various types of South African accents weren't as well known to the American public. I'm glad most people had the sense to know better.

It's a shame the non-cliffhanger footage isn't available as some of those characters might have had better exits. When Gillian first arrived in Pine Valley she was a gold digger, planning to woo Edmund, and then she switched to Scott. Her intro was faking a car breakdown to try to charm Kevin Sheffield (having no idea that he was gay). There was one particular moment SPW went to town on during a hurricane (a story that felt like it was severely curtailed, maybe due to the incoming writing changeover) where Gillian went outside during the "hurricane" to have fun in the water. It was McTavish who turned opinion of Gillian around through the initial love story with Ryan, where Gillian ultimately chose love over money (the show also seemed to be suggesting Kelsey and Scott might get together, but neither lasted the rest of the year). Sadly, she then ruined the whole thing by having Gillian sleep with David for Ryan's bail money or whatever and then have Ryan basically call her a big whore and dump her, but the character still remained well-liked in spite of being ill-used from that point on.

I think she mentioned the replacement having short dark hair or red hair - I can't remember. Makes me think it was a '60s Patti. IMDB says Steve Nisbet.

Between the dead end left (many of whom are virulently homophobic and proud of it), the issues he had with black voters, and the campaign against him and his husband for having kids (along with the general campaign from left and right to demonize gay parenting in this country), it's a lot, but I do think he's been a very effective part of Biden's administration, more than I would have expected.

Similar to her I think he's just too despised on all sides, but he's a very good communicator, one of the best in the party. He should be doing this from now to November.

There was the story Mary Stuart told about when they had recast Patti yet again, Jo's first line to her was, "Is that you, Patti?" Seeing the absurdity, she asked them to change it, but they wouldn't.

Loath as I am to post a Bill Maher clip, Pete Buttigieg does a very good job here of explaining in very clear terms the motivations of JD Vance and also why Peter Thiel supports a fascist even though he's a gay man.

Thanks again.

An interview with Esta from just a few weeks ago. https://www.soapoperadigest.com/content/catching-up-with-esta-terblanche

AMC was in such a dark period when Gillian arrived. The character was a bit of a mess early on, but Esta was just so charismatic and fun and likeable, it was hard not to warm to her. And I loved her relationship with her grandmother, played by the wonderful Meg Mundy. The last few years of Gillian's run seemed to not understand what made her work, but Esta was always worth watching. I still remember how upset fans were over her death and how the show tried a very blatant ass-covering way as they knew people were going to be upset. I hope she knew how many fans loved her work.

I can't imagine being a viewer in 1961 and going from Lynn Loring to Nancy Pinkerton.

All we're missing is Streisand.

That's awful. I remember some here talking about how she didn't seem right when she was on Locher Room last year or the year before. She was so charming and compelling as Gillian, especially that first year or so before McTavish took away Gillian's spark.

I think Biden has been treated disrespectfully, but, as someone who thought many of the criticisms of his age were hyperbolic, I also think he and his campaign got overconfident at the wrong time with the debate and walked into a trap that the GOP and the media set. Any wrong word or wobble is going to follow Biden from now until November, constantly harped on by not just the press, but many in the party who have given up and are just trying to cut their losses. The frailty and hesitancy from him is now the full face, whether that is fair or not. And his frustration over what that debate unleashed means more and more of a bunker mentality. I don't know if there will be a big unity or rallying moment, but even if there is, I am not sure it will mean a great deal to all the people who aren't already loyal and are hearing constantly from the press and those in their lives about the wonders of Trump and the GOP or being pushed to just stay home because both sides bad, nothing matters. But if there is going to be a rallying moment it has to come very soon, not dragged out for weeks and weeks. The case that Biden and his team could have made for himself has been reduced to court drama, breathless reports of who he's mad at or how Hunter is urging him to stay in. It gives me very bad flashbacks to all the drama surrounding Hillary's 2008 campaign, where she stayed in much longer than she needed to because she felt hurt and betrayed, and anyone who wasn't on her side was painted as an elite and was warned that her supporters would not show up in November. We don't have time for any of that, as Trump makes McCain seem like Mr. Rogers. We need a lot of urgency but more than anything his people need to come out and acknowledge that the criticisms are fair, instead of going on about elites when many of the members of Congress who are making these calls are clearly panicked about what is going on and are getting little indication as to why they shouldn't be panicked. The current tone just makes Biden a martyr to an ever-diminishing circle and leads to his supporters going around with a growing list of which senator or member of Congress they aren't voting for while Trump continues to grow more and more powerful.

Most are scattered on various channels - beyond the ones I had that I linked above, I know Jim Muneco and a number of channels that haven't been used in years have some episodes. Still, there's a big chunk missing. Thanks! At the time I was definitely alienated as they didn't bring over characters like Ava and Gwyn, but by the end of 1996 I tried again and was fine (it wasn't a great show but was entertaining enough on a daily basis). If the writing had been better from the start, that would have helped - from what some said at the time, there were barely even any stories for months. I think they made the right choices with most of the characters they brought over, but many of the new characters for The City itself seemed to lack as much value. Even Roscoe Born I think most found a groove once they imported Lorraine over from Loving. I love Morgan Fairchild, but then and now I also question whether it was really worth bringing her on as I think most of what they were trying to do with her was more of the past than what was popular by 1996 (another reason why The Monroes failed around this time). I wonder if The City ever would have existed if they'd had "GH2" ready by that point. Considering that Port Charles, which had all the help and ingredients that The City never did, also didn't ever really get traction, I wonder if it was just impossible. By this time there were no successful new soaps, really (unless you count Passions, I guess, even though it didn't run that much longer than soaps that were not considered successful and in some cases like Loving ran for less time), and the genre was sliding into a long death. To be honest I enjoyed The City period with Jane Elliot as Tracy more than I ever enjoyed PC.