DRW50

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That would have been a great idea.

I agree. I wonder what the original plans were for him. He did have the nice guy best friend energy (what Xander on Buffy should have been)

I'd guess it was down to her not being conventionally attractive. A shame as she had so much talent and presence.

That's a good point, although I think Lisa Hartman really didn't contribute much without Ciji. (I suppose she did help spare us Kim trying to sing)

I might throw Twin Peaks and Buffy on too.

It was, but it won a lot of Emmys for a time, and everyone was kissing David Kelley's backside. The show imploded pretty much the same way Sisters did.

We should also mention all the characters who were dumped from Sunset Beach early on. I question the reasons why Rae was written out, but I wasn't that surprised about Leigh Taylor Young and Laura Harring - neither was very interesting to watch. Leigh probably should have ended up on a Bell soap as that suited her style more than what she had at SuBe and Passions. Tiffany was more of a surprise for me because I remember her being heavy in the show's promotion, but Adrienne Frantz was quickly fired, and the recast didn't stay very long. And Mark (Nick Stabile). I liked him. I guess they didn't think he was hunky enough.

I still think Kim Lankford was unique enough and had a compelling enough presence to where Ginger could have worked on her own in some capacity, but the marriage with Kenny never worked and Kenny just wasn't a likeable or interesting character.

I know he has some fans here so they will probably say otherwise, but to me any successes he had were down to his co-writers. His biggest success was in the press adoring him.

Hogan Sheffer caring about a soap being grounded is like saying Megan McTavish wanted to make sure a soap was lighthearted enough.

Welcome to the board @Robert H Always nice to see more GL and ATWT fans, especially of those years (I nearly stopped in 1995 myself). That sounds about right.

I never knew she won any awards...she had a few little moments (she was good at wistful monologues), but that surprises me. I was also mentally checking out of ATWT at this time, and I also had school. My main memory of this story was Ned Simon dropping dead in the snow while mailing a letter confessing his guilt (he'd killed Linc).

Ryan's Hope had a meat grinder with Jack and Mary. I think there was a man who worked beside Mary at the news station, then an old doctor friend of Jack's whose story was curtailed due to Kate Mulgrew's pregnancy, and finally, Mary's producer, played by Patrick Horgan. Rose Alaio, whose work as Rose I dearly enjoyed, was also cut very short in Jack's life due to backstage issues. For the show's first year, mobster Nick Szabo came and went, joined by his daughter, Reenie. Whatever plans Reenie was meant to have with storyline-allergic Bucky were cut short as the character vanished, with Julia Barr having better luck in Pine Valley. There was the sad case of Nancy Feldman, who was probably on for a year and some change, played by three actresses, Nana Visitor being the longest-lasting. They wanted an interfaith love story with Pat which never went anywhere due to casting choices and lack of chemistry. I will always remember a very odd post-coitus between them where Nancy was going on about how they looked like brother and sister. Why??? I've heard that '70s NYC was trashy but not that trashy, surely. As one of about two John Blazo fans, I was very disappointed when his delicate Pat was fired and replaced by the temper tantrum Brady brother recast, one of the worst recasts of all time. Both characters were shipped out not long after. Sam Behrens was also hired for this story and must have impressed someone in the audience or at ABC, as he lingered for a while with nothing to do. 1981 started the parade of short-lived Faith love interests, whether it be cops or archaeologists, all of whom fought and lost the battle of having chemistry with Karen Morris Gowdy. 1980 and 1981 saw the arrival of the "Ryan cousins," first Barry, who had a compelling intro as a music agent who juggled two women before falling in love with one of them (Delia). As Labine and Mayer could never let Delia mature, this was all thrown away, and Barry spent months judging Delia in-between a gambling story that ended in him being dumped from the canvas. Inexplicably, just after Barry left, his sister, EJ, arrived looking for him. Her story amounted to yet another round of Delia being crazy to try to make viewers like her (spoiler alert: it did not work), and being paired with Roger, who by this time had lost any of his compelling personality traits under sanctimony and tedium. EJ also helped to expose a soap actress played by a wasted Judith Barcroft. This "story" is a big part of one of the very last Soapnet episodes. Her 1982 material is not available, but as it heavily involves a man named Ox, I doubt it is very good. Such a horrible waste of Maureen Garrett and Richard Backus (in what was maybe his only good - initially anyway - soap role). The moral of the story is don't mess with Delia.

The most egregious to me was the Shea family, where the parents were violently killed off in separate stories about six months apart. 20 years of transition...and one of the more stable periods (around 1993) was when they were nearly canceled.

You may be right. I couldn't remember as I thought Leven was into the type of music at the time that Ava was meant to be into. (wasn't she a singer)

I can see why Leven would have wanted a different part. Connie Fletcher (Erin) seems to have no credits after 2010. That whole story seemed like a stalled out mess onscreen - not surprised to know why. Niven, I think, found a home in Hallmark. I'm glad for her, although similar to various new hires on OLTL in the early '00s she seemed more like a softcore actress to me. I didn't realize she was already almost 50 when she was on OLTL.

I'd wondered about that, as I've heard of some actors who have to stop playing disabilities in long-term characters due to the pain it causes them in real life (Laura Innes on ER, for one). Maybe they figured out something better for Stephen when the patch came back, I don't know. I guess it helps that the character is on much less...

That made me very mad at the time, although I guess NLG isn't too sorry about it these days.

I think it is interesting to discuss, character or not. I remember reading about the change and the fan backlash. I can see why the show wanted to try, and there could have been an interesting story, although that didn't seem to pan out. I wonder how Stephen Nichols felt about the change.

A few from OLTL, among many I'm probably forgetting (I'm trying not to count the likes of the college students brought in under Malone as they were never meant to be meaningful in story): Melanie, the "good" sister to wicked Lindsay, and Bo's true love for less than year. I think this was around the time they were trying to make Bo seem a bit younger. The actress was mainly known for being on that USA bike cop show, and more recently known for ranting at a city council meeting. This was one of those cases where the audience ended up rooting for Lindsay. Melanie's lasting legacy on OLTL was Ty Treadway as her evil ex. Barbara Niven as Keri's mother, Liz, who was meant to have a baby for her, but the baby was actually Antonio's, as he and Liz had hooked up before they realized who the other was. Liz also rekindled her old love with Keri's father, RJ, around this time. The whole story was seamy and dull and dumped as soon as Gary Tomlin was gone. Only memorable for being RJ's last story, or close. Sarah/Flash...twice! Grace Rappaport. The actress, Susan Misner (?), was more of a dancer and not up to much, but wasn't horrible, IIRC. The family was just very disliked by fans, as was Tim Gibbs as her beau Kevin Buchanan. JFP/McTavish, seemingly in an attempt to shame viewers for not getting the message, had her unwittingly killed by Big Bad Asa, trapped under a dock or something, getting hypothermia. I can't remember. Needless to say, viewers still didn't give a damn.

She was initially nerdy and then got a makeover to show us how sexy she was. She then began scheming to keep him from Rosanna. IIRC, she lost her virginity to his brother Linc, who had somehow gained an [!@#$%^&*] personality and lost a lot of muscle mass. After Linc used and dumped her, she had a breakdown. A bad character and not very good acting either. I was surprised at how good Sharon Case was on Y&R due to how offputting I found this character to be.

I never knew that. I guess this was part of the relationship with Sly. That whole story was grimy and unnecessary. The entire younger set was written out around the same time - the perils of a half-hour show I guess. Dylan Neal was briefly almost paired with Lauren in a stupid stripper story (IIRC the "sexy" stripper clothes he wore were tamer than what Ridge used to wear in everyday scenes when B&B started). They should have tried a little harder to find some use for him, but it wasn't a huge loss. Speaking of B&B, thanks @Huntress for the extensive list. Some of those characters like the ones played by Ellen Wheeler and Kin Shriner were likely never intended to stay and B&B just stunt cast whether they needed to or not (the same happened with Tristan Rogers). DAYS also had Jaime in that period - I never knew if she was meant to be more than Sami's friend and things went haywire because of her relationship with RKK, or if that was never happening. Another would be Sara, that Aremid girl who was written out because the spinoff never happened. That whole spinoff is a real what if. I didn't mind her but the whole comedy capers with the Ned/Alexis/Jax/Chloe quad and the halting attempts to pair her with Jax no one ever went for wore on me.

Shades of V (although I wouldn't say V fizzled - that character probably lasted longer than any narrative purpose warranted). Thanks. I wouldn't know where to start. The Latino brothers Greenlee was involved with...Ryan's sister Erin who was murdered...that "edgy" twin of Lily...Kendall's brother Trey. Trey was a character I would have kept, admittedly partly because Sam Page had a nice ass but that wasn't the only reason (he had an interesting relationship with Kendall - they painted him into such a corner early on I wasn't that surprised he went though).

Lark Voorhies. Wasn't she also on DAYS as Jonah's girlfriend or something? They had some potential story for her on B&B, as a designer for Sally (?), but instead she was just used by Sly and written out not long after getting horrible burns. Such a waste. I never know who to list as these are also characters who lasted more than a year, but the thought that they were all written out just because Peter Bergman (who had only been on the show half a decade) wasn't happy annoys me. The show was lucky to have an actress as talented as Elizabeth Sung, and that was a more interesting story than anything Jack had for most of the next few years. Mai was never really a character anyway. I remember it now too. I wonder if those were really the only plans they had for Braden - being a rapist - or if they just realized the actor was a zero. There were so many on AMC it can become a blur. Some I don't think lasted a year (like Adrian's girlfriend Tina, who vanished) and some probably did but never went anywhere (like that blonde guy who was introduced as a love interest for Fusion ladies but was more believable as their gay best friend - I think he briefly dated Simone).