DRW50

I think one of the unfortunate lessons may have been that misogyny still trumps all.

I stopped watching L&O about a decade before it ended. The show became too focused on paper-thin "oh let's cover THIS scandal now" material and lost any soul, and a number of cast changes had made the show a national joke [just ask Elisabeth Rohm...). I wish they had kept the show on at least one more season, because I do get why Dick Wolf wanted that record, but unless they commit to going back to the early, gritty days of L&O, without the glossy cast and vacuous tone, then they should just leave it to the past.

Reading about some Trump-obsessed Congressman from Florida hitting Jon Ossoff in the head with a baseball at the Congressional Baseball Match (he was wearing a helmet, but that isn't the point) just reminds me again of how ridiculous and outright dangerous the "bipartisanship" of DC is. These people are insurrectionists. Some of them even gave instructions to rioters via Twitter during the attack. The time for chumminess is over. These people are threats to society and no Democrat with any sense, one who isn't a right wing piece of garbage like Manchin, SInema, and their pals, should remember that.

Kate Mulgrew is an excellent actress, but I just never cared about Jack/Mary, and looking back, chemistry alone was not enough to make up for some of how Jack behaved (like abandoning Mary for much of her pregnancy). Mary herself was so self-righteous that I just never really connected with her. I never thought Faith worked as a character. Catherine Hicks was very sparky and gave some strong performances, but even then I still did not like the character, nor did I care about her relationship with Pat.

Very sad to hear this. I had almost forgotten he hadn't passed away - then I remembered his son had. Such awful news. He cut such a dashing figure as Quint - soaps have become so absurd and have been so absurd for enough years that it's hard to imagine what GL fans could have felt about all of the gothic, Late Show-esque trappings of the early Quinton storyline. Tylo sold them with panache. I'm sorry that he never got a proper farewell, but I do like that, thanks to an ad-lib from Lisa Brown, we know Quinton and Nola are probably still out there somewhere, adventuring and living their dreams.

I can't remember about Adam Jr as it's a later plot point that Nicole and Miles want a baby. I think maybe he's just offcamera?

Great find! I had no idea production was so down to the wire, or that they were still taking such massive precautions. I guess they eased up for a while as we saw characters kissing so what is coming up is probably going to be more severe? Boyd was also one of my favorite characters. Fascinating, very handsome and charismatic, and I really liked his friendship with Drew. It's frustrating because most people who leave this show don't seem to do exit interviews. I would like to know what he (or the guy who plays Prince) had to say.

Pathetic.

Logan is a very compelling character as he has such a rigid and damning moral code, yet his self-righteousness does not dominate him or feel like hypocrisy. I always think of those scenes where Winter was dying, and she begged him to tell her that he loved her. That was her dying wish, but, because of her actions and because of his honesty to a fault, he couldn't bring himself to say it, even as he watched her die.

Didn't Donna also end up there?

Greenberg's Deli had been around and we'd seen Mrs. Greenberg, I think, but not in any major role.

@DeliaIrisFan That's a great idea about Ryan - it would have meant Jill did not get the very strong material she had after Edmond's death, but they could have found story in her continuing to raise Edmond and her deepening split with Seneca.

Another media darling exposed - not that it ever matters.

Thanks @Dion !

I thought Roark and Christie had good chemistry (she never has with Austin Peck), but the Mike and Carrie story was probably too overextended. I remember Ali getting some attention at the time because the character was very extreme but not as much in the campy Reilly way, in a more grisly way, like the scene where she tried to kill herself and wrote Mike's name on the wall in blood. There was also the fantasy scene, which was posted here a few times, with Carrie as a real life Barbie doll, ending in Ali choking her out.

@carolineg Thanks. Glad to see that. Oh those dramatic Drake Hogestyn line readings. I had a vague memory of that dress on display so at least I was right. The budget for that room is probably larger than the budget for the whole show now. Thanks. That's...something. One of the parts of 1997 I remember enjoying was when they had Laura going around all the time talking about how Carrie should not be with Austin because his parents were, basically, fucked up trash and he would be too. That's pretty terrible for her to say, especially since she was a therapist, but Austin was so completely vapid and impossible to care about, and JLB was having the time of her life. And it at least led to more drama with Kate and Laura. Yes. She extended her contract by 4-5 months to play her exit story. She said the workload had completely wiped her out.

This was also when Vivian and Ivan spent most of their time dressed in humiliating costumes and also trying to con "Jonesy" (Robert Mandan) out of his fortune. I think Vivian also dressed as Elvis around this time. I think a third of the cast dressed as Elvis around this time. Vivian or Ivan were also dressed as french fries. I believe Louise Sorel panned this material when she was interviewed in the late '90s.

This was Hope and John on an island adventure to find a rare orchid to cure Roman. Kristen insisted she knew the cure and was trying to barter her freedom or something, I think...? I remember reading about a scene where John and Hope come across one of Stefano's shrines to Marlena and are very disturbed. If anyone has that scene I'd be curious to see it.

The comment at the time was that Reilly lost interest after the Kristen reveal. There was even some speculation he was trying to tank the show to help his own projects, although that probably isn't true.

In that first year or so they did play up some of what you are talking about with Marj, like when she would play basketball with Buzzj. This then faded entirely. I thought there was enough history between Alex and Mindy - played up even more in the months before the affair reveal - to make Alex's anger understandable. The problem came when this moved from Roger to Nick. Both women became defined by Nick, and lost any personality or purpose outside of him. Beverlee played the Nick obsession in a visceral, ugly way, raw pain and rage and sickness - likely due to her dislike of the material. Marj just camped it up and felt very hollow. I can't judge her as much I would have at the time because I had forgotten just how awful the writing was even before Beverlee left and I also did not know at the time that Marj's son had just died...but she still feels miscast to me, and I think that was always going to be the case. I resent that Alex was brought back solely to keep the Mindy/Nick "love" going, which by that point no one gave a tinker's damn about. The character should have stayed away until a more capable regime came in.

I barely watch GH anymore but I remember a scene - and I barely watched then either - after Guza left and before Carlivati came in, where Carly overheard various characters basically calling her trash, and she proceeded to have a somewhat humiliating meltdown at somebody's wedding. It was one of those rare times viewers could be reminded of Carly's roots, and it was much more interesting than what they tend to do with the character once she became all about mob men.

The time that Ally and Danny were interesting was when they were on Loving and she framed him for raping her because she blamed him for Casey's death. The story was gross, but both characters were jagged edges and compelling to watch. Once she was lumbered with Tony and Danny was thrown all around the ill-defined City canvas (didn't he spend a lot of time pimping himself out to Sydney Chase?), there wasn't much reason to care.

She was, but she wasn't pretty in the conventional soap way, especially by that point. I don't think it helped that she was introduced during one of the interim writer periods, and between the periods Jax was with Brenda. The character seemed to just get lost in the shuffle, and I thought a lot of the writing for her was kind of irritating.

I always assumed it was down to V not being conventionally attractive enough, especially as Jax was one of their main men.