Dion

As you may have already noticed, part of the way they juggle all the characters is to use block storytelling - that is, a particular set of storylines and characters might be featured in each episode for a few weeks before being rested for a while and picking up later. When well written it is usually quite effective and goes unnoticed with the storyline blocks overlapping with others and being rested when they reach a natural pause. However in periods of weaker writing it can be quite noticeable with characters just up and vanishing for weeks in the middle of a huge storyline There are also definite tiers of characters with some of the more high-profile characters being rotated through at more regular rates than others who may end up being merely background characters most of the time with a token storyline once or twice a year. I wasn't actually watching at the time either but wasn't it the other way round? That it was actually Eve (whose remaining family are homophobes) who needed a stable address in order to be released on probation so she and Stacey married in order to make it seem plausible that she would live long term with the Slaters?

After months of suffering from fugue states - during which she would commit acts of vandalism such as torching Franco's studio, attacking Chase and moving a portrait around the house. After a short stretch in Shadybrook, Liz returned to work and began to remember seeing a woman who'd been pushed down a flight of stairs. The fugue states and memory flashes had apparently been triggered by the sight of Peter August at the bottom of a stairwell at GH (after being pushed down by Finn) the year before as Liz would continue to have flashbacks of both incidents - eg she'd have a flashback of Peter which would then trigger the older flashback of the woman. The mystery deepened when Liz drew a portrait of the woman she kept seeing in her flashbacks, and then saw pictures of Finn's late wife Reiko on his phone, who looked exactly like the woman in the portrait 🙄 (I mean you'd think she would've already seen pictures of her 🙄). Finn revealed to Liz that he and Reiko had been working in the Mariana Islands during the 90s and Liz remembered that she'd gone with her family there just prior to her arrival in Port Charles 🙄. Liz began to suspect that her father Jeff Webber had pushed Reiko down the stairs. Having been estranged from her parents for 25 years, she broke into their house only to be confronted by them. Jeff (now being played by William R Moses) and Carolyn (Denise Crosby) eventually admitted that Liz had pushed Reiko down the stairs after finding Jeff and Reiko in bed together 🙄. Reiko survived the fall, but needed a blood transfusion that led to her contracting the fatal disease that eventually killed her years later 🙄 (this retconed the earlier explanation that Finn had unwittingly exposed her to the disease while looking for a cure). Jeff and Carolyn then sedated and brainwashed their daughter to forget all about the incident 🙄. Liz eventually told Finn about what happened and he was shocked as while he knew that Reiko had fallen down some stairs he didn't know she'd been having an affair and had never heard of Jeff Webber prior to coming to Port Charles.

Episode 866: 28 November, 1988 🙂 https://www.neighboursepisodes.com/index.php?year=1988&episode=0866

We have talked extensively about Lesley's first husband and their child so it is finally nice to learn that their child was named Jeremy.

At one point Brooke was getting married every year (2001 - 2006 IIRC or the Forrester Jones Forrester Forrester Forrester Marone bit lol)

Olivia has basically been Carly's number one apologist for nearly 15 years, even more so than Jason.

Turns out...

And Mark Hamil has arrived as Kent! Thanks as always @depboy

I would tend to favor syncing them as while there are no stories which do "part one on TNG, part two on DS9" common to other shows in shared universes as there are a few cross-references between the two shows that will be more fun if they are synced. At the very least, I think it is important to watch the DS9 pilot movie "Emissary" directly after the TNG two-parter "Chain of Command" since they are very loosely connected (hopefully that doesn't stray too far into spoiler territory). Season 7 of TNG and season 2 of DS9 are a little more connected so I would 100% try and sync them even if you don't sync the first season of DS9.

I think Shannon Sturges would have been well into her role as Molly on Days of Our Lives at this point. Was this character blonde or brunette? Coz Shannon was a brunette during her Days run. Yeah sounds like she could have been referring to either Roy or DL Brock, but I don't think she would have been so intrigued if it was DL, so Roy makes sense.

Most of the episodes from 2004 - around 2009 were uploaded on Youtube about a decade ago once they had screened in Ireland. The episodes don't have airdates though but rather episode numbers so you will have to go trawling through the video list I'm afraid. Laurie Foell's first guest stint in 2005 would be somewhere in the 3300s while her second stint the following year as a regular would've started somewhere in the 3500s. Her last appearance was in the 2006 season finale which I believe was episode 3645 so it may be best to search "Shortland Street episode 3645" and work backwards from there. Good luck!

And they didn't even have an episode from Milo's POV to tie it together a bit more. But yeah, really unnecessary and done much better last years when Jojo died. Not sure if you've seen it yet but...

Yes I know they weren't on good terms but what with Cindy fleeing to Italy for a year, the custody battle when she returned and Cindy finally being arrested for hiring the hitman; I wasn't entirely sure whether they actually managed to find time to actually get officially divorced lol. Now I am pretty certain they were but can't confirm that without looking for a reference to Ian getting his decree absolute.

I think after Gloria Monty left he was dissatisfied with the direction of Jake's character so he left, did a brief stint on LA Law and then came back to GH a short while later to wrap up Jake and Bobbie's story before exiting for good.

I think she and Ian were officially divorced before she "died" but I'm not entirely sure. Not too long ago they would have had this play out over an entire week and probably would have even had the flashbacks too.

It's almost hard to believe now that GH went nearly 5 years between Michael and Kristina's births with only Carly's miscarriage and Alan and Monica's brief attempt to have another child in between.

I don't think so...at most he'll go to Spring Ridge for a few weeks or months so they have an excuse to use that set again.

I can think of one earlier...Robin's paternity on The Guiding Light during it's first year on TV back in 1952 - 1953. I'm guessing having Robin's mother Kathy Roberts secretly elope to marry Bob Lang, being widowed when Bob died and then marrying Dick Grant (the late James Lipton, later a writer on a number of soaps and host of Inside the Actors Studio) when Bob was barely even cold was the way they got around censorship issues. And of course while Kathy was busy trying to pass off her child as Dick's, she also had to face a trial over her suspected involvement in Bob's death and the machinations of Dick's mother who suspected the truth. Eventually Kathy told Dick the truth about Robin but by then he no longer cared as he was having an affair with nurse Janet Johnson (Ruth Warrick).

I definitely noticed that too. It was quite palpable. So much so that in my head canon I'm starting to think of the possibility that maybe she and M'Benga finally hooked up in the 2270s after The Motion Picture, perhaps serving together on the USS Hopeship and that's why Chapel is no longer on the Enterprise in TWOK lol Speaking of Roger Korby, Chapel's fiancee from What Are Little Girls Made of... (This is more my speculation than spoiler but in tags just in case I'm on to something) I did like the touch of Spock starting to play the Lute. And yes, Carol Kane stole the whole thing. I'm not familiar with her (I last saw The Princess Bride nearly 30 years ago so don't remember her role in that), but was very impressed. Loved how her character figured out what was going on so quickly.

Well by the time Diana gave birth it is possible that Peter and Diana are already married - I believe Peter quickly married Diana because Phil and Jessie had reunited and Tracy needed a name. They fell in love for real later. We'll soon find out for certain though

Isn't the child Diana is pregnant with now, Tracy? I'm pretty sure - though I could be wrong - that Tracy was the result of Diana and Phil's relationship (that we are seeing playing out now in Depboy's summaries) and then it was when Tracy was ill or had died (not too sure on the order of events there) towards the end of 1972 that Phil raped Diana, resulting in Martha. Audrey has one more bad "marriage" (in quotation marks because it later turned out to be invalidated by Tom's return) to Jim Hobart to get through before she and Steve finally reunite for good in 1976. And the kidnapping of Tom Jr took place in 1972 I think. It was what led to Tom's presumed death in Mexico. In 1976-77, Tom just tries to guilt Audrey into getting back together with him "for their son's sake". That didn't last long and the show moved towards having Steve and Audrey involved in Jeff and Annie's problems rather than their own.

Same age as Billy Warlock I believe, though Warlock did always looked young for his age

Yes, all those chats back in 2021 where Portia listened with genuine concern as Ava would confide in her about the latest stalking incidents weren't for nothing. Even if it has taken so long to get around to it at least they've done quite a good job in giving Portia plausible reasons to dislike Spencer beyond "I don't like him, I think he's bad news."

That's one of the things I vividly remember from that E! True Hollywood Story - Joan Collins exclaiming "I thought she was stupid!" before giggling away. That and the prediction that there would never be anything like the Moldavian Massacre on TV ever again because of 9/11, which seems silly in light of the Red Wedding on Game of Thrones. OK, that was over a decade later and on Cable but even the Daytime Soaps were venturing back into that sort of territory within a few years.