titan1978

Except Audrey’s son Tommy played a major part in stories, as did Diana Taylor’s child before the PJ stuff. Scotty and poor Jessie’s many tragic babies and miscarriages count too. By the early 70’s it was a hybrid between the workplace soap it began as and the later version. But the hospital was almost the family home still. Monty would agree according to many reliable sources.

The way they treat Liz is terrible. And although Monty deserves plenty of blame for marginalizing those characters, she inherited people that TPTB before her ran through the wringer and didn’t set up for futures. It’s not her fault Lesley couldn’t have more kids, that Scotty didn’t have a sibling, that Jessie had no surviving children, and that Steve and Audrey didn’t get to have more kids beyond Steve adopting Tommy. When you take that all together they really didn’t prepare their leads for aging and a future like other shows did. And nobody had the Eileen Fulton clause to not make them grandparents for a long time as an excuse. If anything she clearly did try to set Lesley up with more family with Amy, Blackie and Mike. She could have recast Jeff, but by that point she didn’t really do that anymore in her first run. Heather was only recast because Mary O’Brien wouldn’t return to wrap up the Steven Lars story. Robin Mattson was there to kill Diana and wrap that story up. But Monty liked her and they decided to change course.

I know JVA loves the scene when Val essentially becomes Verna. But to me that is a very actor scene. Her idea, to put on too much makeup at first and then decide that’s not right is a great choice. But I can see the acting from a mile away. It’s supposed to be subtle but it’s not. Her slipping in and out of Verna’s accent when Abby is taking her to the babies is better later on though. When they first tell her the babies have died though, her immediate shift from hope to devastation is believable, even though she is justifiably bordering on hysterical. She keeps it squarely in the lane of devastating heartbreak there and it’s very effective. Laura would have been a much better antagonist in the Sumner Group years than Claudia. One messy divorce from Greg and a fight for what’s hers and you have natural story for years. And we avoid the Meg issues with Karen and Mack. And while I am critiquing the acting, William Devane can also be mannered and like a lot of men in daytime, when he’s bored it’s written all over his face.

Along those lines though I cannot imagine the later seasons without Karen. Val becomes such a shell of herself that her being gone is easier to swallow. Although the less said of Gary’s younger pairing the better. It’s funny that Valene is one of the few characters that did have good material in that not very good season before the final year. That Greg book had legs and should have been made more of a priority. But yes, Karen does get very strident and shrill. But the truth is if you go all the way back to the beginnings that person was there all along. Don Murray just has a more grounded style to help her from flying off into space. And that’s not Kevin Dobson at all. Mack is volatile by design. Again, I love Karen and Mack, and the show as a whole is one of my favorites. But it’s hard to ignore, especially when you see them decide someone like Laura has no value when she clearly does. I love Gary too, but Joan is so much more at ease when they pair her with Ben because Sheehan is a playful actor. It comes across on Knots and General Hospital. When it’s all about Gary in those early years she’s a walking nervous tick.

It’s kind of fascinating that of the major characters left from earlier times- Steve, Audrey, Jessie, Lee, and maybe squeeze in Lesley- they had so much turmoil and trauma in their heyday that there wasn’t much of a next generation to help keep them viable. Laura is gone by the mid 80’s, and Lesley has become a surrogate mother to several characters, none of them lasting much past her death except perennial supporting player Amy. Steve and Audrey have Tom, and Monty stopped recasting so no Jeff to help out. Jessie has no children and also has professional surrogates like Bobbie and Amy, but that’s not the same. And Scotty coming and going several times ends up hurting Lee. Compare all of them to the vitality of Edward and Lila around the same time with family drama and Edward’s scheming to keep them occupied. While I liked the first adult Tom Hardy, but he was never leading man material, and his stories suffered from that and several Simones in a relatively short amount of time. Even Tom’s adult return was late 80’s, no teen stories for him. Audrey’s surrogate Anne and that kid were long gone (and also not successful). It was poor planning on the earlier writers for the future of those characters and the show.

There is something to Donna Mills in the same regard. Especially as Abby got more and more power for herself, she played her calmer and calmer as the years progressed. Abby is still calculating, but I can’t think of many times any of the three of them went full Valene or Karen. And I love those ladies, don’t get me wrong. But Joan Van Ark can be very histrionic and mannered, and Michele Lee is very soapy in the traditional sense. The year after Sid died, before Mac arrived, Lee does a lot of quiet, beautiful acting in several episodes. But she can go balls out and did quite often. The whole Chip/Diana story is when it gets really noticeable to me. That run she does to find Diana has left at the end of season 4 is almost comical in her mannerisms and she doesn’t say a word.

It is interesting how much the stories we consume can exacerbate these issues when you are in the thick of it. I am sorry to see you had to face them, but good for you for getting the tools to face it better. It’s not easy.

It would have been a great angle to play, especially since Lee and Scotty were often at odds then. Would have been a good story to play out with an older Serena too, only now the medicine and public stigma is less so she would get help successfully.

The whole Dante thing is clearly just there for an obstacle. If they cared about Dante we would see maybe Lulu pull him aside and ask what’s really going on. It would give him a chance to say he lost her, then he lost Sam, and he’s afraid to let Rocco grow up and get into trouble and lose him too. And even better would be him maybe admitting that he’s still angry with Brook Lynn and Lois and it’s being displaced on Gio. And he doesn’t know what to do with Gio at all because he keeps messing up. You know, psychologically explore these characters like they used to! Also DZ is a good actor that doesn’t deserve to be trotted out just to be an asshat. Much like Liz is an awfully important character to just stand behind that desk waiting to snap at Britt.

That’s the problem with the filming schedule! Like Genie Francis, Finola takes a break every year, it’s just not always the exact same time of the year. Couple that with the filming schedule- she could have taken a week off, or a month, or more. And either way what happens onscreen is a dropped storyline. They used to at least pre-tape scenes to pepper in, like when Tony Geary took his breaks. We might even get an episode where Anna almost escapes, then back to chained to a chair. But now they just drop it until they want to pick it up again, with little to no mention in between. One of the things I like about Scotty sharing scenes with Laura is Kin always plays it more vulnerable than his usual bluster with everyone else. He still plays that Scotty carries that torch. So him being a confidant would work for me because he calms down. Martin is just there to me. This one character suffers from what was a huge problem for the whole show until Drew- too genial. They used to go right up to the line of conflict but it would be resolved quickly and have no lasting consequences. Everyone was defanged. Scotty at least also has a swagger as a lawyer.

He’s my problem with Martin. For whatever reason, Michael Knight is not generating any heat with anyone as far as romantic relationships. You have Alexis, Ric, and Diane’s wig as lawyers and Molly as an ADA. If you want a lawyer who is funny and brings some scheming to the table Scott Baldwin is there ready to use. I do not understand this at all. And I don’t hate the Jacinda actress. She would be fine in other circumstances. But this Michael is the most viable younger male lead the show has had in ages. You don’t put a dayplayer into that story as a viable relationship.

And it was a huge part of why Jonathan Jackson quit that run. He hated what they were doing and the almost unrelenting sadness Lucky was enduring. It was also one of his asks on this return, to repair that relationship, and it was clear none of that was a priority onscreen.

I have thought for years Alexis falling for a woman would be a great idea. I think NLG would be game if they cast it well. She and the actor playing Harmony clearly imbued their scenes with a kind of sexual tension. No idea if the scripts were going there and they stopped it, or if the actors played it that way on the floor and the show ran away from it from that angle.

Me too! That and episodes about the original Carla Grey storyline! I thought of another concept soaps taught me about. The WSB is where I learned there were more than just cops. Spies were real and we had them in real life. I don’t know how many of them moonlighted as singers like Frisco Jones though. And even though I grew up with alcoholics in my family, seeing Katherine Chancellor battle alcohol, and other characters talk about addiction recovery like Maggie Horton on DAYS or Lee Baldwin on GH was my first introduction to that concept too, that it was an illness and people did seek treatment for it. One bad thing I learned from soaps that wasn’t true was the ideas that all doctors did everything. Steve Hardy being the Chief of staff and also seeing all kinds of patients, etc. Monica was a cardiac surgeon but other doctors they just used as a catch all a lot of the time.

And she herself has said it was too much and she was burned out.