titan1978

Looking at all those photos Jason47 has posted make me wish so much that I could see more of Bell’s DAYS. Was Rosemary Forsyth well regarded as Laura? Flannery is in a class all her own of course. It just seems like Laura was so important and then just faded away.

All this THE Guiding Light talk just reminds me of JFP, in multiple interviews, trying to push One Life as a talking point, instead of One Life to Live. She tried so hard for about 6 months worth of interviews between two sweeps periods to get the soap press and fans used to it now being just One Life cuz that was so much more hip! I think the same thing happened at Another World, she kept calling it AW, or am I remembering that one incorrectly? What a waste these people were to the genre. For all his faults, and I am truly not much of a fan, Reilly was the only one bringing in loads of younger viewers. And he did it the old fashioned way- he used vets, love triangles and slow moving stories that played every beat and had payoffs, he just told those stories in new and gothic ways. What these shows needed was the tropes and types of stories daytime does well, focused on characters people liked, and told in new and interesting ways. Instead we got a lot of hacks.

Was Kristina Wagner on another soap? I know she was on PC for a few episodes as Felicia, but I kind of think that doesn’t count. Also what about Brynn Thayer and Judith Light?

Sad news!

My dream Jeff Webber is Robert Newman.

And again. I love Holly, especially with Robert. But this is even worse than the Robin is dead storyline because Robert is literally the only one left who cares that is on the show often, and he isn’t under contract. Ethan is a guest star. Holly is a guest star. Wtf GH. Tell a story like this with a current cast member that is under contract. You have both Liz and Carly right now just twisting in the wind. Anna too(I mean Alex faking as Anna while she is held captive is just waiting to be told with the Peter implications).

Throw longtime viewers a bone by having a character pop up from the past that is meaningless, and then say things like honoring history or like you’ve never seen them like this before. At the least, she should be Chase’s mother. That ties her to today. But in the grand scheme of things Jackie only matters because Demi played her, and she and her sister Laura were blips with little impact. You say history and blank slate. I see lazy and pointless by making her Jackie. Especially if she isn’t going to be around for a real contract. I do credit GH with hiring someone with actual talent that hasn’t been on soaps since their 80’s peak, and someone that has had a steady career in primetime.

How wild! And @amybrickwallace, you have no idea how ready for that call I was then 😆! After having experienced Monty, Labine, and Guza, and with the cast as it stood then, I had so many ideas for GH that still embraced the genre while adhering to the human drama GH had become known for at that point. It wasn’t until YouTube and I finally got to watch GL with Curlee/Demorest/etc at the HW helm that I found out the tone I was writing as fanfic was what they were doing then, and really well. The more grounded realism and darker character exploration, but with a sense of hope and still some excitement, mystery, and soapy fun all in the mix.

I would have loved it if they had kept her in that way, letting her evolve into an actual PI. Like Felicia on GH did with Anna and Sean. Add me to the people that could not stand Lynne.

Wha? Why bring her on as Jackie but not have anyone really connected with her left on the show, especially if she is not there for Robert. Oh GH. Don’t you change.

Well it didn’t help that JFP tried propping Jensen in favor of JZ. That had potential. Let Melissa come between Roy and Bobbie. You could even have still had Bobbie be neurotic about it and do some questionable things, but eventually coming around to herself and recognizing she was just panicked about losing Roy again and revisit how traumatic the original loss was and formative to the Bobbie that wasn’t trying to steal Scotty or fig he all the time with Laura. And then I would just turn Melissa into a slow burn maniac, that ends up holding Bobbie hostage or something soapy and fun like that, while Roy is clueless. They could have even had Jason and Carly rescue her, still allowing the show to revolve around them lol.

It’s like they got the casting right, just as the show settled into a couple of years of really shallow storytelling.

Correct me if I am wrong, but by the time Ed Scott arrived as the senior EP, was there any real independent power there? If there was cleaning house, it was done on Bell’s behalf. From everything I have read, Conboy was the only EP that did what he wanted, and would piss Bell off when he saw the air shows.

I also have never enjoyed Jackson. Give me Dimitri or Travis any day.

I thought everyone like Laurel. I seem to recall people being upset when she was killed. I wasn’t. I didn’t enjoy her at all. And truthfully, I didn’t like Trevor either!

What I remember most about Sunset Beach was I thought the cast was pretty great, with a couple of duds that were quickly rectified. And that original theme song. I thought it was incredible, and did not at all suit the show I was seeing. The updated one fit much better, but I kind of always wanted that show- sexy, filled with intrigue. And I have always found Gary Tomlin’s production style to look incredibly cheap, even on a Spelling show. I think it’s the lighting he prefers.

I didn’t start checking the show out until the Annie Dutton story, and then this year I watched as much of the Curlee/Demorest and company I could find. So Buzz was really annoying to me back then, but there are moments when he first arrived that I do enjoy. I think loosing Nadine really did the Coopers a lot of damage. She is just a delightful character. She’s a mess, and I really like her, and it was a shame that they killed her off and from what I read nobody in town even knew for months? What a shame.

Michael Logan loves that Greta Garbo of daytime line. He used it here and in his interview with Beverlee. I like a lot of Deas work that I have seen on YouTube. He was adorable as Tom Hughes and in Ryan’s Hope. But Buzz is a drag.

I didn’t mean they had their own story. They just had a part to play again in story involving their family. Instead of generic hospital scenes and commenting on stories they were really removed from. ”I hope Robert can figure this out.” Type of stuff. Once Tom came back they had scenes about the Hardy family again.

Why did Hilary Edson quit? I liked what I have seen of Eve, I liked her as Tania on GH too.

Monty was revolutionary but she was still steeped in old school soaps. Thanks to this site I have learned that she had a much more extensive soap directing and producing background than I had any clue of. She knew to keep those vets around, even if she didn’t give them a lot to do. The fact that the show survived the 1981 transition and outlandish storytelling is pretty incredible and shows just how much the audience loved the newer characters. It went to heights it had never seen before while loosing a huge amount of major characters in a two year period. An entire era of the show could easily be defined by the storylines involving Diana, Peter, Jeff and Heather. I seem to recall reading that Rachel Ames did leave somewhere in the middle of Monty’s tenure, and I know Beradino was critical of the show treating Steve like a talk to only. Loosing Jeff really hampered his story for years. Was it Wes Kenney or Joe Hardy that brought Tom back as an adult and really gave Steve and Audrey material again?

Yeah, that is a get. I wonder what the role is? Recast Classic, or new story?

That was Monty’s style for GH if you ask me, which really cemented once PFS got there. One umbrella plot that was usually focused around the action adventure crew (Luke, Robert, Anna,Frisco, etc), and another umbrella plot around more grounded human stuff- epic romance, relationships falling apart/affairs, murder or accidental death, etc airing simultaneously. There would be crossover of characters and themes, but you still had the action team and the normal people. As stupid as carbonic snow is, the details are so well constructed as these recaps point out. People questioning Mikkos is a great part of these summaries. Until now, I would have had no idea Alex Quartermaine was uneasy with aligning herself with The Cassadines as the plans are revealed. I thought she was always a part of it. Also- Doug Sheehan was adorable then, and I loved him on Knots Landing (and a sitcom I watched that was cancelled in the late 80’s). Joe deserved better pairings. Also- reading so many Marland quotes and stories from the GL and ATWT cancelled threads makes me think he must have hated working with Monty. He was so particular about his work, and here you have someone that the script is a guidepost, and she and the actors will retool and improvise and on her terms change the story right in the moment if it is not working. Back then she had the experience and the chops to do that well. But I bet he hated it!

@Dion, are you watching these episodes on YouTube? Just reading your synopsis makes me want to watch the whole story unfold. The part with Hutch, the bomb and the orderly sounds more exciting than anything I have seen on GH this year. Plus it involved characters we like!

Ron Carlivati seems to have never grown out of this mindset 😆