titan1978

I think Bill Bell and team were just taking the temperature of that time period. More realism was popular on primetime and daytime (minus DAYS). A lot of shows lost a sense of fun around that same time (GH I’m looking at you). Plus Sharon and Nick become a huge focus and they were never fun characters. We had just come off a run of intense stories but also still with a sense of fun- characters like Nina, Lauren, Drucilla, Sheila, Leanna, Katherine and Jill were sometimes in serious material but they were also fun to watch and could go from soapy to gritty.

I had characters and a history figured out for a small town soap in the mid 1990’s, and it was going to be very dark (not as supernatural or esoteric as Twin Peaks, but that same vibe of hidden secrets and a shocking death to start things off). I even turned part of it into a college writing short story, but I haven’t seen it in years. When Guza left GH for Sunset Beach and GH started to kind of unravel, I started to write down some plots I would want to see, and it kind of turned into about two years of story. I really tried to service the characters that were there already (although I did kill off Sarah Webber), and not just bring back all the vets I loved that were not on the show anymore. Outside of giving Lesley Webber more prominence, I really stuck to the then current cast with a couple of additions. The only major things I remember were Celia Quartermaine visiting briefly and she had twins that ended up staying in PC, Felicia and Mac/Robin and Jason ended up in a mystery that involved a mob story with Sonny, Luke, Faison and Stefan/Helena Cassadine (well before he came back during the Lucky storyline), I added a mixed race Ward teen who was also gay (and they ended up falling in love with one of Celia’s kids), and Lesley Webber got her life back together relatively quickly and reopened the clinic, where Laura ended up working as a counselor. I also gave Simone Hardy way more to do, and in my dream the original actress was back to play this as that was what I imagined. I can’t remember much else, although I know people like Lucky, Emily, Bobbie, the Q’s, Brenda and Lois (who came back) had story, I am just fuzzy on the details.

Carbonic snow might be the stupidest thing ever. But these recaps and many of the scenes from the story I have seen are a lot of fun. I can see why the show was really building to peak attention at this point. Robert, Luke and Laura are fun as a team.

Talking about Laura’s lack of friends reminded me something I really missed once Guza arrived- the emphasis on friendships. Once Anna arrives and becomes established in the mid 80’s, you had a strong core of Robert, Anna, Sean, Tiffany, Frisco and Felicia that had individual friendships and were also kind of a group too. It made scenes and plot driven stories fun, because you wanted to see them interact. Once Labine arrives we get smaller groups but there are still great friendships invested in. After Guza’s return from Sunset Beach most of that just slowly falls away. They kind of had it going again with Robin and the other doctors, but not like back in the day. And that felt like copying Grey’s anyway.

I miss Amy. She was on just the right amount in the 1980’s. I didn’t need to see her in a story. I just liked seeing her causing trouble with her big mouth. In my dream timeline, when Lesley came back they actually invested in her, we saw her rebuild her life and skills, and she was back in the hospital orbit for a couple of years. Maybe even becoming Chief of Staff when Alan has his pill addiction. Much to Monica’s chagrin. Which would also have given Laura an active support person on the show.

She really walks a fine line but remains lovable as Tiffany. In hindsight it really hurt Laura not having her after the show got rid of Tiffany and Sean. She just didn’t really have many people that were friends and had that past connection at that point, especially when Mary Mae Ward died. Everyone was more tied to Luke. It’s not like she could confide much in Amy, unless she wanted it to go everywhere.

I don’t think I have ever heard Rauch’s GL and that period of ATWT summed up so well. I also started sampling/watching both in the late 1990’s, and this pretty much reminded me of why I also stopped a lot.

He is absolutely tone deaf and willfully ignorant. Why even say it, then get called out and respond that way? As an aside- I will never understand how both he and Valentini treat LGBTQ characters on their shows.

The fact that JFP’s current excuse is that she learned her lesson with Maureen...and then admitted the lesson she learned was not giving the actor she wants to get rid of for whatever reason good material the audience is invested in. “The audience only cared about Maureen because of the affair and death.” She does not get it at all.

I wonder if many of our habits would have remained and the stories been more interesting had the “in between” characters and actors been invested in by the shows. It would have freed us from many stories where characters are stuck in plots that are not age appropriate (Sharon and Nick I’m looking at you). Most of these shows have a core of vets regularly appearing, most of them from 1995 or earlier. Then there are a couple of truly older vets from the 80’s or before, and then a mishmash of characters from each attempt at a youth grab over twenty years. DAYS is particularly bad in this regard- each teen to mid twenty group keeps getting decimated every three to five years, instead of recasting and rebuilding/rehiring those that left and did not make it in other media. The mention of Glow By Jabot made me remember what a wasted opportunity that was.

This highlights one of the things I think soaps have been failing at since the youth obsessed late 1990’s era of network interference. I also got hooked on shows through younger characters (Felicia and Frisco on GH were my first characters that I watched for me, not because my family was watching GH). But I stayed because I loved Edward Quartermain’s rascally ways too. I loved Lee Baldwin and Jessie and Gail and Steve Hardy. I loved Alan and Monica. The whole show had appeal. I grew to love other things going on more than the couple that got me hooked. I got hooked on Y&R because Jill and Katherine were being so nasty to Nina, even though she was no saint herself. Without Katherine as a hook, I don’t know if I would care about that show enough to keep watching back then. And yes, the sex appeal of Brad. Or Bo on DAYS, or several other frequently shirtless men. Nobody else On TV is as ashamed as daytime at this point to present sexy men often.

This really resonated with me. I lurked and barely posted for a long time, from the early days of this site. But in the last couple of years I just really wanted to invest in soaps again, and mostly that has happened here. I have been directed to lots of classic episodes, and really seen a lot of stuff that I had only heard about or watched so long ago.

I don’t know that I would count post Susan Moore as when they calmed down. Monica has an affair with Sean Donnelly and kicked the Q’s out of the mansion. Then a couple of years later Alan cheated with Lucy Coe, divorces Monica, and married Lucy. They were still pretty volatile until the show decided to move that kind of story to their kids.

Monica and Alan had such a toxic relationship. I remember them really calming down after their remarriage (not that they stopped having affairs- Alan nearly with Rhonda and Bobbie, Monica with Pierce Dorman), but the venom was mostly gone in their interactions with each other. Before then though it could get downright nasty between them. I am not excusing a rape or blaming Monica at all- just remembering how awful and entertaining to watch they could be. Which also makes me miss David Lewis as Edward. He could be such a bastard. I loved Ingle as well, but his Edward was more blowhard than scheming villain.

I know what you mean @All My Shadows! I remember GL having quite a run at the Emmys in the early 1990’s, but I didn’t watch it until Rauch and the Annie storyline. Now that I have seen quite a bit of 1990-1993, it really was an amazing show at that time! Plus the Y&R classics have brought back so many memories of what that show used to be like.

I also thought that was going somewhere good during my YouTube watching, the videos were often missing credits, so I wasn’t sure when JFP actually arrives.

And yet, when you watch a lot of the stuff on YouTube, Laura clearly was raped, says so, and takes months to start opening back up. Yes, she does protect Luke. People can be raped by someone they are in love with, infatuated by. They even sometimes choose to be with that person. But it was still a rape. Geary played those scenes like he felt immense guilt and shame for raping her back then and during the revisit. If what Monty wanted was to play it as “seduction”, then the show could have done it. To me, there was never a question. He raped her, she loved him in spite of it, and forgave him because she wanted to be with him. The audience reaction to Luke is why they went in the direction they did. The thing I love the most about Monty always sticking to the seduction plan is that she also never did anything like this again on the show during either of her tenures. I’m not even sure if anyone else was ever raped on GH with her as EP. The only other serious social message story I can think of was Bobbie being abused by Brock. Which was kind of refreshing. Seeing how many heroines were raped as plot points on almost all the other shows during that same time (was anyone not raped on Santa Barbara or DAYS?) was atrocious. Only a handful were treated with care.

I was thinking about the habit of daytime. A lot of people have noted that it is a habit, and once broken it is easy to not return. My first soap exposure was through a grandmother. I choose to pay attention and watch for my own entertainment when Frisco pulled the hat off Felicia, at the beginning of their relationship. I am a gay male, and I was attracted to the action storylines on GH and the strong women. I soon watched other soaps that had similar themes (OLTL, DAYS). I also turned for the men, which were usually attractive and often shirtless! As I got older, I started paying more attention to the deeper stories, to the wider scope of themes, and to the beats being played. Even on a plot driven show like GH, the best stories were well plotted and played out like the details mattered. Around 1993 or so was when I became a fan of the genre. I started sampling other shows, even if just for a few months. I started buying soap mags, and absolutely loved when they would do issues devoted to the best soap stories of all time. I watched all of them on the air from that point for at least a few months or years at a time, except B&B (Just cannot get into it). When they started to decline through today- I watch less and less. I tune in now if I am free and hear about stories or scenes online that might be good to watch. I tune in when favorites return, usually for a month or so and quit again. I tune in out of nostalgia, out of love for the genre, out of respect for the actors and characters I loved. But there is no daily habit for me anymore, because the shows are so basic. But there is still something that compels me to check back in from time to time.

Did Robert Newman leave in 1991 before or after JFP arrived? Just interesting that she welcomed him back, but not Zimmer (who had reached out about returning during the time Curlee was still there).

The third one only works well if we already know the threats against them, and already treat them as credible. If the menace is there, some of the details can be forgiven. Laura’s return from the Cassadines was kind of a mix of part 2 and 3, plays well rewatching it because Genie plays the scenes full of fear. She’s scared for herself, she’s scared for Luke, etc, Stavros does seem capable of anything in a soap supervillain kind of way.

Jean was always the epitome of the writer you promote from within to interim HW while the actual talented HW is hired or their stories can air. She keeps the trains running, she does write talk to scenes, but she should never be in the driver’s seat for longer than 4 months. Then back to breakdowns.

It really is rare that these epic returns work out, and I am also glad she didn’t just come back for a Carlivati nonsense drive by, which is all she probabaly would have had time for. It would have made more sense for perhaps Viki to be at an airport and run into her, and have a nice conversation about how they both have overcome a lot, and how much Viki standing by her had helped her in life.

I will so be watching this one. What a great group.

I love Kenney’s Y&R, so much of what I know the show to be happened during his tenure. I also loved him on GH. Was Andrea Evans really a huge “get” at that time? Tina didn’t become iconic until her return stint, when she was dropped into the story about being a Lord.

What a boring time modern fans have had. Nikki was a stripper. On camera. She and Paul were in a cult. Victor had a man in a cage. Vanessa went through years of unhinged behavior, culminating in framing her soon to be daughter-in-law for her murder by throwing herself off the balcony. Affairs galore- my favorite being Kay mailing the cut up photos of Jack and Jill to John. It’s just so boring now. Take a chance! If Bill Bell wasn’t ashamed of soaps, why should anyone else be? If the show had the guts the older version had, maybe one of these young leads might have made gay for pay porn and are desperate to hide it, ending up being blackmailed into escorting.