titan1978

I think when discussing the supercouple era it does revolve around the types of stories that involved capers or were thrillers at heart. Lots of supercouples existed before the formula. But Pat Falken Smith and the writers under her at GH from 1979-1981, including Sheri Anderson, developed the prototype with Monty for the Luke and Laura on the run story. Then came the spies. And Sheri Anderson took that and “perfected” it at DAYS. There it became almost a grinder for every couple to be put through, and was less and less successful as the 80’s became the 90’s. Even shows that were better structured overall fell into the habit at times during the 80’s.

She has always been this way. Everything is Carly’s business, especially if it pertains to Jason. If you think this is bad, you should have seen her when Sam was pissed and told her Jason was the father of Elizabeth’s baby.

Frank still sometimes operates under the ABC mandates of the 2000’s, where they bring in anyone not famous for a soap and consider it good publicity for new viewers. As if that man is bringing anyone to watch him along for the ride. Brian Frons would be proud of this legacy.

They having been laying it on thick with Obrect since she came back. A tour around PC, being picked on by mean old Lulu and Dante, bonding with Anna and Rocco, crying about her Britta. It has been ridiculous. She and Britt are not misunderstood victims of circumstance. Sometimes people are actually abrasive in the real world, and it’s not covering up a soft, gooey center. And Obrect loves Caesar Faison, and was part of many villainous schemes. The show still has a bias problem. The only good that came out of the last couple of years was that a couple of Frank’s pets got forced out. We run the risk of all the good work they have done in the last six months being quickly unraveled to prop up another pair of people Frank just wants to work with. Also- KT asked to be killed off because she was no longer going to be paired with the lead male of the show (at the time) because Burton wouldn’t abide by the corporate vaccine mandate. She wanted to die in a major way so that she wouldn’t be able to just come back. She publicly asked for her job back a year ago and said they turned her down. Now they let her return. And Vanessa Marcil, one of the few actual daytime stars left with audience pull and a fan favorite on GH has never returned under Valentini except as a glorified guest? Make it make sense to me.

Plus it would have given the suspects more time to mess up their alibis and look suspicious in general. I did like Portia handling the body shot woman with tact and not hand wringing the whole time. If they let her lean into her edge instead of always falling apart and seeming to make choices in a panic, I would enjoy it more. Let her feel some control and power without feeling bad about it. That would lead to natural conflict with Trina when she finds out her mother isn’t always acting for other people, she’s equally capable of being selfish and tired of being under anyone’s thumb. We have a good thing with Drew. I think what I also want is someone to do Marland era Barbara Ryan. Sick of being a victim and fundamentally privileged and a little spoiled, and she goes full bitch to get what she wants. It doesn’t have to be a man either! Sasha would have worked well here.

Yes, Guza and that team still kept the thread that has been lost. Their Carly could still be a dangerous element because she inserted herself into situations and also made impulsive decisions. LW still played the threads of jealousy for Jason with Sam and Elizabeth, and to a lesser degree at that time, Robin. I just see it more as she was morphed into a new character to, not evolved into one. What a waste to have Drew wake up this early!

For me, SJB’s Carly was the first character since Judith Light’s Karen Wolek where you could see a crushing amount of low self esteem was baked into the DNA of the character, and she never fully dealt with it. She was impulsive and manipulative, self destructive, and also a walking wound of hurt. Judith Light got to fully explore that in her character, and Sarah wasn’t as lucky all the time due to the show focusing her more on the men she was after and Michael. But she always played it. They both showed a raw, frayed edge in their performances. Laura Wright is a pro that has had to carry a lot of her scene partners and try to make a lot of crap work. I don’t fault LW. The character is just not the same Carly.

I do agree about Conboy. That stupid baseball story! I was really enjoying many aspects of the show when they kind of reset things and had momentum with good story around Joan Collins coming in as Alexandra. Even after she left abruptly. I still feel like Wheeler was the wrong choice to lead any show. GL died from blows from many hands. You could easily say the troubles became lethal during the end of JFP’s run, the period it was almost cancelled after her, and after that first 1.5 years when it staged a comeback under Rauch. It just took a long time to finally kill the old gal. Mobsters and the royal family of San Cristobel should never have taken over the show. But the truth is, so many soaps suffered from 1995 on. The wrong people made the worst decisions and creative instincts were so off, even with shows that were still good, they were wounded.

I don’t see people blaming her, maybe I missed it. I saw people saying she was t what kept the show going. Her star power helped, but it wasn’t the 80’s anymore. 100% it was Wheeler that killed the show.

I actually don’t mind Greg, and can’t stand Rebecca. Which isn’t how I thought it would be going into it. He at least can discuss his own characters and shows. She seems like a professional that could care less about the genre or the stories, does her job and goes home. And that’s totally fine! Just not the right fit for hosting a show about the genre.

I don’t follow him and wasn’t watching Ron wreck havoc on DAYS. So it was a surprise when I saw them. He is just one of those people that they do not suit him at all. If the writers room wasn’t too busy doing some excellent 1980’s cocaine they found in the walls somewhere, maybe the breakneck pace and constant twists would have at least the slightest connections. I mean Korte was there for the Panic Room, and Carly is the perfect character to have been roped into the Ric story. It a natural connection. I am on record saying I don’t hate Joss as a WSB agent. If she is going to be there and they are still determined to shove her down our throats, at least she isn’t in a baby switch story or another pairing like Dex where they just roll around together all day. It does work in GH logic- Frisco was in a band, then dragged his untrained girlfriend on assignments. Anna and Sean were double agents that ended up back in the WSB/law enforcement, etc. But the fact that Joss is the one telling Vaughn to grab the knife and reminding him about mission protocols is just too stupid even for this story. This is a show that had Casey the Alien and had Cassadines trying to freeze the world- I can get on board with a lot. But they have to meet me at least halfway.

And let me be clear, I mostly agree. I think he was an integral part of what was working on GL as part of that head writing team with Curlee as the leader. And I think he did great stuff on DAYS up to a point. I think the whole Curtis Reed story worked and really set up the Adair version of Kate, Billie and Austin. Focusing on Marlena was the right decision. I also thought Hope’s return was well told. Where he lost me, and I have said it around here before, was when Marlena’s possession kicked into gear, and was dragged out longer than it should have been. All of a sudden every character became incredibly stupid, and it just got campier and campier. My line in the sand is pretty much after Maison Blanche it started to go in a direction I wasn’t a fan of. I wasn’t one of the people that enjoyed Eileen Davidson playing multiple characters, no matter how good she was.

I think the problem was Rauch tried to recreate the magic with Reva/Zimmer that had been so successful with Viki/Slezak for him at OLTL. While both are very talented, Erika wasn’t showy, and didn’t eat her scene partners alive if they couldn’t keep up. She could sometimes be a little mannered, but that suited Viki. Her Niki could chew some scenery though. But Zimmer was kind of a force of nature on Guiding Light, and I don’t think she could play a Reva that wasn’t intense. I don’t think Reva is a comfortable fit as a central heroine that has trouble heaped upon her. I think she was more successful as an antagonist and her own worst enemy. The Annie story worked because of all the players involved, especially Watros. But I don’t think much of stuff like the Clone, the island princess story, etc.

All the characters had layers. Laura became a sensation on GH because she was essentially a good person who was deeply troubled. You would have Bobbie being outright vicious towards her, cynical with Luke, and scheming with Scotty. And yet, Bobbie was also a good person, a dedicated student nurse, and you grew to understand why she wanted the security Scotty represented in her mind. If you only watched Kay and Jill in the later years of Y&R, you didn’t see that Katherine could be a nasty piece of work, was delusional about Philip, insecure about being older, and took it too far with Jill. And Jill did break Katherine’s confidence and trust with the affair and child. But Jill was also very young, and what Katherine did to her led to her becoming harder, more driven, and looking for stability in marriages and the lacking passion outside her marriages. Speaking of which, I think the 1980’s reinvigoration of the feud between Jill and Katherine was also a classic. I watched it as it was happening once we got to Nina becoming pregnant. The tragedy of losing Philip for all three of them allowed the story to have many layers, then the fallout of fighting with Nina over her baby and inherited fortune. I have seen a lot of the earlier part though too- the cut up photograph, the Memorial Day episode, Kay becoming increasingly unhinged, and Jill scheming and vamping all over the Jabot offices. The court case over young Philip. It still had some grit to it, before the show became much slicker as they headed into the 90’s. I know James Reilly is an acquired taste, and I don’t really enjoy his work past the first month or so Marlena was revealed as possessed. But I also think the last truly classic affair was Roman/Marlena/John. It made sense in the world of DAYS where we have two Romans. It also involved the slow descent of Sami from troubled to pretty much a villain by the end of his run. Her sexual assault, bulimia and body issues, attachment to the returned Roman, and knowing about Belle helped create the monster she becomes. Like any great story it also had a couple of amazing Turing points, like Sami kidnapping baby Belle and returning her at Christmas, and the reveal at the baptism.

OLTL was my grandmother’s favorite show, and I can remember her saying Dorian did kill Victor, and she was shocked they were revisiting it and sending her to jail. I also love that even though Nancy Pinkerton played that, Strasser felt so deeply that Dorian having killed Victor was essential to playing her. She often said she still believed that Dorian believed she killed him, no matter what the story revealed.

That really is the core of that story, and many seem to either gloss over that or don’t get it. Fire Walk With Me is a very hard watch, but it really is important for the truth of the darkness of Laura Palmer’s story, and where she ends up at the beginning of the show. Yes it was quirky and had other stories, and the element of supernatural. But it was rooted in that horror, and was groundbreaking for network television in nearly every way.

I started watching in the 80’s and a pretty young kid, and didn’t really get invested in a deeper level until I was a teen in the 90’s. My classics would absolutely include BJ’s heart transplant on GH. I have recently seen a bunch of it again, and you forget many of the small moments like even in his rage, Tony stops for a minute and shows some glimpse of compassion when he needs to tell Bobbie about doing a direct donation. And when she later agrees, there is this silent look between them in a later scene, and it’s absolutely heartbreaking. And everybody was included in the weight of the story that should have been- not just Felicia and Tony and Bobbie, but also Lucy, Frisco, Monica. Steve and Amy in the emergency room just broken hearted. Luke and Laura telling Lucky. It was a special story. Stone and Robin’s tragic love story. The Romeo and Juliet play, the edge of danger with the mob much like her mother Anna with Duke. A near perfect young and tragic love story. Stone’s gradual decline and poignant death. The fact that they actually went there, that Robin Scorpio was HIV positive, was shocking in 1995. The meds were not the same as they would be even by 1998, there was no guarantee that Robin would survive because they played it real. It was a risk, lost the show viewers, but they told the whole story anyway. The episode where Stone got to hear what he meant to everyone was special. Little things like him helping Lucky and Sly with a go-cart, cutting himself, and Laura took care of it with compassion after he freaked out. Stone breaking down and Mac finally just hugging him, because it was too late to keep being mad at this kid. I had a parent involved with caring for gay men dying of AIDS in the late 80’s/very early 90’s, before a lot was known. She also said it was the most realistic story she had seen as far as progression of the disease. OLTL- when Robin Strasser returned, and they told the story that landed Dorian in jail for killing Victor, eventually leading to all of Viki’s alters being revealed was also so compelling. It was gothic at times, and was gritty. All that thunder and dramatic music. I know people that watched when the show began have issues with what they did with Victor Lord. But for where the show was at that point, and the psychology of the day, they took something that had been played for camp and made it so grounded and painful. Young and the Restless- Sheila’s reign of terror. I didn’t follow her to B&B, so it stops with the fire for me. But it is just so psychological and thrilling. Lauren was a complicated character, she wasn’t that nice a person back then, but it was so horrifying to watch Sheila basically destroy her life. And we understood Sheila’s motivations! She wasn’t just psycho to drive the plot along.

When I finally got to see nearly all of that run, it quickly became a favorite. That writing team spreading the story wealth around and making it a true ensemble was wonderful. There were so many great stories and characters, and nobody really felt generic. The dialogue couldn’t just be swapped between characters. The adults felt like adults, and people like Bridget and Michelle felt authentic.

I’m so pissed about Valentin and Charlotte. I feel like inserting the Tyra “We were all rooting for you!” gif. And I actually love Faison, but only the original, calculating psychopath version please. The Ron Carlivati comedy hijinks with the Faison family and whatever the hell Passanante was doing was not good at all.

It was a disaster. First of all Bill was like three different characters in one year, because they were always trying to make it work. Riche and Geary managed to somewhat salvage him by turning him into an [!@#$%^&*], and mostly deadbeat dad. And for some reason after 2006 or so Geary decided that personality was Luke’s, and that he had always been playing him that way, which the audience knows was BS. They had been solidly still in the top 3 for ratings most of the time between Monty’s stints. But after a few months the show crashed hard, lost like 2 ratings points, and never got back up into the 8.0’s again or ever really got close to Y&R again. AMC was the ABC winner then. I think had they gotten Cari Shayne and Antonio for Port Charles as Karen and Jagger, it might have had an actual shot at real success, and Karen would have been as important as the show wanted her to be. The first recast was just okay, and the next was awful! I know people actually enjoyed Marj Dusay as Alexandra Spaulding. But to me, they are like completely different characters in every way, and she was not a successful recast.

His second return, for the heart transplant story, was the last time I felt like the show used him well. Considering he mostly played adventure and romance as Frisco, I thought he didn’t let the story down. Everybody really rose to that challenge though. But beyond that I just don’t think he fit in anymore and I don’t really care enough about Frisco anymore to invest. It was fun to have Robert back, but Anna was just a mess under Guza. She was fine in stuff with Robin, but that whole Eli Love thing was just stupid and beneath Finola’s talent and Anna was way too important for such throwaway stories.

It’s dumb as hell but I do applaud them not just ignoring how mainstream and popular romance as a genre has become again. At least it’s something stupid that there is an audience for, even if I am not it. But I would take this over Valentin weeping over Anna, or Drew and Carly walking on the beach any day.

This is very true. My wish is Willow gets to flame out, and in turn afterwards Nina does too while seeking revenge for what PC has done to both of her kidnapped babies. Watros hasn’t gotten to play unhinged maniac since Guiding Light and she is very capable. I mean Mulcahey gave her so much potential that just wasn’t there before for me. I actually watched her scenes. On the off topic convo, I used to imagine Sarah’s Carly in the Tam stories. I think she would have absolutely done well in each story, except not as the hybrid damsel in distress/impulsive train wreck that TB’s Carly morphed into. Even something like the Panic Room would have been more psychological with SJB there. And I can see her having chemistry with Ted’s Alcazar. And that first Brenda returns story would have been even more intense!

One of the biggest flaws was they had no regular (for a soap) antagonism between the characters. Carly was defanged, friendly with Sam and Liz and the town confidant, they stopped doing real mob stories for Sonny, and all the characters were just kind of circling whatever big bad there was (Ryan, Cyrus, Peter, Victor, Hook/Esme). It was years of the blandest stories, no peaks and valleys, and everything felt stilted. Sometimes there would be promising casting or even a story that was working and you could see Valentini’s infamous meddling and soon dropped stories, always followed by a re-centering of major story around one of the pets. The schedule/puzzle piece episodes together based production model was very apparent from day to day. From the time they recast Michael, it has been a huge improvement. Tracy hasn’t been this well utilized since the 1990’s. There are plenty of flaws, missed beats, and pets always in story over characters that should have stories. And what happened with Lucky was ridiculous. But credit where it is due, they seem to want the show to be exciting and let the non-supervillain types have real conflict with each other.

Beyond strange. It seemed to me like they had a big board up on a wall and decided by a random generator which headshots to move into each main character orbit.