titan1978

Anne Logan was a waste of Susan Pratt’s talents. Talk about a character that could have grown an edge after being a suspect in Diana’s murder, and been given new life by slowly becoming a bitch. She plays that edge so well. Easily could have mixed it up for years, and would have been more formidable against Heather if she was now equally after ruining her. Susan Pratt does good work as Anne, she’s just playing a horrible character.

I found it to be nothing more than a stunt, and one that ultimately didn’t pay off beyond some minor media attention. And I was completely over JFP/Guza’s misogyny on GH in regards to female characters. They have retconned it repeatedly, so I’m not sure if Sam was assaulted or not by his version of Franco. But back then it was skeezy. I did kind of enjoy his creepy mom though.

Because they became kind of a pop culture moment, they get an oversized amount of attention/credit within the greater whole. The truth is the show was very strong, full of interesting characters, and for folks that were there from the beginning you still got to see Steve, Audrey, Jessie, and Lee, not to mention Lesley who had become a staple by then too. Plus Diana and Peter Taylor, as of early 1980ish, still being featured until their deaths. By all accounts, the Luke and Laura phenomenon just took an already popular show and added more audience to it. But they do get all the credit in the media because it is easier to focus on their wedding than the overall strength of the show. We know Marland has said he never intended Luke to become a great love of Laura’s. I think Scotty really benefitted from that relationship too. It let Kin have more fun playing an angry, scheming, sarcastic opportunist than just a normal romantic lead. Especially when you would see the more vulnerable Scott sometimes show up. As cute as early Scotty was, I’m glad they let him become a rascal.

March reminds me so much of the Guza era, in that everything went all in during sweeps. Then we had a couple of months of stories just waiting to peak again. Lots of sitting and talking scenes, touching base with anything not focused on during Feb. but he had better day to day writers to make that material feel less like the filler that it was.

The cynic in me thinks that this route makes it easier for propping Howarth. Ava/Nikolas was kind of a popular pairing. They had to destroy that completely for whatever it is they are doing with Ava/Austin.

Am I the only one that thinks they (Frank) decided to take this Nikolas story this far because he needed someone (Ava/Maura) to prop up Roger’s character that was clearly not working out? So we have to get rid of Nikolas to move her towards Austin?

She cut her hair very short, and adopted a more aggressive personality for about 5 minutes. I had no issue with her being upset at Kevin and wanting him to pay for terrorizing her. Which put her in conflict with Lucy. It was just an overall tone that did not suit the character or KW.

Tom with Felicia just did not work. I did enjoy the stalker storyline with Kevin though. The outcome with dark Felicia was a misstep.

I always forget just how attractive Garcia was. What a waste they didn’t invest in him back then. As someone that adored Labine, I did find that first run of Guza’s to be just about perfect. A mix of the grounded show Riche/Labine did with all that character depth mixed with more of the mystery/action vibe Guza and his team brought at that point. It was exciting viewing again after the transition period that happened after Stone died.

As much as I love Nina, I find @BoldRestlesshas nailed the list I would have come up with too. Even if I am not personally a fan of Michael, you cannot deny his rehabilitation and prominent story for almost 15 years, before varying back burner periods. If this was just favorites, I would put Nina in that spot.

IIRC, Tammy the former sex worker ended up running it for Luke and Bobbie for a period of time before she was phased out. Not sure if Bobbie still owns it or not. I can’t remember if anyone in the Dillon/Georgie era worked there or lived there. I think the apartments upstairs haven’t been referenced in quite a while. Does anyone know when the exterior became such a focal point for scenes? I have really fond memories of the early 90’s younger characters hanging out and working there, and Ruby being involved with them. Especially Brenda.

There were periods of time after Ruby took over Kelly’s when that seemed like the central hub of the show. Everybody went to Kelly’s. Younger characters worked there, troublemakers lived upstairs or ended up there for some tough love from Ruby.

Even after being moved off the front burner, Jessie was still seen and had that barely there relationship with Dan. It didn’t amount to much, but they did keep using her for a while there as a kind of hospital staple. You would be hard pressed to know she had once been the leading heroine on the show though. Steve and Audrey really get sidelined once Jeff leaves. They didn’t have much to do even on the back burner from 1981 until Wes Kinney brought back Tom as a doctor and introduced Simone.

It doesn’t bother me because they have set up in character motivation for it- a Cassadine trying to take a baby from their mother. Doesn’t matter that it was Nikolas or Spencer, that has to be triggering for her. And also- I thought there was a connection when Esme was living with her before. Esme is an extreme version of what Laura was like. Family upheaval, feeling like she didn’t belong with the Vinnings anymore, but also didn’t know how to be Lesley’s daughter. Followed closely by the David Hamilton affair and killing him. Laura was very troubled as a young woman with a similar background. Hopefully they do not have her absolve Esme of everything to get to where they may be going. Laura can both want to help her and also feel for Cam and Joss.

That is my feeling too- Labine’s stint was more grounded, but it still felt like an overall action/adventure show. Human drama around those situations. Remember Robin learns Stone is HIV+ after he was hit in the leg in the mob shootout.

It makes me sad for the folks that have stuck it out watching daily during the last 15 years or so. I was truly rewarded as a longtime GH fan for their 50th- lots of returns of familiar faces, a sense of fun injected back into the show. I’m not saying everything they did was a success, but it was fun to watch again. RC and FV were trying to save the show, and they did knowing they might have more eyes during the special anniversary. This feels different, mostly because JG has tanked more than once as HW here.

I kept thinking he seemed familiar!

Another thing to point out- other than what Bill Bell did, soaps used to actually write a bible of story projections, and had less meetings/interference with network execs. I cannot imagine how bland and short Josh’s 6 month projections are. The process of having other writers in the mix, like breakdown writers, also allowed for fine tuning and was another step to get the temperature of what was working or not. Allowing the HW to make changes based on that week’s filming scripts easier because they were looking at the air shows, near future scripts, and long term. To move the ship relatively smoothly instead of just dropping things abruptly. It’s a hard job, made harder now by budget constraints, very tight schedules, etc. What I keep coming back to is who actually thinks he is doing good work at Y&R? There is no going back to the Bell days. But at least try something!

If anything, there were times it looked better than it had under JFP, who truly gutted the look of the show. It was the first time she arrived on a show and I thought a it started to look worse under her as EP. She brought in the bland.

it’s better than the one on GH! But that is not saying much.

And people often forget the title gave him the power after struggling with Conboy during Y&R’s first era. But he didn’t do the day to day job of EP. He had Conboy, then Wes Kinney, then Ed Scott. And those three were talented EP’s with a point of view. He certainly had control, but he wasn’t doing the actual job. If anything, if Josh wants to be a show head and run the writers room like primetime, he should be building up a strong team. Not tearing it down.

For everyone that keeps posting how it is possible to write a strong network daytime soap with very limited writing teams- it was. But nobody working on these shows now has shown that kind of talent in decades. Decades. The likes of Harding Lemay, Labine and Mayer, Nixon and Bill Bell are long gone. The firings are awful, not just because they were breakdown writers and script supervisors. It’s because Josh is still there. I love this genre but once again, if you have to cut costs to the point of what we now see onscreen with Y&R, perhaps the time has come for drastic change or to plan for an ending within the next year.

This is truly the most shocking soap news to me since Frons cancelled AMC and OLTL at the same time. It’s not the cost cutting- that is happening everywhere, and there is also the potential strike coming up. It’s the fact that they are eliminating everyone but Josh. If anyone should have been fired from Y&R it’s JG. Having him as a nearly sole creative vision is insanity. He’s beyond a hack at this point, and no visionary. This is awful news.

For me the subtext of that scene, especially at the time, was that Bobbie is actually more upset with Luke. He’s been making digs about boring domesticity to/about her. He’s been getting under her skin, which leads to the Damian affair. That and the fact that Tony was so taken with and had an almost instant bond with Laura. She’s just taking all that frustration out on Laura. And Laura absolutely is pushing her buttons by letting Lucky do whatever he wants in Bobbie’s house. But I think the anger is truly about Luke’s needling. I have always liked that Bobbie and Laura have a tenuous relationship after the ‘93 return. Sometimes good, and sometimes it can be nasty. Which is fitting for their history and characterizations.

Any longtime fans care to comment on Francesca James as Kitty/Kelly on AMC? They didn’t share any screen time as far as I know. An interesting way to bring her back to the show. Was this successful?