titan1978

I am sure there have been many harrowing moments from Edge of Night!

They were living under fake identities in Canada and the impresssion I got from the story at the time was that Frank had caught up to them. They certainly knew it was him that had arranged for the truck to be blown up. He had clearly been after them for a significant period of time, possibly most of Lucky’s life at that point from how Laura felt about them getting away from the mob once she was home again. In the years and retcons since, it seems they had some other adventures and time for Luke to run off on his own and have another kid (which absolutely does not ring true to the Luke we met again in 1993, but oh well).

Thanks, I was even watching and completely forgot that happened. Dante is so wasted under Frank’s tenure. I don’t need him to eat the show like when Guza introduced him, but he deserves better than what he has been given. Unless the entire story is retconned to Nina still only having one child, and it ends up being Willow. Shame for them to be twins if we don’t get Nelle terrorizing Willow out of it.

Question- did the show just drop Dante’s brainwashing? Or was that actually resolved? Because it seems to me like they just moved part of that story over to Drew and eventually it will be him that is triggered.

I didn’t even think about all those Jeff mentions possibly being part of this. I hope not!

No, she is too polished and has more of a quiet energy. Lois needs to be all heart, right there on her sleeve. I think it would be interesting to have her be part of the five families on GH though, and really give Sonny a run for his money. I bet she would have fun playing ruthless and dressed to kill as well. I remember someone around here mentioning Brianna Brown as being a potential Belle replacement on DAYS and I thought that would have been great.

I think Liz might have been the most destroyed character during Guza and Phelps decade at the show. I think she even had it worse than Emily, and they killed her off. It is flat out amazing that the same writer who wrote incredible material for Liz in an earlier stint did all that plot driven dreck to her. And now she has been forced into pairings with two of Frank’s BFF’s, when there is a Lucky sized hole and place right here on the show.

KS as Maxie is such a strange case. She was great as a new Lucy- a mild schemer with a somewhat bitchy personality. She fit in well with JMB’s Lulu working for Kate and sniping at each other. And then as they slowly dismantled/killed off every other woman on the show her age, she got stuck with all the stereotypical heroine stories. And it just does not suit her and was a waste of the fun they could have been having with Maxie. And now she is being forced to try to make RH’s new character work. Yuck. There were times I felt an entire episode went by and other than maybe Starr and Cole, all I saw were the likes of Fords or Rex/Gigi or McBain or all of the above and nobody that was OLTL to me. But I will admit that I felt even the Ford brothers were more successful than these GH characters. I know some of that was Frons.

I agree about Julia and Sly. And I remember thinking that during Valentini’s OLTL too- so many characters just not tied to anyone I would consider core. And a plethora of characters that could have been tied seamlessly to earlier, more iconic periods of the show. And yet they never went there.

Part of Tony’s anti Luke stance when Bill was created was because back then he didn’t want to do Luke unless Genie was Laura. And she refused to return for at least a year after ABC terminated her contract on AMC, and told her they would prefer she return to GH as Laura. I remember Bill being a ridiculous failure because of all the work they did to try to make him work. Every struggle was right there on screen. I didn’t even hate the final version, the dark, selfish character he was by the time they killed him off. It was just a long winding way to get there and it wasn’t good television. I think Bill being Fluke not only made more sense in the story they were telling, but also would have been more fun overall. TG can be incredibly annoying, but I loved the shade he threw on his way out the door. I remember him saying how stupid Ron’s Frank Smith story was. He even said something like Frank was old even back in the 70’s, him being alive at that point was beyond ridiculous.

I loved Karen. That was my first soap teen scene when I was a teen and I loved all those characters. In hindsight, Karen could be very annoying. I still think it is a shame they killed her on PC. I liked that ultimately she and Brenda were no longer rivals. They may not have been best friends, but a lot of growth happened, especially when Brenda figured out that Karen had been molested. I give Vanessa a lot of credit for playing into more vulnerability than just going vixen which is where the show tried to put her back then.

Sutton and McCullough also credit John Homa for helping them grow tremendously as actors. I think I recall Jonathan Jackson thanking him at one point too. Pretty sure he was hired by Riche due to the depth of the material the Stone storyline was going to require. Maurice may have helped (at least according to all three he did), but I am sure Homa did quite a bit. No soap story has even broken my heart more than Stone dying of complications from AIDS. And those actors are a huge part of why.

I watched quite a bit of the early Essensten/Brown era, some of Labine, and I loved what Culliton and Taggart were doing. Loved it. And then Conboy came in and dismantled all of what I was enjoying. I never got back into GL again after that, until I saw most of the Curlee era online.

It was awful. And a waste of a great set of characters that I was enjoying for disgusting shock factor. I wasn’t a longtime fan of GL but I had been watching for a bit and was really enjoying the last part of Rauch’s tenure before Conboy.

Like a lot of these types of things, it depends on how good they tell the story and the characters involved. I could believe something like let’s say Victoria or Nick Newman having a long lost friend from boarding school back in the 90’s when they were all young, and that leading to story when they reappear, maybe even some mild secrets of misspent youth while the new character is actually here for revenge for some perceived slight. I am less likely to believe either one of them killed someone while offscreen or had a baby. However, I would totally believe that AJ could have gotten someone pregnant on GH while at boarding school, but he’s dead so no point now. It’s all in how well does it fit them when we met them as SORASed characters and what they do with the opening.

Really good example. He certainly had talent and charisma, but that story really went very deep and nobody dropped the ball, him especially.

One of the reasons the Cassadine return story worked with Nikolas for me was just that- it was a window with plausible deniability in what the audience would know. And in watching those scenes recently, they match up pretty well with the story they told. Laura did act like she was maybe not going to say anything to Luke. She seemed more mature and sad, which was expected with what she had been through. But Nikolas also easily fits there emotionally and story wise. And as Genie used to say- Laura does have a off switch when things get too hard to handle. This story with Rick was just ill fitting all around. I almost wish that if it had been molestation memories resurfacing she was mistaken, and ultimately discovers the memories are not about Rick and the Webber home but something that happened when she was with the Vining family.

Wasn’t there a scene when Laura is in the attic with Robin and Lucky early in their return to the show under Labine that she got the chills looking around? I wonder what was going to come of that, and I was surprised when it came back up and was revealed to be this mess.

To me that was Val over compensating because everyone always assumed she was going to be with Gary again so she felt like she had something to prove. Again- I’m team Gary/Abby and Ben/Valene. Those relationships just work better for me overall. The Danny story was awful all around as far as I am concerned.

Valene unhinged and hardly threatening

I still prefer Gary with Abby. And those scenes with Jill were incredibly scary and effective. Poor Val.

He may not have watched the show, but I clearly remember him saying he read all of Marland’s bibles, and thought they were incredible. So he did do some research. It lead to some shallow characterizations lol.

You know, she really did grow into a good performer and I think her no longer being a main cast member has been a loss for the show. And I could not stand her in the 80’s! Lots of soap performers start out a little rough, especially the young ones. Some of them kind of find a groove that works for them, some never improve, and some turn into actual actors. People like Alfonso were much better than they were when they started, but I wouldn’t say they became more than talented charisma performers. Jacob Young really did surprise me. He was awful as Lucky, and he was much more compelling as JR during a really rough few years on AMC. I also think Victoria Rowell grew into an incredible actor for Y&R. She became one of those people who you could see thinking in character on the show without saying a word. Which is not to say she wasn’t competent at the beginning. She just grew into her justifiable place as a lead in my eyes. And again, another sorely missed character.

I remember watching this and being excited by all the new characters and then like a month later all I could think was where did everybody else go? Because Bill Eckert ain’t it ya‘ll. I even liked Jenny at first lol. Later on I enjoyed Tracy running her down.

I think it suffered from the Stefano disease. It felt like they wanted him to be Stefano without giving credit to the actual type of character and stories James was in. If anything, I think Paul being driven to the dark side as time went on would have been more compelling than James returning. It also was a Barbara crutch- don’t know what to do with Barbara? Let’s resurrect James.