Soaplovers

I think the interaction between Vanessa and SPS would have worked better if that meeting to discuss properties had been in Vanessa's office. That way, when SPS threatened to tell people that Vanessa was being a bigot against her for not being the 'right black'.... it would have carried more weight had this meeting been in Vanessa's office 1:1 without people being around them.

It's a cute living room set, perhaps the other sets can be redressed to reflect other locations that would require a set such as: Vanessa's real estate office that can also serve as a meeting place for Joey/Randy and also serve as a place for Vanessa/Joey to conduct 'business'. They could redress either Nicole or Bill's office for that. Boo on Dani/Bill kissing. While the performers have chemistry, we also have to remember that this man treated her like dirt with his various affairs and then ditched her.

I remember seeing that episode online, but I guess the show figured that she was either too 'old' or too 'smart' to fall for his charms. I think another thing that helped humanize Jackie was her friendship/mentorship of Evie Stapleton. If a sweet individual like Evie could see the good in Jackie.. than so could the audience. A character like Evie doesn't really exist on soaps nowadays. She was sweet and saw the best in everyone, but she also had a quiet strength and spirit that made her a unique presence in the Dobson/Marland era. It's a shame that she was phased out at the start of the Long/Ryder era especially since she'd been the only positive motherly influence in Phillip's life. As you've said, Long really set the template for Phillip's character and direction in life when he found out who his real parents were. I think the fact that he found out after Jackie was died added to the Greek tragic element that was his character and direction. His overly controlling and domineering personality when it came to his marriages and children made perfect sense because he had no control in his formative years and once he found out the truth about himself.. he was determined never to lose that control ever again. And I agree that maybe Marland was less invested in the Phillip story because there was nothing he could add to the story so he pushed the reveal down the road while he figured that he could do something about the Amanda story because the mom hadn't been introduced (other than the woman in the veil) by the Dobson's before he took over. And in regards to the Holly situation, his first order had to be to end the Roger story in his first few months and than sidelined Holly until he could figure out where to go with her... and I think had MG had another year left on her contract.. he probably would have had an idea of where Holly would have gone in 1981.

I love that even though the book is called Anna Karenina, that the book is about so much more than her. She is but a victim of 19th Century Russian society while the other story involving Kitty has a different outcome than what befalls Anna.

As I had said before, I had wished to see the whole Stephanie/Pamela/Nicole story from the late 60s because it sounded like an interesting twisted story of resentment and revenge. Plus, it would have been interesting to see Alice Hirson and Ms. Dailey playing different types of characters than what they were better known to play in later roles. When I viewed the Sheldon era, I think his first story (ISIS) was a wonderful umbrella that affected the whole canvas.. and utilized every character in one way or another. Maybe it wasn't as good as Slesar would have written, but I think it worked for 1983. The problem for the first half of 1984 was that there were multiple stories with little to no overlap. The Standing Oak story had potential, but let's face it.. .a story like that will never play well even if it offered some hard truths about the states and it's past. The campus story relied on a newbie actress carrying it which had little connection to the rest of the show. The Chris stalking story that climaxed with a Wait Until Dark climax was the best of those stories and did seem to tie more of the show together. The two week break because of the Olympics seemed to soft reset the show and it returned with the locked room murder mystery of Logan Swift with Raven on trial, Alicia playing her hand to keep Sky/Raven apart, Chris being the main person to solve the case, and a good resolution that made sense. Even the mysterious Liz Coral with the skull seemed random at first until it played out in a satisfying way with the return of Laurie and the Karrs being involved in the story. The Raven story was cut short due to the show cancellation which led SG to come back early from her maternity leave to finish the story out and conclude it. To this day, the Wonderland Ave story and the hint that Laurie was going to find her son that were introduced in the final week made me love that mysteries would continue to develop in Monticello even though we wouldn't get to see it for ourselves. If P & G was serious about reviving a soap.. this one would be the one to revive.

Just think, had the show not been expanded to an hour.. we most likely wouldn't have gotten the Spauldings nor the Phillip story. I liked that we met both Justin and Jackie long before the Phillip element came into play. Justin was on a good five to six months before Jackie came into the picture.. and Jackie was on for several months before mention of the Spauldings and her 'aborted/lost' child came to the forefront. Had the show stayed a half hour, the Dobsons probably would have just focused on either a Justin/Mike/Jackie triangle or a Justin/Mike/Sara/Jackie quadangle. Sara lost her place in that story with the Spaulding additions while she was spun off onto another bad man pairing before being made a talk to character.

My late mom was watching the show during the early 1970s through the early 1990s so she remembered the Phillip story quite well and even said that even if he'd been raised by Justin and/or Jackie.. he still would have had darker traits based on how bad both Justin/Jackie were in their early years. Being raised by Alan just bought those negative traits out into the open. Based on what my mom had told me about early Jackie... she was a highly spirited and manipulative daughter of a well known and wealthy doctor that spoiled her. She was known to take whatever she wanted no matter if it belonged to her or not and she did so with Justin when she stole him away from Sara. When she saw Justin doing to her what she'd done to Sara, she decided to make him pay by keeping his child away from him and decided to basically sell her child to Alan, who wanted to not burden his wife Elizabeth with the news their own baby had been still born. I think Alan did it mostly to keep Elizabeth distracted while he played around.... that type of behavior seemed to repeat itself during his marriage to Hope and how A-M kept her occupied and out of his hair. Jackie realized she'd made a mistake and befriended Elizabeth and kept in Phillip's life throughout his childhood. It was she knew she'd be staying in Springfield long term is when she insisted Alan/Elizabeth come to Springfield so she could remain in their lives on a more consistent basis. I think Jackie's character changed/evolved partly based on Cindy's take on the character and also because she'd realized her mistakes plus also being married to Alan changed her.

IMHO, Derek turning to the dark side has most likely been in the plans since day 1 of the show. I know someone in this board mentioned there was an interview they saw where it was mentioned that the first six months were mapped out when production started and that the show pretty much followed those plan. So when I looked at episodes 120/121 (the six month mark), I saw that the plan was still for Andre/Ashley to be end game with the implication being that he was sticking with Dani because she needed him after Chelsea's kidnapping and she was sticking with Derek because he couldn't walk. The scene was presented/acted as if they were being kept apart due to obligations and misunderstandings.. not because they weren't interested in one another. I think had Andre/Ashley been popular with viewers, the whole Derek faking his recovery angle would have played out a lot longer, but because he and Dani were so popular together, the story ended suddenly. Now the show is regrouping by establishing Ashley as a single woman slowly getting back out into the dating field while a jealous Derek is looking to sabotage it. Let's see if the writers actually follow through on this new set up, or if they'll drop it like they've dropped so many promising threads when it comes to Ashley thus far.

I enjoyed that other stories/characters were focused on that weren't tied to the cancer story. And Friday's episode had a new breakdown writer.. one of the long term veterans of breakdown writing that was on Y & R during the Bill Bell era. The one thing I wish this soap would fix would be to stop having just Dupree only gatherings. When people say that this show has P & G elements, I can't totally agree because most of the gatherings seem be Dupree only events when the great soaps like GL & AT& T were all about the community gatherings/events. Also, I see Derek looks to be resuming his gradual path to being a darker character. It's been in the works on and off going all the way back to the first time he had a frantic/jealous look on his face the second he laid eyes on Ashley/Andre interacting with one another. His scenes with Jan told me that he's playing the remorseful guy that is telling Jan about Ashley's new man out of 'concern', but I think it was done in order to cause a bit of trouble for Ashley post break up. I have to say I find this gender reversal to be refreshing since this type of play is usually reserved for the third party female character as seen from infamous 3rd party female characters like Kristen Dimera, Sami Brady, Annie Dutton, etc.

To me, Tangie should have been Ken Norris and Janet Mason's daughter.. which would have made her Holly's niece and Blake's cousin. MW actually fit in well in the Springfield Journal orbit.. and had she been Emily Norris, she could have still had the interaction/conversations with Roger without the weird foster father backstory. I think Lucy's mother not being anyone that was in Springfield was probably for the best. I liked that some of the families didn't totally mix and were kept separate. In regards to Blake/A-M, I think once Rick Hearst took over as A-M.. it became less believable that she was taking advantage of him because he looked more mature than the actor that he was replacing. When SS was playing Blake, I liked the friends with benefits with the hope of more element that went on between Blake & A-M. When Liz K took over as Blake, the whole dynamic between Blake/A-M changed and they became friends with no hang ups on his end nor her end toward one another. I recall a scene where A-M was pouring his heart out to Blake about Eleni and it made her realize in that moment that she wasn't jealous nor resentful that he didn't feel the same way about her that he did for Eleni. She also understood where he was coming from because he was in the same position with Eleni as she had been with him a year or so earlier. Blake and her friendships with Frank & A-M were abandoned by 1995. It was as if the second she married Ross, her whole orbit had changed and she hardly interacted with either Frank nor A-M after 1995 until the show finally wised up and paired her with Frank near the end. I had no idea that Blake/Frank had been friends and had also hooked up going all the way back to when SS played Blake. However, there were scenes with Blake/Frank hanging out, going for a dip, listening to one another,.. and it really gave SS's Blake more layers. I also remember one significant friendship scene between the two when in early 1994 when Blake came over to be a shoulder for Frank to lay on after the whole Eleni/Julie situation blew up. She said she had no judgment for whatever he was going to tell her... listed to him, and than asked a very valid question after he was done venting to her. She asked if he enjoyed the attention Julie was paying him and if perhaps he felt something for her back in return. I don't recall how Frank answered it, but I think it did make him do a little soul searching about how things went south between him and Eleni. @alwaysAMC Reading your write-ups of 1998 and the whole Blake/Ben/Ross situation made me remember being a young teen during that era and having a few of my friends coming over to hang out. The moment Blake was on screen in the wheelchair, my friends took notice and watched her for a few moments before turning to me and asking 'what's her story?'. And they sat down and watched that story in particular because they were fascinated by Blake. It's interesting to me that when I was in college in the early 00s that I got several people to switch to watching Guiding Light... and it was all because of the Blake/Ross/Tory story that was going on. The show never really understood the appeal she and Ross had.

I remember Passions & Sunset Beach would do special pre-emption episodes during their briefs runs. Sometimes it would be two characters recapping all the plotlines as a way to catch potential new viewers up, or it was a recap episode based on particular stories per day (Sunset Beach did that). It's good promotion and any promotion is good promotion in my book.

I had heard Ron C and Chris Dunn were leaving the breakdown writer team. I'm intrigued to see if another new breakdown writer will be joining Ms. Slater or if Mike Montgomery is the other new breakdown writer.

The upside is that people are actually talking about Ashley now LOL As someone that understands old school traditional soap opera 101, I think MVJ was trying to show with Ashley someone that was a latchkey kid that spent most of her time alone because her single mother was working constantly. So she didn't get exposure to other peers nor had the benefit of having a healthy male role model for her to look up to. So when she became a young adult, she decided to become a nurse because she wanted to help people and also decided that Derek was someone that she should settle with. Because she never really dated much pre-Derek nor had many friends growing up.. she came across a bit awkward and Mary Sue. Now that she's been working as a nurse for several months, had the brief dating situation with Andre, and realized Derek wasn't her end game long after Andre moved, she's become a bit more mature and has her priorities straight. Hence this sudden glow up that we're seeing with Ashley and her suddenly being more forward with this new guy. MVJ and co seem to be operating more on the show and not telling aspect with Ashley so I'm only guessing on the thought process with this character over the past 200+ episodes.

The Holly/Olivia thing could have worked if it was the town assuming they were becoming a couple with Holly questioning if perhaps she was drawn to women due to her bad luck/choices with men... and finally coming to terms that she let a good man (Ed) go due to choices she herself made. However, I don't think doing the Children's Hour set up would have worked because it would have either diminished Holly or Olivia. In regards to Labine, all I'm going to say is that you can be a good and talented head writer... but sometimes your style doesn't always fit onto a particular show. She was too New York/East coast for a show like GL.. which was more of a Midwest type of show. It's just like how Long worked as a head-writer on soaps like Texas, SFT, and GL.. but she struggled on Santa Barbara and OLTL. Talented headwriter, but the tones of both SB and OLTL were not a fit for what was strong in.

I actually kind of understood it. Hayley managed to get the love of her life Bill to leave her, so in a weird way... Hayley lives rent free in her head.