Soaplovers

I'd always wanted to see the original Holly in action on the show (but sadly, it appears that her stint was not preserved whatsoever). My mom, when alive, was hoping some of her stint had been saved and would be put on the DVD's.. but alas no. I guess this old episode of the Match Game from 1976 is the best thing out there for her. I can see why she played her for several years.. she has a presence that is both likable and fascinating. I couldn't see her playing the Holly that was written in the late 70s... but the Holly of the late 80s/early 90s.. for sure.

I think it turned out that skull she was recreating was of a murder victim.. and that the killers stole it. I think it led to the return of Laurie Kerr (Mike Kerr's daughter).

I think Liz was created because Jody became more wooden and lacking spirit/fire once she was recast. Some of Liz's actions/stunts reminded me of stuff that Jody would have done if Loughlin had stayed in the part.

Henry/Barbara as a fun fling made sense... but having them as endgame.. wasn't cool. And the show ruined Vienna to prop Henry/Barbara up. It never made sense Vienna would try to win Henry when she was beautiful and full of life.. that she could have had any guy she wanted. That's why I wasn't a big Henry/Barbara fan because of what was done to Vienna to make it happen. @vetsoapfan @DRW50 yup.. Goutman actually said that about Katie... in a Paley interview, to boot. It was like he was living in a bubble and refused to see reality. It didn't do the show good nor did it do any good for the character of Katie (who I thought was interesting her first year or two on the show when written as a trouble maker). The actress was better served when she went to OLTL as Aubrey where the writing wrote to her strengths.

I think it's actually in character for Carolee to run off... she's always been impulsive and reacts emotionally. And she was smart to leave a recording to send to Steve because if she had tried telling him all this in person.. he would have coddled her, talked down to her, tried to justify sleeping with Ann, etc... and Carolee would have swallowed her feelings as best as she could. I think it was a nicely acted scene and I'll miss her take on Carolee. And the Ann Larimer situation didn't come out of left field.. it had been building for months since spring 1975 when she was bitter over the break up with Nick.. and was having nightmares about being emotionally cold and unavailable to all her previous boyfriends. What is interesting to me is the slight change in how the Steve/Ann affair started... with Cenedella, Steve was pursuing her with Ann trying to be sensible... and with Depriest, the roles switched with Ann pursuing him. And I actually understand Ann changing because it sounded as if Ann was repressed and afraid of opening herself up to anyone.. and when Steve wore down her defenses and she got a little taste of passion.. she became instantly hooked and vowed to continue getting her fix. So to me, it isn't that she loves Steve.. but that she's addicted to him (and signs were pointing to this if you recall with Ann speaking lovingly of Steve last summer with Matt,Maggie and Althea noting it and even expressing to Steve their worries).

The Woman in the Window by A.J. Finn

Personally, Jody lost all of her charm and charisma with Loughlin's departure. Jody became just a prop and was in essence just there when her replacement came in. I'm guessing maybe a few weeks? I think Lori left at the very end of 1983 and her replacement came in around January/Feb 1984

I think it was cut down to 10 because it is essence a new show.. so they're testing the waters to see if there is any interest. Compared to what the majority of the ABC sitcoms are getting ratings wise (some barely above 5 mil), this show would have to get 3 million or less to be cancelled.

I'd rather the show had ditched Jackie as well.. and just focused on Darlene/Becky... unless the show makes Jackie start acting like a normal human being instead of a cartoon character.

Wow... I guess true love isn't forever. I swear if we see reports of Gretchen/Slade breaking up.. than I guess being a con artist doesn't pay after all lol

It did take The Doctors a couple of years before their episodes were digitized.. and it's being aired right now.. so I have hope that down the line we will see P & G episodes streamed. It's a shame they wiped out a lot of the early episodes, which didn't have the music issues that later episodes had.

I think the reason AMC/OLTL got more effort was due to both being canceled on the same day, as well as, being canceled after ATWT/GL were canceled. With that said, both of those shows still had decent production values and still resembled the shows (AMC especially got a jolt of energy in the last months with all the returns and a return of humor). Also, ABC was more willing to sell/lease the rights to the shows out.. while P & G refused.

You could have still had this happen and still have Gerald Gordon come back to operate on Eleanor.. and he hears all about Althea's latest dramas.. and the two start to bicker and fight. However, this time.. it had to be Althea because Eleanor has just been released from the hospital.. and she did insist on Althea coming over. and than Althea had the accident.. so it will garner sympathy for Eleanor. I do like the change in focus with Depriest coming on since now she is showing Eleanor in a sympathetic light.. and Scott/Wendy are being shown in a not so sympathetic light. Cenedella was trying to show Scott/Wendy as in the right..yet the acting choices of the actors playing them didn't reflect that. With that said, I do give a little bit of slack to Depriest since she came in, and had to write off two long time characters (Alan/Carolee) right away with little to no notice.. and usher in Gerald Gordon for a visit. I actually like Depriest's stint thus far because it's actually interesting and it makes me want to tune in the next day while Cenedella's show had nice character scenes (as well as scenes with recurring hospital patients).. but I never felt anxious to see the next episode. And since she joined at the end of Feb.. that meant that the majority of the ratings drop of the 1975 to 1976 season was due to him, and not her. But if I were Althea, I would have stayed home since she seems very accident prone.

Luann in season 5 was perfect karma... especially when Heather pointed out that Luann loves stirring that big ole pot at the season 5 reunion.. and Luann probably had to change tactics after that. Can you imagine how different season 4 would have been if Heather had been chosen to be a housewife that season (I heard that she was offered to come on, or tried out to be a housewife that season). Heather vs Jill would have been interesting.. and seeing her deal with Kelly and Alex would have been interesting as well. Tis a shame.

Given Bobbie's background and upbringing, she was conditioned to think danger and unstable men were the norm while stable men were satisfying, but not exciting. Hence why she would usually sabotage herself whenever she was with someone stable like Tony, because she feared deep down that they would hurt her, so she hurt herself/them first. Speaking of Laura, she also was addicted to men with an edge and I think that had to do partly with finding out as a young teen that the family she thought was her family wasn't her family.. so her identity was shaken to the core.. and than the affair with David Hamilton was alluring because he treated her like an adult and offered a sense of danger and excitement. I recall in the 90s after Luke and Laura came back where she separated from Luke due to mob danger.. and she had a heart to heart with her sister Amy about the past. Amy pointed out to Laura that she had Scotty Baldwin, who was more dependable and stable, yet she opted to keep going back to Luke.. and asked Laura if she truly wanted stability, or not. It was one of the rare times the show wrote Amy as more than just a scatterbrained gossip.

I have to say I actually like Depriest's stint thus far for one very good reason... there is stuff actually happening. There have been more cliffhangers in the short time she's been head-writing than during the time that Cenedella was head-writing. Today's episodes showed Althea crashing through the window, it was short and brief.. but still very surprising how it came about.

I actually didn't find Holmes to be stiff, but more serious than what the previous actors playing Tom were. Although Holmes was one that got better looking as he aged, imho.

I get that about Labine, but perhaps she would have been better served writing a telenovela with a start, middle, and end than an ongoing continuing drama. She also could write a good mystery/action movie (The Bride in Black starring Susan Lucci was a great tv movie that had a strong New York backdrop, strong Italian family, criminals, and a mystery to boot... a shame she didn't write more made for tv movies).

Someone had been posting 1989 episodes.. and for a long time they had episodes from late summer through the end of the year posted.. plus episodes from the start of 1989.. but not much from the spring through summer of 1989 where Depriest's brief stint became apparent. Now someone is posting episodes from March/April right at the end of Julie/Nico where Cecily is their biggest cheerleader and trying to make it without her trust fund plus Julie and Will Cortlandt are friends so it is interesting to see the start of the shift from Julie/Nico to Cecily/Nico.. plus see what Julie had been up to during those missing months. I think she and Will dated during the summer months, but by fall, ended up getting a crush on Jack Montgomery. There are episodes from October 1989 where Julie and Erica are sizing each other up in regards to Jack.. but by Thanksgiving time, Erica and Julie have made up (probably when it became apparent that Lauren Holly wasn't going to stay). Than Julie is off screen for most of December only appearing at the end of the month during the Christmas episode to tell Eric (her grandpa) that she was moving away to start another internship and would miss him.

Did the character of Pat change when the recast happened like what happened when Alice was recast?

I think the Sybil Thorne mystery came when Wisner Washam became head-writer.. or perhaps co-headwriter.. so that could be why that was a pretty good mystery. I do agree that Nixon wasn't strong in terms of writing mysteries.. and I don't recall reading a lot of mysteries being written by her. It does seem like the majority of the Cortlandt gothic tone came when Wisner Washam took over as head-writer as well. And from what my mom said about Loving (when she was head-writer in the mid 80s of it).. was that it became less about the college and business... and more about the community of Corinth (she even did that one character that was possessed by a demon as well.. which makes no sense to me LOL). Since someone mentioned Labine, I think her biggest strength and weakness was her hamster effect. There wasn't a lot of character growth nor any true storyline progression on Ryan's Hope especially. Delia always was scheming, Jill and Frank kept playing their will they/won't they game, and Faith was always a hot mess... and when it looked like all those characters were moving onto new story and/or growth.. she'd pull the rug out from the viewer by having the character resume the same story beat. The first few years of that show, it was ok.. but when Jill/Frank kept doing their dance by the late 80s.. it was like 'enough guys'... and Delia/Faith were shipped out of town by other writers because of the continual holding pattern of these characters. Viewers had gotten conditioned to accept it so the show ended up in a catch 22 because of it. But Labine could tug at the heart strings and write great family scenes like no one else could.

Lisa/ Dr Michael Shea marriage always read as very intense and War of the Roses esque. I remember one of the books summarized that she withheld sex from him.. even locking him out of the bedroom and basically barricading the door... but it never mentioned that he blackmailed her into the marriage. And I guess this is what caused Lisa and Ellen to never get along (which was shown quite a bit in the mid 80s when the two would snip at each other.. but by the early 90s.. the two were cordial, if not a little cool with one another.). I do wish more episodes with Ellen's mom Claire were around. My mom was a child and early teen in the 60s.. and would come home from school during lunch to watch with her mom.. and she mentioned that the Ellen I saw in the 80s/90s was not the same Ellen as she watched in the 60s.. even mentioning how her mother Claire was all about how it looked, trying to look and dress younger, and feeling her youth slipping away because she had become a grandma at such a young age, etc. It is a shame the actress that played Carol left in 1982 because she had been a long time veteran for over a decade and provided consistency with all the changes going on. At the same time, I don't know how she would have fit on the show as the 80s went on because she was a character that was nice, warm, low key, had a backbone, and wasn't insipid. SBH and Marland weren't that good at writing those type of characters without there being either angst, OTT theatrics, or being devoid of a backbone. Plus, I think a lot of what Marland did in late 1985/1986 wouldn't have been possible if the previous writer Susan B Horgan hadn't rebuilt the foundation that he could use to jumpstart his stuff (his ATWT bible even mentioned that he had a pretty good canvas to work from.. all he needed to do was just add a few touches and connect the dots. He had more work to do on ATWT than he did when taking over GL.. but it was in much better shape than General Hospital was when he started).

Back when Sharon Case had decent hair. Now it's so straight and yucky looking. I liked her as Debbie. I often thought she had more to play as Debbie in her one year stint then she's had playing Sharon for many years of her stint.

What I loved reading in the old summaries was the transition between the ending of Leslie/Brad's marriage.. and how Leslie/Lance became a couple... with Brock/Leslie an interesting short-term diversion. I wasn't alive in the 70s, but from reading the summaries.. it seemed to me that I think Leslie kind of milked the helpless act just a little bit. Granted she probably couldn't help being emotionally fragile, but I think she milked it a little bit in order to get attention. I don't excuse the crap Lorie pulled on Leslie, but I understand the reasoning for it. And having it come out that Lorie wasn't Stuart's child probably explained to her why she was always the black sheep of the family.. and probably hardened her to a point of no return. Based on all the families introduced in the 70s and 80s, I think the Abbott family was shown to be the closest. I don't think the Brooks family sounded at all very close (I don't buy the warm and fuzzy 1984 reunion between the Brooks sisters... it just screamed insincere given the history between them in the first years of the show).. and the Foster's don't seem all that close either (I think Jill got shafted in that family because she was a woman).

I think both Marland and Long could write certain male and female characters well, and at the same time, could be off the mark with other male/female characters. Marland struggled to write certain female characters on GL that weren't his creation, and some of his male characters were written better when Long took over. I often think if Pam Long had ever been head-writer on ATWT, I think of the ways she would infused that soap with a little bit of fun and emotion.. since Marland eventually turned ATWT into such a downer in the late 80s/early 90s (great intricate stories, but such a cold apathetic tone.. sometimes Long would never be accused of doing). Laiman... I do recall her era of Days had a lot of strongly written female characters (Jennifer, Kimberly, Kayla, Adrienne, Melissa, Eve etc)...and it seemed like the men were written less well rounded. And I do recall her brief stint on AW had lots of great material for Paulina and Lila. Lorraine Broderick always had a quirky sense of humor infused in her writing (i.e. Janet/Erica/Skye hiding Kinders body is my favorite example... and all the women in Oak Haven right before AMC ended).