will81

I agree a lot with this. Except she got Terry mutliple times when she would imitate and mock a line he delivered, like any sister would do to a brother. Only when Jack was being a smart ass though, but I don't think Terry always expected it. He seemed a bit tacken back a couple times. I agree Eileen had a lot of layers that Brenda didn't. When Ashley is cornered by Nikki over her affair with Victor, Eileen does this thing where she tries to make Ashley seem tough and strong, but her voice has a quiver and weakness to it, because she is shaken in that moment. Even though she is basically telling Nikki to get out of her face, her body language and voice give her away.

I see things differently. Ashley was a completely different person with Victor. She was actually more girlish and more like Nikki was when she first met Victor, intelligent and experienced sure, but she would become more submissive with him. Ashley was never the type to have an affair with a married man, and she resisted for months before giving in. He had a hold on her. Ashley could never really stand up for herself with Victor. Always forgave him. The only time I remember her really ripping through him was around 2000, when he was double crossing them to keep control of Jabot. Yes she was stoic when the divorce happened in 1992, but she still wasn't brutal enough with him and again eventually forgave him. Nikki was more willing to serve Victor and call him out on his behaviour, she became more of an equal. Ashley couldn't even bring herself to tell Victor she was marrying Steven, she knew if she saw him he would convince her to marry him instead. She knows he is her weakness, it was actually never a very healthy relationship. She even had an abortion partly so she wouldn't hurt Victor and Nikki. I think that changed the course of their relationship, she even took most of the blame for it when they met on the ranch a few months later, but I felt that was the end of whatever great love affair they had. The marriage a few years later, was two people lonely and confused leaning on each other, I think it makes sense the marriage didn't last.

I could go either way. They both bring something to the character. It is odd though watching Eileen's initial return to Y&R in 1999. She seems to still be channeling Kristen DiMera to a certain degree. I probably buy Brenda's Ashley being more submissive to Victor than Eileen's. Even though both had strength and vulnerability. They just played the role differently, yet Ashley was still Ashley, though Brenda's Ash was definitely more of a heroine type. I can't see Brenda's Ashley having an affair with a married man. Back when the writers knew how to write her character it could work with either of them. I think that shows how good Bell and his team were, because I think writers today don't know how to write a character like Ashley and make her interesting. They just fall into archetypes and tropes with no nuance.

It is interesting that Bell chose to introduce the recast the way he did, with Steven's death. I am almost sure Brenda's first scene was her in shadow staring out a window in her room, Traci comes in to check on her, but you never really see her face. I do wonder why he killed off Steven. Although honestly I can't remember Ashley having much to do in the last year Eileen was on the show and barely remember her being married to Steven. Mostly she seemed to just have scenes with Jack telling him to butt out of Traci and Brad's marriage.

It seems Ashley was just tossed from one guy to the next. While she was with Brian she met Eric and while with Eric she met Marc and dated both, and it seems Bell was still considering her for Paul. Then she met Victor, though I think she dated his brother Matt first, as she was not yet ready to have an affair with Victor at that point. Victor and Ashley didn't actually hook up until late 1985 when they went on a trip to Corsica.

Getting back to unusual interactions. Just read a synopsis from Nov 1983 which stated Paul comforted Ashley over her troubles with Dina. Would have never even thought these two had much interaction back then, especially not outside of a professional or group social setting.

She does capture the spirit of Nikki, while watching I still felt it was Nikki, even if Melody would have done some things differently. I think especially her need to have Kay at the event felt pretty close to the way Melody would have played it.

That is odd, since Cricket was being pushed onto everyone at that point. I can only imagine Terry Lester's head exploding if Cricket had moved in and joined them for an Abbott family breakfast

I looked up weekly B&B synopsis from the newspapers, Brooke attended Caroline's birthday dinner the week of April 4th 1988, so #252 was from that week. So I guess the last episode uploaded #284 is roughly around May 16th 1988, or around that week anyway.

Yeah I left a message too, the uploader is going to look into a private channel and stuff. So hopefully it gets sorted. I am also downloading what I can now, though I have missed #272.

They isolated Kay a lot. Makes sense she didn't have many she was close to. I also remember Nikki was pretty isolated during much of the 90's. Or at least barely left the ranch for a long period of time.

Yeah true, she was trying hard to get back together with Danny. I think Traci's miscarriage was the end of her run? Pretty sure she left about that time. In the divorce scenes she was grown up and a bit jaded, but definitely not hung up on Jack. She was pretty much ready to move on.

Patty was pretty out of it. I remember Andrea as Patty walking along the street on the way to Jabot muttering to herself and clutching the gun, kinda like Sheila and the letter opener in her purse at the lab after she had that fight with Lauren. Not sure Patty even knew what she was going to do, but once she got in there she held the gun to her head, Jack pleaded, it was his fault take it out on him, not herself and bang, she shot him at least a couple times I think. Not too sure I vaugely remember Patty telling Jack she was going to punish him by shooting herself, so he could see what his actions had caused, but maybe I am wrong about that.

Yeah same, I believe Lilibet definitely wanted out, not sure why. She really didn't do anything after Y&R, except a guest spot on a tv show, so maybe she was ready to quit acting all together. Bell was full steam ahead with the storyline and I guess he couldn't back down, Andrea did her best, but not being the actress in the role for all the build up of the previous 2-3 years would have made it hard to play out. Andrea had no time to settle in as Patty, so I don't think she ever had a chance to find the character for herself. I am surprised Lilibet didn't at least agree to stay a few more months to play out the storyline. Seems odd she would jump ship at such a big moment in the story. About 10 more months and the divorce was final. She probably could have left sooner, after it was discovered she was the shooter, which happened around the time Brenda Dickson returned as Jill.

Andrea Evans was definitely playing Patty when the shooting happened. She did recall the shooting, but only after her therapist had everyone act out the night in question. It all came back to her. Patty had originally intended to kill herself in front of Jack, but he begged her not to shoot herself but to shoot him instead. So she did. I think Patty moved out of the house and she and Jack separated, though may have gone to therapy during this time, though I think Jack got sick of therapy. I remember their divorce became final the same week Nikki and Victor got married. I am sure there was an episode where the wedding was still going on while Patty and Jack were in his office signing the divorce papers. Terribly unsatisfying seeing Andrea playing that scene out. Bell had been building to this for quite some time, the affair with Diane, the miscarriage, finding out Jack only married her to secure the presidency of Jabot, Patty was very isolated in the Abbott home, too proud to go to her family for support and had Jill actively working against her. all that stuff was Lilibet, I think Andrea literally took over at the time of the shooting.

I have a feeling Bell had already decided to go through the divorce and Jill being shot stories. I know he said he rarely planned ahead, but that seems like it was planned ahead. He seemed to be setting Jill up to be as nasty as possible through the divorce to make the idea of Jack or John or Kay being the one to shoot her more believable, she was more ruthless during the divorce story than any other time before. I think Liz being around would have diffused things too much. But that is just a guess.

Liz was definitely still around until at least Jan 1985, maybe a bit after. When Kay held her dinner for John and Jill and planned to show her 'Winter Cabin Memories' slides, Liz served dinner. Jill had pawned all her jewels to try to get the money to pay off Esther for the negatives and Liz was around for that story. She was definitely gone by the time John found out about the affair though in the summer of 85.

I always thought fans of the show started it online on the old newsgroups and then Bell incorporated into the show by having Phyllis say it.

Yeah but the fact Cricket, the person who saved her from Rose and was her best friend told her David threatened her and she didn't believe her, was just a little too much to buy. I could get Nina being insecure and being taken for a ride by David (at least by that point) Nina had changed, but it was frustrating to see Cricket giver her word, a woman who never lied to Nina and helped her in every way she could, be totally ignored and called a liar. That was too much. It seemed even over the top for Nina to totally throw Cricket under a bus for David.

Yeah I never thought of that, but it is true. Bell redeemed the character of Nina and made her more of a long suffering soap heroine. It took all the edge out of her and she lost her motivation, 86-88 Nina would have never fallen for David or Ryan. Re-watching a lot of the David Kimble story, I am amazed at how stupid Nina had to be to push the story.

Oh that's right, I had totally forgotten about that. Though Bell could have recast. I guess that is why he called it one of the bigger mistakes he made.

I always thought Phillip's death was rushed. He hates Nina in Jan 89, still wants to be with Cricket, by April he is married and drinking again and by end of May or start of June he is dead. I think his death might have been last week of May 89. Within a month Nina inherited everything and has moved into an apartment and is trying to hire Esther away from Kay. Almost seems like Bell just needed to get rid of Phillip and resolve everything to push other stories forward.

Janice Lynde was technically fired. Although it seemed more a case of she wasn't really happy to be there and would have left anyway but got the pink slip first, so in effect it was a mutual decision. Jon-Michael Reed reported at the time that Janice had been out with a back injury about a month before her departure, and it was implied that TPTB thought she was faking it (sounds a little like Brenda's situation, which more and more I am finding out was not all her fault).

I actually thought it might be abandoned, glad it is still being updated. I had almost all SOD's from 1976 - 1996, but I had a rat problem and they pretty much destroyed my collection.

Has everyone seen this? https://classicsodyr.tumblr.com It has almost every issue from 1975 to 1987 of Soap Opera Digest synopsis. I am pretty sure there is a tumblr page for each show. If you want to go in chronological order, follow this link https://classicsodyr.tumblr.com/tagged/y&r/chrono