soapfave06

Wow, this is certainly a surprise. Mary Stuart is amazing as Jo, so calming in the scenes with Linda Bove, tragic in Tony's death scenes. Awesome to have this in such nice quality. Was SEARCH known for good production values? I was pretty impressed, especially the hospital scenes with Tony's death. I also have to say the writing and performances for Tony's apology to Jo was so mature and the 6 minutes only felt like 2.

I really wish we knew more about Head Writer Michael Schnessel because the late 80s was just so much camp and I love it, those scenes with Cord battling Titan and Tina battling Ursula in the wrestling ring and ensuing electric chair drama is just insane.. With that said, I really wish they had more balanced the insanity with more real family drama/diversity as it ultimately killed the show once AE left as Tina, Schnessel left (or passed?) and they had no one else to rely on

Were they main characters? I have never heard of the swamp amnesia story. How did Kate die?

I have to say I am enjoying the rehashes of the quads but watching the Bo and Billie scenes in the aftermath of Zacks death and this would have hit different for me with Lisa Rinna's Billie. I didn't care for this Billie even when I was a pre-teen and having seen 90s Billie since, I would have loved the drama. I agree on John/Marlena/Alex, John truly came off psycho...they did need a new twist on Carrie/Austin/Sami/Lucas, maybe Carrie should have returned solo and Austin down the line with Will closer to Carrie than Sami, allowing conflict there. The business drama seems stupid as well. When did the styling and wardrobe go downhill? I would definitely say the end of 2008, early 2009. Atrocious after that. I would rather they buy and reuse good clothes than have a new cheap wardrobe on the daily.

Somehow got caught in some February and March 2006 episodes and don't recall anyone loving this era with Carrie/Austin/Sami/Lucas quad, Belle/Phillip/Mimi/Shawn quad and Alex/Marlena/John. This was in the days I first started watching so a little nostalgic for me but it's nice to see some atmosphere and mood, I feel like I am watching an actual TV series instead of a Saturday morning cartoon. Also has a little Hope/Patrick in the midst of Hope and Bo being apart from Chelsea killing Zach. Kristian Alfonso looks fabulous with the wavy hair. And they had $$$ for an entire island set with a cliff that Hope naturally falls off of. One downer: DH as John. The eyebrow is too much as is the whispering. I remember why I once didn't care for him. Oddly enough, John and Marlena are my faves now. Perhaps because it has been so long since I watched this time period but everyone looks their absolute best-the hair and wardrobe department as well as aging wise. I meant to add, it seems they never have any clue what to do with say Carrie, Belle and Chloe for example. Are there missed opportunities? I almost feel like Carrie would be the Christine/Cricket from Y&R of DAYS. Another character I wish had returned is Chelsea, I really enjoyed her. Around the time of Bo's death would have been great.

Holy cow they look amazing on that cover. I would not trade having Jesse and Angie reunite in 2008 as I started watching soaps in 2006 on my own and that was such a treasure but they should have been mainstays on AMC in the 90s.

Vee, that's a great observation. I think the WVLE drama with Pamela in the middle was a repost from a few years ago but indeed Dorian does win that battle. We have been very lucky to see a good amount of Pat vs Dorian, I wish they had made Pat work. I don't see why they couldn't put Pat and Larry together after Karen leaves town. Paul Rauch came almost a year after JC departed so no relation there. I am loving the commentary on the early-80s and 1988 episodes. Any thoughts on the 1982-1984 era? I feel like they dropped so many things and the show died out a bit by then outside of Viki/Clint. Edwina, Marco, Brad seem to become afterthoughts and Josh Hall and Danny Wolek should have led the younger crowd but they were all but gone, with Samantha Vernon and Tina Robert's their female counterparts.

What contrasted Meredith to Viki? Just wondering how they would both compare long-term had she stayed

Was anything interesting actually said?

Jack, Victor, Nikki, all of them are so dead as characters to me. If Mal Young would have returned to the film noir/classic Hollywood feel and pushed Ana, Fen, Hilary, Devon, Mariah, etc to the forefront I think the show could have had a better revival for a new generation since B&B with Hope/Liam/Steffi, debatable, sure but they did successfully push a new generation. Oh, what could have been. And bringing back Leslie & Lorie Brooks and Olivia Winters to ground the next generation would have been such good icing on the cake.

Enjoying the recaps! I too always thought Jason was born in 1983, little did I know he was born in the time of the Ice Princess!

I can never stop crediting the Nick/Will/Gabi/Sonny drama of 2012-13 as the last time I truly enjoyed emotional character drama on a show, it was so, so good and playing alongside Kristen/John/Marlena/Brady I thought the show was on fire, especially when the script writers were trolling fans with our Daniel hate. Nick vs Will and all the Hortons should have lasted years but it went downhill fast after Nick came back from the dead. Ugh.

Yes! The user said they uploaded another Karen goodbye episode but it was blocked by YouTube, hope to see it soon. I will say I enjoyed seeing young Bo and Delilah with an actual story but the business talk was blahhh, I enjoyed Edwina/Marco/Gary (I think that was Gary) but the show was loads different from those 1980 episodes to 1983.

Karen says goodbye to Larry

I thought I read somewhere that the Carla/Sadie scene happened in February, but I could be wrong.

I have never heard of Alice Lovelace. When is that picture of Stephen and Nancy from? It would have been nice to see Katrina back down the line, or Jenny with Christina.

I loved, loved, loved the over the top Rauch years but outside of Tina/Cord/Clint/Viki a lot of other things were hit or miss and grounding the rest of the show with Ed/Carla/Josh (weren't Josh and Danny supposed to be friends? But the casting for the two seemed off in the 1986 episodes I have seen) and Wanda/Larry/Danny would have worked better IMO and there would have been more to rely on once the show fell apart in 1990 with nothing to rely on BUT they did exhaust poor Larry and Danny with that Brenda story (of what I have seen)

Ah, I hope to one day see Susan/Laura/Julie in their prime of this era.

I finished this up earlier this week and this was the most I have enjoyed a soap in a while, it may not have actually been groundbreaking but it was in the sense that the characters actually had FUN, something that seems illegal on actual daytime TV. Episode #4 with the sex party and the drag show was definitely a favorite and while Cin aren't all that popular on this board I think they handled them well with a mini-arc that didn't involve danger and recognized Ben for who he was without pandering. Sonny/Will/Leo/Chad was the most fun, followed by Jarlena/Tanna/Caustin then the Miami group, who I wish they had spent more time developing an arc for but I must say the production for the outside restaurant scenes was top notch. Lastly, the only thing that killed it for me was everyone not ending up in Alamania in the climax-maybe not everyone but a good majority of them meeting and having the climax at the museum during a gala or something would have been epic and could have still been low budget. It was also fun to see Billie, Kristen and Shane/Drew popping in, I actually enjoyed Billie's mini-arc with the fellow detective and his sudden reveal of being Russian was fun. Oh-I remembered the casting call for the Bond-esque villain and was kind of sad that he only ended up being on screen two seconds when escorted from the auction, I thought they may have done more there. Regardless, this was fun, funny and the best nod to 80s soaps in a while but modern on a low budget and I hope to see many more series to come.

I wasn't watching then but I love what I have seen of the boarding house and I think it fit with OLTL's theme and was a natural way to bring characters together. They should have done this again towards the end as the budget was slashed but soaps don't seem to know how to properly do this now.

The post-Edwina and Marco wedding episode posted, including Pat and Bo in Paris. Jacqueline Courtney looks stunning in the still, I'll take what I can get, but would love to see the Gothic side to the Paris shoot. I always thought Carla felt some type of way about Karen due to Karen/Ed so it was nice to see another side to their friendship, I guess.

That's interesting as I was just watching some 1984 DAYS edits where Maggie played buffer between Hope and Julie, was this for story purposes then or did Maggie play buffer for years prior as Julie and Hope struggled to bond? That would have been an interesting story thread to play over the years.

I appreciate everyone sharing memories here, this is my #1 cancelled soap I wish to see the most given what I have read on it.

Love these Amy!

God, you brought some bad memories up now that I purged from my mind. Todd vs Victor had so, so much potential, his 'murder' was disappointing....I also blocked out Jack's involvement in Gigi's OG death...I do still enjoy the Gigi/Stacy mess looking back, not sure why haha...I thought the Jailbait and that whole teen scene was trash but the climax I recall tying into the Todd/Victor reveal and David's movie so while that didn't save the plot I enjoyed the end result...OMG just remembered Tea's random boring pregnancy as well giving Flo nothing to do in the final months. I do have great memories of Vital and Rama and Tina and Cord's return and I felt like Viki was used better than she had since 2008 so I think I am blurring lines on the bad. On Rex/Gigi agreed, supporting couples like them and Vimal/Rama go far for me. I felt Ron did a great job in the fall of 2007 with her intro, the diner and the New Orleans/drag tie in with Marcie on bringing the show back to class differences.