katie_9918

When Rachel Miner was auditioning for roles as a little girl, she would see Erin Torpey so many times that they became friends. Rachel auditioned for GL, as Michelle, at the same time as she heard that OLTL was aging Jessica. Her father worked for OLTL or ABC, so she couldn't audition, but she told Erin about it. Erin auditioned and was cast.

Thank God. I've heard that the OL fans absolutely loved Erin Torpey as Jessica and Rachel Miner was the only Michelle Bauer I actually liked.

Actually, I thought 1990-1995 was the last truly great period for GL. Yeah, there was some great isolated stuff in the following years (Ed's initial return in 2001, Rick's heart transplant, etc.) and there was a good deal of iffy and weird stuff during that period, but that was really the last EP and group of writers who truly recognized the benefit of not only a good ensemble of characters, but a good ensemble of stories as well.

I've been checking out a lot of YouTube in the past few months (bandstandmike has an appalling number of complete episodes and storylines) and I've actually come to the conclusion that while it would be a great fairy tale for Roger and Holly to end up together, I don't think it was ever meant to be, even under the writers who crafted their '94 relationship.

Holly became appallingly stupid and oversensitive while she and Roger were together in '94 and Roger, while obviously making an effort to change for Holly, kept lying to her over and over again about his involvement with Tashiwa/Alan, even after he knew for sure that he was dealing with an Alan Spaulding trying to get the company back from Alexandra.

Refamiliarizing myself with what led up to the Roger/Holly implosion in late '94/early '95, as it was written, Roger really had it coming to him. I was always sorry to see Holly hurt, but Roger was playing with the old Spaulding fire and he got burned. Frankly, after the amount of crap he was either directly, solely, or partially responsible for putting Alexandra through, part of me can't help but *fistpump* at her getting him the only place it would truly hurt.

Now, in the hands of even more creative writers, it could have turned out differently, but this was long before the wheels came off the wagon in late '95/early '96.

Oh, and I defiantly state right here that no one was more destroyed by the Roger/Holly implosion than Fletcher was. Yeah, Holly took it on the chin in later years, but Fletcher was utterly destroyed within a week.

Carl,

I agree with you 100% - Roussell could have molded Hope into a much tougher person (because of her marriage to Alan). They could have kept the Bauer/Spaulding feud going on for several years if Mike and Hope had stayed on.

And just think if Alan and Hope had actually stayed married, with a tougher Hope both loving and thwarting Alan at times. That would've made for some great Spaulding family dynamics, especially if Hope was still around when Alexandra showed up.

I'm pretty sure a lot of the history between Roger and Holly was retconned later on.

From what I've read, Peggy was the one Roger really wanted and loved back in the seventies and Holly was just some annoying kid foisted on him by her father. I think Roger and Peggy left for a little while and then Peggy came back briefly (around the time Bill Bauer made his return from the dead) and then Roger came back a little while later.

I think the post-1980 writers also liked to ignore the fact that Roger raped Rita before he raped Holly.

My major problem with Nick was more of a problem-by-association.

The Mindy/Alexandra feud was getting old before Mindy even stumbled across Nick in New York and somehow Alexandra became the bad guy when poor innocent Mindy, who knew how devastated Alexandra was by Lujack's death, maliciously decided to keep Alexandra from finding out that Nick was her son, for her own selfish reasons. I wasn't exactly siding with either of them (I more hated Roger for pitting two characters I liked against each other) until Mindy pulled that trick and then I wanted Nick to dump her narcissistic, selfish, petty ass. It took a hell of a long time (and Krista Tesreau's return to the role) before I liked Mindy again.

I really started liking Nick when he hooked up with Susan Bates after he finally made the final break from Mindy and he and Alan-Michael finally started getting along. I wish there was more on YT about Nick and Susan.

I really enjoyed the non-stop snarkage he kept tossing Alan's way when he and Susan visited for Christmas in 1996.

Is it wrong to want to punch my screen every time Barbara and Andy appear during these Richards trial episodes?

Very thought-provoking article.

I got my Jennifer Richards set and watched the first two episodes last night. A hell of lot jam-packed into just two episodes so far. I liked how Ben was sort of circling around the big secret but got it just a little wrong (he thought Amanda was Alan's half-sister, but she turned out to be his daughter, no matter what that later rewrite claimed).

I see how they were setting up Elizabeth's departure with her wanting Jackie and Justin to have custody of Phillip and preparing to do battle with Alan. Hope was starting to realize that Alan's nasty side really was as nasty as everyone had warned her about, just when she was hoping she and Alan were starting a family of their own. Ed and Rita are just separating again (for the final time, I believe). Ross and Vanessa were involved again.

This is fantastic stuff. I can't wait to get back into them!

I remember he was also hanging out with Jenna and Tangie (separately) at Ross and Blake's wedding and investigated the gift (a clock or something?) that a soon-to-be-returning Alan sent them.

The resident cop like him was a unique person on a soap. I mean, most of the soaps at one time or another had them, some of them prominent characters in their own right (like Hal and Margo on ATWT, or the resident cops such as Taggert, Rodriguez, and Cruz on GH before it got eaten by the mob) or almost recurring extras. I think Cutter fell somewhere between, because we never really found out too much about him, just that he was from Chicago. I remember Alexandra seemed to know a little more about him than anyone else did. Anyway, that kind of character was always interacting with everyone at one time or another, because everyone gets in some trouble at some point. I miss those kinds of characters.

I actually enjoyed Alan-Michael and Lucy, but I would've loved to see them give Cutter and Tangie a real chance. Marcy Walker could have lasted longer and maybe Cutter wouldn't have been murdered by a cross-dressing rapist/serial killer.

Oh, I'm pretty sure I saw the New Years date he had with Mindy, who was fighting with Nick yet again.

I didn't like him at first, as I thought he was a little smug, but I did grow to care about him. He worked very well with Marcy Walker, and fans liked the pairing. JFP never let it happen because she was trying to push Tangie with bigger characters.

Remember Nell Cleary?

He was indeed smug, but for me it was part of his charm. He really was head-over-heels for Tangie, wasn't he? He seemed to go out on a lot of first dates with the women of Springfield and for some reason he and Blake seemed friendly with one another, I can't remember why.

Nell Cleary. The name definitely rings a bell, but I can't place it.

I've been going through a YT playlist chronicling the shooting of Roger Thorpe in 1993 and then into 1994 and I remembered how how much I liked Detective Cutter, a character I had almost forgotten about until he started turning up in that playlist. I remember being pretty devastated when Brent Lawrence/Marian Crane stabbed him in the phone booth.

Kind of a shame, because not long afterward, they started shrinking the Springfield PD until all that was left of it was Frank and Harley and David until Gus came along (and then David was just gone not long after that). I really liked Detective Cutter. He was snarky and very good at his job until the storyline-dictated loss of quantitative reasoning skills that led to his murder. I think they missed an opportunity for him to take Bill under his wing in that short amount of time between the 5th Street inferno and when Bill really accepted Matt into Vanessa's life. I also loved the way Cutter and Alexandra played off each other.

Did anyone else really love that guy?

BTW, I will still be posting those 1977 GL recaps, Katie. They're on an old computer that is tough to get into.

Oh, thanks! I figured it was just taking you some time. Still very much interested, but don't rush on my account.

Speaking of Mike Bauer, I've been perusing the German DVDs and it's really in my face what a babe magnet that character was.

Every member of Alan's harem at the time (except, of course, for Hope) ended up having feelings for Mike. Ann Jeffers loved him for years before she left the show. Didn't he wind up dating Alexandra for about a minute before some idiot decided that Mike Bauer wasn't important and wrote both him and Hope off the show?

Mike had the goods. The first time I ever saw him in real time was the Cedars ball in 1997 and my sixteen-year-old self perked up and said, "Oooh, a good-looking older guy! Can he stay, please?"

Imagine my shock when I finally got some glimpses of '80s Mike on YT and then with the SoapClassics and German DVDs and realized that he'd barely aged between then and '97.

Jeez.

In my mind, Roger and Holly is the most complex story a daytime drama has ever told. Nothing ever touched anything like it before, not even Luke and Laura, and though there were a few stories in the seventies, early 1980, and early nineties that could have touched them, I think nothing will ever touch anywhere near Roger and Holly ever again. No one cares enough anymore to take that kind of care that was taken with the continuing saga of Roger Thorpe and Holly Norris.

If Ron Carlivati thinks any of the laughable drops he's ever penned comes close to ANYTHING that the eighties and nineties gave us daytime viewers, then obviously he never actually watched daytime drama in the eighties and nineties, no matter what he has to say on the subject.

We have our memories and they are better than anything these hacks of today are churning out.

Looking back, it really is completely shocking they never even referred to Hope, except in ways to just highlight the fact of how wrong it was that she wasn't around for some of the big events. It was such a big mistake to send her packing in the first place, they should have brought her back, considering Alan didn't have many viable romances after her.

It's a shame Mike didn't stay after the Lighthouse Gala in '97, especially since Robert Gentry's reappearance as Ed was blind-and-miss-it TV. With all of Mike's colorful experiences, he could have become the new Papa Bauer.

Of course, I always used to think they never should have written Bill Bauer out, either.

While I've got someone's attention on Bill Bauer, here's an inconvenient question.

During all those years in Vancouver, exactly how did Bill get those anti-rejection meds he needed for that new heart he got in the '60s?

OK, great. When I find them again I'll put them up and PM you.

Thanks! Don't rush or anything, but I'll be glad to check them out.

I have some synopses of that year, if you want to see any. You may have already read them though.

I'd love to see whatever you have! Thank you! Everything I've read paints a pretty broad stroke over a lot of things.

Here's the interview, if you want to read it.

http://boards.soapop...ost__p__1061778

Wow, thanks! I've always been curious about the old-school Bauer clan and it did answer a few questions for me.

For curiosity's sake, I'd love to see more of that storyline. I've already seen the "Man of the Year" episode (was that Bill's first appearance, or had he already been on for a bit, visiting Hillary?) where Rita picked up the photograph Bill dropped, thanks to the Bauer Family DVDs. Does anyone remember how Bill and Bert left things this time around? I know Bert filed for divorce, in essence letting Bill go back to Simone, but did they get any time together to talk about any number of things?

If the rest of the story was anything like the scene where Bert first reunites with Bill from the Bauer family tribute from the 50th anniversary week (with Ed Bryce introducing the clips), I'd have to commend both Ed Bryce and Charita Bauer for rising above that horrid story and giving us at least one poignant moment.

I posted an interview with Ed Bryce a while back, from when he was leaving GL again, and he seemed bewildered by the writing choices. I know there was a lot of fan anger over the story and Bill's behavior, that may have cut the story short.

After reading through the history of the show, I was pretty angry myself when I realized where Bill Bauer ultimately ended up. That sort of story is simply inherently unsympathetic, but there would have been so many small ways to take the harsh edges off and still not let Bill off the hook for abandoning Bert and Michael and Ed. Hell, I could probably come up with a story that didn't completely demolish Bill Bauer.

I'm glad to see Ed Bryce wasn't all that enthused about the story. I'm sure there were times he was reading the script and wondering, "Who IS this?"

Of course, twenty years later, Ed did almost the same thing to his almost-grown daughter. The only thing he didn't do was let Michelle and Rick think he was dead, but he did check out on them. Amazing how alike Bill and Ed were, especially given the fact that Ed seemed to not really like or respect Bill for different periods.

Jill seemed to have a fondness and passion for GL, IMO. I know she made some bad moves, which she at least owned up for, but I just always get this feeling she thought highly of the show. Moreso than I felt at AW, GH and even OLTL, where I feel like OLTL wasn't all that terrible it was just a much different, darker, show. Anyway ...

Looking back, the show certainly was in the middle of a high period while JFP was around. Yes, it was a HUGE mistake to kill Maureen, but most of the other things she had a hand in were pretty good.

Certainly better than that horrible 1977 story that brought Bill Bauer back from the dead, filleted him, and then ushered him right back out of town when he should have stayed put and taken Papa Bauer's place alongside Bert. What was the point of bringing Ed Bryce back for that travesty? Bill may have had more than his fair share of weaknesses, but in reading all I could about the Bauers, he always read like a well-meaning, good-hearted, decent man and neither he nor Bert realized they were incompatible until after they were married.

Does anyone remember Bill's reaction to Bert's surprising reaction to his affair with Maggie Scott? From everything I've read, it was supposedly a turning point for Bill and Bert and things got a little better between them.