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@te.& @Khan I have to say, I admire that choice. Abby was constantly compared to JR who got away with tons of BS. So, it is kind of nice to have a female protagonist who wasn't always punished for their misdeeds. Abby was a rich powerful woman, and it is refreshing that she was able to benefit from the privileges that she fought so hard to gain. Especially because the kidnapping was not really directly her fault, it was more of a lie of omission.

Excuse me for being a bit catty, but Robert has not aged well. As an infrequent, mostly sweeps viewer, it is surprising to see him in his current state. Meanwhile, Anna is still vibrant. She was constantly in love scenes as recently as last winter while she was stuck in the cabin with Valentine. So, at this point, their pairing seems more like an endgame if both actors were to leave the show, than a viable option to maintain Anna as a leading character. (my only excuse for the ageism expressed in my comment is the projection of hating the process myself)

Did Maggie ever get a memorable scene of confronting either Laura or Linda? I've been thinking a lot about Linda with all the Eve talk over on Y&R. They don't build villains like that anymore. Margaret Mason was an icon, Talk about a cool blond. I bet she sold a ton of bleach. Her haircut became such an important part of the character. (I know she wasn't the only Linda; yadda yadda). And there are few things on soaps that I prefer more than the mousy good girl finally standing up to the cunning bad girl.

Were there repercussions?

Refresh my memory, please Abby has the inspired idea in the S6 finale to tell Val that she got the call about the location of the missing twins because someone was asking for Mrs. Ewing, so it gave her plausible deniability. Then I recall in S7 that Sumner (and his mother) had pages from a journal that could implicate Abby, so she did a bunch of stuff to keep it hidden. Like trick Laura into thinking she was having an affair with Greg. But, in the end did Abby get away with it or did Gary or Val ever learn her part in the kidnapping?

On screen, it seems like Robert and Anna were together for a much shorter time than Robert and Holly. Obviously they had a long history. But, Duke was presented as the love of Anna's life. And she was shagging aliens and mobsters with ponytails (aka Evan Jerome) for months before Gloria Monty returned, and suddenly she's tieing Robert to a column, and then they moved into that ugly purple version of the Webber house. So, for me, there's just not as much rooting value for them as a couple versus as partners and friends.

But, IGS, Jaime Lyn Bauer brought a frenetic energy to Laura that felt uncharacteristic. Susan Flannery was such a cool Hitchcock-blond and JLB was much more neurotic in her portrayal, regardless of the dialogue.

I enjoy the slow reveal that they really don't know each other very well. I hope they capitalize on that as the story progresses.

Dee Kelly had that iconic haircut, and it was cringy/fun when they'd let her sing. She was Lifetime's answer to Kathie Lee. Looking back, it is remarkable that they got Donna Karan and Oscar De la Renta. I recall they tried to bring Attitudes back years later and it was not a success. Jerry Penacoli is a good Instagram follow. Here he is with his husband and daughter My favorite memory of Attitudes was when Linda Dano got hair extensions for Felicia's birthday party. Then they had a circus demo on Attitude and when she hung upside down, some of her extensions fell out.

Today 6.7/10 Good to see that Rafe continues to be the dumbest cop in America, no matter who is writing the script. He trusts Harris, even though he's committed treason, and he had no idea that Dimitri turned himself in. I like the name Jude, but years ago I developed a theory that a red flag for poor writing was creating characters who share the same name. Jude St. Clair may have been a generation ago, but Days of Our Lives viewers aren't too young not to remember. And, to me, it is indicative of both a disregard for long time viewers and a lack of creativity. Stefan spends as much time running Dimera as Sloan does caring for her newborn infant. Which is to say, not a lot.

I would propose that An Inconvenient Woman was everything Hollywood Wives wished it could be. A roman à clef about Los Angeles, set against the backdrop of a mystery. It fictionalized the aftermath of the death of Alfred Bloomingdale in a wild and entertaining story.

True, there was a continuation of the effect of the history of his conception in 1988. However, my point was that I am critical of the lack of consistency with the character of Matthew. I can almost forgive Jamie's shift from coke addicted author to upstanding doctor because he was SORASed so early in life, and the change occurred while he was off-screen. But, after his affair with Donna, Matthew vacillated between being a nice guy to a bit of a jerk with Sofia and Lila. There was a lack of depth, so it was hard to conceptualize the source of his motives. Sometimes he was a ponytail wearing artist and other times he was a driven entrepreneur. However, it would be difficult to define the character of Matt. Amanda was wishy-washy, but there was a consistent rationale in most of her stories where she was trying to establish an identity out of the shadows of the Cory family.

How about this? Amanda slept with Janice Frames' son and Matt slept with Sharlene Frames' daughter, so both siblings were entangled with their half brother's first cousins. To be fair, there were a lot of Frame siblings (7?), so in a small town like Bay City, you were bound to sleep with one of them, or their kids.

That may happen, but by Monday's episode there was no name, and last week Marlena nudged Eric to decide on a name.

The brief version is that Matthew grew up thinking that Mac was his father. Then, in 1986 Mitch returns and fights with Rachel and Mac about seeing Matthew. Finally, he sees Matthew. Matthew wants to hang out with Mitch, then he learns the circumstances of his conception, and he briefly rejects Rachel. Then by the end of the year, Mitch saves Mac from a fire and Matthew is sent off to boarding school. In 1988, he's SORASed to a teen, falls for Josie, yadda yadda yadda. He and Mitch share some scenes when Mathew gets kicked out of boarding school, but nothing memorable. Cut to 1990, Mitch leaves Bay City and Matthew never talks to him again. So, calling it a blip may have been hyperbolic, but it wasn't a lasting issue between Matthew and Rachel. And Mitch coercing Rachel to have sex in order to save Mac in St. Croix was only dealt with by the pre-SORASed Matthew, and then never discussed by teen Matt aka Captain Cool. But, I could be wrong and someone will correct me if I am...

I laughed at the LA Times review of Hollywood Wives, so I cut out the good parts.

While I concur that Anna and Robert could've played amazing scenes in the Robin and Stone story. There's also something very Party-of-Five/90210 of playing this very melodramatic tale of two young adults on their own that felt contemporary for the time.

I was also thinking about Scorpio as being a law enforcement official during the rise of Sonny as a mob boss. But, then I recalled all of those g-men and cops that were made to look like fools, and I'm glad Robert was spared the humiliation of being outwitted by Sonny.

Looking at the early 90s, does GL ever benefit from the chaos at GH with Monty 2.0, or the cancelation of Santa Barbara? I always wonder if the average daytime fan (not like those of us who would still discuss the show decades later) would actually change soaps, or just abandon the one that they no longer enjoy?

Yeah, I mean, the Darius/Jackie stuff and Nicole's remarks about kidnapping referenced history that I wouldn't imagine would've occurred if the original head writer and breakdown writers weren't present. Also, given that few characters in Salem have a distinctive way of speaking, there was nothing noticeably different in the dialogue. I don't know if my original question was ever answered. But I still wonder if all the extra week that DAYS went dark after the HR chaos of late summer means that they'll air less scab written scripts than other soaps? I also wonder if they're foreshadowing anything by the fact that they still haven't named the baby. Far be it from me to mommy-shame, but Sloan's barely seen the baby since it came home. 🙈

And it's not a 1:1 comparison because Eastenders uses an outdoor set, not naturalistic surroundings, so they can still control variables like lighting and sound in ways that they were incapable of doing in New Jersey. Eastenders is much more like when DAYS built a mall on the Radford lot.

@Paul Raven as noted in a prior discussion, the staying power of Scruples was as amazing as the miscasting of Lindsey Wagner. There's the 1980 version mentioned in your post, then a 1981 TV movie on ABC, a 2012 ABC pilot, and the daytime version developed by John Conboy. It is the Spider-Man of trashy novels in terms of how many times the origin story has been remade. 🤔😄

Upon reflection, the missed opportunity of this period was not fleshing out the characters and motivations of Matthew and Amanda a bit more. I like that Matthew became a sculptor, which was probably inspired by real life. But, I miss a focus on character progression when we get to hear about the ramifications of growing up in a household with lots of emotional strife and marital stress. It felt as if when Matt and Amanda were SORASed they became immune to the troubles of the past, with the obvious exception of Mitch, but even that was a minor blip that was quickly resolved. Matt and Amanda's lovers could've easily believed that their childhoods were idyllic and not filled with kidnapping, their Mom going to jail, and a crazy housekeeper terrorizing their sister-in-law Blaine. They both experienced much more trauma than just the loss of their father.

But, can we all agree that the idea of filming in an actual space is intriguing, it just shouldn't have been applied to GL? Yet, I still think about the final weeks with Lilian's monologue about her sacrifices and Alan's death on the bench as being top-notch soap. And it didn't matter where it was filmed or how it looked.

All that aside, it was a great bit of multigenerational storytelling to set up the circumstance where Matthew would romance the daughter of Russ and Sharlene. I agree that they didn't need to bastardize history to get there, but on balance, that's a classic soap Romeo & Juliet-type entanglement. And, it re-focused Rachel as the lead matriarch. (once again, please excuse my obsessive need for optimism) BTW, did anyone else read this very insightful post by our host Errol?