j swift

As someone who is totally confused by the re-boot, I really like this idea. A series about early Alexis, meeting Blake, hiring the staff, etc would be fun.

I vaguely recall that Gina had a "thing" with Lauren's father Neil Fenmore which part of the source of their animosity.

I never enjoyed the long lost relatives of Blake (with the exception Dominique). However, between Caress and Sable, the writers could write in as many of the Morells as possible. I was always amused that none of Alexis's relatives liked her from an early age.

Not to repeat myself but, when I re-watched season 1 & 2 of Dallas, I loved the original version of Miss Ellie when she was a bit more of a Lady Mcbeth. Early in the series there are multiple scenes with Ellie and Sue-Ellen where she is telling her daughter-in-law to hurry up and get pregnant or Pam was going to have the first born heir to Southfork. Later in the series Sue Ellen's mother played a similar role, but I was amused that Miss Ellie was not always as sweet as she appeared in later seasons. I like a bitchier Miss Ellie because it explains more of JR's motivations and sets the stage for the Bobby/JR feud that was later heightened by Jock's will. Also, Jock's will was one of the best dramatic devices in response to the death of an actor that has ever been played out on a soap. One has to wonder if Jim Davis had lived would the series have lasted as long?

I remember from the E! bts show on Dynasty that the Amanda issue was three-fold. First, Joan Collins had just tried to have a sick-out in order to get more money, so when Catherine Oxenberg asked for more they didn't want to start a presidence. Second, the follow-up season to the Moldavian massacre was when Dynasty started to slip in the ratings. Third, once they recast Amanda, The Colby's was cancelled, so the return of Fallon to Denver made Amanda redundant.

I agree that Gina and Brandon's relationship was refreshing for a soap mom and son duo. It was certainly less oedipally creepy than Warren and Augusta's and more attentive than Sophia and Ted's relationship. Gina's love for Brandon also made Santana untenable, because there was no way to sympathize with her when she essentially sold her baby and her maternal instinct mostly involved kidnapping attempts. That being said, I would have been there front and center for a SORASed Brandon who had many of Channing Jr's a-hole-Capwell-centric qualities which were conflicted by his relationship with Gina once she became a Lockridge. For me the unanswered question of the Dobson's return is - What was the outcome of their case against NBC and New World? How much was their settlement? It seemed to be enough that they never had to work again. How did they win in the negotiation? Did NBC or New World have to pay them off when they left the second time? It couldn't have all really hinged on the casting of Pamela? There had to be more in their initial contract that allowed them to regain their position. BTW, these questions are rhetorical and I don't really expect anyone to know the answer (that means you DB). Just to go back for a moment, imagine that NBC build a soundstage and set of offices just for them and then to be locked out of that very facility had to be heartbreaking. I agree with the critiques of their second tenure, but I have a hard time getting my mind off of that detail.

I would rewatch a cut of the George Rawlins murder mystery. At the time I found it to be rambling and unfocused. However, I would imagine that cut together as a single story it would hold together and the twists and turns would seem more intriguing. However, there is the character of George's niece (a beautiful brunette with a voice that sounded like she had a constant stuffy nose) who also seemed to just disappear. I remember thinking when Brad inherited the Rawlins estate, after his brief marriage to Cassandra, that the niece really got screwed in the will.

I completely agree but reading this I also felt compassion for them - imagine having the biggest creative achievement of your career snatched away from you and being literally locked out of the studio. It must have been really painful and I can sympathize with their reaction of trying to go back to the way it was rather than start over. However, progress is inevitable and their inability to work well with others was their undoing.

At the risk of having replies from one of the most annoying members of these boards ever - Kelly Ripa told a funny AMC-related Chris Goutman story on Live this morning.

I stand corrected, but the point remains that they weren't really in each other's orbit.

I especially agree with this from the perspective of Eden and Cruz's pairing. Santana was never a viable threat to their romance. On paper she should have been amazing. She bedded Channing, CC, and Mason. She had Channing's baby, then was sent off to Europe, and returned to be a glamorous interior decorator. She should have been foe to Eden not only for Cruz but also to her relationship with her father. The underlying Electra complex of the Eden/CC relationship should have been threatened by the fact that Santana, a woman of a similar age to Eden was a romantic interest of her father. Instead, the character lost her glamour, and became a pathetic pill-popper (no offense to pill-poppers). In the pilot she was clearly trying to distance herself from her identity as the maid's daughter. However, later iterations tried to play Santana as a humble gal in contrast to Eden's glamour. She should have been the catalyst for Sophia and Eden to unite against her and maintain their family structure. However, she seems to have become redundant by Gina, who had grown so close to Brandon that it would have seemed cruel to break them up.

As I recall it was very slow start from a plotline perspective. Of course, Geraldine Page and Lloyd Bridges' characters were never seen or heard from again after the pilot. So the fun and promise of the melodrama from the first episode didn't translate into the first weeks/months. And Lily and Jack storyline with her abusive father didn't start until closer to the summer months. So, there was a lot of introductions and exposition to get through in the first few weeks.

I think the Dobson's return was hampered by a loss of continuity, as well as the exit of Marcy Walker. They made a point of saying in SOD upon their return that they had not watched the show because it was too painful. As a result, the progress that characters had made in their absence was lost and it seemed like the story was going backward rather than forward. For example, much has been made over the Capwell dinner party scenes. It is a very well written and acted episode, but the plot comes out of left field. Mason decides to put CC on trial for his "crimes" against the family, and in turn brings back Pamela and eviscerates Sophia. However, CC and Mason had resolved their differences in a scene the prior year. In fact, for most of Terry Lester's Mason, (in the year prior to the Dobson's return), he and CC did not have a lot of interactions because he was being plagued by Gina and his alternate Sonny personality. Gordon Thompson's Mason arrived two months before the Dobson's and did not have the history with CC to carry those dinner party scenes. Mason also knew that Pamela was a mortal threat to Kelly, but still brought her out of the asylum. So, it seemed like Mason had lost his memories of recent events, rather than plotting to have a family coup against CC. I've always thought that by 1991 Gina deserved much more of Mason's wrath than CC. Also, the month before their return at Christmas, Eden received a necklace/jewel from Robert Barr which began her memories of being a jewel thief and her eventual exit storyline. However, none of this is referenced in the dinner party scenes, where Eden appears to revert back to her bratty/father's girl issues of before her wedding to Cruz. There is a blink-and-you-missed it closeup of Eden with crazy eyes when Mason is going after Sophia, but it doesn't amount to much. They also never explained why Robert Barr would want to revert Eden back to her jewel thief persona or why he would give her the necklace. Even the dinner party table was new and had never been in that place on the set, before or after that episode. And Kelly is inexplicably living in the Capwell mansion which she had moved out of months prior. Finally, it defies logic that Mason would still be angry at CC after a year when both he and Eden had near-death experiences resulting in a Christmas episode about how happy they were to be reunited as a family. So, their return, for me, seemed like a chance to produce the types of stories that they wanted to do before they were locked out, but ignored everything that had happened in the interim, which seemed to please them but was not necessarily in the service of the audience. I think it is especially true of the time period, when fans were less informed of the behind the scenes changes and it probably came across as jarring, rather than a re-set.

Looking back, there were other issues with Laura's story that would be offensive by today's standards. After the rape, she wrote a letter to Luke expressing her longing for him. Scotty found the letter, slut shamed Laura, and threatened to leave town. When Luke and Laura returned from their summer adventure, Lee Baldwin confronted Laura about the letter and also tried to make her feel guilty and ashamed. None of the Baldwins ever considered Laura's lack of compliance with the initial contact with Luke, including Gail, a psychologist who should have known better. Hopefully, by today's standards, the plot would include references to Laura's complicated relationship with Lesley's lovers from the rejection of Cameron Foster to the illicit affair with David Hamilton.

I went and read the French Santa Barbara site and it clarified that Kelly was raped, but Eden who had also been kidnapped by Peter was not raped ( sorry for the confusion) I still think Kelly was doing something to drive those other guys out of town never to be mentioned again....

I beg to differ because she was "saved" prior to being raped and she was very specific about saying that in later scenes with Marcello.

This may be a dumb question, but I wonder how the hiatus saves money? Actors are contracted for a certain number of episodes whether they are filmed in a day or a month. We've read that they've all taken pay cuts, but 3 episodes a week are still 3 paid episodes regardless of how speedily they are filmed. Below the line staffers are union employees who get a certain yearly salary regardless of how limited the production timeline becomes. Writers and producers are also paid an annual fee regardless of how they film. So, unless the utility bills for water and power for the months when they go dark saves Sony millions of dollars a year, I don't know why it is more efficient? One would hazzard that the loss of directors and production staff who want to work 12 months a year would actually be less efficient.

I think we can add Kelly Capwell to the list of women who were never sexually assaulted in Santa Barbara. She was kidnapped quite often, but never raped. Of course, given my Kelly-was-a-secret-serial-killer theory - i.e. most of the men she was coupled with (Nick, Pearl, Ric Castillo, Craig Hunt, and Justin Moore) "disappeared" from SB without a goodbye scene, she may have been more of a menace than a victim.

I would proffer that the Dash/Julia/Augusta story was even more offensive that Eden's rape. Not that there should be a competition, but the Dash stuff is particularly tone deaf in retrospect.

Clarice and Larry are such an odd case because at one time they each had an entire family built around their characters. Clarice had a couple of brothers, who both dated Sally, and Larry had Catlin, who also dated Sally. In addition, Clarice's son was the heir to Delaney Brands of Somerset, so there was lots of potential for both characters.

My somewhat uninformed take on the DAYS taping schedule is two-fold. On the one hand I reject the theory that taping in advance does not allow for audience response to guide the storylines. Fans tend to want to have more influence than what is realistic and the theory assumes that nobody in production can see chemistry (or lack thereof) between actors. On the other hand, it seems as if stories are being written to the production schedule in terms of being able to do multiple scenes between limited cast members in a limited number of sets. Often one group of characters will have a week worth of scenes in one set without ever running into people from other storylines, because they were filmed on a seperate schedule. As a result, DAYS often seems as if the characters are living on separate islands and one set of characters never seems to react to the action in another part of town.

It was fun @Franko One of the details that I remember was that Long's fiance gave her exit interview. Pam was never quoted in the article, but her husband-to-be gave some details. Including that she tried to bring back Reva in December of that year, when she died over the prior summer, but it was nixed by production not Zimmer. Also, the talk in SOD at the time was that Rick Bauer was going to be re-cast, so there was a lot of turmoil behind the scenes

My objection to Todd is his placement within the Lord family dynasty. Although Victor never had as many long-lost-children crawl out of the woodwork as Stephano Dimera, Tony and Todd seemed unnecessary additions to the family tree, when the story of Tina's paternity was the focus of the show for years. Not only did we get the inexplicable inheritance that one only gets on soaps when an illegitimate child, not named in the father's will, is suddenly given riches, but also Victoria's allegiance to Todd never held water. Viki was kind to Tony, but never defended him like she did Todd. Not to mention that Irene seemed to have had Tina and Todd when she was rather young, but her best friend Viki never knew that she was pregnant (perhaps Viki was in Eterna at the time?). It all reportedly stemmed from the coincidence that the character was given the last name Manning. However, the writer at the time never planned for the backstory so it was all rather convoluted. Somehow, he had to have a father with the last name Manning, but still be related to Irene, which was just dumb.

If any of you read @franko and I recaps of the 1990-1991 SOD breaking news thread, there was a ton of press prior to Matt Weiss's casting (including a story about mothers from the Upper Westside trying to get their sons cast), and then poof he was gone. The guy who played Matt Weiss was Jeff Gendelman, who had been on Loving. If I remember correctly, CBS nixed the storyline with Matt and he was quickly written out. I believe the story goes is that CBS' interference is what we led Pam Long to leave as head writer.

Butch Hartman who was Sean Masters on Generations later created the Fairly Oddparents on Nickelodeon There was an SOD story at the time of his hire that noted he always carried a sketchpad and he married the Jeopardy audience coordinator after appearing on the show