j swift

A few months ago we discussed the origins of Blake and how she may not have been originally slated to be Christina Thorpe. It made me wonder if there was ever a concern that people might not remember Roger? He left more than a decade before Blake arrived. Holly was not around to provide exposition on his past. There were few opportunities for flashbacks to the character, given the recastings of other characters. And he wasn't like Alan where his namesake Spaulding Industries continued even if he was off-screen. There has to be some threshold of time when writers figure that the audience will remember a past character and those that could not be resurrected because too much time had passed.

As much as I don't enjoy old full episodes, for some reason, I got pulled into watching ep 198-200 today. It is the introduction of Julia, right after Augusta is blinded in the tunnel collapse. The first thing that struck me was the forgotten character of Jackie Parks, Ted's teacher at Lyman Academy and Amy's friend from childhood. Jackie had an inappropriate relationship with Ted when she became his confidant during his break up with Laken. In ep198, they are asleep in Mason's apartment after talking all night. Jackie has a flashback to being told that her husband died in the Navy (oddly the flashback took place in the Lockridge living room). Ted consoles her and against Mason's wishes drives her home in ep 199. Then, like all other non-essential SB characters, she disappeared. It is odd enough that Mason has no interactions with Julia when she first hits town, but it is especially odd to have so much focus on this character, in her final two episodes, only to be totally forgotten a week later. Eden and Cruz want to have sex but everyone keeps bothering them about the Channing murder investigation so they put up a sign on the front door to go away. They're not shown but Warren, Maggie, and Santana all comment on the sign, which was funny. Santana #2 (Margaret Micheals) and Gina #1 (Linda Gibboney) are remarkably alike. They both play their roles with constant tension and neuroticism. It is a shame that neither had a talk-to who could calm them and help them focus, They are both a hair trigger away from nuts and it is some big 80s hair. Warren and Lionel were the most charismatic father-son duo in daytime. Their wardrobe is so chic compared to CC, who always looks dressed for yachting, and Mason, whose suits did not fit well. They both do this hand gesture across their face when being coy with women. I will never understand why Sophia didn't pursue anything with Lionel, except for that time when their makeout tape got erased by Santa Clause, but that's Santa Barbara...

Happy Spring

Was it dubbed or subtitled? Did they start with the return of Cass from his honeymoon to Kathleen, as they did on Soapnet?

Marilee Stone, member of the oil cartel, CEO of Hurst Oil, was always one of my favorite side characters. It was always a fun episode when Marilee showed up. She was a great shoulder padded cougar with Casey Denault, and an interesting foe for Cliff. She is how I wish Lucy had grown up, classy, bi-atchy, and a little snobby.

Do you think it is possible that she'll go back to radio (Sirius)?

I adore these clip packages and storyline summaries that Springfielder has put together. I find entire episodes too slow and often difficult to track. Also, the lighting and sound quality of old episodes tend to exhaust me. However, content like this that is curated, smart, and funny really makes me appreciate all that YT provides. For example, a decade ago, we were listening to tiny audio clips WOST, and now someone has edited together the complete set of openings, for almost every show, in historical order. It is a great time for vintage soap lovers, and I am truly grateful for the creativity of these edits. I know it is old thinking to wonder how they can be monetized, and that might not be the only motivation, but it is remarkable what fans have been able to achieve.

RHOP - I still don't get where Candace's mother is getting the money? Isn't she a therapist? How is she so rich that Candace is planning her life around an inheritance (especially next to Katie who has actual familial wealth)? RHOBH - I want more details on Camille's relationship with her new stepsons who don't like her. Did David's kids go to the wedding? Also, we know the husbands aren't paid (which is why they're all allowed to shill their companies), but are friends like Camille and NYC's Barbara paid commensurate to a first year housewife or were they paid per episode? Prior to their season's photoshoot, did they know they weren't carrying an apple or a diamond? When and how do you think they find out their non-wife status?

My thoughts exactly when I was watching the video I was no longer a regular GL watcher by the time Mel debuted, but I thought the actress was absolutely charming. However, the doctor into lawyer thing, SORASing her kid, and placing her in Harley's orbit seemed like such odd dramatic choices. Also, it was amusing that there was dialogue that referenced Mel and Rick's age difference, then they SORASed their kid and made him even older (which would make Blake's twins middle-aged). I guess her one redeeming factor as a character is that she ended up with Cyrus.

I'm betting LVP doesn't make it to the reunion with anybody who will take the wager. One would imagine that if contractual issues were going to be enforced then LVP would have been required to be at the cast photo session, and she didn't. I think the producers want to play up this rivalry. Maybe she'll have a tape piece like Brandy did a couple of years ago just to stoke the anger of those ladies sitting for half a day in beaded cocktail dresses.

She announced today (5/31) that this was the last show before her five-week hiatus. She said that she is doing something that she'll talk about when she returns. The obvious assumption is a memoir, but I wonder if she has any other tricks up her sleeve?

RHONY - I feel like production is playing a prank on Barbara K. She's in every episode, the other women constantly make fun of her wardrobe, and she went on the cast trip, but maybe because she threatened to sue last season, they won't give her an apple. I also feel like Dorinda quietly disapproves of Tinsley. Dorinda didn't stick up for Tinz when Ramona kicked her out of the car, she criticized her ringmaster skills, and I get the feeling that Dorinda does not think Tinz is bright. There is an amusing Bravo aftershow on YT, Dorinda and Sonja are interviewed together by producers, Lu is by herself, Tinz is with Dale, and Bethanny and Ramona just don't appear. This week Dorinda said that she wanted to be in the car with Sonja and Ramona in Miami because she knew them the longest, which seemed like a euphemism for "I was already tired of Tinsley." Also, quizzing Sonja on what she remembered of Miami before she watched the episode is a very funny idea.

It's the Jimmy McNichol /Shaun Cassidy thing. All 70s teen idol turned GH actors have merged together in my memory. Poor Josh was a victim of the "Asian Quarter" storyline. He took a bullet meant for Frisco and never wrote a song, (nor carried someone's luggage), again...

Alan got sick (heart attack?) and hired Annie as his personal nurse. She had already been disgraced so they became kindred spirits.

RHONY - I can see why Jill Zaren felt cut out. We went from two episodes that took place three days after Halloween, November 3-4, cut to a month later and it's Christmas! Zarin must have been lost somewhere in the missing days of November... I still don't get Barbara's "clay event" or why it wasn't worthy of its own scene? However, Ramona's response to Barbara going out with her in Miami was as amazing as her ability to do her makeup while Sonja was going insane. But the real mystery of the season is how did Ramona manage that low cut gown without her boobs falling out? I know they are lifted, but did she paste that dress to her chest?

I would argue that the real stupid story was Terry's follow up when she dated Dusty Walker-the-bellhop/songwriter who was hypnotized into becoming an assassin every time she sang country music.

Sally Spectra and Stephanie Forrester were too smart to fight over Jack Hamilton, just as Lesley Webber and Monica Quartermaine had been too good for Rick Webber.

Wasn't it ironic that it was People Magazine after all the Dave Quinn drama last week? I think his biases have been made very clear.

I went back and watched the YT edit of The Laurelton Mystery, which takes under an hour because they edited out all of the B-storylines of the time. This edit makes the story much clearer. Patrick O'Connor attacked Terry Brock on the night of her high school Valentine's dance in a motel on Main Street. That same night, Kevin O'Connor secretly killed Earl Moody who was trying to expose a problem with the well supplying The Purity Water Company and hid the corpse in the Town Hall, during the dance. Earl's body fell onto Terry in the Town Hall when she tried to escape Patrick. The town's economy was based on the water so they all agreed to cover it up and buried Earl in a shallow grave, not knowing for sure who killed him. Terry began drinking too much and moved to Port Charles to be near her father DL Brock and his new wife Bobbie. Which explains why Terry had a southern accent and her father sounded like he was from Brooklyn. Three years later, the O'Connor brothers move to PC to intern at GH just as Earl's nephew Neil Johnson arrives in Laurelton. The Purity Water receptionist Sarah liked Earl and wrote a note to Neil to find Patrick in PC, who she suspected killed Earl because she knew he had attacked Terry the same night. Also, Sarah and Patrick had equally inherited Earl's shares in the water company, which gave him a motive. Kevin was the first person to see Neil in the Brownstone, they argued, he stabbed him and hid Sarah's note under the floorboards. Later, Kevin married Terry and killed her maternal grandmother Jennifer Talbot, the other major shareholder in the water business. Kevin's plan is to frame his brother Patrick for murder and simultaneously drive Terry mad in order to be the sole inheritor of Purity Water. However, once Kevin is arrested, he begins a double jeopardy plot when he learns from his illicit lover, law librarian Lucy Coe, that he cannot be tried twice for the same crime. He encouraged Lucy to perjure herself in hopes of a mistrial, so he could not be tried again if more evidence was found. His defense attorney/co-owner of the Brownstone, Jake Meyer, proved it when he found an article on double jeopardy hidden in Kevin's bathroom. Kevin was much better at scheming than hiding bodies or incriminating notes. It is slightly unfair to critique as one long story, as SOD did back in the 1986 Best/Worst Issue, because it is really two stories, the murder investigation and then the trial. Also, it serves as a backdrop for Frisco and Felicia's engagement and the beginnings of Jake and Bobbie's romance. However, at least one quibble, Anna is delayed by having to walk from the train to Patrick & Terry's wedding. Simultaneously, Terry falls into a fugue state and begins singing gospel at the top of her lungs while strolling down Main Street (someone should check if George RR Martin of Game of Thrones watched GH for the inspiration of Cersei's walk of shame). Somehow, Grandma and the whole congregation hear her, but Anna never hears a thing. That detail (and the fact that the O'Connor boys went from high school to medical interns in three years, and Sean Donnelly spends the whole story babysitting Robin rather than helping with the investigation, and Buzz Stryker was Terry's therapist rather than Gail Baldwin, and Anna didn't ultimately solve the crime) bothered me.

I understand the sneering value of Casey the Alien, (and the fact that GH went from #1 to #8 during that time), but I want to put in a pitch for "single-Anna-the-detective" period of GH, both pre and post-Duke. I liked the characterization of Anna as a mother to Robin, in their quaint cabin home, with her hair and blouses all buttoned up. I liked how she mentored Frisco as a detective, as well as her fraternal relationships with Sean and Robin's other godfathers. As much as I enjoyed Anna & Duke's tango, or Anna tying Robert to a column (which on re-watch has very little build-up beyond a single scene at Robin's school where she wishes her parents were back together). I thought it was novel how long Anna remained on her own within a soap universe. Given that the stories around her were not good, it still doesn't diminish how cool Anna was on her own.

Today, I'm stuck on the logic of why Rick adopted Laura when he married Leslie? First, Laura was almost 18 and almost married to Scotty, Second, the marriage didn't last that long. Third, Leslie had just met and adopted Laura a few years earlier. Fourth, she was on probation, so Rick was liable for her behavior on probation. I recently read a critique of pre-Monty GH that fans complained that the Webbers had taken over GH, to the point that one of them became Steve's son. Given that feeling, what was the logic to have Laura become a Webber?

As I recall the publicity when he returned as Alexander Niklos was that AW had to rehire him because he was so popular and they made a mistake killing him off. However, no spoilers, but the magic did not strike the second time. Coincidentally, I just watched a 90s short film starring John Aprea where he plays a reporter investigating male prostitution in Time Square. I was also a big Lorna & Kevin fan. I agree with the criticism at the time that it was an odd retcon given that we had already met so many McKinnon family members. But, he was one of those characters who spoke for the audience when asking why Carl and Jake had never paid for their crimes. Also, James Goodwin is an interesting actor, he had a big role on GL, dated a couple of soap starlets, and wrote a play that was a spoof on soaps at the same time.

The wiki says that Robin Mattson's first airdate was October 1st, which would have been prior to all of this talk about the holidays. BTW, gotta love a soap asylum where they let out criminally insane people for the holidays. This is the setup for Diana Taylor's murder which will happen in February 1981, wherein a big part of the mystery depended on the fact that GH nurses wore capes as a part of their uniforms, even in emergency situations. Yes, that is Susan Pratt as the virginal nurse Annie. Jeff was juggling her, that cougar Dianna, and his ex-wife Monica in that one scene. I don't recall much sibling conflict amongst the Webber boys, once they got past the whole Monica-thing. I find it remarkable that there are three different phone calls in that scene and the person on the other end got their own set each time. It was an interesting way to break up a long scene.

It could have been interesting if Greg was Dawn's father. Unfortunately, after four recasts, an awful scene partner, and the return of Gloria Monty, nothing was compelling about Dawn.

RDA's scarf game was iconic.