Vee

I'm not going to go chapter and verse through all of the examples, but it's happened a number of times at many of the classic soaps lol. And certainly it's happened like this at the beginning of a show's run, with some actors never even making it onscreen after taping and others being replaced within days or weeks. I like Johnson, but them's the breaks with any new soap or any soap period. Recasts and firings happen. And will keep happening.

Lots.

I loved Richard but I think he was expendable at a certain point - I would've brought him back more often for stints. Losing Laura was, I think, a major blow (and I haven't even gotten there yet) but I could understand it to a point. Julie Harris is similar but Lilimae is still a talk-to character in the end. If I had to keep one it would always be Laura.

That's not unheard of in daytime, though. It's happened a number of times with casting one actor when they intended another. At the end of the day, it's a new soap and in that context none of this (or anything you mentioned) is unusual. It's just been awhile since any of us have experienced it.

I get it, and I think the pacing has worked for them so far - it's in an interesting sort of an in-between zone between the classical rhythms and something almost primetime-esque, but it hits the right spot for me because it's still not primetime soap speed. The pacing is not where any of my issues lie so much as some of the casting and dialogue work, but the scripts vary between good/great or mediocre, and I suspect a lot of that or casting issues/dud characters will get ironed out in time as with any new soap.

It is refreshing to see in a way - newbies shocked by a typical soap recast, and it's encouraging for the show to be gaining an entirely new audience. I did not think that was wholly possible on network, but I did know if there was going to be one it would be a new generation's Black audience.

Or he was not the first choice for the role, or any number of reasons in front of or behind the camera. Plenty of soaps don't wait for reaction when they recast. They just do it. It's commonplace.

Yeah, exactly. That's what is surprising me so much, yet not entirely given it has finally, actively courted Black viewership - it is genuinely garnering an all-new audience unused to these basic daytime BTS changes. Characters like Dani, Hayley, Eva and Dana, etc. being so polarizing is equally good.

Jake has been memory-holed by Frank and Liz Korte for tiresome reasons.

I know Jonathan has always been vocal about wanting LNL2 and not getting it despite promises in 2009-2011. I would not be shocked if he had some assurances this time, and I would not be shocked if FV tried to get out of it. I don't think he will be able to, especially not with the show's rocky past year (and the fact that the response to LNL2 has been pretty good from the audience, minus the Liason spam brigade which isn't part of the social media contingent GH pays attn to anyway). I do think in a normal circumstance I might play Lucky/Kristina myself as a spoiler to an LNL2 endgame, with another character opposite Liz (not Ric). But after years of shortchanging Liz and FV's preferential treatment I think it's best to go straight for them, at least for now.

It's been known to happen.

I think Nathan as Joey was popular more for him and what he brought to it onscreen than for any of the stories, of which only one really worked. Still, he was a hit as a heartthrob. But I would've brought back Chris once Nathan hit it big in primetime and Chris had aged up a bit. They were very similar in personality and charisma even then IMO. I know Andy Kavovit got his fair share of primetime, etc. around this period (The Young Riders?) so I think it worked out for him. That was in the Sheffer era of populating the show with big soap names in forgotten core roles. It was a marketing strategy I could get behind, up to a point. As many fans with much more history with the show have articulated far better than me a lot of those character changes didn't fully work or were total 180s; I liked some that others hated. But I think Roger is when the worm officially turned though, and many future attempts also flopped. Scott Holroyd had been very well-liked as Paul (I still don't know why he never did daytime again), and Roger's first months were literally an embarrassing carbon copy of Todd Manning material and very OOC for Paul - almost identical to what he'd just been playing at OLTL in '03 - while his IMO considerable chemistry with both Martha Byrne and Cady McClain could not save bad story. Had RH completely departed from form, and tried to do something more in the vein of the doomed Austin character from GH, playing it fairly straight, he might've done better. Or in another role, as you said. But that was not what they wanted, the same mistake GH later made by insisting on bringing him back as Franco. ATWT wanted to revamp Paul as snarky, evil daddy hallucination-plagued Todd Manning and Roger played it, tics, schemes, rambling and all, because he was just happy to no longer being playing an actual rapist anymore. (Something he enumerated at length in a recent podcast interview both of us are familiar with re: the Todd saga, and I am glad for his mental health he could leave OLTL even if I found his ATWT stint lousy - it clearly made him content and more stable to not be doing that kind of work anymore, and over time made him able to play material more earnestly again when he did return to ABC as Todd, etc.)

It was obvious to me they did that because they were desperate to find any port in a storm for Roger Howarth by that point after several dud stories and a hostile audience, and leaned on an old pairing and a somewhat popular vet. Not dissimilar to the Becky Herbst safe harbor at GH years later, although I'd argue Becky is much more popular at GH than KMH was at ATWT. I do remember the Howarth diehards trying to will "Pem" into being a big deal at the time, because they knew he had a very rough ride at ATWT in those early years not ever really being accepted as Paul and all his love interests were either dead or off the show. It never fully happened for the couple with those actors as far as I can tell, but Howarth didn't get fired, which is all that mattered to his fanbase. I would've tried to keep AK as long as possible, but I understand the issue. My feeling with young-skewing actors is to always keep them if they're quite good, well-liked and photogenic enough, whether it's Kimberly McCullough, Christie Clark or Erin Torpey or males like Kavovit, Chris McKenna, Scott DeFreitas, Eddie Alderson et al. You just write to the youthfulness or contrast it/make it edgy, as the affair with Emily did. (Of course it's not like a recast didn't work out for OLTL with Nathan Fillion, but that's a relative outlier.)

I think it's getting that much attention because of the portion of the audience that is new to soaps is not used to recasts. You can see the reaction on social media that BTG got out of the gate in late February with people unaware of the grind of a daily show, etc. That's all actually very good for the show IMO in terms of numbers, but it does mean they can be caught flatfooted when standard daytime stuff (like recasts) happen. It'll blow over. Robinson seems old enough, and I don't think he looks too similar to Andre or Jacob and certainly not Martin.

It's interesting to see in the long story doc that Marland flat-out says Andy Kavovit looks younger than he is and that it will be a major problem for them going fwd. I think he's intimating a Paul recast. I love what I've seen of Kavovit in the role but I can understand the concern; he still looks youngish today. (This problem was not dissimilar to Chris McKenna's Joey at OLTL not long after, where they ultimately felt they had the same issue.) Putting him onscreen with Melanie Smith was very bold given that juxtaposition, not that I'm disapproving. But you wouldn't have been surprised if someone turned the dial to CBS in the afternoon and suddenly thought they were watching a French film or something. Burke Moses went on to be one of Alex's mob pals on OLTL, I think.

The soaps are littered with poor saps who bought a house or moved across the country just in time to get fired.

I'm not gonna stress over it til I see the dude. But yeah, he def looks old enough.

I don't remember Kristina ever mentioning Trey since LM left. And good riddance! LOL so this is a fourth time! Christ. I've said it before and I'll say it again: Willow should go full Susan Moore when she finds out Drew was with her mother and go scorched earth. Wield the Q name, Michael's power of attorney, etc. and make life hell for everyone who ever crossed her. Seduce poor dopey Chase because she can (who already is easy for her), shoot Drew and frame Nina, maybe blackmail Drew or force him into marriage, fake her cancer again, etc. I think KMM has the bitchy princess edge to make it work. I wouldn't keep her around forever - Susan Moore met her end too - but you could get at least another couple good years out of the character this way. Her comeuppance can begin when a recast Michael returns.

I keep saying this but there are far too many actors who have hung on for far too long. I am amazed at how long Nina, Willow and Sasha have all been on canvas, among many others. At least Nina and Willow found some more purpose in the last year. LMAO I forgot about him doing it for Sam. Yes, someone should straight up not buy it and bring this up.

It's just something to justify keeping both actors employed. And it's embarrassing at Jason's big age. Imagine doing a tedious retread of one of his most famous stories almost 30 years later with a C-player nowhere near the league of Sarah Brown or Kimberly McCullough.

I think Vanessa's twins are easy to bring on, as are any family of Pamela. (Vanessa's kids are mixed, but if they must have 100% white characters anyone in Pamela's family is easy enough - or just new people) Agreed about Ashley.

This is exactly how I thought it was going to go, lol.

I think there's a place for white characters, I just don't think Ashley and Derek are it.

All I know is he was doing stuff with the Red Scare chicks in recent years, which is a bridge too far for me politically and I am on the left. He's a part of the whole NYC indie scene I am very familiar with though. But if you ever want to see all of Peter Vack and then some, I assure you the movie is out there lol. I think Seyfried was only on ATWT a few days but was notably scarred by the experience BTS. Joseph Cross OTOH has really come into his own as an adult actor in some excellent work in various things, including Mindhunter, Running with Scissors and Licorice Pizza.

Peter Vack is actually a talented dude/dirtbag leftist who I know best from his voice work on Rockstar's now-classic game Bully (and who inexplicably bared it all at length in some indie about camsex with Julia Fox, but nvm), but I absolutely cannot imagine him on P&G soaps. Of course I suppose you also could say that now about Amanda Seyfried or Joseph Cross, who is now a David Fincher staple.