Vee

Thanks!

Yes, I believe so. I think he also auditioned for the very short-lived Stephen Lars recast in '04 or '05. I'd love to see Chris Ramsey appear to make trouble, but Nolan North is now a gigantic name in voice work/games and I don't think he has the slightest interest in daytime. OTOH he has spoken fondly of people like Jon, Thorsten Kaye and Wayne Northrop and enjoying some of that stuff, so maybe his interviews re: daytime aren't as negative as I kept thinking they were. Come visit, Chris Ramsey!

IIRC they weren't. PC had turned Kevin evil over magic bullshít to unwisely pair Lucy with Thorsten Kaye. Awful. Fortunately by the time 2004 rolled around that was ignored and IIRC GH basically indicated they were back together. Which they allegedly were offscreen for years as well, til they divorced sometime before 2012. I agree Frank has used those veteran relationships very well for Felicia, Mac, Anna, Lucy, Kevin, etc.

I knew they wouldn't be back tbqh. It was quite clear by 2003 that Guza and Pratt's GH had evolved into a show with sadly no use or respect for characters like Lucy and Kevin. Once Jill or Frons or whoever let Genie walk and then slaughtered Stefan and Rick Webber you knew everything had changed. I was just happy they got that token appearance in '04.

Yeah, I think Jill and Frons/Guza just discarded them entirely. They did not fit into their vision of the show. Maybe Guza would've liked to use them but we'll never know. I do think the '96 story was good as well, if very dark.

Pretty sure it's Niki Flacks as the first "Karen (Martin) Wolek," a scheming nurse who got involved with Larry IIRC, married him and was swiftly dispatched after a while. She was a spoiler for him and Meredith.

I'd seen that one fragment without sound, as I think most of us have. Clearly someone recorded that off a TV at the Paley Center - I think it's one of their episodes.

Holy shít. @DRW50 @Darn @Franko @vetsoapfan @EricMontreal22 @Khan and apologies to anyone (many) I forgot! MissPalmer, you @ people by using the "@" symbol and then typing their SN. Thank you so much!

And my contribution to the discussion I that I simply don't have a problem with that narrative device and don't think it's that serious. YMMV.

Thank God:

I don't think we can assume anything about their personal feelings. It's just a question of finding an excuse for a soap opera crossover.

I will again reiterate how annoying it is that LW and JPS really do have it chemistry-wise. They are both old school soap pros and know how to bring the heat as well as play the nuances in dialogue or a moment. (She and Chris McKenna also did this beautifully recently in some scenes in her kitchen where Carly was all but daring Brennan to confess re: Joss.) It reminded me of some of the clinics she and David Andrew Macdonald used to put on at GL. If not for the fact that Valentin is fundamentally disgusting, looks, dresses and generally behaves like a local sex offender and every choice made with this character outside of their solo romantic scenes is wrong, and if Stuart was playing someone else, it might be a different story. But I'll never get behind them or Valentin. At the other end of the spectrum, Carlo Rota's mourning scenes this week were once again giving this:

I have no idea if Sigmund made it to PC. I thought they largely dumped the animals when Claire left. I remember Lucy paid tribute to Sigmund at CoeCoe Cosmetics with her "Golden Duck" sales tier or whatever it was. I think they may have brought in another duck to appear as Sigmund II or something in 2013 for the anniversary, but I don't remember at all.

No, my point is I don't think it's a problem for me as a viewer either way. It's a soap. Every rich family on soaps has questionable dealings at best (to say nothing of the current murder cover-up). I'm not going to be aggrieved at Vernon for lobbying on behalf of Newman the same way I would a real-life politician in bed with the NRA or AIPAC. We see Mayor Laura on GH cozy up to Sonny all the time. I don't love that but after 30 years of their relationship it doesn't destroy her character IMO. However they choose to portray Vernon's connection to Victor, it's just another character trait to me.

I agree with that. I just wish the realtor crap, being the buffoon at Deception and falling for any evil schmuck who comes to town would end.

I'm still annoyed about that given Ian Buchanan's talent. He was written as such a pathetic old sadsack, even if that may have been fairly true to life given what Duke had been through. If they somehow never find a new non-loser romance for Anna again (which I fully support them doing!) I'd admittedly be tempted to do what I once suspected RC might've done eventually - bring Duke back one more time, except I'd probably write him much more eccentric and fun after the hell's he already endured, and he would probably be way too close to IB's roles on Twin Peaks or On the Air vs. the actual GH character lol.

Lynn auditioning for Felicia is crazy.

Kevin remains Lucy's true love. I don't think Scott and Lucy have had it since he left in '93. The stuff since the 21st century has been particularly weak. I wish they'd at least stop making Lucy moonlight as the town realtor. She is now the CEO of a global conglomerate again. She should not be out selling houses on the side! Erica Kane's not doing that, it makes zero sense.

Buzz was a handsome older gentleman who had a lot of gravitas and charisma, but it was a fundamentally different sort of thing. I can't see Anna being stuck in a paternalistic relationship like that for long. It reminds me of more old fashioned soap pairings of an older, erudite man with a younger woman. Many of which worked for their time, but it's just not Anna.

Love this.

Soaps have always had to scramble with story any time an actor leaves or takes an out unexpectedly. That's not Steve controlling the writing in some new or unusual way, though he certainly did in certain ways in his prime 20 years ago. I doubt half the show or his storyline would be like this if he was in the driver's seat.

Doesn't bother me. It's a soap opera. Anything that makes the Duprees less saintly is good for drama at this point, as opposed to more endless scenes telling us how wonderful they are.

The movie was uh, messy but Susan and Matt Bomer were quite good. I also had a minor out of body experience when little Cary Christopher's scene was devoted largely to dropping the F-bomb with Martin Scorsese.

Molly and T.J. were rarely seen much from 2014-15 until the surrogacy story began in mid-late '23. They were nobodies. The reason being that when Frank and Ron first arrived in 2012 they tried very hard initially to find a new teen Starr Manning type fitting her mold from OLTL for youth stories, to chase that youth demo. That's where Molly came in. Frank pushed hard to showcase Haley Pullos' teen Molly and turn her into Starr II with his chosen new guy for her, Silas Clay's twink nephew Rafe Kovich Jr., the son of Caleb and Alison from Port Charles. The kid playing Rafe couldn't really act and nobody cared about him so the hard sell with them flopped, but at the same time FV and RC were trying to smear Tequan Richmond's T.J. to kill that relationship - he was acting out, getting drunk with Felix's mischievous niece or sister or whatever and being a wild teen. It was bad optics for a young Black boy to be made to look unruly and out of control while the two white kids were being shined up in 2013, let alone today but Frank and Ron were not exactly racially sensitive. Anyway, it didn't work. Rafe was killed off and with his attempt to make Molly and Rafe into Starr and Cole 2.0 having flopped FV pretty much exiled Molly and T.J. to the eternal backburner for the better part of another decade. (That's when he discovered Eden McCoy and began trying to make Joss into Starr instead.) After that they very rarely had any story. And I lost interest in T.J. entirely once Tequan Richmond was gone to better things. Tahj Bellow was okay but it was always a character that had very little grounding to me vs. other young men of color you could bring on with less tedious history. And Molly needs a long break from the canvas - Kristen Vaganos is bland and boring to me. So that's why none of it registers to me. But I do think it's pretty tacky that they never gave T.J. a proper goodbye while subjecting us to more of Molly and Cody's Hallmark slop.