Vee

Though again, she did keep going back and kept her hand heavily in at several times. So clearly Agnes had some fondness for it. I suspect of its original creatives she's the only one who did.

I would never call Stefan nothing! I just think they fundamentally mishandled Stefan/Laura once it came time to put it in action after the first year or two, and screwed him over heavily on all subsequent stories. I agree it's SN's best role. I had never seen Patch at the time so I had no idea just how good he was being someone utterly different. I still want Stefan back. I don't think Ned and Alexis were unpopular per se. I do think Jax and Alexis was more popular at the time, but Riche wouldn't go for it. I didn't dislike the idea of Sonny and Alexis on paper but the execution was dreadful (right down to Guza's returning team IIRC lampooning what JFP and McTavish's writing had done to Alexis as a ditz for Sonny in a fantasy sequence, before they took a turn wrecking her themselves the following year). I still would be down with Sonny and Alexis having a secret ONS/fling again after all these years, nothing too serious.

I honestly don't remember the exact turn but I guess it did begin then and to their credit Guza and Garin Wolf did play some of it, setting the table for a couple years as Michael began spending more and more time with the family and the business. But it was under RC that Michael became a permanent fixture at the Qs and ELQ, grew close to A.J., Ned and Tracy, etc. That's stuck, and I do think Chad has good chemistry with Jane especially.

Michael is essentially a full Q these days and has been since the early 2010s, when RC (and I think maybe someone prior) began moving him hard towards them and kept him heavy in their sphere and business. The only thing that hasn't stuck is the name.

I liked them. But they did whine about their families for too long. I agree about Alexis. She was, and those scenes where he banished her (and kissed her) were brilliant. Chad only comes alive these days when he is turning dark. That's what they should let him do, just like in 2014. I would still recast him in time and after a break following this story because I think Duell is spent, but it's past time they let Michael loose. The Lucky situation is so much the same problem this team/regime has with any major returning character that I can't attribute any of it to JJ, who has been putting in the work. These creatives just have no idea how to write this or any kind of nuanced issue other than reiterate the same points and retread the material until Frank says there is an opening in the taping schedule to start changing things up. I agree it's high time he makes a decision to stay, gets a job, etc. But even then they won't take the time for enough scenes digging into what got him here.

Well, yes. Him and Renee Elise Goldsberry, and Michael Easton (and Bree).

I don't think anyone had a ball in the Higley years. But Viki's situation was truly dire and humiliating (and before that, under Malone II, mostly rarely seen when she wasn't actively dying).

Loved it. Dan Gauthier ended up very popular as Kevin. It was the network that didn't like him and had him removed. They ended up bringing him back as often as they could. I don't remember him.

Dorian at least had heavy story and several frontburner love interests. As soon as Frons arrived VIki had little more than Coma (then Dead) Ben and was relegated to talk-to stuff for years. Malone in his limited power briefly tried to bring in a couple rando new guys to play off her which didn't work out (first Marcie's bigoted dad then poor Kevin Dobson from Knots Landing, looking horribly lost), and Higley spent the bulk of her tenure having JVD's Clint shít on her with Dorian.

I don't think Viki ever stopped being the center of OLTL (at least in my time) with the exception of a grim period in the mid-2000s where they seriously were shítting on her after Frons came in, who clearly wanted her backburnered as much as possible. Most particularly the Dena Higley years. Ron Carlivati gained a lot of goodwill immediately by coming in with a major frontburner story and romance for VIki in 2007. It felt like it had been ten years.

I remember the truly bizarre rumors Michael Nouri was going to be the supposedly dead kingpin Manuel Santi on OLTL in 2004, again supposedly opposite Viki. Never happened. I always did want to see him on daytime, but by the time he showed up as Caleb Cortlandt he was, as others have said, just another in the rotating series of notches on Erica's bedpost where they would stuntcast someone they knew wouldn't succeed before inevitably moving her back to Jack. It was a waste of talent.

I do think Erica was largely just coasting or somewhat removed from key story for too much of the last decade. But I'd never have cut her. (As opposed to AMC 2.0, where the reset allowed the opportunity for a change.)

I did not know that. I'm not disputing it, it's just interesting.

Except I think that backstory became the core of the character, and made up a great deal of her greatest scenes. I also got tired of Ned and Alexis rambling on about being the gatekeepers, but I do think as smug as they could get the deep focus at least bolstered the character's integrity for a number for years when things got really rough later on.

Did she? That's interesting. I vaguely recall something about that. I think Alexis was very well-defined and deeply explored from her origins in '96 to about 2002, when JFP turned her into a ditz/stand-in for Sexis. Ever since then she has careened from extreme lows to occasional better times and various other peaks and valleys, so yes, I can see Nancy's critique. But I think her intellect and her integrity onscreen has always carried the character through those times that would've wiped many others off the map (and has). So I think it's more that Alexis has been humiliated over and over. Yet NLG for all her social media foibles has kept the character viable. The actor is the core they can't break.

I'm just not looking forward to the right wing media ecosystem turning its eye to it, because you know they will.

In fairness this appears to be a low budget horror movie. I wouldn't assume Zach just booked an A24 flick and is now going to be priced out of daytime, it's just another job (and good for him).

They've got like nine entries about It Had to be You on their blog connected to that Teri Garr pilot! It's quite a ride.

Y'all really slandering Hudson West in the thread while I was away! I will just say I totally disagree there (yet again). That moptopped kid was halfway carrying most of the show during that dreadful Chimera business with Billy Miller, Franco, etc. and was excellent for several years straight. And while I think he had some less than fantastic performances before his recent exit I also thought he was mostly fine to very good as a young adult. It's not like they gave him much to do since Steve came back either other than occasionally appear out of nowhere (and don't get me started on that Charlotte thing in the strike). YMMV, haters! Anyway, I do think Finn Carr has been excellent but I don't care about the supposed family unit of Sam, Dante and their kids beyond what that kid and DZ bring to this grieving period. Scout is a non-entity the show rarely remembers exists unless someone in her immediate bloodline dies. And Danny, as has been said, cannot stop grinning through every scene. At the end of the day, I'm sorry but Sam and Dante dated for a few years in a C-list pairing that was largely in the background of the show. And in all that time we never saw much of this Rocco/Danny 'bond' except for when Sam died and (very briefly) when Dante got shot. It's not like this was Luke and Laura raising Sly Eckert (who disappeared!) or Lucky and Emily as kids. Why should I buy two people who dated for a little while's two kids as foster brothers? Why should I care about their instant connection let alone Scout? We're not exactly dealing with the Hughes family and Andy Dixon here. It just seems like a somewhat awkward substitute for what was happening with Jason's feuding sons early in the year, and frankly AA (I am not trying to say that kid's full name) is not up to it anyway. Someone else needs to start working with him because so far Steve isn't helping much. Much more likely excepting Danny, the least talented IMO. At least Rocco has his mom back to keep him in the mix for now. I think that girl was pretty much your standard issue kewpie doll child actor. She's weak and pretty much always has been in any material other than looking cute, grinning wide or sobbing for Mommy. She's grown up to be a lovely teen but is not ready for primetime.

I'm very sorry. I do agree it's weak for Alexis. I think this loss would pulverize her if not for the show's disinterest in really writing for it, or writing much intense drama period. Any time anyone tries (be it PM or anyone else, really) the oversight and house style kicks in and deemphasizes and drains a lot of life from most initiatives.

I don't mind Eden McCoy in careful doses. I would still recast Joss eventually but I think she has very real BFF chemistry with TA and others, I think she can do well as a schemer or a comic vixen character and that's about it. She is not an A-lead and mercifully, for the moment at least, the show has ceased presenting her as one. I expect that to change again soon unfortunately. They can't resist. I don't think Ava is a shell so much as so much of what she is was built out from MW's always formidable and high camp performance - she is purely and simply a stylized villainess and operator. They've tried to modulate or neuter the character to keep her more of what they consider 'viable' at times and it's never worked well. I agree they resent Sprina and are terrified of activating that fanbase (or alienating racist viewers) with a recast. I do think they may face some pressure over representation in the coming months with BTG, and are responding to it in the typical passive-aggressive ways already now with Kai, etc. But I think they would've faced far more pressure if not for the election results we just had. If anything I think that will prove to either FV, the network or both that characters of color are best kept in their niche. I suppose one advantage of them losing interest in Gio is he would be more likely to be allowed to be a casual fuckbuddy for Trina after all. But I don't think it'll ever happen.

Drew looks like he has been in a damn car accident. He can't put some makeup on for Sam's funeral?? He looks like Martin after getting beat down.

I'll agree with DRW. Agnes repeatedly went back to Loving and kept trying to rework it, remold it and build on it better, all the way to almost the very end. Her stamp is all over a lot of that '90s stuff in a fascinating way - the show is really a test bed/lab for her reinventing old ideas or trying out new ones IMO. By contrast she never took much of an interest in OLTL after handing it off to Gordon Russell, AFAIK. All I'll say re: the Y&R thing is it took real chutzpah to name a Black character "Mamie" even in the '80s. I did a double take when I first learned the Abbott maid was called that and I've never recovered.

The kid playing Danny vs. Van Hansis reminds me of the old tagline for Aliens vs. Predator: "Whoever wins, we lose." I do hope they both surprise me, lol. I think VH has had some good chemistry early on with LW (though she can generate that with almost anyone) and others and I gave him a chance, but he put in some real messy work with the transplant fallout. And if you ask Van to carry heavy material even I, only an occasional tourist of the last years of ATWT, fear the coming tide.

Yeah, I definitely think he is done but I'm holding my breath a little there lol. It's Violet I think will be back soon frankly.