Vee

I remember people actively theorizing that "Niki" in the '02 story was actually Tori in disguise on USENET 20 years ago. That's how rough it got. I didn't mind the strangely poignant scenes where a much more benign Niki helped Tess give birth to her stillborn child in '08, but the fact remains the entire Tess saga should never have happened nor should the alters have returned after '95. I still remember his mortifying exit during what was something of AMC's nadir to me - the bizarre, brief and highly Fronsified Rayfield/Cascio era in 2003(?) where they literally dragged poor Jack Scalia out to some Miller's Crossing-ass barren woods somewhere just outside the city, where he got got in a very cheap looking location shoot to the strains of an overwrought Moby song that had already been highly overplayed in film and TV by then. I still don't think AMC was ever worse than that regime because it was so clearly the new network honcho putting his big fat thumb all over the show in an unrecognizable way I have never seen before or since.

I'm still very fond of that entirely too prescient Robert Altman/Garry Trudeau pilot Killer App (directed by Altman, written by Trudeau) about a Seattle dot-com firm at the height of the tech boom. I think they did it for Fox of all places, back when Fox still took some real chances. It either started at HBO or tried to migrate there after Fox, I'm not sure. Featuring (among many others) soap vets Ming-Na, Brian Kerwin and Brenda Strong, and the inimitable Stephen Lang from the Avatar films. The proto-Alexa is voiced by Altman perennial Sally Kellerman. From Trudeau a few years back:

Harmony creeped me the hell out. I love LLC; Ned and Olivia are merely just fine for me. As it is though I don't need them to be broken up. Were Robert not so terribly feeble now I'd have kept playing that angle in spite of Ned, and I did like her with Johnny. But he's not around.

He was never very strong but he has some charisma which put him over earlier in the year, though I've never been very impressed. They've got to get someone else on him, not that the FV speed-taping method helps anyone. Same here. Ned and Alexis to me were always purely and simply fine. They were two actors with dry wit and chemistry who shared a lot of good dialogue, and that was about it. I was more into Jax and Alexis, but that didn't happen (or Ned and Lois, but she was gone). It was when they got into the stuff you mentioned that I soured on them. Compared to most of today's couples of course, Ned and Alexis' material seems like Moonlighting. And I've discussed Chloe too - I liked her a lot, I even liked her with Stefan in that bizarre psychic visions story that never got explained and I'm still upset about her death. If they introduced a surprise kid of Chloe's sometime (not from one of her onscreen love interests, Korte!) to help shore up the Qs I wouldn't squawk. At this point I'd bring on a woman for Alexis. Why not. She couldn't possibly do worse with the same sex. We've been over this before, but agreed it's so weird. There was a very brief discussion of it when they first got cozy under RC and it's never been touched on again, probably because the current writers are bewildered and frightened by the prospect of having to dive into anything more nuanced like that. Not on Frank's GH! I wish it would be discussed though. I have no problem with Ned and Olivia as they are. I love Lisa and I think they're a fine tentpole couple, and Ned and Lois is never going to happen again because Wally and Rena aren't comfortable with it. But I would have them at least talk about all of it.

It's anecdotal of course, but that would track with my earliest memories of soaps. My babysitter for years was ancient when I was tiny, was from the South and she watched nothing but CBS. This was the mid-late '80s to the very early '90s. Nadia's Theme, the Marland-era ATWT intro from the '80s and B&B's theme are burned into my brain because of this.

That was Dena Higley. I hated Tess and always will.

Danny managed to grin through the eulogy.

Agreed lol. It would take too long and blow what little budget GH has left (as a sendoff for a presumed move to streaming) but I have it in a drawer lol. I will never work in soaps but it's just a fun pipe dream.

Once FV and Passanante got JPS it was over. They've all been infatuated with him from Day 1. To this day I think Helena offered up Valentin's name all those years ago as a cover for someone/something else, and that's the story I'd do.

The next time DAYS knocks SN off contract (and they will) I'd grab him. But that's me. I'm surprised GH hasn't done it before, except I think SN may be on FV's shitlist for publicly criticizing the alleged plan to bring him back in 2013. IIRC he said he didn't care for the offer or potential story so he passed. What I strongly suspect is that they intended to do what they always did back then and do only slightly less now: Nickel and dime SN by keeping him on recurring with a bunch of other returning vets, play him every 3-4 weeks in a subplot as a romantic spoiler for Luke and Laura (since Frank also wanted Genie on recurring at the time) and nothing else.

Niki and the alters should never have been back after '95.

I do think bringing back Spencer or another Cassadine would be necessary for Stefan. But yes, I'd bring him back. I do think they are potentially prepping Drew for a villain exit, though at this point with the potential Mulcahey gave him largely squandered I'd probably kill him in a murder mystery myself.

I got through about 15 seconds of Jerry Hall footage.

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.)