Vee

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.)

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.