Vee

Laura considered Rick her father. And Heather was very much treated as a part of the family in those years by way of Jeff, if a sketchy one. That's why they had her staying with Lesley when they sprung Robin Mattson from the sanitarium in '80, and why the young Laura had a number of scenes with Heather in those years.

Pretty sure she was. When fans and I think the mags caught on they made her hire Megan, and unfortunately they got on like a house on fire. Becky did return again very briefly for Asa's latest fake funeral in 2002, when all the wives turned up. She was nice enough then but had very little dialogue. The stuff with her and Georgie hollering away at each other is hysterical - it feels like an infomercial for bad roommate situations. Then Georgie just starts whaling on her with a phone which, I'm sorry, I laughed. This is when you sublet! For those who may not be aware, this is one instance where JFP briefly got her way at GH later on: She helped get Jennifer Bransford (Georgie) hired as the forgotten, lamented Carly #3 in 2005, when they either could not secure Laura Wright yet or were still figuring things out depending on who you ask. I remember being floored by the recast as no one had heard of JB since OLTL. It did not go well! And she was dumped as soon as Guza and co. could get a name (Laura) to replace her. Some have said it was a deliberate sabotage attempt to prime viewers for a stronger recast post-Tamara Braun, but I don't buy that; I think they were over a barrel with no big name available right away, and JFP stepped into the void (as she would later do during the 2008 writers' strike) to try to exert her will once again, and it flopped.

That was more Guza than JFP - she was reduced to a line producer for his vision when he returned in '02 after JFP and Megan McTavish's Year of Hell. She had very little creative control after that. But woof, yes, Linda Dano's ABC Daytime Tour, Skye, Ben, etc. Don't get me started. That is a hilarious comparison and accurate. But no, Becky Lee back in the '80s was a very sweet, calm, moral person. Buckle up! Malone II was many things but never dull; it frequently rivaled JER's DAYS for me at that time, but it was equally mortifying to watch. There were the seeds of some decent ideas beneath the terrible execution, then there were huge debacles like Malone trying to force the robotic Jessica Morris as Jen into redoing Marty's entire story arc, right down to multiple scenes of Andrew and Nora standing around saying things like 'you remind me so much of a girl named Marty Saybrooke.' Then came El Leon Antonio, the noble peasant being executed by redcoats in Angel Square in fair maiden Jessica's Revolutionary War fantasy. That's not even the craziest stuff. Erika and Roger loved the Viki/Todd relationship and so did I in its day, but I also think there's a natural queasiness looking back on the overall shift to focus on Todd-Todd-Todd now. Especially while rewatching '93. Malone had also intended for one of the recast Rachels in the mid-90s to kill R.J. in a murder mystery. Tim Stickney's popularity (and presumably Malone's firing) saved him.

More Trina, more of the feuding sons, I'm all for it.

I think a lot of us are fascinated with LOV for a lot of reasons, not just those of us who love the Murders but also particularly the protean nature of the show; how it morphs into so many different shows and canvases over and over, especially in the '90s. There's so many disparate pieces that work or could work. But I would disagree that there's not much of Agnes in it. I said in the past and stand by the idea that it can be seen as an Agnes test laboratory for various stories, concepts, character archetypes, etc. which she revisited over and over through her career, including again and again at AMC in later years - in addition to Ava and Kate, Ally, etc., I think Cooper and Hannah, Steffi, etc. all are descended from Phil and Tara and other Agnes young love attempts, and can be seen to prefigure Becca and Scott, Greenlee, etc., all the way down to Pete and Celia and poor sweet suffering rich boy A.J. at AMC 2.0. You have various goofball characters (Egypt) that resemble her AMC successes or that she later tried to recreate again (arguably in the redemption attempts with Kate Collins' Janet at the end of AMC in summer '11, and Billy Clyde on AMC 2.0); you have the older Black character who is clearly an analog for Sadie Gray after Agnes tried and failed to port Ellen Holly and Lillian Hayman from OLTL to LOV. Here, in this misty little show too few watched, Agnes tinkered with her private fascinations over and over. That's a big part of what makes me often revisit the show, in addition to the unique visions of other writing teams coming in over and over trying to reconfigure the show to new visions from those parts. And that's not even getting to the Marland stuff early on.

When the whole video sex scandal story started I think both fans and the actors were jazzed - HBS and Woods had been vocal about being not just on the backburner but 'in the freezer' for several years under the multiple post-Malone (no relation to Post Malone) regimes.* In early '98 it seemed like they were suddenly active, vital and in the thick of hot new story. (This was a key skill of JFP's in those years; she knew to play veterans early and often regularly, and keep viewers hooked - Bo, Nora, Viki, etc. rarely had any downtime regardless of story.) Then the Georgie story became a gruesome, ugly murder mystery that I felt often played like sheer hysterical camp (especially rewatching some of it recently) and then of course, the Rappaports took over the show. This gets much, much worse in 1999 and 2000 and more ruinous, until JFP leaves for GH (where she ultimately bites off more than she can chew trying to remake the network flagship soap GH playing her favorite actors in the same way in 2001, and is ultimately deposed to a mere facilitator for Bob Guza in 2002 - that is a whole other topic) and goofy but well-intentioned Gary Tomlin rights the ship somewhat. (* - Allegedly, the Drew storyline with Victor Browne in '96 was intended by Malone to be a interracial summer romance for him and Rachel, with Drew's mother, '80s heroine Becky Lee Abbott, rewritten as a bigot against the relationship. Becky Lee also inexplicably is shown as a con artist in this period, both turns are totally OOC for the character. Later, one of the subsequent regimes I think in that same year apparently intended for Drew and Nora to sleep together. Fortunately, none of these story turns happened. When Michael Malone returns in 2003 for his disastrous but insanely watchable second stint - it's kind of all his excesses turned up to 11, on LSD - he makes several feints at trying to reunite Bo and Nora. First by having Matthew finally be retconned into their son, after JFP made multiple attempts to destroy any viewer hope for that by having Sam run multiple paternity tests. A potentially dynamite Bo/Nora/Max/Gabrielle quad is teased early on but nuked when Frons orders the firing of the entire Holden clan. Then the Bo/Nora teases devolve into a series of kludgy, go-nowhere sequences where they are trapped together in close quarters and have people questioning their closeness, Asa tries to connive to reunite them, etc. Various new romantic spoilers like Mark Dobies' Daniel Colson and the interminable series of Paige Millers are introduced and ultimately none of it goes anywhere, possibly because of BTS reasons. Viewers do not really respond to almost any of Bo and Nora's other romantic options from 1999-2009 minus the brief, doomed Bo/Gabrielle romance and remain vocal about wanting them back together, but it takes til 2009 - and allegedly a come to Jesus talk with EP Frank Valentini - to finally put Bo and Nora together. When they do it works like gangbusters; the actors are fully committed again, very passionate together onscreen, and whoever was responsible for the long-term split Bob Woods later comments that it was a mistake to keep them apart, saying 'we could have been printing money all these years.' It was a nice way to close out the last 3-4 years with a strong veteran supercouple.) I do agree that the Todd redemption saga plays real different today rewatching it for the first time in many years, post-#MeToo. I understood wanting to keep Roger Howarth, I don't regret a lot of what I enjoyed with him in those years or when he returned in 2011 ready to work again, but some/a lot of it is also so gross and wrong now. You get queasy even about what you enjoyed or still enjoy and value, because you are watching in real time and with different eyes how they have recontextualized and in some ways marginalized the 1993 story you can also revisit in real time on YT. I adored Ellen Bethea as the original Rachel - none of the others worked until Daphnee Duplaix in 2009, who was too briefly on the show. HBS said she was the only one who captured Bethea's spirit and integrity, and she was right. If the show were alive today I'd have Dan Gauthier's Kevin and Duplaix's Rachel as a tentpole married couple for the Buchanans, raising Kevin and Kelly's difficult child Zane. (Bethea is all but retired as a poet/activist in Vermont.) In rewatching over the last decade I also discovered, like you, a real love for Valarie Pettiford as Sheila who I barely remembered. The recast just doesn't work, even if Stephanie Williams was a popular veteran of both Y&R and GH. Again, were it up to me and the show were around you'd see Pettiford back as Sheila on a recurring basis from time to time at least, happily remarried to Hank. The full first year or two of Gottlieb and Malone may become available soon. If so, I look forward to watching it make history.

@DRW50 @Faulkner The first two eps debut together on the same day.

It's considerably improved on the day to day, which is enough of a good start for me. It holds my attention all week. I don't expect FV to turn into Linda Gottlieb. Would I love for there to be a new EP? Sure. Do I think it is likely in the current system? Nope. And I do think they've made a good start at delineating the boys.

@dc11786 was gaming almost this exact question out in the Classic thread a page or two ago, but I believe it was more about 'what if they'd brought Laura back but not Luke while TG played Bill'. I can't see it working for long, but letting Bill run another 6-12 months as a kind of antagonist to L&L with Geary doing both roles might've been real interesting.

I watched the episode with their first love scene (plenty hot) again recently, and midway through that voice-over I thought 'okay, it's bad but it's over.' I was wrong! It had two more stanzas or whatever at least. Imagine hearing the full run of that for two years.

True, but there was still an awkward link there, much as there is now. And I suspect the idea here is Heather would become Laura's kooky talk-to. Whether I can get behind that remains to be seen, but it would definitely be something new for both, lol.

I've been too busy this week IRL to get into some of this more in-depth yet, but I will over the weekend. What I will say is I think some folks are being a little hasty when PM/EK's names only formally appeared on the show a week ago. That being said, I have noticed a considerable change in the show over the last few weeks, starting with some of the ghost material. As I think @Darn indicated there is a real change in character specificity and tone in the material for me, a focus on family connectivity, and a lot of scenes feel longer and more mature. I was very impressed with the closeout of the Marshall storyline on Monday with Kevin, though I understand why some people felt it was unnecessary; I felt that's the kind of intelligent and educational stuff this show has excelled at in the past. It doesn't matter to me if it's done for a day to close out an unpopular storyline for C-characters I don't care about when it's that good, and I felt most everyone involved gave fine performances (Curtis didn't have to do anything but sit there, scowl and Think of Laura). Do they need to shift to crafting new stories with that kind of specificity and care, of course, but for a second day I found it damn good. The jury is out for on the Heather thing - PM clearly wants to repurpose Alley Mills in a way similar to her B&B role. Time will tell if it will work for me. The rest, I think, is much improved though I don't have a clear sense of where stories are going. Characters feel smart and individualized again. And as for the youth set I will stand by repping for Hudson West's Jake, I think West is maybe the strongest young actor on the show next to Tabyana Ali who I also think is excellent (and too often shortchanged online for her predecessor, who I found much much more green). He just doesn't get much to do and when he does it's often been thin gruel. If it was me he'd be on contract. The kid playing Danny is very green but has some potential and some charisma; I've seen worse kids given more material in the last year (Violet, Charlotte) and I think the writing they've given his family scenes is solid. The latest Aiden should be recast, he's never been much of an actor. And I think the new/recent Rocco has real potential. My point is it's too soon to know about some of these newbies. And as for Eden, I think she should be moved into a supporting role and given more light/comedic 'spoiled heiress' material until such time as they can recast. Time will tell what they're allowed to do with the show and its canvas, and if FV can adapt or if it will be on the writers to do so for him. But we're not gonna know in 5 days. So far I've been overall impressed with the execution in the changeover. YMMV. It's certainly done wonders for Kirsten Storms.

Something Tony confirmed, I believe. There were many very specific hints early on re: early '90s GH that made it clear it had to be Bill. We went over them on here awhile back.

I do appreciate them! And FWIW, Malone was fired/left in March of '96. I think everything from then til '98 or so was the show drifting on autopilot, cruising on the glories and supercouples (even variable ones like Patrick/Marty and Antonio/Andy, both of whom I loved as a kid but I can see issues with the latter especially in recent rewatching) of the Malone/Gottlieb era. It wasn't til JFP came in that people thought the show got supercharged with buzzy stories like the Georgie Phillips mess, and that's what brought me back from a bored period of non-watching when Bob Woods and Hillary B. Smith gave an interview gushing about their new storyline (in which Georgie falsifies video evidence of an affair with Bo). Of course, as we would all soon discover, viewers and actors alike (HBS tried to get killed off by the end of '98 re: the ONS with Sam), JFP was far from the next great hope for the show. I am deep in the summer of '93 atm rewatching the Spring Fling saga and it absolutely holds up. I haven't seen it like this since it first aired, as I started watching not long after the rape. I will say I think '95 is definitely Malone in operatic excess by comparison but most of it (especially the DID story) still really works for me, even if every third or fourth scene in some of the B or C-storylines is a bit too hokey or too earnest. The Patrick and Marty saga is definitely a product of its time (and of the Irish craze in American media/film in the early-mid '90s) but aside from the unbearable Brown Penny poem I still have time for the swooning romanticism of a fair amount of it. There is a purity and a flavor to the show in those years that is specific and unique; you know you're not getting it anywhere else on the dial. I do think what I've seen of Mia Korf is exceptional, and unbelievable in that there has not been before or since so far as I know an AAPI lead that prominent and well-defined on any soap opera in America to this day. She is great. I'll always love KDP's Blair for who she is but it's a shame and a sin what happened. Were OLTL back today I would find a place for Korf (who still looks great) in a role specifically tied to Blair and tied into that switch in a metatextual way, to right that wrong and add a new family.

Rauch brought in Lee Ann. Not Jason. Mark Brettschneider was a Gottlieb hire.

Yeah, it's no Days.

Most of us wanted it once upon a time but Steve is never going to agree to it and the network/show is never going to force it, so it's a moot point.

Yes. They were longtime mob rivals. I can't remember what Cyrus had done most recently but there's a slew of past crimes.

This Jason's son nonsense people online come up with is as fake as "street kid Dev is Brenda's son". I suspect he may well be out soon, and he should be. He's a wuss but he was right to drop a dime on Sonny.

It's thrilling to know Anna says 'I see Sonny Corinthos clearly now,' but showing up at Wagger's could potentially leave her the fool depending on how he is actually involved here. Though again, I don't think a black ops kill squad would meet at FBI HQ in Quantico which is explicitly where Wagger met Jason in the flashback.

Sickles needs to go AFAIC. They should purge as many of the FV/RC-era OLTL lifers as possible. Gold doesn't count, as he dates back to the golden '90s with that show and of course many others. What's curious to me is PM/EK's names switching first place day by day so far. Seems like they're trading off daily?

It's too soon to hope for it, but I would be pleased if classic P&G characters (from ATWT) began crossing over to the show in guest spots a la how that show let people pop up from other CBS soaps or vice versa. That would be a security blanket for a longtime CBS audience.

I'll say what I said when we first learned Y&R had dispensed with all breakdown writers so Josh could do it himself: It's a recipe for a psychological meltdown. I'll never forget Harding Lemay casually mentioning in his book how he fired most/all of the staff or breakdown writers at AW after finding their work inferior and began simply writing the whole (90 minute!!) show essentially himself 5 days a week, 365 days a year. That is psychotic. As this continued on he began casually littering the pages with more and more oblique mentions of his wife and children's mental breakdowns, addictions, institutionalizations, etc. as he and his family began falling apart. Whether he fully understood the link between these things was never quite clear to me. There have been murky stories about Griffith having personal issues BTS that I don't know too much about. What I do know is this kind of pressure is a recipe for anyone to lose it. As I told Darn the other day, so much of Y&R feels like it is plotted just to get Josh through the next week or two so he can stop writing for a few hours. Plots fast-forward (like Zenk's character debuting and almost immediately being exposed, and now doing all these disguises) or simply don't happen onscreen at all. Every week is either about standing in place or hitting a new wall story-wise. It's not sustainable for any writer IMO, and Griffith used to be truly talented long ago at OLTL.

I think there's some worthwhile talks on this show (like that beautiful, sad final interview with Tyler Christopher) but I also frankly think it sometimes becomes a forum to sate Maurice's ego. He's taken potshots at various unnamed actors while inviting so many on to praise his genius.