Vee

Patricia Mauceri (Carlotta, OLTL) featured in a Super Bowl Doritos ad with Jenna Ortega. I'll always have a deep fondness for her Carlotta and her work on the show despite the ugliness surrounding her departure.

I always get spooked by statements like that, but I don't think there have been any rumors of vultures swirling for GH up to this point that that quote would be the typical counterpoint to. So I'm choosing not to worry about it.

We're just very blessed so many mid-late '70s eps of GH have turned up - more and more it seems of '77-78 all the time.

I didn't know about that. That's insane even for them.

As I've said many a time, I like what I've seen of CVE and DOC as people. They seem witty, funny and talented in other creative spaces (YA books, etc). I think their work at GH was an improvement on Jean Passanante. But that's really not saying a lot, and I think the show ultimately has been micromanaged for a long time in ways we've all enumerated. So while I don't think we've ever gotten a look at what they could do unencumbered, I am glad GH is done being their arena. It's a very forgettable era for me.

I think she shone in the confrontation stuff with Esme at the courthouse just before she headed to Paris and Esme went off on her final berserk rampage. She reminded me a lot of the young Kimberly McCullough in that kind of stuff, and with Ava, etc; there is a core of intelligence and integrity. Could she improve, sure, but she's clearly been very popular with Chavez. The people who bash her are loud but not as big in number as they think, or it's about the reaction to the online Sprina fanbase, which - I have seen some crazy fúcking fanbases in my time. Those kids may get intense and at times annoying but they don't come close to some of the OLTL wars, or the S&C No Ordinary Love cabal (who once attempted to push for Kristina to be revealed as the product of Alexis' rape by Sonny's bodyguard). Or the GL crazies. And that's just a few off the top of my head.

She has her moments of weakness but I think Tabyana is pretty good most of the time. The haters are a very vocal minority I find, it's a lot of backlash against Spencer/Trina that feels overhyped and understaffed (and often has a racial subtext, hence the very talkative Spencer/Esme shippers). Plus other people love to pretend the prior actress was incredible when quite frankly I found her greener than TA.

She did, because she stopped doing the 6-week/whatever arcs that didn't work. (Ironically they probably would be ideal now for a seasonal arc-based streaming soap with breaks, which is probably the only future the medium has in America IMO) Then the show got into its groove. But from there I do think she absolutely revolutionized daytime, at least at ABC. Whether she pissed off a lot of people in the process, well, at least she didn't paw them like Rauch or Alarr.

Y&R is written sort of sleepily and on a whim at this point. IMO it's like they've internalized that 'these old fúcks want business stories' so they just half-ass random business names and discussions day after day and call it a business-focused story. It's not, it's just jargon strung together to fill time. Like, I still barely know what ELQ and Aurora on GH do but when they are brought up there is generally a purpose for a character or a (stupid) story point to specifically involve them or power within those companies that isn't just 'we're saying business names, happy?' There is usually something character/plot-oriented they are connected to. Same with Crimson, Deception, etc. I may find it ludicrous that Maxie or Carly or Sasha or whoever are so in charge of those companies or publications, but there are whole storylines centered around active things these businesses do; photo shoots, key fashion issues, Sasha going on that dumb TV show with Morgan Fairchild re: the Deceptor, etc. And we see them do it. It's not just vaporware. It's kind of wild that GH now regularly serves up the very basic fundamentals of this kind of story that Y&R used to make its brand.

She was wrong, AFAIC. But as I said when it came up in the GH HW thread Erika is entitled to her opinion. She also loved Michael Malone's stories so it's complicated. Gottlieb rubbed many actors at the show the wrong way and I can understand why, but I think she was a brilliant producer in terms of what got onscreen. Per Erika in the Jeff Giles book, Gottlieb told Clint Ritchie he had to stay sober to work there and enforced it. The instant she left he was back to the bar.

Then the show should change to fit her, lol. I wouldn't normally say that but honestly, there is little to nothing in the current show that is so worthwhile that I would not overhaul to accommodate better characters, actors and stories. Fortunately that may be coming. "Blaze" remains a passable recurring player I liked a bit in the very stupid Chase/Dr. Luke storyline but knew I would not find very interesting in major story if it came to her. Here we are.

That just feels like forcing Lois into the already staid framework of the current show to me. I'd rather build new things out including a place for her - entertainment businesses on soaps can be tricky to depict but we don't need to see her making music or whatever to make something work. It's not like I'd be brokenhearted if Aurora, etc. went away to make room.

I always questioned bringing Lois back if you couldn't put her with Ned, but the fact is it's done, she's here and Rena is still very good when given half a scrap of vaguely passable material. So if she's happy being here and wants to continue the least they can do is write good story for her and find a new role for her on canvas that makes Lois have a real purpose and direction. It would be a huge waste to let her go when there are at least 10-15 characters far more ready for dropping. Gregory Harrison was very hot in the '80s, but I just find Benjamin Franklin Gregory boring to watch for extended periods. Yes, he's an austere fellow and has a bit of chemistry with Tracy but his storyline and family just hold no lasting interest for me.

I think that just had to do with the ATWT connections behind the scenes. Goutman for example (sigh) was directing on the show IIRC. I couldn't fault them for hiring solid acting alumni though; I felt it was important to keep up the NYC soap connections including old P&G hands. I couldn't stand the late Marnie Schulenberg as Alison on ATWT but she was actually very good in a supporting role as David's scheming TV producer Jo Sullivan - I didn't even recognize her, she was so bubbly. And I thought Seganti was appropriately creepy as a troublemaking lothario in the storyline with Kelley Missal, which really worked for me. I hoped the PP shows might mine deeper East Coast reserves in future like Maureen Garrett, Lisa Brown (again, RIP), etc. Sadly that wasn't to be. Anyway, there were issues with the show but those actors weren't the issues for me. But we are once again wildly afield and that's my fault. Hopefully we'll get a proper casting, etc. announcement soon to guide our way. Or ghostwritten scripts.

They were definitely throwing random things at the wall at that show at times, but I don't think that's really what happened there. The show just got canned quickly due to BTS mismanagement right as the storyline's contours were finally revealing itself; I suspect Corbin Bleu's character being a mole for Raines and the conspiracy was there from the beginning, as Jeffrey King was Racina's idea. Raines (who was never very good at much but playing a mustache-twirling baddie anyway, so it was a decent enough role for him) simply came in at the wrong moment right as the money ran out. Just as the simmering umbrella plot came into focus the show was over.

Were we not wildly afield as is here is where I would say someone online needs to pick Thom Racina's brain about his stormy OLTL 2.0 tenure which he has been kind but very circumspect about, and which near the end revealed the underpinnings of a classic Racina-style mystery/conspiracy arc with Corbin Bleu, Ron Raines' eleventh-hour character, Barbara Garrick's Allison Perkins, etc. But I digress even more, so that is a discussion for the OLTL thread or somewhere else.

No, I think you might be right about it being a fan error. I cannot see ABC putting Fitzpatrick on another show when they dumped him from AMC.

I remember being surprised by the James Fitzpatrick claim too, as IIRC he was fired from AMC abruptly after allegedly pawing a fan or a waitress in Vegas or something.

'Scott Holroyd', he said with reluctance.

Nothing.

Yeah, Ava's only true currency is as an outsize villain. That's always been what she's best at and she's still an asset to the show in that role IMO. Can she run longer before getting killed off or sent to prison for awhile? I think she can - since she hasn't burnt through villain story as fast as, say, Alex Olanov on OLTL who still lasted a full 6 years after going psycho (and did it without wearing out her welcome because she kept changing roles and partners, plus there was a lot of comedy) - but I wouldn't spend another 2-3 years to get there from here. I heard a different version of the story than what was recently mentioned here by someone - the way I recall Ron and Frank telling it at the time, they were only expecting to have Maura onscreen for a few days tops as Ava in 2013 to intro Kiki and NuFranco to the show. This idea of such a star cameo kind of boggles the mind to me and makes me wonder where they intended to leave the character originally.

Sounds about right. On a side note: We know that Rauch hired Laura Bonarrigo and launched the Bo/Cassie pairing, but I do wonder what made Gottlieb gravitate towards bringing back Sarah Gordon. The (admittedly apocryphal) online story used to go that Jensen Buchanan came to visit her friends at the show and Gottlieb had no idea who she was, which miffed Buchanan and made a recast necessary; however, this is likely impossible since Jensen started at AW in June or July of '91 IIRC, unless these events all happened very fast BTS. I actually really like what I've seen of Grace Phillips in the role, but there was a personality conflict BTS with Gottlieb and I believe it led to Phillips spending a good portion of '92 offscreen until coming back for a day or two to get killed off. What a quick change.

No, that's pretty damn good and about what I thought, thank you. When was the Loon Lake remote chaos with Alex and Cassie? I was under the impression that was the last of Rauch but I'm not sure.

Oh, I'm not endorsing it lol. I just am speculating.