Vee

This one's for you, @DramatistDreamer: I increasingly suspect F.A.S.T./FreeVee-type platforming is a future for American soaps if the networks choose to actually invest in them, much as it seems it may be for Neighbours in Australia.

The really weird thing about Andre is the period when they seemed to legitimately be trying to play him like Tony in the late 2010s, just having him in a normal romantic role with Kate, etc. This is a deranged undead serial killer but the show would not distinguish between them and was like 'they're basically the same! you guys don't mind, right?' Finally someone wised up, killed him and brought Tony (the good one, who Andre posed as for most of the 90s and 2000s) back properly. For now.

Nope, too much!

Smart move:

Woof, Adam Huss is not gonna cut it permanently.

More people everywhere know The Addams Family and Wednesday than anything else she ever did. I had no idea she was ever on ATWT, let alone talk show fodder.

Billy Miller was much later. They should've capitalized on how they very smoothly and deliberately brought A.J. in days after Jason's 'death' - a stroke of genius narratively, IMO - but instead they were more focused on prioritizing the OLTL 3 again. They were the issue, not Miller. I love Billy Warlock but he's too old for the part now and looks it, and was never as popular or charismatic in the role as Kanan, who has buzz again from Cobra Kai. I'd bring him back in an instant (say Michael and Monica have kept his survival a secret), but Michael needs a long, long break from the canvas, same as Maxie.

They dropped it all because they were brainstorming how to bring Roger Howarth and co. back, and pair Carly with the serial killer who got her son raped. Such a waste.

Like many who have mentioned this in the past, I have a hard time believing they didn't know how Janice died. I think it was smart to bring them back and to bring that story back up, but the plot point of some of the Frames not knowing is silly.

Oh, I 100% agree. I'm just commenting on the larger issue. ITA that putting Mishael in the shoot when she's gone is blatant.

I'm having a fun time digging into both the classic Lemay synopses (I've seen most of the available eps from his reign on YT) and his brief stint in fall '88. They seem to let Chris Robinson's Jason Frame slide pretty quick on framing Mac for murder! Can anyone explain his whole deal to me? I thought he came on with Denise Alexander as they tried to do some Rick/Lesley redo. And he's murdered early in '89? It is interesting to see they seemed to be refocusing on the Frames/their farm, Josie, etc. even before Lemay arrived. Or no, I'm wrong - the dates say they came on in June, which I imagine line up with the strike which may have delayed Lemay, so presumably bringing Sharlene back and Josie in was his idea even if the intro got laid off on the scabs?

To this day I think the Mitch/Jessica reveal was originally intended to be undone much sooner than it was. It was a great twist along with his return and the Natalie twin reveal, but the Mitch angle should've been revealed to be a lie within a year. IIRC Irene did get a scene or two with Tina as part of large group reveal stuff with the ensemble cast, but I believe it was just very hollow plot material - 'yes, my daughter, I am alive' as Andrea goes bug-eyed, etc.

I struggled to name some of the people in that photo. They brought back MM for optics, not just in the photo but to the show. But they didn't want her commanding a lion's share of the show again the way Hillary threatened to - they cannot allow black characters to do that again the way they used to do - so they made her a boring twin instead of Hillary and ran out the thread. And when she leaves they get to throw up their hands and say 'she's furthering her career, we wish her the best'.

In fairness, according to the AWHP synopses he builds the bond between Mac and Rachel slowly after they meet (not for the first time per excerpted dialogue, but the first with Watson in the role) in early September '74 when she goes to the mansion to pick up Jamie. From there it seems like there's some semi-regular material with them meeting, socializing, Mac sympathizing with her and becoming more attached to her, so the seeds were planted - there's a fair amount made of Liz or others being put out by his bonding with Rachel. Then Rachel's latest/last? scheme against Alice and Steve goes kaput in November, she cries on Mac's shoulder and he tells her to move on late in the month, they begin dating in early December and they're off to the races. I am surprised they apparently never fully resolved Lenore being driven out of town by Carol Lamonte's schemes over her past with Walter (though I haven't gone through all of 1976 yet, lol). I do wonder if they ever resolved anything more happily with Lemay's seemingly semi-regular mentions of how miserably sad poor widowed Missy Palmer is in Somerset (a backstory seemingly used to motivate characters on AW).

OLTL had Rachel, Destiny, Layla and Vivian Wright (who dated Shaun) on at the same time in '09-'10, not that I thought much of most of their stories. Vivian was a recurring role but frankly it's about as substantive as most of what they give Jordan or Stella.

I didn't realize just how many daily synopses AWHP had. It is a bit wild that it doesn't seem as though Mac and Rachel actually began seeing each other until December of '74 (she still is calling him "Mr. Cory" in quoted dialogue, and he tells her to call him Mac). Then he proposes about a month later!

As I've said before, Curtis has sounded like an Epcot greeter for years. He is beyond boring and his father is worse.

That was done during the original TSJ recast story. According to the original storyline, "Todd" (Victor) convinced crime boss Walker Flynn (born Walker Laurence, Mitch's long-lost brother) to allow him to take on and use Walker's face in order to run his scheme on Mitch. "Todd" then returned to Llanview posing as Walker. According to the retcon in 2011, Irene decided to create the whole Walker ploy in order to protect Victor/Todd from the threat of Mitch a bit longer and "give Victor more time to become Todd". But Victor/Todd still approached the real Walker and made the same bargain, posing as Todd. It was made clear that Victor was either some sort of savant or high-functioning spectrum individual, to put it charitably. (Irene called him 'special' onscreen, which would get a lot more eyes on it today.) Using whatever psychotropic drugs she had, Victor could mimic and take on the identity of anyone Irene put in front of him. That's what he did with Todd. As a unique character, the still-unknown way his mind works could've allowed Victor to be a very schizoid character taking on many identities or personas but of course he never got that far.

You guys roast this poor man relentlessly, lol. This is why I can't watch much of his Q&As anymore.

I'd argue the Clay/Alex ploy seemed to mostly work for Loving, despite a succession of various Clays. The Two Todds toyed with this idea early on, IMO - they had TSJ's "Todd" sharing a dark secret with the nefarious Agent Baker and access to a secret disc or microchip full of information, which IIRC was never actually explained. Nor did they tell us (AFAIK) what secret Victor/Todd and Baker were actually privy to. The implication in the beginning was that Victor knew he wasn't Todd and knew the real Todd was locked away, but this didn't pan out. Baker knew all about the Two Todds because he worked for Irene Manning, but in the end, months later, we were told Victor had no idea. So what else could Victor have known about?

My greatest memory of Cindy Williams is as the mysterious young woman at the center of the mystery in Francis Ford Coppola's brilliant surveillance thriller The Conversation. I never forgot that, but I also remember her from a lot of TV. RIP.

I remember people ready to burn the GH writers in effigy when Brenda was hanging out in Rome or wherever for maybe a month or something with all-new characters when she first returned in 2010, showing us a window into her high profile life. I didn't think that was a terrible idea, but it was poorly plotted. This is way beyond that, lol.

It's a little mortifying to look back at what GL gave him considering his career since.

She sure did.

Which was my idea as well to begin with, to bring on Dr. Sarah for him with Tognoni, but y'all don't need my fanfic again. Anyway, Drew has been through all of Jason's women, any revisit short of Sam (who he did have a somewhat unique relationship with) would just be a shadow of Jason, and Sam is burned out as a character at this point and should be written out. I think part of the key to Drew is that ultimately he wasn't Jason 2.0 - Billy Miller couldn't play that - but he also was and is still such a blank slate, such an unwritten character that you could make him into anything Cameron was good at playing. The only throughlines to the character that are remotely unique or individualized are his devotion to Monica and the Qs and his past love for Sam and some of Jason's kids. Beyond that he could be anything GH wants him to be, and Cameron Mathison can play certain things well. What isn't great for him or the show is Drew being just a Jason-shaped widget of a character that Cameron grins his way through, just taking Jason's sloppy seconds with Carly. He started as nothing and continues as nothing.