Vee

@DRW50 - check this out. These run for a week.

@marceline we're waiting for you on Rampgate!

That was a weird [!@#$%^&*] period. The show was so dark, the Ciara rape so unnecessary and ruinous, and then they got a major genre film actor (Tobin Bell from the Saw flicks) to come in and redo John's backstory yet again. All very Griffith IMO, and not his best. He should've been fired for the Chase/Ciara story alone.

I will say the scene where Hope executes Stefano was very well-produced and cut. (And I think her killing him - especially after what he said to her - was appropriate.)

LM 67-68: 

The reactions to Jeremy’s death are gutting, particularly Ava and Angie, who knew him best. Randolph Mantooth is heartbreaking as he struggles to bridge the gap with Ava - you can see why this might be her final straw. They’re such a good couple, I wish we could see them together again once more.

Jeremy was always a lovely presence for me even when forced, so dashing and gentle. The deep callbacks to his AMC history with Angie don’t end there - Gwyneth says at the end of the episode that she got a call from Erica Kane about it!

The convo between Jocelyn and Ally about her rape accusation is very good and very educational even for today, but unfortunately it illustrates the mistake of doing this unseemly subplot at all.

The Charles/Lorraine stuff, with him so vulnerable and broken and her strong instead, is lovely. Her passion makes Geoffrey Ewing soulful. I liked her humming their song as he slept.

Jesse as the spectral hitchhiker counseling Jacob sounds like an Agnes thing to me, but who knows. (She had to be behind Williams’ return.) I wish we could see it. Did Jacob arrive in February or March? Charles says Angie made him wait three months for her to marry him, and by July they were newlyweds.

I still don’t know how to read some of the killer’s reactions in recent episodes prior to Jeremy. And I’m still surprised they left Trisha like this unless they intended to lure her to TC.

LM: The cave in with Ally’s kid and Danny is a full on Event that def feels like Linda Gottlieb who was apparently involved in '95. It is redolent of her Al/CJ down a well anniversary episode on OLTL in 1993, it has most of the cast on the scene just like OLTL, and there is a whole show-y film element with Frankie’s microphone picking up Danny's voice blasted to the entire town. An excellent setpiece which leads into the pretty racy Jacob/Angie lovemaking, and Jeremy's epiphany. 

I don't, but I'd heard a bit recently. Awful.

Malone was on by end of August, I know that much. Jason Webb turned up then.

This is Joey Thrower as Kevin.

Malone and Gottlieb kept the Larry/Viki relationship and his closeness to the family; Viki calls him "Uncle Larry" to Joey. Michael Storm's last appearance, a recurring stint in 2004 during Malone's heart transplant story for Viki, kept that. I always appreciated that.

Richard Cox is incredibly hot as Giff Bowman; I know him best as one of the killer's terrifying avatars in the infamous Cruising, so seeing him on a soap and having to place the face and voice was something else. Was he brought in by Munisteri? He should've hung around vs. Jeremy, though Jean LeClerc was always charming.

It scared the [!@#$%^&*] out of me when I was a kid. I knew something was very wrong with the Victor Lord myth way before they started doing those disturbing, Twin Peaks-esque dreams of Viki's with Victor and Sloan, and I had a feeling I knew what it was (I was right, but at that age I didn't really articulate it). But when Viki turned into Tommy, went apeshit, called Dorian an ugly bitch and threw her down the stairs I was terrified. I didn't know she'd had DID so I just assumed Viki, who I liked a lot, had gone completely insane.

Like the LM, I haven't seen the full DID story since '95. A ton of it is on YT now but I'm not sure there's any organized playlist.

Scott Clifton was a surprise hit for GH along with Lindze Letherman as Georgie and their pairing together, so they quickly overexposed him while just as quickly beginning to disenfranchise her for not being 'hot' enough. They worked to push him with Julie Berman's Lulu, with anyone else, but ultimately his run petered out when non-Georgie story for Dillon failed and ran dry. By the time he did OLTL he was yesterday's hot guy, which is probably why they were allowed to have him. He had no favorite treatment or protection there and was sadly discarded right as the show was planning to pair him with Daphnee Duplaix's Rachel. Then he went to CBS and he's got security for years to come.

Dorian did try to use it for leverage against Viki at the very end, when Viki was haranguing her about Joey, etc. This led to Viki's split into Tommy and attack on Dorian in that same scene. I can buy Dorian holding it back beyond her usual instincts til the bitter end, especially given her own family background, working any other angle to get free or even perhaps hoping Viki would remember on her own. I think that makes her all the more complex.

Amelia Heinle, of all people, has one of the great one-liners of all time in Loving Murders #49.

Tony: So how's the breathing coming?

Steffi (dryly): Well, I'm breathing, which makes me kind of unique in this town.

Courtney appeared as a ghost a few years ago. It was mostly a showcase for a Frank Valentini fave, little Nicolas Bechtel, who in fairness has become a decent actor since then but really should be recast/SORASed as Spencer.

You're the worst

7 minutes ago, carolineg said:

 

I was going to name her, but I felt bad.  It was too much.  Same with Robin Christopher's foray on all the ABC soaps

Someone claimed recently that JFP wanted Robin to be a Cassie recast on OLTL in '99. I've never heard that but it wouldn't shock me.

Get away from me you vultures

But seriously, I work in another part of the industry and one much healthier than soaps, sadly. I just would love to believe soaps had a future and hadn't forfeited it long ago.

2 minutes ago, Paul Raven said:

Kevin McClatchy

Jill Farren Phelps brought him onto AW  after GL -fired Justin Chambers to make room for him. Once Jill left he was out also.

Off to OLTL, too.

Hillary B. Smith and Mark Derwin both all but openly dogging Kale Browne by name in Jeff Giles' book always amused me (HBS: "I think Mark and I worked with the same guy. [laughter]")

The king of the General Hospital staff intercom! All of a sudden GH had countless voice-over bits for on-set TV or hospital stuff, all done by Kale during Jill's run there, for years. IIRC she tried to get him back on camera as a priest or something during a strike storyline in '08 (in which Rick Hearst, another longtime FOJ though talented, took over the show in a lousy storyline), but got blocked there.

Notice, too, they don't just bring Hillary back on Y&R. I know she died onscreen but come on. So did Jesse Hubbard and Mitch Laurence (twice). Keeping Mishael Morgan as the less-popular doppelgänger is, to me, at least partly strategic if not also possibly thoughtless. Whether it was by design or not, no twin will have the same fire and built-in fanbase. (And when Loving did it, Darnell Williams was swiftly re-paired with Debbi Morgan)

I remember this entire damn forum going through the stages of grief on the Loren Lott mess and that was not that long ago. Another waste. Just goes to show how systemic the issue is.