Vee

Okay. Ride for Boatman's chops if you want to. I don't care, it's Tuesday.

Maxie should never have had one child, let alone three. And Kirsten needs a long break.

I recalled that Cusi Cram's Cassie had come up recently here, and had been watching a lot of the 81-82 episodes featuring her lately. Re: the rumors about her firing, I wondered if Robin Strasser had voiced her thoughts online as she is known to do. Sure enough:

Allegedly, this is in part because baby stories are one of the few the networks will now easily greenlight for soaps. So lazy.

Exactly - the Sheffer years, right? Johnny who I believe is named "John Roman DiMera." Christ, she named her son for John! Given that, I don't even blame Sami wholly for it at this point. I blame the writers for going back to the well when the characters had finally begun to move on. You can still have Sami clash with John and Marlena without pretending the love is not there.

It has absolutely always shaped her, even in the years when I could swear she had made peace with John. This is something AMC did well with Kendall and Erica around the same time, making them finally come to terms and become close; ironically, IIRC, it was done by Megan McTavish as one of her first acts when she returned to that show, just before raping Bianca (ugh). That bond remained between mother and daughter until the end of AMC, that's evolution.* *(I suspect that if Pine Valley ever actually takes off on ABC primetime, they will absolutely reset Kendall and Erica to feuding family assuming SMG retook the role to maximize the drama. There are ways that is plausible to do for both characters, of course, but I still find it a bit cliche.)

I could swear it happened in the Sheffer years, or post-Salem Stalker, and stood for a while. They would still blow up on occasion but they understood each other. Then I think someone made it come crashing down. And yes, Sami's obsession with this given John raised her has driven me nuts for close to 30 years.

I was under the impression Sami put it all behind her and John years ago in the 2000s and embraced him - finally. Then someone must've brought it raging back, maybe Ron.

As I said to @Darn, scheming corporate scion Billy Abbott having a podcast is a perfect example of the creatives at Y&R being so comfortable and easygoing that all they want to do is listen to Jason Thompson - a talented, miscast actor who's not that talented - read the phone book, as the old saying goes. And to think audiences would consider 'Billy does wellness podcasting' a compelling storyline is an example of needing to get out of LA, and the social and mental security and comfort zone that the money a job at that show must offer.

OLTL hewed pretty close to its history ensemble-wise IMO, with the exception of the Ford influx and too much Rex/Gigi. There could always have been more but it's not like GH now to me. I've said it before and I'll say it again: I'd bring back Sarah as Gina Tognoni with an entire family, a husband (on the rocks) and a couple kids. The way the British soaps do sometimes with new characters/families. That's bold and rarely done over here with American soaps, for good reason (Monty did it with the Eckerts in fact, and look how that turned out!), but it would have a long-term story purpose to deconstruct and I'd ultimately aim her at Cameron Mathison's Drew the WSB agent probably. It would also be done in part to juxtapose her seemingly perfect personal and professional life with sister Liz, who got knocked up young from a ONS and left her dreams behind to be a nurse. Anyway. It's insane. Both Maxie and Kirsten need to be gone for years, and her kids need to be split up between Spinelli and Mac/Felicia. That is the reality of who Maxie is, ugly or not. Michael also needs to be gone a little while. I'd make Charlotte not Lulu's daughter too. And nuke Valentin. Don't get me started on the rest lol. I do think Cameron works fine, but Joss needs to be recast and then de-emphasized for a bit.

I liked Zander fine back in the day. I thought he was wasted. (Incidentally, Chad looked extremely good in his ghostly appearance earlier last year and despite his politics I could be open to a Witness Protection undead Zander deal to stir things up with the women in that age range, just saying. Zander was always a bit of chaos.) There are plenty of young people from the show's past to bring on, including Serena and Christina, and they're not all related. Tom Hardy Jr. is another and is Black. Annie Donely. A slew of Wards or potential Wards. It's an embarrassment of riches they don't tap.

He's literally just Michael Easton's brother (or son, maybe)! That's it! But Michael does need a break, and a serious recast. Chad is not viable anymore IMO.

I mean being much of an actor.

It goes deeper than that with Genie, I believe; that part is an old story that was known even in the '90s. Genie's behavior later was not exactly blameless. But I think mostly it's about him and his resentment of Luke and Luke and Laura. I still can't tell Willow or Sasha apart. I don't know who Brando or Harmony are at all and I don't think Chase is particularly interesting. People act like I'm crazy.

He's very attractive but was never exactly Jonathan Jackson to begin with.

Thread:

I couldn't tell who that was from just the picture either.

She was back maybe a month or two later as Tony prepared to exit. Laura knew Lucky was in danger and had come to warn Luke. They found Ethan also in trouble along the way. The story was dreadful, as was Tony having spent years at that point vetoing a reunion with Laura. RC got a little of his own back about that, I think, by having Luke leave Laura a mysterious letter when he left town - in typical GH form, to this day I don't think we know what it said. I was also keen to see them. But like you, I had wanted Sly to come back long before. I'd once wanted him to be a Cassadine mole in the early 2000s, embittered that the Spencers had 'forgotten' him lol, but that was back when he was still very young and I don't think that would make sense today. It would be nice to just see him.

IIRC the general impression was the real Luke had simply never gotten out of Ferncliff like people had thought.

Helena was indeed in cahoots with Fluke IIRC, but it's been awhile. They made out, I think. Laura was not on the show at the time - Genie had split between 2013 and 2015, when FV had declined to offer her a contract following the anniversary, expecting to be able to use her on recurring like most of the vets, and Laura was abruptly written off in the fall of '13. She didn't come back without a contract, and their skirmishes since have largely been about that AFAIK.