Vee

I should add I think PB is very good in the role, including as the scheming Jack. It's different than Lester but when the writing is there he nails it.

I don't buy that PB vetoed it. It's very clear he disliked the story, which he's entitled to, but not because he's a bigot, though I think he's definitely been insensitive or tactless more than once re: that story as well as about Victoria Rowell. But the claim that he's vetoed it seems to be of a piece with the old rumor about him supposedly ordering the Cliff and Angie pairing ended on AMC, and I looked into that and feel pretty confident based on his own quotes that that's not true, just the opposite. I don't think Bergman would raise hell or threaten to quit if they brought back Keemo or Keemo's kids today. I do think his vocal ranting about it over the years has dissuaded a show and network which has been disinterested as is.

Actually it's more that she just came off too young for Bo approaching middle age. You're entitled to your opinion, but you're also the only person I know who has ever claimed recently that LB was a bad recast, despite being in the role for the better part of a decade and being fired by JFP while pregnant amidst viewer outcry.

Some random musings: Out of utter boredom today I began watching some of the many, many spring-summer 1991 episodes of OLTL on YT - late-stage Rauch. (Naturally, the eps many of us crave to see again beyond very early September '91, right as and Malone took over either then or IIRC late August, are to my knowledge not on YT with nearly as much order and detail, just a lot of clips here and there - I am dying to see Andrew and Blair's introductions.) I've watched some of this period here and there before but it is truly bizarre to see Alex being treated as a friend by Viki, Renee, Asa, etc. and her confiding in them. Of course by this time she is already scheming to try to get Bo into bed through a variety of schemes (like faking a stalker and sending teen ward Lisa Porter off to school, I think for cramping her style), and Laura Bonarrigo's wonderful Cassie debuts in April. I believe Tonja came on in November of '90, so I wonder how long (or if) Alex was considered as a legit love interest for Bo before they decided to turn her psycho. It was Gottlieb/Malone who saved her job. The Bo/Cassie pairing remains so bizarre to me - I know they supposedly had them reference it when she was a Banner reporter trying to pump him for info in the Labine era or something, but I personally never heard it mentioned onscreen since I started watching, and I watched (with breaks) for around 20 years from '93 on. They are cute together in banter but always just seem like friends. Also interesting: They seem to be teasing reuniting Larry Wolek and Brenda McGillis in this period in the spring or summer after a blow-up over Michael Grande, her romance with Dan or whatever. I guess that didn't quite happen. I remember seeing Brenda as late as Luna's introductory episode, though I can't recall if she had any lines. I don't know if she got an exit. This is also the time when they had the story where the bullet fragments in Clint’s head are supposedly gonna kill him in a few months according to his specialist (Olivia Birkelund!). The show was tired at this point but Phil Carey gives an incredible performance with Clint Ritchie doing a monologue about when he and Olympia brought Clint home from the hospital. You can tell it was too real for Carey because those Buchanan actors were all close, I’ve never seen him that emotionally vulnerable. An interesting beat with Bo confiding in the Nicholas Walker Max, who seems to have just lost Gabrielle (but is already sniffing around Lee Ann, a creepy pairing I never understood in either incarnation and I can't recall how quickly Malone and co. ditched it - I seem to recall it lasting at least til 1992 though she was also being pursued by Kevin). Bo admits he is not in love with Alex as well as not over Sarah and that's why he can't get involved with her (days before Cassie bumps into him at the airport, of course), and they talk about how love means trust. Bo earnestly asks Max if he really could never trust Gabrielle - and after a beat they both laugh. Cynical, perhaps, but I thought it rang true.

She's doing Steven Soderbergh stuff, among other things. She won't be back.

I seem to recall the pilot being on YT. It was beautifully shot but very messy. I can't remember if I watched it all or if it's still there.

That was me and Cat Hickland was in fact my choice. It was because I dreamed it up in early 2003, when OLTL looked ready to dispose of both actors (who had chemistry). The thing about Lois is I think it's almost irrelevant to bring her back now with Olivia in place. I love Lisa Lo Cicero to this day despite some of Olivia's dumber stories, she has chemistry with Wally, it's cemented. The main problem is that Lois and Olivia are virtually the same character - they even know each other and come from the same neighborhood. This was touched on briefly by Ron Carlivati when he first paired Ned and Olivia up, but it wasn't really discussed beyond that. And I like Olivia still, I'm fine with having her there, but it's a glaring issue. The truth is that Lisa should've gotten the Lois recast in the 2000s. I joked not long ago that I wouldn't blink if Olivia left one day, ran off with Johnny Zacchara (they were hot together) and came back as Lois a week later, but it's probably true. This show has done dumber casting in recent years.

Eddie Alderson on OLTL was terrible for years, playing Matthew Buchanan as what I called "the Ralph Wiggum of Llanview". He was very literally only hired, according to multiple castmembers, because he was always on set with his big sister and they loved the kid and wanted him on the show too. It showed. Marginal improvement happened (much later) but any emotional scene for Matthew didn't really play, including the death of his first dad Sam Rappaport. I remember watching Hillary B. Smith try to get blood from a stone with the little guy and just cringing. He had rapport with the actors playing his parents over time, but beyond banter you could not expect him to do any work with weight. Then suddenly, around 2009 Eddie woke up one day just in time for his big A-storyline (Matthew gets paralyzed, his parents reunite) and decided he could, in fact, act! It was inexplicable to me and happened very quickly. And within months he was simply the best young actor on the show, period, and stayed that way until the last day on-air. So of course Frank Valentini backburnered him and gave his love interest to the plastic hunk because young Eddie didn't have an 8-pack.

They had money for that then.

Why did I think Agnes was involved with the Ted Orsini thing? Was she? I know she supposedly had input on adding evil Robert Gardner to the Angie/Jesse story, played by the great David Rasche. But that little connection went nowhere other than "Gardner=bad".

That wasn't even Tony! It was Andre! Tony had been stranded on that island since the '80s IIRC. As for this, woof. Shades of Ron's Teen Jessica story on OLTL except even more random - why Renee, why Tony? What does that have to do with Sarah?

They were absolutely fired and released to do other work. Frances Reid said it in public and Matt Ashford went to OLTL for an extended stint. It was forcibly rewritten because of fan and possibly network backlash. It was never a Reilly "master plan".

Until this year the last time I saw Cassandra Creech on daytime was a bit part as a seductive assassin on GH in the 2000s. I remember thinking she was still amazing and being baffled why that show, any show had not snapped her up - I thought she was great on ATWT despite bad material. I'd put her on GH as, say, Simone Hardy opposite her son Tom the doctor any time. Or Keesha Ward, who knows!

Allegedly, Guza was always pissed about the original casting of Jerry Jacks in the '90s and felt Wendy Riche and ABC had molded the character into a romantic lead for Bobbie which was supposedly the opposite of his hard-edged vision of the character. When Sebastian Roche took off in the unexpected role of Mr. Craig he saw the chance to reconceive Jerry. I didn't mind the idea of seizing on a talented actor, or reworking Jerry a bit. But the endless attempts to overtly name-check Casino Royale and Daniel Craig in the ensuing storyline that kept Roche on the show, a blockbuster that had just come out and that Guza was clearly gagging to emulate, were embarrassing for a soap opera. And I was never, ever going to root for a character that gut-shot Alan Quartermaine and watched him die. They wanted to have it both ways with Jerry from then on - make him a lead on the show and keep him a dark edgelord - and it never worked. They never were able to make him viable long-term.

My ex still talks about the Steve/Audrey sequence. I haven't been able to watch the whole thing. I believe Matt Ashford talked about how they'd wanted Beradino to be more involved in his storyline when he came to the show as Tom, but he was apparently physically unable.

I didn't care about Nina's mystery child when Stafford first started in the role. I don't now. It's not remotely relevant to the show's future. I still can't tell Willow and Sasha apart. I have no idea who Harmony is. GH!

A sequence that went on forever! That was really uncomfortable to watch. I don't think the Mitch/Natalie scene was Malone/Griffith, but it could've been as they were ghostwriting a lot around January 2003.

I've said it before, I'll say it again (and again): I would bring Gina Tognoni onto GH in the previously-cursed role of Dr. Sarah Webber. She'd come with a ready-made family (a la the British soaps), a scheming husband and a secret. I'd pair her with Drew the WSB agent. It would play!

That's okay, no one listens to it.

The entire finale of the Loving Murders is definitely up there. It holds up today. A scene I will never forget, but haven't seen since it aired, was in late 2002/early 2003 on OLTL, where Mitch Laurence has basically coerced Natalie into going to bed with him to save Cristian's life. Melissa Archer is shaking and sobbing violently as she tries to undress while Mitch harangues her to get into bed and do the deed. Natalie is rescued before they can have sex, but it was incredibly unpleasant to watch.

The opening has looked like bad Photoshop for like 6-7 years now. It just keeps getting worse. It started really going downhill around 2011 or 2012 or so. They tried to redo FOTH and make it macho and action-oriented in the 2000s, but it just got silly after awhile. Nothing compares to the original. I hear that and I'm back in that place; just playing a little of it in 2013 with the anniversary sent me. And I think it would work today, in its original form or slightly remixed! Just redo the original FOTH opening, touch it up a little and take the time. But I guess Frank doesn't want to relinquish that precious extra 90 seconds that could be taken from airtime for Joss or Dr. Gatlin-Holt.

They didn't care about Miller by the time they brought the Neros on, because once they had Steve back BM was an afterthought. At best TB was to be his consolation prize, but it didn't pan out either. And yes, that's the quote Ehlers gave. She didn't literally mean she was doing Shakespeare. I took her point to an extent, but she should never have said it in public - especially given the fact that Martinez's natural charisma despite his lack of experience was carrying him well on the show, while she was bombing with the audience. No way. They were never going to commit to Bechtel on that level unless he physically matured by leaps and bounds. They were all in on Oscar and Joss because it was Frank's latest shot at replicating Starr and Cole from OLTL - beautiful, vapid white kids in love. Frank loved NB, yes, and clearly dragged his feet on replacing him, but I never got any hint they intended to put him in with McCoy and co.

Nope!

IIRC, what Ehlers said was she couldn't exactly do Shakespeare with an untrained actor, or that she was trying to work at a higher level than he was capable of. I don't think she said she was actually doing Shakespeare, but I haven't listened to it or seen the transcript in a long time. Nonetheless, it was a tactless, stupid thing to say while still on the show with a performer who the audience liked while it wasn't exactly feeling her. As for Jensen Buchanan, let's not kid ourselves. Her character sucked, period. She was forced onto the show by JFP (who even invited a lawsuit from CBS to get her on as quickly as possible from ATWT), she was used to try to run down Bobbie's character and pushed into a frontburner pairing with A Martinez no one liked, only Tony Geary was able to save Jackie Zeman's job and Bobbie from being sent to the asylum or something, and she was loathed by the audience. Melissa was DOA. But if it hadn't been GH, the flagship soap of the network, we would've had at least another year of frontburner Melissa and Roy while Bobbie got sent off to Ferncliff. That's how JFP was allowed to run wild at OLTL. Not so much at 3 PM.