Vee

I can see the adults sending the kids there as a good place for them to mix and mingle for the summer and stay grounded. It's fine by me.

Oh, I'd fire and/or recast several people lol. There's a bunch of changes I think should be made in front of the camera and at the script level. It's just that Connie's view of the show is partly pretty boilerplate and the rest is not based in viewable reality.

My favorite example of this so far is still the scene in late August '91, just after Gottlieb arrived, where Father Tony comes into Wanda's to tell the L.A.-bound Andy and Hunter he's also leaving town - his bus leaves in an hour! Soaps need more of this today with their deadwood casts: Exiting actors talking about their exits together and then GTFO!

I agree, but it's the NSA years and the fanbase's psycho behavior that I mostly remember these days. I think by the end even PAS desperately wanted out.

I don't think Marty ever lost her personality - I adored her because of her fire and SH's visceral performances following the rape, which is where I came in. Yes, she changed but she was still raw and authentic to watch all along IMO, including spending much of the next two years railing against Todd. The problem was that until Patrick they didn't have a man to pair her with that could stand up to her performance (other than more and more 'bonding' scenes with Roger Howarth which, don't get me started), and even then that pairing got messy very quickly with Dylan, the Men of 21, etc. Bob Krimmer was capable but the Andrew/Marty angle was played with and then never fully executed despite something of a brief emotional affair, IIRC (probably for the best). Why they never really attempted Kevin/Marty (to my knowledge, anyway) I don't know - I know period teasers in the mags in '92 apparently mentioned them flirting with that option. I would still play that angle today as tension in, say, a Kevin/Rachel marriage, even if it never went anywhere.

I would hope they finally kill Drunk Doug, whose crashout performances are increasingly giving Tyler Perry touring company (he's not the only one, paging June). I wouldn't kill Joey yet as I do think JL and LB have heat, but that story has become repetitious despite their strong work and I feel like it's all just a precursor to Vanessa inevitably taking over his business. She's the central axis there for me. I also suspect they may go there with Ashley and Joey which is a solid story point, but for the love of God you'd need a much better actress to make me care about her reaction and even so, I've never wished for some Guza-style toxic balls to take out a medical professional more. Speaking of bad: It is insane Alex Alegria is still employed.

What was weird is they did the same really nasty injury with Nora during that regime in the summer of '03 (IIRC) - when Troy went psycho and held her hostage as they were writing Ty Treadway out, and I think Nora cut her hand on some wine goblets he demanded they drink from or something and was losing blood, and they had to stop him and get Nora out of there before it was too late, etc etc.

Those braids gave me Noah Keefer vibes, I'm ngl. I'm sorry but I hope they recast the Hawthorne dad, a.k.a. Evil Overton. He is not that commanding and the strong resemblance physically and delivery-wise just sends me. Every time he and Jacob have an argument or he schemes with Kevin Collins I wonder what Synclaire would say.

It's a pretty bland, benign article but that leapt out at me. You can also tell her age when she calls Maya a 'transsexual'. Oops.

I would absolutely argue that Josh and Reva (both in the '80s and later, for better or worse) and Quint and Nola were in that tier. I do wonder if people felt that way about Billy and Vanessa at one point, but I am not as familiar with them as to know. Danny and Michelle were kind of the worst possible example of lazy supercouple rot in the late '90s and 2000s. They came close, but it was not good for the show at any point.

I actually always liked the cute little summer camp as part of some Lila charity thing. It was a sweet touch. The problem was IIRC it was a backdrop not just for Sabrina/Patrick/Britt but also for a horrific and painful storyline in which Nicolas Bechtel, that kewpie doll playing Emma, the zombie child playing Joss and wooden puppet Cameron were in a 'romantic quad' for months.

I'll start with Susan Bedsow Horgan, both as a HW/staff writer (who set up the field for Marland at ATWT and married off Bob and Kim) and as an EP who backstopped Linda Gottlieb and carried on with her strong material and house style at OLTL for two more key years. She's never gotten enough credit IMO.

I'm just amused Lila's Kids is back, lol.

Most of us here don't like Ridge, but if there's one thing CBS Daytime is always gonna do it's these goofy crossovers with the various soaps. That practice goes back decades, it's not some 'desperation' throw for BTG specifically. They've been doing it with Y&R and B&B solo for a long time too. And whether I care about B&B or not (I don't!) it does get people in the general audience to turn their eye to another show, those who have somehow internalized watching unwatchable B&B for years.

Does Connie actually watch the show? She thinks psycho Alison and Chelsea's wedding is real.

Considering they devoted an entire day to both Gail and Sean Donely and Denise was featured off and on a fair amount over the last decade, I am sure they will deal with her in some way. Leslie and Tristan are just unavoidably the big names.

It's a distinction without a difference AFAIC. Patricia Mauceri is a homophobe who effectively quit rather than expect the scripts to uphold her bigotry. So she got herself fired. Same thing.

All of Frank's favorites return, like swallows to Capistrano. Billy Joel Cassadine, his test tube mutant, I'm not exactly compelled to stick with this for long lol. I won't be shocked when the Michael Easton return is announced, just saying.

Predictable 'concern.' These crossovers are pretty par for the course for all CBS soaps, lol.

She essentially refused to do the scripted scenes and got herself fired, so at that point it's a semantic thing AFAIC. It was all because of the silly scenes where Carlotta mistook Cristian for coming out instead of Fish, IIRC. Carlotta had never been shown to be anti-gay.

Oh, I think she knew. I think she just didn't want to spell it out for me because I was so young. But she let me watch that and a lot of other gritty stuff with her (China Beach, Prime Suspect) and it was not a secret what happened when the truth came out.

So did mine, in the first season. I was about 9 or 10 and when I asked her why she thought that she said 'his reaction was too much' and didn't elaborate. Later it became pretty clear. I hid under the dining room table for a good portion of the ending of the big reveal episode, and was too scared to watch much of the show live for the rest of the year after that ("BOB" terrified me, and they showed him in the mirror in a promo during China Beach a week later when I tried to come back lol) though I did catch the finale. But I remained utterly fascinated by the show, and came back to it on Bravo reruns in high school. It's still very close to my heart.

Jamie Borthwick has been axed, following his recent scandal. Unfortunate as I've always liked him on the show, but I can't say I'm totally surprised after the rolling series of controversies that seemed to follow him over the last year. That'll be the last time someone at EE disses Blackpool in mixed company.

Maggie Vega is a cop who was intended as a love interest for Andrew in '92. They had planned to cast Saundra Santiago, recently off Miami Vice, but she backed out for some reason at the last moment. The actress they got instead is, uh, a lot. They then reportedly noticed the chemistry between Krimmer and Laura Bonarrigo, and went there instead. To my knowledge Maggie has no relation to the Vega family, but you never know. SS, of course, went on to do GL before returning to OLTL briefly in 2004 during Malone II, as part of the dismal Santi saga where she played Antonio's biological mother Isabella Santi (a.k.a. Angelina Paredes) in one of the more bizarre and painful death scenes I've ever seen on a soap. Later she was the emergency Carlotta recast in the late 2000s after Patricia Mauceri quit over Carlotta being pro-gay.

I never understood why they didn't just cement Martin and Stacey and leave them together for the long haul. It worked.