Xanthe

Adam was at a loose end after MJ left town and showed interest in both Lisa and Victoria at different points in time. But neither interest was developed into anything. Presumably if Sally Spencer had not been fired or if they had recast MJ they had intended to have a triangle of Adam, Chad, and MJ, maybe a quadrangle with Sara. But without MJ that didn't happen, and honestly based on the way the storyline had played out up to that point that's for the best. I can also understand that Adam wasn't really as compelling as adding Jake and then Marley to the Vicky/Jamie storyline. And prior to that Jake had been presented as an essentially decent guy in order to be worthy of Marley -- not as pure and virtuous as Adam, but good enough for a bad boy. But when Vicky's life blew up over Steven's paternity, both his history with Vicky and his bad boy edge had more impact than white knight Adam. Jamie in this era was hard to root for so I don't think I had a rooting interest in the Lisa/Jamie/Vicky triangle. Why should I care who wins the stodgy doctor?

Any context for the character? I remember first seeing her as Jade Perkins on Santa Barbara but not recognizing her as familiar. She was credited as Missy Brennan on SB IIRC but an extra on AW probably didn't have a credit and might not have stood out. She would have been quite young then. Thanks for the follow up!

Weren't Linda Dano and Robyn Christopher together as Felicia/Lorna on AW and then Rae and Skye on whatever ABC show(s) they came together on? Did Christopher Holder and Sharon Gabet who were Peter and Brittany on AW also work together on EON?

I'm curious to know your thoughts about the difference between Nicole with Rex and Nicole with Cass, if you watched both.

When I was watching a 1991 episode a little while ago I was completely wrapped up in how comfortable Cass and Kathleen were with each other (they were lying to Darby Hinton about wanting a boat in order to investigate what had become of Taylor Benson). The dreariest time for Cass and Kathleen was in 1985-86 when she was paralyzed. It wasn't all bleak but it did seem to drag, especially when she was away from Bay City and Cass had to get close to her through a puppet show. Cass and Frankie were together for longer and although they went through some storylines that didn't ultimately work for me I never felt as though breaking them up (or brutally murdering either one of them) would make it better. I'm quite furious the new Digest special edition "50 greatest couples" does not list Steve & Alice at all. I think Stephen and Alice here are Stephen Schnetzer and Alice Barrett-Mitchell, not Steven Frame and Alice Matthews. I know Scannell only by name. What kind of characters did she play? The photo looks very glamorous to me which is the antithesis of Kathleen.

It would depend on the writing as well. Depriest did MJ so dirty that I shudder to think what might have become of a recast Kathleen.

Definitely -- I was not trying to suggest that he promoted Amanda at the expense of other characters. I was just thinking about the extent to which he had and had not continued what Depriest had started, and TBH wondering whether he would have wanted to recast Amanda as he had Marianne and Alice.

I always forget that between Depriest and Lemay, Sheri Anderson was HW for a few months before the strike. Lemay typically gets credits for any real movement during the strike period. I think Lemay/Swajeski improved on the stories they continued but actually wrapped up a few things that had outstayed their welcome. Depriest had Rhonda Lewin's Vicky show interest in Larry Lau's Jamie soon after he arrived, but after Rhonda left, Jamie met Lisa and fell in love with her. IIRC Vicky started setting her sights on Jamie after her coma in fall 1987 but she didn't get very far with him until the following summer when she managed to get pregnant during the strike. And of course Lisa was written out early in 1988. Similarly Depriest brought back Nicole as a love interest for Cass, but Lemay/Swajeski wrote her out by mid-1989. If the previous regime had done a better job of integrating Nicole into other relationships maybe she could have survived, or if they cut her out for not being a Frame they could have gone full-bore on making her Jason Frame's daughter. I preferred Frankie with Cass but I wish that Nicole and Peter had not been burned after the Reginald era. Amanda's horizons opened up -- instead of being limited to her love of Sam and unexpected pregnancy, she had more real work and interactions with Iris, Evan, Vicky, and so on. I could have wished for a stronger actress, but it makes sense that Lemay would want to centre the character.

I'm not going to lie -- I think this is a fair assessment of this time period, and if it doesn't appeal to you then you should absolutely feel free to ditch it. However I do have a very very soft spot personally for the scene where Adam takes the blame for backing out of the wedding before anyone else has any idea why. Otherwise, MJ confessing to Mary does nothing for me and frankly I don't think there was any satisfying impact or follow-up to it, everything just seemed to drop. The Sin Stalker storyline (which many people liked; I have big reservations) had wrapped up immediately before this and Vicky IMO isn't worth it until closer to 1989 when Anna Stuart resumes the role of Donna. So unless you are heavily invested in shirtless Chad (or Scott) or very green Anne Heche, I would say don't torment yourself.

I'm skeptical only because there is nothing noticeably cute about the way they present it -- it just sounds factual.

Falling Over Backwards, about 19 minutes in, main character's mother bores him by watching AW and describing more or less accurately some stuff about Reginald, Mary, Vince, Michael, Donna, Cheryl, and Scott. It's Philece Sampler and she says Michael and Donna just got married so I guess it's sometime in early March 1987.

The most galling thing about the popups is that MJ was never named Modesta. I don't know where they got that from. MJ was supposed to stand for Michael Joseph (I think it was Joseph and not John), which was why she went by MJ. Vince would use the nickname Mike for her.

Yes. I just meant that in their dialogue they didn't say anything like "I am so happy that Paulina has accepted Jake's marriage proposal! I never liked her with Ian. Also, has Brett received the results of her biopsy?" which would help narrow down when the clip was. And even the little snippets of Jake and Paulina's conversation did not illuminate anything for me. I think she says that he is back to his old self and that it is very hot.

Thanks. Looks like Jake and Paulina (Judi Evans). No idea what is going on in their storyline -- the Homicide episode aired Oct 1994 so maybe it's after they got back together after she had broken up with Ian Rain? But the HLOTS discussion is about gratuitous sex on TV and doesn't illuminate the AW story. https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x8bdrrp

Thank you for this. Some of the comments they make sound OK but did not resemble what actually happened, and some are just obnoxious, IMO. Bizarrely insulting to Ellen Wheeler in trying to justify why it made sense to sideline Marley and focus more on Vicky. Promising to make Brittany sexy when what they actually did was go all in on having Peter abuse and terrorize her and then suddenly have widowed Catlin become devoted to her. And since she was like Peter's prisoner until she shot him and then she was in jail until her trial, I don't even think they had her and Catlin have sex at all before they left town. It was an awful story and completely swept under the rug how badly Brittany had behaved breaking up Catlin and Sally, getting pregnant and tricking Peter into marrying her. (That's an example of DePriest ignoring even very recent history she didn't write in order to write what she felt like writing.) Making a distinction between the Loves and the Corys would have been interesting in theory, but here we see the claim that Mac was a self-made man which is not how he was originally introduced while the Loves were snobs but IMO the focus on Reginald "the Vulture" didn't make that distinction in any real way and the dilution of Donna in the recast from Anna Stuart to Philece Sampler actively undermined it. "Donna and Michael are so wonderful together" was also completely blown up by the introduction of John.

On the plus side, the pace of her storytelling was less sluggish than it had been in 1985. Lesoleil and Egypt/Arizona had been full of strange new characters and draggy mysteries. But on the minus side, DePriest was not subtle, was overly simplistic, and creepy when it came to sexuality, especially (always female) virginity. She wrote out characters who added flavour because she considered them outside her core families. She ignored most history and replaced it with her own idea of what would create the most tension in the present.

There is a section very deep on the AWHP under spinoffs/crossovers called Mentions in Other Media that also lists little tidbits like this. I don't see Homicide: Life on the Street mentioned so that would be a nice addition. Do you know what episode it was? Just to give some background on Chad and MJ, because I feel like the show whitewashes him while dumping on her. In the retcon version where MJ did not finish college (originally she had a psych degree and Larry was kind of dismissive about her being an educated "lady cop"), she was away from home and trying to make it as a singer and got involved with Chad. He then manoeuvred her into prostitution. They always tried to present that with an angle that made Chad a viable romantic prospect for MJ and glossed over whether she was his first prostitute or if he was already practised at luring his "girlfriends" into working for him. Certainly by the time he showed up he was pimping multiple girls.

I call that non-responsive, since the problem as described is citizens being incorrectly identified as non-citizens.

She had been ill for so long but she was definitely well-appreciated 40 years ago.

"Inconvenient". Jesus Christ, do they hear themselves?

Thanks! I liked Alla as Jenna and I think it was a good decision to have someone in the position of daughter to feel displaced when they found biological daughter Lorna. I don't know whether they intended to give Felicia a bio-daughter storyline as early as when Lisa was on the canvas, or whether Lisa would have turned out to be Felicia’s daughter instead of her niece, but I think the timing worked out well and it was good to have multiple angles for the conflict to play out. I wasn't crazy about Dean at the time but watching scenes with them now I find them appealing together.

Caught a bit of All the President's Men on TCM just now and thought that a man Dustin Hoffman was talking to on a park bench looked very familiar. I imagined him with glasses and recognized him as George Pentecost who played Tony the Tuna. When I was looking up the cast list to confirm it was him I noticed a few other AW-related actors: Nicolas Coster, Sloane Shelton, Dominic Chianese.

Phil Lesh of the Grateful Dead has died. https://www.theguardian.com/music/2024/oct/25/phil-lesh-grateful-dead-dies?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other

I was disappointed that the conversation didn't get into what Blaine's beef with Cecile was -- I assume it was personal rather than professional -- and maybe also more subtext regarding whether Jamie reveled in the power position or if he was more doing it because it was his duty in Mac's absence. This was really not long after Mac was lost in the Canadian wilderness. I had not remembered that he had also had a stroke.

Really too bad that the AWHP does not (yet?) have daily synopses for this period for more precise dating. You're very likely correct but it could be the week before where it mentions Blaine angry about Jamie being in charge or the week after depending on how many days elapse before Cecile goes to New York. Maybe my expectations were low but I didn't mind Judy Dewey here as angry Blaine. I will admit I did try to picture Laura Malone and she was better. Thanks. Always hoping for more from this period.