chrisml

If I'm not mistaken, wasn't it discussed that Ashley Hamilton was fired because he couldn't handle the pace of daytime? I seem to remember some gossip about this relating to his substance abuse problems. I liked Kam Heskin but she was playing a different character than Vanessa Dorman. I appreciated the change but it did shift the dynamic. I also didn't mind Randy Spelling but that could be because I enjoyed Krissy Carlson's Amy. I think a big mistake was getting rid of Lisa Guerrero's Francesca. She was such a good villain.

I agree with all of this. I obviously don't know what Gottlieb was like bts, but her material on screen was extremely strong. Most of her material I still have great fondness for while I thought JFP harmed the show (the women became spineless idiots; the show was so dark and morbid and JFP's treatment of some of the cast members was reprehensible). Interesting how fans and actors can have completely different interpretations of the material.

I know Erika Slezak didn't like her tenure, but I wish Linda Gottlieb has lasted longer because I thought her OLTL was great for the most part. She never got the acclaim she deserved; the soap critics were always sniping about something on the show. I remember some complained the music was too loud or the telenovela pacing for some stories. I wonder what those same critics would say now after seeing what happened to OLTL and soaps afterwards.

Was 1986 really worse than 1988? For most of that year, I found the show's writing and plotting to be rather weak and uninteresting. If it weren't for some of the actors and especially Michelle Forbes, I would have given up. Was this during the writer's strike? Is that why it was such an illogical mess at times? I can never remember but I'm assuming so since AW also had the same type of mediocre writing/plotting.

If my memory serves, didn't Soap Opera Weekly have an Emmy dream ballot which included Nicholas Walker getting nominated for his work on SB? I remember his performance getting a lot of acclaim at the time. I didn't see his work on SB so have no opinion.

From the Gary Tomlin interview: "First of all, don't fire anyone who's been on the show for more than 3 years. Familiarity is the most important thing to a soap opera viewer." Tomlin gets it. This is what made me become an ex-soap viewer. Execs and producers never rewarded longtime viewers with material. It was always about luring in new viewers they could never attract with these new storylines or actors from other soaps. This goes back to all the talk about mass exoduses and new regimes coming in and cleaning house. On soaps and in life, if you're going to cater to a crowd that is never going to support you, what's the point? You're just wasting time and money.

re: MDP I would rewatch Margaret dePriest's first tenure on Aw because there was some good stuff there. Was there wretched stuff? (Maisie's death by touch come immediately to mind) Yes, but AW had much much worse and I would simply FF the wretched nonsense if I rewatched MDP's 80's tenure. Her second tenure paired with JFP was just a disaster since it played into their mutual love for humiliating and abusing female characters. We talk about Frankie, but what they did to the Courteney character was just appalling. RE: Sally Spencer I think Spencer was a very good actress in an impossible storyline. The storyline made no sense and it was just so icky. No actress could make that rewriting of a character's backstory work. I wish she had stayed longer because I did like her as an actress and I wanted to see what she could do. IT's a shame that both MJ's are no longer with us.

I don't think Sally Spencer had much of a choice with the writing she was given. AW had a lot of strong female characters then and they lost their backbones.

I think it would depend on the circumstance because I don't like the quick turnarounds when a new EP takes over. It actually makes me less likely to stick with the show. I get that it would probably work more today where there is a lot more bloat and terrible writing, but I'm still annoyed by casting turnarounds when I first remember soaps in the late eighties. Some of these rapid firings feel dismissive of the viewers who watched the show and characters.

Roundup of topics: re: spoilers If I know someone in a thread is watching a story for the first time, I'm not going to discuss spoilers just out of consideration for that person. I like when people still discover soap storylines for the first time. The only exception I would make is The Red Swan because I would warn the person not to get invested in that endless storyline. I think 1987 was a lot of missed opportunities and some bizarre choices (getting rid of Quinn and not recasting or working to keep JC's Nancy) but I still thought it was watchable to an extent. For me, parts of 1988 were absolutely the worst and the writing was atrocious. I don't know what was the strike writers and which was Anderson or Lemay, but I was not happy with a lot of that year. re: Cass. I don't remember much of Kathleen or Cass, so Cass and Nicole were the first major pairing. I really liked the Cass/Nicole relationship, and I was beyond annoyed when the writers destroyed it. I think Anne Howard deserved better than she got. I always hoped they would put Alice Barrett with Paul Michael Valley. I know there were hints of it, but they didn't do it.

Nancy St. Alban looks wonderful. I never had a problem with St. Alban as an actress or as Michelle. The writing was at fault as she got saddled with ridiculous stories (Maryann, that kid she was protecting/mentoring). While I liked her triangle with Danny and Tony, I know I'm in the minority.

Locher has had some good interviews, so I'm not going to knock him. His interviews were a comfort during Covid time. However, his knowledge of the soaps is limited to a certain time frame on GL and ATWT. It would be like if I asked about Holly/Roger because I have no idea who Rita was (only know the name because of this board). She was years before I watched GL. It would be nice if he did research topics, but I also doubt he's making any money from these interviews.

Was the Calla/Jesse really that bad? I've liked both actresses in other rules, so it's hard to believe that they were terrible in their roles. Was it just the stories they were given?

I've always said Carmen Duncan never got the attention she deserved. She was fantastic as Iris and should have won the Emmy for the chief reveal/Mac's death. It's a shame later on that execs and writer didn't give her the material she richly deserved.

I liked Carmen Duncan's accent, so I'm glad they didn't have her change it. I wish they would do that in general instead of insisting that the actor do some very general/flavorless American accent. We have/had to suspend disbelief for so many things on soaps, and an actor's actual accent is not going to bother me.

Susan Lucci was in her sixties playing a Las Vegas showgirl. The soaps don't want to admit people age (don't know if current soaps are better now). They also think teens won't watch older characters which is markedly false. I remember when Jeanne Cooper placed very high amongst teen viewers in terms of popularity. Yet every summer the soaps would do their obligatory teen storylines that were boring as hell. Even as a teen or younger, I hated most of those stories. GL tried it with the Cam/Harley/Dinah/Alan-Michael story, but it was only AM and Harley that were interesting. I never saw the Beth/Lujack stuff or Simon/Jesse storylines. I wish that soaps had created more platonic relationships like the Maureen/Roger relationship. She was the only one who really defended him. His relationship could have softened him when he was in villain mode. Her ties to Roger could have caused more problems for her marriage to Ed and relationships to others. I always felt it a loss that this was never expanded on. Nancy Curlee seemed to feel the same in her interview with Locher.

I'm glad they didn't get rid of Frank and Lillian. It's those sorts of characters who are important to the fabric of the show. We need the characters who may not be the leading characters, but who we know so well. Tina Sloan was highly underrated as an actress. I won't say the same for Frank D. but it was nice having him there and I would have preferred him over Buzz.

I never saw Harding Lemay's first run at AW, but is he really as good as his reputation would indicate? It seems to me that when people discuss him (on this board and elsewhere) it's usually about the mistakes or questionable choices he made.

I agree about all of this. The Children's Hour story she wanted to do is not something I would want to watch. There was no gay representation on GL, and this is how she wants to broach the subject? No thank you. And what would be the long-term effects of such a storyline? No just no.

I don't know if Labine would have been a good fit with GL if she had been allowed to have free reign. In reading her interview on We Love Soaps, I don't think I would have wanted to see her version of the show. She seemed to value quirky bits of business over story at that point in her Also, the fact that Todd and the parrot is one of her favourite things from OLTL is baffling to me.

Yeesh. That's a sad commentary on her work at GL. Mae was a disaster. The only other thing I remember from her time on the show is the way Patti D'Arbanville was inexplicably written out. I remember D'Arbanville blaming Labine for it and accusing Labine of being dishonest with her.

I liked McKeon as Marah. I think she would have been excellent if they had given her better material. When they did give her stuff to do, she did a first rate job. Never got Bradley Cole's appeal, or why the show kept having to force him into storylines where didn't need to be. He was almost as annoying as the gum-smacking waitress from Labine's time on the show.

This is an astute observation, and this is why I preferred Princi's version. I always felt that you knew Strasser's Dorian would lose to Viki whereas Princi's Dorian would be more of an adversary for those in her orbit. I get that Strasser is more beloved, but I did mourn the loss of Princi's work.

Elaine Princi was the Dorian I knew as I started watching OLTL during her run. When Strasser returned, it annoyed me to no end because she was terrible. I was baffled why some people were happy to have her back.

I honestly have very little memory of him as an actor which pretty much goes to what you're saying. I have more memory of the set than I do of him. I do wonder what was going on bts at GL with Conboy (And by extension, West) that caused all the drama.