FrenchBug82

Here is another one:

On B&B Bell re-signed Sarah G. Buxton to a new long-term contract, brought Morgan back, set up the Venice story and... dropped it - and her altogether - after just a few weeks.
Even by Bell's short-attention-span standards, the completely lack of climax and payoff to the story he had taken weeks to set up and the abrupt nature of its disappearance means this was a last-minute U-turn for... reasons we will never know*

* which is too bad because I love Sarah G. Buxton and Morgan vs Brooke would have probably been more interesting than Taylor vs Morgan

42 minutes ago, Khan said:

I think we're reading much too much into these paper-thin characters with their equally paper-thin motivations for doing anything.  

Well, if you like a show you like to interpret the characters but I think you have probably the truer point: that the Shapiros had no clue what they were doing and were making things up as they went along.
On the other hand trying to find a coherence to their stories may be giving them too much credit, sure, but it is still fun to try!

1 hour ago, Bill Bauer said:

So he's abandoned all hope and jumped ship?

To be fair, the show has NEVER been better for Cordray's meddling. 
Ron C. is probably a headwriter who needs a bit of reining in but I wouldn't trust KC's judgement either. A good deputy HW would be a better idea.

26 minutes ago, Paul Raven said:

Read in an old (1981) Daytimers mag that Victoria Wyndham had in her contract that there were certain days of the week she would not be required to work (maybe Mon or Fri, so she would have along weekend?) Because of that they had to structure the story to cater for that.

That actually makes a lot of sense although if she kept that clause all the way til the end, I can't imagine it would have been much of a problem to schedule her that way with a more modern shooting schedule/style. Another World's theatrical style at the time might have been less flexible hence the difficulties.

I also remember reading a while back that an actress (and sorry I don't have a memory of who) had also put in their contract that, barring special events like weddings that take all day, the call times for their scenes were to be in the morning so they could be out by the afternoon to pick up kids from school etc.

When investigating the above question, I found this oral history with tidbits I had never heard before:
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/live-feed/melrose-place-oral-history-marcia-cross-heather-locklear-grant-show-darren-star-look-back-1016500

I didn't know that Laura Leighton was older than Josie B. and that Andrew Shue wasn't the original Billy.

But my favorite wtf-I-have-to-rewatch-the-show-to-spot-this detail:

Quote

Mendelsohn: In the middle of all this, our set decorator met with an artist who thought up the idea that art could carry a subversive message through television. We thought it’d be a fun thing to do. This was a time when you couldn’t show a condom on TV, so the sheets in Peter Burns’ (Jack Wagner) bedroom looked on camera as if they had a print of condoms. When Sydney had a fight with someone and broke a painting, it was a picture of Watts Tower decorated with poppies all around it because there was a belief that the CIA sent opioids to Watts to addict the community. When Allison is pregnant and working from her couch, the pattern on the quilt was the chemical structure of the drug RU486. It was clandestine the whole time. We didn’t even tell the actors.

7 hours ago, AbcNbc247 said:

I still think Nelle's going to turn up alive though.

Yeah I don't think she is really dead.

But it is still a stupid way to have the events unfold - if it was the plan all-along which I don't believe anyway

Just now, AbcNbc247 said:

The more I think about it, the more I started to think Jill was scapegoated and that she wasn't completely responsible for all the problems at AW at that time

No one is ever "completely" responsible for the downfall of an entire show and no doubt there was network interference/sabotage.

But the fact she showed good judgement in this particular instance does not excuse all the awful calls that were on her - and that she still defends! 
Even a blind squirrel finds a nut from time to time and even the worst headwriter/producer has good stories and makes good decisions. The judgement on her is based on a broad look at everything she did.

14 minutes ago, MichaelGL said:

Everyone knows Alex was NOT MEANT to be are as stalker. 

Do we have a sense of who it was initially going to be?

On 2/8/2021 at 10:29 AM, Faulkner said:

B&B actually portrays conflict and soapy secrets, but feels similar in many ways (a lot of rushing through story and missing beats while also feeling very slow and repetitive). I do wonder what’s happening at CBS. Certainly The Talk’s troubles might be a focus right now.

To be fair, that has been what B&B is for most of the 21 century

4 hours ago, AbcNbc247 said:

Yeah ok. 

 

After everything that happened between Nina and Willow, they expect us to believe that

If Nelle was meant to be Nina's daughter, killing her off before Nina found out is just writing malpractice.
I don't buy it and it is a particularly lame way to end a story that has taken YEARS of screentime.

On 2/8/2021 at 5:40 PM, Money said:

EB and to a lesser extent CLB have always been vocal but the rest like Scott, Walton, Bergman, Morrow, Case... crickets.

If I were asked to make a case I might guess one or two of those are Republicans (I wouldn't have guessed Case on my own but based on above info and Scientology... can believe it) but here is the thing: I think a lot of actors just don't want to get involved in politics publicly. It doesn't mean they are one side or another but they don't find it appropriate to discuss stuff outside of their work because it distracts from their show and that's their professional ethics.
I strongly suspect that's the case for Bergman and Walton in particular. They are old-school and very few actors of the old school appreciate the kind of outspokenness of a E. Braeden.

A lot of activists seem to think that if you don't scream support from the rooftop, it means you are "against them" but that's not the case. There are plenty - and I mean plenty - of committed liberals who are not comfortable with the kind of performative virtue signalling of hashtags and support tweeting but that are completely supportive and on-board with the substance of the protests/votes/policies. People have different ways of being supportive so I don't think social media silence can be taken as necessarily a sign of anything.

7 hours ago, Faulkner said:

I see Alan Sarapa is teasing a more controversial return off the back of this:

Seems he is teasing a departure rather than a return

34 minutes ago, titan1978 said:

I love the early seasons, but the show doesn’t become fire until Gary and Val’s marriage blows up, and Abby takes center stage in her quest for money and power.  But I don’t know that you care so much, especially about Abby’s machinations if you haven’t seen those early stories.

It is indeed funny that as well-known as the story of how Heather Locklear's bitchy Amanda arrival "saved" Melrose Place is, few people remark on how this tracks exactly with how Abby's arrival's on Knots Landing marked the shift of the show - first towards more outright soapy storylines and then towards a less self-contained episodic format. I don't think it made the immediate difference in the ratings in KL than it did in MP but, creatively, the parallels between the two shows in that way are very striking. 

33 minutes ago, j swift said:

I'm reading @will81 's Tumblr The Soaps of Yesterday and it is filled with facts I did not know heretofore. 

 

It surprises me that they would openly acknowledge they are firing an actress - a 16yo girl! - because she gained weight!
And gotta love (that's sarcasm) that spin that her weight gain causes cameramen problems somehow? Because fat people are harder to film? 
Stupid and offensive.

Soaps infamously - and logically - drop storylines all the time.
Most of the time for legit reasons:
- behind-the-scenes (HR issues with a performer or between performers, performer abruptly leaves, change of headwriter or producer)
- creative issues (story does not work or audience rejects the story)

What I was interested in bringing up were stories that were clearly either seeded or started and disappeared without us ever getting an answer as to where this was intended to go and why the direction changed abruptly.
 

One I am thinking about what when Maura West's Diane married Victor on Y&R. They rushed the marriage, spent a LOT of time showing the terms of the prenup and started showing Victor acting bizarre and controlling (I remember a creepy scene around a necklace he wanted her to wear)... They were pretty clearly setting the stage for a story there (and maybe two stories as they really insisted she would get nothing unless the marriage lasted a year which hinted this would be a later plot point) and then... nothing. The very fact of the marriage was dropped in a hot minute and almost entirely memory-holed six months later. It was very abrupt and very weird and we never really found out what the storyline was supposed to be about.
On Another World, around the time Carmen Duncan took over as Iris returned from Australia, another character with an Australian accent popped up (was her name Sheila?) in a different storyline and it seemed like too big a coincidence. But the character went nowhere and we were never explained what the initial plan might have been.
On Days, there was once a phone call where Victor said Daniel must never know who his real father was - that was after we had learned he was Maggie's. Nothing ever came of that, did it?
 

What other stories do we remember were hinted at and planted seeds for and just completely dropped and never mentioned again without the reason why ever made public?

57 minutes ago, Gray Bunny said:

 I love season one. I love the innocence of it. Granted, if the show stayed the exact same way as it was in the first half of S1, I highly doubt it would've made it beyond a second season. The first season is why we rooted for the OG's so hard

It is funny because I have been trying to get my mom (who only started watching soaps after she retired a decade ago) to give Melrose a chance with always the caveat that S1 is a bit hard to get through before you get to the "fun" parts. She always asks me if she can skip it and just get the lowdown from me but I have realized over time that having watched S1 did impact my approach to the show later in one concrete way - besides the overall fuzzy feelings of familiarity with the OGs.
While I think Allison/Billy were still clearly written as the end game all the way to Season 4 and you'd still get that you are supposed to root for them if you skipped S1, one relationship that I think would be incomprehensible to anyone who hasn't seen S1 is Jane and Michael.

If all you have seen of them is everything from the Kimberly affair forward, there is no way you could wrap your head around either character or their choices regarding each other (and later reunion). But having seen them interact as the young married couple - and they had chemistry then - did make BOTH characters feel more sympathetic and make the weird way they continued to be in each other's orbit - sometimes willingly, sometimes not - more interesting IMO.
 

1 hour ago, Gray Bunny said:

P.S. It's ridiculous how they constantly rewrote Amanda's backstory and family upbringing. Did her Models Inc. mommy ditch her at the age of 6 or 16? 

Yes. That was my problem with the Parezi story, which I hated. Not Sabato Jr. But the fact it made NO sense based on the backstory we had gotten so far.
And that's without even mentioning the later Eve retcon as well. 

1 hour ago, Mitch said:

I thought it was going to go that way also..damn! But Buzz and Deas were the fantasies of both JFP and Patrick Mulcahey (as we have learned he worked through his daddy issues with writing for Buzz...ugh, if only he just went to therapy!!!) so of course he would be dynamite in bed! I don't get why they did not just write Buzz and Jenna off and gave them a happy ending instead of killing her? Buzz did nothing afterwards..and I can't believe JFP didn't try to lure him off to one of her other soaps.

I think it is time for a confession.
I didn't like Deas' attention-seeking acting style and Buzz did nothing for me.
But I recently started watching the very very beginning of Ryan's Hope on YouTube and young Justin Deas... I would have.

1 hour ago, Darn said:

 

I got so excited but she said NOT enjoying Buzz in bed so she was complimenting that jackass. Ugh.

Sorry for the typo. Would have been much funnier your way though! LOL

2 hours ago, Pine Charles said:

I’m almost certain Gloria gave birth to the premature Anna Claire in ‘94 (not ‘95), but I could be wrong.

 

You are correct. She was born (and passed) during November Sweeps 1994

2 hours ago, titan1978 said:

GH had two examples in the 1990’s that felt real to me.  When Lucky “died” in the fire, both Becky Herbst and Genie Francis were haunting and almost depressing to watch, Genie especially for months after.  It was in character for Luke to be upset and then try to bury it, with it resurfacing whenever he saw Laura, so he avoided her.

 

The other was Stone.  Like a lot of people I have known that dealt with long-term illness with no hope of survival, the grieving was all before he died.  We saw everyone process during the last four months he was alive, say goodbye, have regrets, challenge their beliefs.  I have know people that went through Hospice, and also folks that died from complications from AIDS.  And the way everyone acted felt real to me.  The end takes so long and was often so painful that the intense part of the grief was released by the time the person passed, and the aftermath was spent more on remembering when it wasn’t the end of their life anymore.  It felt real to me.

And Robin did mention Stone from time to time in the years thereafter.
Both mourning stories well-written but it is rare for soaps - which is weird since it is a medium that stretches over such long times- that a death is still talked about more than a year later - never mind ten.
Cassie on Y&R is still memorialized by her parents on the show *every year* and she died in 2005. They use it to push story at times since they like to keep Sharon and Nick in each other's orbit but that's quite an admirable consistency - and very realistic that parents who lost a teenager that way would never quite stop mourning.
They also had Tracy talk to Victor about Colleen not that long ago. It is the kind of small details that make a huge difference to me as a viewer - and how Y&R is still keeping me despite having been hot garbage for the most part of the last dozen years.

GH could definitely have done something approaching with, say, Morgan but while they do mention him still a lot, it is often in the context of revenge or yelling at Ava or being scared that some other member of that mobster family is going to be killed. Suffice it to say it doesn't ring the same way.
If Lucky had stayed dead, maybe they would have done more mourning but since no one ever really dies on either GH or DOOL...

On 2/7/2021 at 6:30 PM, Bright Eyes said:

To add another aspect to the topic, do you think there are any characters who it would have made sense to take this route with?

I have been thinking about this question a lot in the past 24 hours believe it or not. It is a great followup question but truth be told, I don't have an answer I find satisfying.
Maybe because the kind of story I had in mind would need to have been seeded very early on and built up slowly to make sense and be sensitive instead of sensationalistic and all the attempted suicides that have been listed in this thread seem to have come abruptly after a shocking event.

Only vague idea I came up with would be maybe Diane at the end of her god-forsaken last run on Y&R. They were playing her as very desperate by the end so with a few tweaks it wouldn't have been crazy she decide to go out with a bang.

Lord knows Maura West could have played the hell out of that story and it would have been a huge step up over making Nikki a killer. There could even have been a plot twist whereby Diane would have manipulated Victor into taking Kyle on if she wasn't around (bestowing her attempts at getting his fortune indirectly to her son while lessening her guilt at leaving him), a petty revenge against Jack from beyond the grave, decent story by pitting Jack and Victor etc.

I don't know if it would really have been true to the story of the character from thirty years ago but it could have fit IMO because she was a bit of a mess and loved emotional blackmail.
But I can't say it is a slam dunk of an answer.

Nadine to Jenna at the 7 minute mark.

2 hours ago, victoria foxton said:

I favor EES. But wouldn't kick Van out of bed. 

 

I have one word to settle this for you: threesome.

7 minutes ago, Faulkner said:

That episode is powerful. Aside from tributes to characters whose real-life performers have passed away, American soaps haven’t treated death so powerfully in many, many years.

 

That American soaps overuse death as a plot device is something I have said for years. And they very rarely show the emotional aftermath of it. People cry when it happens but then never mourn after that. Story moves on.
Only brilliant exception has been Cassie on Y&R even though that got marred with the Mariah retcon.

58 minutes ago, j swift said:

With regard to how Forsythe chose to play the part, Joan Collins mentioned their animosity on Watch What Happens Live.   Perhaps they were both too limited as actors to be able to play subtext beyond how they felt about each other in real life?

I love Joan Collins and all but her version of her relationships with her co-stars always seem to vary with time and goes back and forth depending om whom she is talking to. And she likes to say everyone she has ever worked with hated her.
Not to say JF may not have disliked her, who knows, but considering how he reacted every time writers tried to shake up Krystle and Blake, I really feel he was very invested in making sure that relationships was never challenged. So part of me continues to think it was mostly an acting choice.
But I do love your psychological explanation of Blake - which ironically buttresses up his choice to play him without any lingering affection for Alexis because she reminded him of his initial inadequacies.

58 minutes ago, j swift said:

I don't think that makes her incapable of love, it just makes her less of a romantic heroine than soaps usually exalt.  I would further argue that guys like Dex seduced her with the promise of being partners and then tried to control her which ended the relationship.

I don't agree with this because I think this gives too much credit to what Alexis represented - that you describe beautifully - and not enough to her real character flaws. She was a narcissist and that means I don't think she ever fell in love in a traditional romantic sense.
But the idea of her looking for a partner is ironically closer to what I had in mind - almost as if she was looking for a deal. A deal that might be rooted in affection and enjoyment of each other, sure, but not the kind you find in through-thick-and-thin passion traditional soap opera love. More a community of interests. 
I don't think she was madly in love; she saw him as a worthy partner and pleasurable companion which is more based on her assessment of her own needs and wants - as fitting for a narcissist for whom success is more important than emotional relationships (see: her children)

So I agree with your assessment of why it didn't work with Dex: because the deal she had in mind didn't fit his behavior after they got together.

"Lots of lie I can believe but enjoying Buzz in bed? No way" is hell of a line to have gotten away with in daytime in 1993 (on several different levels) but I hollered.