FrenchBug82

To be fair, in real life, most of Harmony would have been committed and/or in prison. But I agree. It wasn't nearly as endearing as Reilly seemed to think it was (and Lord knows he had a thing with writing about women obsessing over a man)

Fully agree on every point. I could write an entire book on how I believe soaps glamorize toxic relationships and have influenced generations of women to see behaviors that are extremely unhealthy as "romantic". Theresa's notion of fate was obsessive stalking and Ethan wishy-washiness should have been read as him not being that into her. If this had been real life I would have recommended they see other people.

We know she hated how vindictive Alexandra had turned in the last year of her run with the Mindy storyline and that played some minor part in her deciding it was time for her to retire. The question, though, is did she ever say something? She had interviewed many times that she was not interested in influencing the writing on any show she has been on. Her job was acting whatever is written for one and her acting was just her job, for two. Would it have influenced the writing if she had said something? I dunno but I doubt it. They didn't listen to her asking for a lighter schedule so I doubt they would have listened to the substance of the writing.

It could be that his wife had him ask for a breakup in his new contract, sure, but still I can't help but think that even if they wanted to break them up, there was no need to so thoroughly trash the character of Sheridan in the process. They could have come up with a magical storyline like a "Pushing Daisies" (the TV show) type curse where if they touch each other, they die or something. It would have forced them away from each other, would have provided a compelling romantic way to break them up while leaving them to go do other storylines and pairings (while keeping a sense of longing in the background which would have been interesting) and kept the door open for them to be the end game at the very end. I know enough about the soap business that the way they wrote Sheridan the last year HAS to have included some personal beef against McKW IMO

And of course one of most poorly-thought-out stunt casting of modern times would be Beth Ehlers' move to AMC. Granted she made it worse for herself but it was obvious almost immediately they had signed her without any real idea on what to do with her - since they didn't want to do the obvious and pair her with RPG which I always thought was... interesting. Of course for all we know the hot partner might be a dull idiot! It is not like Alan is unattractive. Or more charitably Alan could have plenty of qualities or even be very interesting in real life. He is just not good at moderating those.

Absolutely and it is a reminder that people forget sometimes there is a LOT that goes into why a recast or even a character fails. Sure, sometimes, the actor is bad. But sometimes the actor is great but the writing sucks. Or the actor is great and the writing is great but it is just a bad fit - it is casting director's mistake. In this case, I think the writing was weak by then but she was just very very wrong for the role. Being blonde and a kick-ass actress does not automatically make one Mindy and whoever made that call - either casting director or producers who wanted to land a name made a mistake. Also this: Justin Deas does. He flies by the seat of his pants, and has his ass on fire every day of the week and it doesn't matter if everyone is along for the ride. Yeah, but that can also come off as self-indulgence. God bless her.

Agreed. I am speculating as to why people may take it personally and I imagine they may *assume* it is their copy that is being reshared. I'd prefer if everybody worked together - the fandom is shrinking enough as it is - but what can you do? The Internet brings out weird things in people.

To clarify my point about Steffi, she was introduced as an antagonist for Ally, the center girl of the younger set and a spoiler for the "it couple". A bit scheming, a bit spoiled. Amelia Heinle played her very convincingly and is very good at exuding vulnerability even when the actions of her characters don't necessarily betray it (which made her a good choice for YR Victoria on paper and why it boggles my mind they have failed to use her talents and watered down the character instead but that's another story) so she quickly became more sympathetic than the initial writing was intending her to be. You see her early storylines and you can easiy imagine Steffy becoming the soap trope of the scheming bitch trying to steal the heroine's man. Instead, AH gave her layers, had chemistry with her costars and so they developed her backstory and brought her mom on. Your recap underscores how much interesting dramatic material there potentially was in the character - especially if they had kept the mental illness aspect as initially written and let NAA do her thing with the heavier material. But indeed, as you point out, whenever they would give her a serious beat, it wouldn't last and would be immediately undermined by hijincks and caricatural writing. And it is clear that NAA was getting directions to play the character a certain way that I think was detrimental. I don't know what the show directors were thinking and what the producers were trying to do but it was a missed opportunity IMO. And, to tie it back together, that is exemplified by the choice of involving her in that comedic modeling storyline in the last few months rather than give her a serious part in the overall murder mystery.

I had forgotten that and ... yeah. Definitely. I honestly never gelled with Debra. She was introduced as a plot device to make Steffy more sympathetic but they were writing her as a charmless bargain basement version of AW's Donna Love and directed her as comic relief most of the time. Even when some of her storylines might have worked had they been played more straight. Anne Matheson's fall from spoiled rich woman to homeless on Knots Landing was beautifully done and there was potential to play it like that - which in turn would have made her scheming more tolerable if it was a story of survival rather than greed. But they chose to make her a caricature and it didn't work for me. Watching back NAA on Ryan's Hope has been a revelation of how much of a waste that turned out to have been

I guess they figure, understandably, that the work they put in transferring it and uploading it makes it really annoying when someone reuses it. I can see both sides of the argument.

That would have been fun and I certainly think you have a point but here is my "defense" of their choice: as big a name and wonderful an actress as NAA was, Debra was a new arrival for the show. Less than two years by the time the show ended if my memory is correct. When pressed for time and eager to offer closure, I understand why TPTB, if my reading of the Loving murders was that it was largely directed at the faithful fans who had stuck out the show throughout, would want to play the longterm characters that made the backbone of the show and maybe give less to a character that was fairly recent. Half an hour is not a lot of time to play all the possible threads if they have a game plan. There were definitely weird choices and missed opportunities but that's inevitable when you try to wrap up an entire universe in a few months.

I don't know if it would be considered transphobic since nothing in the story was about trans folks and Brent never IDed as a woman (he was a tranvestite and only for his nefarious purposes) but it probably wouldn't be done today since it harkens to the fantasies surrounding TS and bathrooms and that awful canards that there are lines of male predators supposedly eager to pretend they are women to... pee in the same bathroom as women? I dunno. I can only think of three stories in US daytime explicitly about a trans character - The City, Passions and B&B - but I might be missing one.

Yeah the downside of the Loving murders is that folks who were not involved in the umbrella story or could not be shoehorned into it got shafted a bit. I mean, Ava's exit earlier was so nonsensical. It could have been because LP chose not to stay until the end but as a fan of the character it was just a letdown. So I hear you. One great story does not erase the fact Loving was often very sloppy with its characters and follow-through. In the end though the wrap-up wasn't perfect but at least there was an effort made when other showrunners just gave up once their show was cancelled and went through the motions. It would seem weird for TPTB to create The City explicitly as a spinoff of Loving, despite the fact it was completely different in tone, look and story, if they didn't hope some of the audience would carry over. As a matter of fact, I would argue The City would actually have worked better as a completely independent show and, this is where we join, I can't imagine the "younger audience" of Loving to have been significant enough for them to think they could use that to boost The City. But that must have been part of the plan, dumb as it may seem to us now.

Yeah. And more broadly why they turned Sheridan into ... what she became the last year which was an entire 180 from the way she was initially written. Fans at the time thought they were destroying her character to prop up Fancy but it always struck me as backwards: they were trying to sell us Fancy to mitigate what they were doing to Sheridan's character (and by extension Luis/Sheridan) Never ever ever understood it and you are right: there has to be a BTS story we don't know. Whoever McKW p.o.ed, she must have seriously angered them.

My personal take on the Gwyn as a DID murderer is that it doesn't really make sense in the context of the history of the show: rewatching the episodes knowing she'd end up murdering many of those people is a jarring experience. The reason I accepted it was because it was out of the door, it was quite a shocking (in a good way) reveal and boy did CT sold it with everything she had. And it was so good that I appreciated it very much - as an end to the show and the character. If this had been a plot during the course of the show, I would have reviled it as a plot contrivance that ruined a good character. Also, I think the reason the Loving murders are so fondly remembered was because, of all the soaps that went off the air and I include primetime soap, this is undeniably the most coherent long story arc that has been written to wrap a soap. It was an incredibly bold choice and it was a story from beginning to end that did provide a proper end to the characters the show wanted to drop before the reboot. Was it always well-written? No. But Loving was a low-rated cheap show. That it allowed itself to be creatively ambitious and memorable for its end is something to celebrate and considering how it often did during its run, this was actually a step up. Thinking how so many other soaps ended a rushed damp noodle, I still think the Loving murders hold up fine. The City, however, was a good concept on paper (changing the stilted look of a soap would certainly be at the top of what I'd try if I were to create one today) and had some ballsy ideas for the times (trans character for instance) but was ultimately, well, not very good. But the fact the spotlight on Loving at the end was on closure for the characters that would not make it over makes sense to me; as a fan I would have resented if they had used the end of Loving more as a springboard for the City. They actually made the end of Loving about Loving and, for that too, I give them credit

The lockdown reunions have been fun but I agree there is a huge opportunity slipping people right by of something similar to what the Television Academy does: long detailed interviews with both actors and bts folks from television. There have been a handful of soap stars on there (Kim Zimmer, Elena Slezak) but so many other soaps actors and actresses and writers and producers could tell so many great stories if someone with intimate knowledge of the shows (more than the interviewees at the Academy or that the moderators have in the recent reunions) asked the questions and knew how to get the best info out of the insiders. Heck, I bet someone who took the time to set those up could crowdsource the questions. Take the time to do in-depth.

There has definitely been gossip about him being disliked and being let go for "personal reasons" (and his merry-go-round at AW felt similarly weird) but it is the most frustrating kind of gossip: we get the sense he was disliked by many cast mates but I have never heard anyone with a clear sense as to why.