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Thanks so much for these detailed and hilarious recaps of the late 1970s plotlines, beebs! It's interesting reading these summaries, although my main response is "Who ARE all these people?" I'm fascinated by the way that current Days frequently references its 1980s supercouple era and its 1990s super-campy era, but almost never references the late 1970s, not even in conjunction with things that happened to Marlena or Maggie back then.

I think it's too bad that no one tried to get Melissa Hayden back as Bridget (at least, not until the final episodes, when they also brought Nola back). The Reardon boarding house actually would have been the ideal set for the later years of the show; it could have been a lower-rent counterpart to the hotel where half of the cast seemed to live. And it would have been great to have Bridget running it and mixing it up with characters like Vanessa and her brother Matt.

Maybe in 1984, when Simon first left the show, Deas could have worked as his replacement. But I can't imagine Deas playing any of the material that Simon got in the 1990s. He'd make no sense with Maureen, and I couldn't picture him in scenes with Holly and Roger. (Although of course Buzz did end up marrying Ed's affair partner Lillian in the final weeks of GL).

James Denton is DILFy goodness, but he was still on Desperate Housewives from 2004-2012. And besides, GL already had too many hunky middle-aged guys who fit that mold and who they didn't know what to do with (e.g. poor Kurt McKinney). If they really had to recast Rick, then Matthew Ashford might have been a good fit for the character. But they could have served MOL better by bringing back Krista Tesreau's Mindy back earlier--they could have been a really cute supporting couple.

I didn't watch Another World at the time, so I can't weigh in on the character of Brittany (whose storyline sounds terribly executed, at the very least). But I would LOVE to see a soap today introduce a deaf villainess/bad girl (and, of course, cast a deaf actress to play her). I actually think that would work perfectly on Days, and Ron C would be the right writer to execute something like this. They could introduce Benjy Dimera's daughter, who would be deaf like her father. She would appear very sweet, and everyone in Salem would treat her with kindness mixed with pity. But after a few months, the audience would get the reveal that she's actually man-hungry, out for revenge, out to take over Dimera Enterprises, or all of the above.

They did recast Ed not long after Simon left in 1996, with Robert Gentry (who'd played Ed in the mid-1960s). For whatever reason, it didn't last long. I wasn't watching very frequently at the time, so I couldn't tell you why.

It's hilarious that THIS was CBS's idea for an inter-soap crossover event like the ones ABC had done so successfully: Amber and nu-Alison on Y&R, stripping and drugging Cane. What a surprise that didn't bring a ton of Y&R viewers over to ATWT!

MS was just always so prim, I found it surreal whenever she had to talk about Alison's past as a meth-addicted porn star. And I still don't understand why ATWT kept Alison on the front burner in its waning years, while barely using Alexandra Chando's Maddie.

You see, I remember that weird gothic Mick Dante storyline fondly, mainly because it's the only time I ever saw Marnie Schulenburg's Alison have chemistry with anyone.

Does anyone know why they decided to kill off Rose in the first place? If they needed to axe one of Martha Byrne's characters, then I think Lily would have been the more logical choice. They clearly struggled to write for Lily, and she came off as a mopey bore for most of her final decade on the show. Rose was a much more exciting, dynamic character, and it always looked like Martha had fun playing her. Also, can you just imagine the storyline possibilities if someone tried killing Rose but ended up killing Lily by mistake? You could get years of story just out of Lucinda not forgiving Rose for Lily's death.

Speaking of CarJack... I know this will probably be an unpopular opinion, but while I liked both Maura West and Michael Park as actors, and I thought Carly and Jack were both well-defined characters who had a lot of chemistry together at one point, the Passanante era just made me so sick of CarJack as a couple. Most of their storylines seemed to keep falling into the same pattern: Carly does something that offends Jack's sense of morality, so he yells at her, then she yells back, then they break up for a while, then they get back together a few months later. It reminded me a lot of GL's Reva and Josh, another relationship I ultimately found toxic, with the man ultimately judging the woman and making her feel she wasn't good enough for him. That's why I'm probably the only one on these boards who preferred Reva with Jeffrey, who accepted her for exactly who she was. I actually felt the same way about Carly and Craig, and I thought Maura West had great chemistry with both Hunt Block and Jon Lindstrom, chemistry I wish the show had explored a bit more.

I see what you're saying, but I'm not entirely sure if I agree. If we look at the 4 soaps on the air today, half of them (Y&R, GH) do seem to be written as generically as possible, with no particular vision or voice discernible from the head writers. But B&B and DOOL do have more distinctive head writers at the helm; I personally think Brad Bell's vision is inane, and I enjoy Ron Carlivati's distinctive style quite a bit, but YMMV. Also, I think that "visionary" writers can sometimes harm a show; Bob Guza had a distinctive voice, and he ended up gutting much of what was good about GH. And Claire Labine tried to impose her distinctive style on GL, and the results were nearly unwatchable.

Agreed with nearly all of those points. I thought the show really went downhill after Sheffer left in early 2005. Every time I tried to turn in during that period, I kept seeing mind-numbingly dull Paul-Meg-Dusty storylines, or not-so-interesting drama surrounding Carly's insta-sister Gwen, or CarJack stuck in the same never-ending cycle of break-ups and make-ups. The period you mention around late 2009 was MUCH better, and significantly, that's when David Kreizman joined as co-head writer. I know that a lot of SON regulars like to blame Kreizman for GL's problems in later years, but I think he's very good at developing character-driven storylines. And developing characters generally: I'd be surprised if Reid wasn't a Kreizman creation.

I really liked the Lorelei stuff, but you're right: it needed better dialogue to help make the subtext of Beth's psychological split into text. But then again, I also thought the Beth/Alan relationship was really interesting, in a creepy way. I could totally buy that, due to Beth's early trauma, she would turn to powerful men who would make her feel safe (even men as vile as Alan).

I live in Armenia, and the people here certainly do think of themselves as "white" (and would be shocked to hear that some people might view them otherwise).

I think it depends on what you consider "stunt casting." For instance, when One Life to Live poached George Reinholt and Jacqueline Courtney in 1975, that was a kind of stunt casting. And, speaking of another GL character that didn't quite work, Jane Elliot's Carrie might be viewed as stunt casting, given that she'd just played a very popular character on the #1 soap (and GL's timeslot competitor).

I don't know Rowell personally, but from her many social media media posts, I get the sense that she's both a tireless campaigner for social justice who's done important work calling out institutional racism in the soap industry AND a relentless egomaniac. I mean, her posts contain more "I"s than a Roman arithmetic textbook. I think that's probably true of a lot of the divas we enjoy watching at a safe distance. If we had to regularly interact with them closely in person, it would be exhausting, because the diva would suck up all the oxygen in the room, leaving none for us.

How funny! I'd never heard that. I wonder if the show was thinking about bringing Mike back (as they did for so many of the characters who came back for the reunion, like Phillip and Harley). They definitely did seem to be reinvesting in the Bauer family around that time, giving Rick and Abby a lot of story, as well as Rebecca Budig's Michelle, then bringing on Mary Stuart as the long-absent Meta and bringing back Robert Gentry, who'd last played Ed about 30 years earlier.

Long-time lurker, first-time poster here. I just wanted to point out that GL actually did bring Mike (and Don Stewart) back very briefly in 1997, for the 60th anniversary. You can see him around the middle of this clip, interacting with Rick, Meta, Ross, and Blake: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pBLINo71kLA