Matt Powers

Thanks for the insight dc11786. It seems as usual a revolving door of EP and HW did no favors for the show. I watched some of the Ellis/Hunt era and it wasn’t too bad. A little slow at times, but enjoyable. Rusty Sr was a good villain type, causing trouble between Travis and Liza. Kristin/Brian/Suzi/Warren was an entertaining quad. I think things began to change in my mind for Brian/Suzi when Jay took over for Gene. Jay ‘s Brian had a tougher edge anti hero to him, whereas Gene was more romantic sensitive leading man type, which melded well with Cynthia GIbb’s ingenue Suzi. Was it the producers who wanted the Brian switch or was it Gene’s decision to leave? The Jenny Deacon/Rusty story is a dud. Does this actually go anywhere? Wendy is wasted in her story with Keith and I can see why subsequent writers turned her character into a villianess/spoiler. Now I am familiar with David Cherrill’s work on the Doctors. He was handed quite a mess from his predecessor and did the best he could “righting” the ship. How was his SEARCH era viewed?

Anyone know why the Brian/Suzi pairing was dropped in favor of Suzi/Warren and Suzi/Cagney? Were the subsequent Suzi/Brian recasts (Gent to Jay and Cynthia to Teri Eoff) a part of the change in focus?

I am reading the synopses of Winter 1979 /Spring 80 in which the character of Tante Helene casts her evil voo doo spells upon Mignon/Mark/Carolyn. She sounds like a cross between Angelique from DARK SHADOWS and Celeste from DAYS. Very surprising story for the traditional SEARCH. Was this still the Corrington’s reign as HW? Did anyone catch these eps when they aired and if so, what did you think about the story?

I am actually enjoyed Marland’s tenure. Sure, the Carolee and Joan Dancy stories dragged but once resolved things moved nicely. Doreen was introduced ( and recast) and brought trouble for Nola/Jason and Luke/Eleanor. Ann’s departure is being set up nicely. A drawback of his era is the introduction and quick dismissal of characters (Darren Match, Jessie Rawlings). Also not recasting Penny and dispensing of Jerry and Althea were determental. I believe Mel and Ethel Brez are the next head writers as the merry go round of EP’s and HW kicks into gear

The transition from Cendella to DePriest is jarring. She wraps up Mike/Toni/Alan in like 2 episodes, a story which Cendella had going on front burner for months.

Totally agree that all the Mike’s after Peter (save for AA) were bland and devoid of personality. I think of AA as a character named Mike Powers, but not the Mike Powers. So radically different-after he left they tried to revert the character without success. I kind of liked Michael Landrum, he had a little edge but wasn’t OTT like AA

I am on the fence about DePriest run. She seems just to have continued Robert Cenedella’s stories. He had set up Carolee’s departure, the Dancy, and the Conrad crap. Don’t really know what she changed/contributed. Matt’s condition “whose name we dare not speaK” (Male menopause) was interesting but once the network felt it “weakened” the character, it was scrapped. Stacy is a hot mess (annoyingly so). Steve and Ann seemed rushed to fill the missing Carolee void. I know Marland is up next but isn’t stellar by any means as he himself had said he should’ve ended the Joan Dancy and Carolee return stories earlier.

Is Doug locking Julie in the freezer a precursor to him being possessed ala Marlena back in the 90’s?