Kane

The Gwyneth/Jeff sex tape was made in October, 1988 and didn't come to light until February, 1990. Only two of the Curtises (Marcantel and Albers) lasted longer on the show than that tape did.

AMC: Edmund and Maria. For the years between her "death" and return it seemed like the show's main reason for keeping him was the possibility of luring Eva LaRue back, and by the time they both left for good in 2005 he was murdered while plotting against her and Zack and then she packed up the kids and moved away. AMC: Noah and Julia. As much as I like Sydney Penny, she was wasted in her return and it would have been better to just let Noah and Julia live happily ever after in witness protection.

Even though it still had good (even great) years/storylines afterwards, if All My Children had ended with its 25th anniversary episodes, where current and former characters came together to welcome Joe and Ruth home to the rebuilt Martin house, I would have considered that a good ending. I've long considered those episodes the gold standard for how to commemorate a soap properly and I think it would have been special to end the show with Joe and Ruth sitting together and reflecting on the past, particularly since Mary Fickett retired so soon after.

If I'm remembering correctly, the outfits Trisha & Jeff are wearing are meant to be recreations of costumes from the Garbo movie Camille. Her dress from her wedding to Trucker (the first wedding) isn't bad from the front. From the back? That's a lot of folded up fabric just hanging off of her. In general, though, Trisha kind of always had the worst clothes. From the wedding to Steve, does anyone know who the bridesmaids are other than Stacey?

The way Casey's shooting is staged is very odd to me. Graham is about to shoot Casey and then Alex bursts in so Graham turns to him. Graham then turns away from Alex, even though Alex is pointing a gun at him, in order to shoot Casey for no real reason (unless he thinks he's going to be able to shoot Casey and then spin around and shoot Alex before Alex can fire a shot of his own).

I haven't seen it since it originally aired, but I still remember the prison shower transition from Mark Valley to Steve Wilder, lol. I have a special affection for Reilly era Days. When I was in middle school and high school a Canadian station aired Days at 4 and then Y&R at 5, so they were the shows everyone at school was watching (there was also a Seattle based talked show that aired at 3 which had a soap recap section, so even though I wasn't able to watch other shows consistently throughout the year, I was at least able to follow them and be up to date come summer). I've been revisiting the era via Jarlena edits recently and I'm enjoying it just as much now as I remember enjoying it then - this was an easy version of the show to get hooked on.

Vanessa Marcil had chemistry (romantic and non) with pretty much every person she had scenes with except for Ricky Martin. I've always thought Rick Hearst was good at generating chemistry with whomever he was paired with (though I didn't see him on Y&R and only saw a bit of his first B&B run).

I always thought Cole would one day resurface on Y&R. It's been over twenty years, but he does still have ties to the canvas through Victoria and Ashley. Peter on Days, though I understand that there's behind the scenes issues there.

Loving had two storylines dealing with separate Noelle Beck pregnancies in 1991. She gave birth to her first at the beginning of 1991 and was temporarily replaced by Jessica Steen after threatening to walk (her contract was up for renewal) when she learned that the show wanted her to play out the death of Trisha's baby. By mid-91 she was pregnant again and that pregnancy was also written in, so in early '92 Trisha was written out for a couple of months after having her second baby. In between the two pregnancy stories, Trisha and Trucker adopted a baby and then saw the adoption reversed, so they had three different baby stories in 1991, which is ridiculous.

The Ava/Shana rivalry was so great. Even if the writers lost interest in Leo/Shana, I think it would have been worth their while to find a way to keep Ava/Shana going - it wouldn't have been difficult, either, since they could have just gone from being romantic rivals to being business rivals since Shana became the owner of Burnell's. They could have had Ava come out of her coma in '94 and learn that Shana had installed a new manager in her absence and had that spark a new round of the rivalry. They could also have roped Leo in by having him side with Ava and have his pride wounded by Shana flexing her authority and use that to create tension between Leo and Shana. All this talk about Leo and Shana reminded me that the baby plot has its roots in this scene, where Ava and Shana argue about Ally after Shana suggests that rather than feeling like she has to choose between Casey and Cooper, Ally instead decide to raise the baby as a single woman: Although it's never explicitly stated as one of the reasons Shana chose Leo, there probably was an element of "Yeah, well guess what bitch?" to Shana's decision to pursue Ava's boyfriend as her donor after Ava threw her dead baby in her face.

I'm not sure how they were received at the time, but given how quickly and thoroughly they start to fade into the background once Ava is removed from their orbit, I'm guessing they were considered pretty expendable. Personally, I wasn't a fan of Leo but I'm a fan of the pairing because it gave Shana/Susan Keith more airtime. Elizabeth Savage is playing Gwyn by the December 20, 1989 episode posted above.

That's why she wanted it to be him, because she didn't like him so she thought there was no risk of emotional involvement. She also liked his ambition and his intelligence (and his hair) and wanted those qualities for her child, but the fact that she hated Leo was was his primary selling point.

A late 1989 episode featuring Marianne Tatum as Gwyneth:

They didn't know. It's been a while since I watched that period of the show, but I recall that the man Brick thought was his father was tracked down and it was discovered that he wasn't actually Brick's father (I think Brick was in some kind of medical situation and they found out because of the blood types), which was upsetting to Brick's mother because she had been faithful to her husband.

All My Children - I liked Greenlee with Leo, but my preferred Greenlee pairing was with J. Eddie Peck's version of Jake. I thought that Greenlee matured during that relationship and regressed when she was put back with Leo. Guiding Light - I loved Alan-Michael and Lucy together and I liked Lucy as a character.

Stacey and Angie pretty much become "instant friends." I'm pretty sure that conversation you describe about dating is the first actual onscreen interaction they have and it's played as if they're already fairly well acquainted. As good as Alimi Ballard was when the show actually wrote for Frankie, I've always thought it would have been better if they'd brought the character on as a contemporary of JJ's (which I believe would have put Frankie at his actual age if he'd been aged naturally). The two could have gotten up to things and gotten into trouble together, which would have created story for Angie and Stacey and would have given them a natural avenue to becoming friends. Bringing Frankie on as a 16/17 year old didn't really make sense because he never had any peers on the show (even his love interests were women who were a few years older than him) and as a result he never had a lot of story of his own.

I came across an old Soap Opera Digest recently from around the time Robert Tyler left and it mentioned that his contract was originally up in June '94, which has made me wonder if the Trisha's alive fake out story was originally supposed to be his exit story. It's strange to me that they talked him into signing a six month extension just to recast Dinah Lee and have her and Trucker become supporting characters and then basically repeat the "Trisha's alive" story to write him out. They never found out. Immediately after Trisha's death the family wonders what the message she left on Curtis' answering machine was about and Jeremy initially investigates, but it gets dropped very quickly. It's always annoyed me that the fall out to the '94 Trisha's alive story has Buck getting high and mighty with Curtis when, as far as Buck knows, he scared Trisha so much that she was speeding to Trucker and lost control of her car and died. At one point Curtis tauntingly calls Dante "Daddy" (I think he says "Daddy's getting angry" or something like that as Dante's plan starts to unravel). Not sure if it was cat food, but he fed Curtis food in a cat's bowl:

Thank you! That timing makes a lot of sense in terms of how the storylines start to drift. I find that Nixon's run has some good individual stories, but overall feels less cohesive. Other than the Dante story, which basically ends up touching every other story and drawing just about all the characters in by the end of '93, in '94 the show becomes hyper focused on one story at a time for about 6-8 weeks while the characters who aren't involved in that particular story disappear for weeks at a time. I would have settled for Dinah Lee to have been refashioned into an early Dinah Lee type; she was a lot more interesting to me in her first iteration than when she was transformed into a more generic heroine. I figured the birth control thing was going to lead to a who's the daddy story with Clay, given how the months of set up since Curtis and Dinah Lee discover each others' identities basically demands the story go in that direction. Right after Curtis leaves, Clay tells Dinah Lee that he's not coming back and she says something to the effect of "he's gone, but you're still here, is that what you're telling me?" But then the show just... doesn't go there. I've always felt that the fallout from the Dante story would have made more sense if Clay had been the one Dinah Lee had gotten involved with rather than Trucker because Curtis already had so much anxiety about Clay and Dinah Lee before he left. In a way it feels like they were figuring out the Dante story as they were writing it. I just watched the episodes a few days ago, so it's fresh in my mind, but when Charles comes to town he tells Clay that the FBI has been keeping an eye on him for a year, which... why? He then says that whoever "these people" are, they may have been involved in Trisha's accident, but then that angle isn't pursued, nor is it explained why they think the accident might not have been an accident. And even though Curtis' connection to Tess is explained to Alex at the beginning of November, it isn't until the end of December that Jeremy finally puts it together that either Dante or Dante's family might be behind the plot. Shana's ownership of Burnell's would have been such an easy way to give Leo and Shana more story, given what an insecure chauvinist he is, but the show pretty much loses interest in both of them once the baby is born. The show can't even be bothered to really tie them into the plot against the Aldens; I remember there's a scene where the family is brought together so that the FBI can warn them that they're all in danger and the show doesn't even bother to include Shana and Leo, opting instead for a throwaway line about how they're being informed off screen.

Does anyone know when Agnes Nixon's 1993-94 run started? I had been under the impression that she wrote from September to September, but I recently did a rewatch of September-October '93 and there's a real "throw everything against the wall and see what sticks" quality to September and the stories that are being set up during that month are largely abandoned by the end of October: Tess' scam with Trucker's dad comes to a clumsy end with her basically outing herself to Trucker and him rejecting her. He gets involved with Angie and Frankie, who is characterized at this point with a lot of very sharp edges. The show gives up on Curtis, having him flee town after setting fire to Pins, and after he's gone the show spends a couple of episodes seemingly chem testing Jessica Collins and Randolph Mantooth for a potential Dinah Lee/Alex/Ava/Jeremy quad, with Ava immediately becoming jealous of the idea of Dinah Lee and Alex spending any time together. Clay declares that he's no longer in love with Dinah Lee and he, Gwyneth, Buck, and Stacey are established as a quad, with Gwyneth's pregnancy as a spoiler and Tess as a fifth wheel when Clay gets involved with her because he thinks he's missed his chance with Gwyn. By the end of October/beginning of November Gwyneth, who a few weeks earlier literally begged Buck to never leave her, lets him go and then promptly loses the baby, severing all that ties them together while Buck gets together with Stacey. Trucker stops hanging out with Angie and Frankie and the show starts moving him and Dinah Lee together. Charles is introduced to eventually become Angie's love interest. Jeremy breaks up with Ava and he and Tess start hanging out, while Ava unwittingly becomes part of Alex's cover story as the Dante storyline starts to take shape, which also ends up bringing Clay and Gwyneth closer together. The only storylines that really remain consistent during these couple of months are the Steffi/Casey/Ally/Cooper quad, and Shana and Leo's baby story. So I'm assuming now that Nixon actually started mid-October, given sudden redirections in the storytelling, but I'm wondering if anyone knows for sure.

I don't believe she ever wrote for OLTL again after her initial run as HW, but she did two stints on Loving, taking over for two years after Doug Marland left in 1985, and then returning from the fall of 1993 until the fall of 1994.

I remember reading at the time that Bobby was originally meant to have gotten Ryan's heart (which would have made him having Ryan's memories easier to buy than him having the memories because he got Ryan's corneas) but that they changed their minds when they realized that every time they wanted him to be shirtless, they'd have to show a scar on his chest.

Originally on the Vintage AMC channel on youtube. The channel has since been deleted, but some of the episodes from it are on Internet Archive: https://archive.org/details/AllMyChildren1987Jan-jul The scene I'm talking about starts at about the 40 minute mark of the January 16th episode.

They really did. I was watching some early 1987 episodes a few months ago and, even knowing how their story ends, I was completely captivated by Ross and Natalie. Before their affair actually starts he thinks she's been sleeping with Adam and there's a scene where he grabs her and says, "Why are you going to bed with him? Why are you going to bed with Adam?" and then kisses her and it. is. scorching. Wasting that kind of chemistry on a rape storyline makes no sense.

Erica Kane, now and forever And then, in no particular order: Jill Foster Abbott Dorian Lord Gwyneth Alden Augusta Lockridge Liza Colby, before she was neutered circa her marriage to Adam Ava Rescott

The Shana/Leo story really fizzles after they have the baby; they largely disappear until their exit storyline. It's unfortunately typical on soaps that while they like to milk the drama of the idea of a character having a baby with disabilities, they seem largely uninterested in dramatizing the day to day reality of a character raising a child with disabilities. The only time I can think of when a show actually made an attempt to keep a story like that going beyond the pregnancy was Holly and Fletcher on GL and, in the end, Fletcher and the baby got written out. I agree that part of the problem with Curtis was that the show could never settle on how he should be characterized. You had scheming Curtises (Marcantel, Albers, Lord) and more heroic Curtises (Ashby, Moses, and Johnson), but there's not really a common through line that connects the original Marcantel Curtis to the returned Marcantel Curtis. I remember on the Men of Loving reunion Marcantel mentioned looking through Curtis' history since he had last played the character and just tossing a lot of it out since it didn't work with the character as he understood him. The Kuwait story was a mess, but I think that’s partially the result of Guza/Taggart having to strip away parts of the original plotting. When I rewatch the storyline with the benefit of hindsight, it’s quite clear to me that it was originally plotted with the intention that Trisha would still be there and that there would be more to the Clay/Dinah Lee/Curtis triangle than what we ultimately end up with. I think that originally: Curtis would come back, haunted by an experience in Kuwait, which is what happened on screen. Trisha would be appalled by Clay’s plans to dismantle AE and seek to stop him and her newfound corporate ambitions would cause strain between her and Trucker, which is what started to happen. Trisha wanted to team up with Curtis to stop Clay and started to show glimmers of ruthlessness in what she was willing to do to accomplish this and the show made a point of showing Trucker disapproving, but then the whole Clay selling off AE piece by piece plot was abruptly dropped after Trisha died. Curtis would have been reluctant to join in Trisha’s plan because he didn’t want to get dragged back into the Alden mess, but then would have learned that he’d fallen in love with his father’s ex-girlfriend and would have joined forces with Trisha after all as a means of asserting himself and showing that he was better than his father. Buck would have shown up and begun insinuating himself into Trisha and Trucker’s life. I don’t think Buck was originally meant to be part of the Kuwait part of the story or have a past with Curtis, I think he was shoehorned in once it became clear that Noelle Beck wasn’t going to re-sign and they needed a reason to have Trisha speed off into the night so that she could be “killed.” Trisha and Curtis succeed in taking over AE and because she’s now spending so much time dealing with the company, she and Trucker need to hire a nanny to help out at home and Buck makes sure that Tess, his partner in crime, gets the job. Together Buck and Tess seize on the tensions that have arisen between Trisha and Trucker as a result of her getting in touch with her Alden dark side and him disapproving and work to further undermine their marriage. At some point there’s probably a beat where Tess and Buck make it look like either Trucker slept with Tess or Trisha slept with Buck, making the “cheated on” spouse vulnerable to an overture from their opposite sex con. Curtis panics when he learns that Tess is working for Trisha and Trucker, but can’t say anything because she’s holding her husband’s murder over his head. He tries to get her out of town without exposing himself in the process. Dinah Lee misinterprets Curtis’ fixation on Tess and her insecurities send her back towards Clay, who can’t resist even though he doesn’t want to hurt Curtis. Buck starts to have second thoughts about what he and Tess are doing, but before he can come clean, Curtis realizes that Buck is working with Tess and tells Trisha and Trucker everything, resulting in Trucker rejecting Buck just as he finds out Buck is his brother. Curtis then decides to let Dinah Lee in on what’s going on, only to discover that she’s now having an affair with Clay. He ends up turning to Tess and then Dante turns up alive and out for revenge and maybe he tries to kill Clay and frames Curtis for it.