Kane

Came across an old issue of Soap Opera Weekly from 1993 and found this article about one of the only times (perhaps the only?) when a soap opera focus group convinced TPTB to keep an actor and give them a story. I'd say it's a shame the show didn't consult them again the following year when they decided to write Susan Keith/Shana out after all, but if she'd stayed Shana probably would've been murdered in '95 anyway. Based on the timing of the issue (July/93), I'm guessing that the unnamed actor is Patrick Johnson, who played Curtis from February-May, 1993. He was pretty wooden, but I'm not sure what was so objectionable about him that the audience reaction was that bad. I certainly preferred him over the next Curtis, though I didn't think either was ultimately very good in the role.

Pierce was just Jeremy without the accent: an artist who had past with Trevor from their days as mercenaries, who spent several years living in isolation while trying to cope with his tragic past, which included a woman he loved and lost. I liked him with Janet - although I hated it when he dumped her and she became obsessed with Brooke; I'm very grateful that the powers that be changed their minds about letting go of Robin Mattson and having Janet get plastic surgery to look like Brooke - but the character should have left with Fitzpatrick.

Ugh, I'd forgotten about the Jim Thomasen storyline. Poor Julia Barr, Brooke went from Jim Thomasen to Elliot Freeman, which was gross in its own way.

Before Angie and Charles' wedding, Gwyneth and Stacey have a heart to heart and Gwyneth tries to give the locket to Stacey, almost as though she's trying to replace Trisha with Trisha's best friend. Stacey declines to take it and later, during the reception, we see the "killer p.o.v." for the first time. It's like Stacey's rejection caused Gwyneth to relive Trisha's rejection, making Stacey's status as the first victim all the more poignant.

Speaking of Kirk, does anyone know what the story is behind the show recasting with Robert Newman just to play out the last 28 episodes of Kirk's original storyline? I assume that something happened with Joseph Bottoms since it seems strange to recast so close to the end and since Bottoms returns to the role later.

Oh no, he definitely actively framed Trucker. He opened a Swiss bank account in his name and then transferred money into it to make it look like the mob? military dictatorship? that was running San Felipe had paid him off to sign off on the faulty airplane parts. Interestingly, this is one of the few (maybe the only) times when Clay did something like this in order to cover for someone other than himself. He had no idea what was going on in San Felipe until after the crash; it was Cabot who knew about it, but he couldn't afford to do anything to rectify the situation because AE had lost so much money earlier in the year because Amourelle put out a toxic face cream. I think they would have gotten past any guilt via the knowledge that Trisha would have given the relationship her blessing because she loved them both and because if she had to chose someone to stand in her place as Christopher's mother, she would have chosen Stacey. Dinah Lee taking on that role, on the other hand, would have had her spinning in her grave if she was actually in it. Personally, I would have gladly taken a Trucker/Stacey relationship if it had gotten her away from Buck. I liked Buck/Stacey well enough in their first go round, but once they broke up he went off and had all these other storylines while she was reduced to just... waiting around for him, month after month for the better part of a year, until he finally got himself together and they reconciled. And even then they broke up and got back together several more times before she died. Funny that Trucker and Buck each ended up with the exact woman that Trisha and Stacey, respectively, would have been most annoyed to see him with. I usually detest older man/younger woman pairings, but I loved Clay and Steffi together. I think it helps that the relationship makes a lot of psychological sense, given that Steffi's father had basically cut ties with her, leaving her desperate for a father figure, and Clay was still struggling to come to grips with having forever lost his opportunity to be a real father to Trisha.