Mitch64

I remember one scene between Reva and Mindy..I think it was Lewis Oil, and Reva was trying to convince Mindy that Will was up to no good with Sonni, and for some reason trying to keep her in the Lewis Oil office, and it got into a pretty good argument as it went back to Mindy not liking Reva...anyway, Reva says something like "Melinda Sue Lewis do not talk to me that way, remember I changed your diapers and I will take you over my knee in a minute" and Mindy storms out but before, she turns around and sticks out her tounge and Reva goes after her to and kicks the door. Funny scene, going back to what would have been the Mindy/Reva dynamic growing up, and fun to see someone who could get under Reva's skin (and had Pam Long all over it) but really accentuated that Mindy wasnt growing out of her spoiled princess period.

I think that is what GL needed post Mo dying, Buzzard ranting, Reva chewing the scenery, some nice lightheartedness and fun, which Mindy and Rick could supply...please no big dramas..we all know Mindy will f*ck up not out of meaness, but being Mindy, and Rick will take her back...MOL could NOT play drama and everytime he had to play.."in love" it came out weird...so they can just be the nice talk tos providing a little humor. I did like her and FD's chemistry, and he was the same...trying to play a Police Seargent was grilling people like Alex and Alan was laughable..he could only play nice ( I just remember him trying to cry when FauxEleni left him...it was so embarrasing.)But I can imagine what Rauch would have thought of having three nice people in a triangle...he would have Mindy go nuts and drug both of them or something. Yea, KT and Zaz..Simms came in at the right time for the story..she had a more mature sexiness and could go toe to toe with Bev/Alex...KT playing the part would make Roger look like a predator, and she would just stamp her feet and pout at Alex.

A more easy going Bob and Kim, and a more cheerful Ed and Mo! I just wish they had brought KT back when Crampton left of was fired...Nick was still on but no need to go back to that dead horse (plus, I dont know if KT and VI had chemistry) Alex was still on but they could have softened her tude towards Mindy, while still being wary of her (Marj's Alex would look like a total monster being mean to KT's Mindy) Roger was busy with the dumb Dinah plot so there would be no need to go back, just briefly mention their past (Zaz and KT would be...weird...) Rick had his head up his ass about Annie (which was quickly forgotten) and I can't think of anyone Mindy could date at that time, maybe that guy who was the cop JFP was trying to make happen but McTavish killed off, so there would be some hills to climb and the two could advise each other while dating others until they found their way back. They would be kind of Bob and Kim as two people who had a past together, became best friends and found their way back to each other as more mature people.

That's just it..the best relationships in the Real World are with people who are best friends..not wanting to bang each other to death or dig up a grave or scream "ALWAYS" at the top of their lungs. The show needed a normal couple and I could see Rick and Mindy as the cute nice suburban couple with their own quirks...Rick telling really bad dad jokes, and Mindy being a sassy princess, (can you see her hanging out at a kids soccer game??) to make them interesting. I never understood the Kurt/Mindy thing, when he was a Rick knock off, and they had this HUGE wedding for Mindy to marry an nobody, who was quickly forgotten. I can only think that they wanted to push Roxie, cause she was Reva's sister so they hung her on Rick, and gave Mindy a runner up (but damn Kurt was cute as hell...) Rick and Mindy could have had the same wedding and issues (Rick wanting kids and Mindy not, etc.) Abby was too saintly, something Mindy was not.

I too love Rick and Mindy..never understood that they did not get paired up..even in a triangle..I can see her being attracted to slick Will while Rick was the real person for her. I think the problem was that MOL and KT had a cute, nice chemistry like real people who would have lasted throughout the years, but soaps were so intent on "PASSION and ROMANCE" People can be cute and sexy and, which I thought Rick and Mindy were. Instead, Mindy got the block of wood Rusty and Rick got...Meredith????? Abby was nice but too young for Rick and, really, even Mo had a past..Abby was just nice, with no evil ex boyfriends to bring back or even family..isolating Rick even more. KT only other pairing that worked was that she did have a nice rapport with Frank, but again, he is the kind of guy that no matter how much GL tried to turn him into a "hunk" was a really cute nice guy you could depend on. Curlee even said it when she took over from Long, and his pairing with Melina worked as they didnt try making him a "stud"

McTavish made sense with her history with GL (playing Lola, writing for the show) and her "success" on AMC. Brent/Marion...excuse my French but she blew her load on that one and was limp afterwards. I loved B/M and I did not mind the "switching the HIV tests" plot...she could be very "meta" in her first 6 months...the switched tests mimicked the tired and true pregnancy/dna test switches and I loved the scene where Brent unmasks himself virtually to the cops by "The part of Marion Crane is now being played by....BRENT LAWRENCE" as his face morphs like Auntie Em to the WW. She COULD be creative but I think she needed a producer and coheadwriter to reign her in. But the rest of her time was a dud or poor choices. Brent killing Nadine, which nowhere but for one shock scene, Marcus, who we didnt know getting framed, Holly and Fletch and the downs syndrome baby.. It would have furthered story if he killed Fletch (he could frame Roger and Holly and the rest of the town believes it, except Alan, who manipulates more things to get Roger convicted...Holly going a bit wacko in her pursuit of Roger to get justice turning to booze to asuage her guilt, Ed and her slowly getting together as he knows what it is like to loose and spouse and also go off the deep end..) Family relationships were forgotten, (Bridget stopped calling Ed, "Uncle" and was never in the Bauer sphere, Chelle calling her aunt "Mrs. Chamberline") Alex, who did have funny lines during this time, was just a totaly bumbling shrew..Amanda the Malibu Madame and the twins by two fathers was just "ripped from the headlines" type crap..turning Dinah into a heroine, Roger loosing all his layers and the Lonatrat storyline...Vanessa just sighing away with boring Matt, things played for comic relief when it didnt work (Rick and Blakes one night drunken stand was played for laughs...Rick just screwed his stepsister who is married to the guy who is like an uncle to him, but it all yucksss.)And the tasteless plot of Gilly trying to screw her own dad (of course she doesnt know it..) which wasted both the actress and the actor playing the dad (who could have actually been a black romantic lead...) It all fell apart after Brent, and she floundered..and you could tell she had no respect or love for GL and just seemed to hate to be there..(funny you could see that in the material of a writer.)

Instead of killing Hillary off, they should have had her go into a coma, with her face severely burned..they could have had the same effect as it was just a plot point in the Susan Piper thing (and Mike couldnt even bother to come to his own sister's funeral...lets see he had to catch a plane at his Mom's funeral, and then he and Hope were in Switzerland for Mo's funeral, but Ed told them not to come home and they didn't..don't expect Mike Bauer to shed any tears once you croak!!) and they could have recast in 6 months to a year. The problem was dykey Hillary had no chemistry with male actors, but she was a Bauer so they should have kept her.

I remember the viewers at the time complaining to magazines that the Reardons were replacing the Bauers..so there is always someone complaining...

Well, he was sad sack in love with Annie (which was quickly forgotten) so of course, he was holding her purse when she went to the airport to see if Alex's story of Reva being alive was true. They all thought Reva was just jetting off to the good life with Alan (which she kinda was) instead of the sappy, "Oh the world moved on without me so I will just leave everyone to it" which was not Revalike at all. Josh, was acting like a lunatic yelling at his supposed true love being alive, and then he takes off with Annie (after her grabbing her purse from wussy Rick) so when Reva reaches out he judgementally rejects her. Got I hate McTavish, making me feel bad for Reva!!!

McTavish had people saying things..Nola saying that Josh and Annie better lay low now Reva is back in town, and Van and Lillian and Annie saying mean things about her. The bad thing is, people were too mean (Rick sees she is alive and she wants a hug or acknowledgement but he just walks away is weird..if I saw even one of my insane freinds back from the dead I would be all over them. I did like that McTavishs Van was not bowing down to Reva.

Ha..yes, in Marland's world..its the only polite thing to do! And since Kelly and Morgan and Hillary were "good" that meant they were polite and held no animosity. One of the reasons I loved Long and Curlee and JFP era was that good characters would snark on other good characters and people would roll their eyes at "Always" while not actively being mean to the characters. That went away again with Rauch when everyone had to think "Jeva" were the second coming.

As long as I don't see that Frankie D got nominated!!! Then I KNOW the barstools in Company could have gotten a nom.

LMAO...Alma "Well dear, I knew you would end up with one!" Lisa, "One WHAT, Mother?" (she always respected Nancy more then her poor mom." Alma: "You know dear, a man who is..theatrical" Lisa: "Oh, I KNOW, isnt it great...while Bob or Grant had NO interest in theater or musicals..while all they wanted to do is, Bob, watch the Cubs, and Grant sit with his books on history and law! Finally I found someone I have so much in common with!" Alma: "Oh, I think you two have more in common then you even think dear, but if your happy" Lisa, "Mother, I never know what you mean, I wish you would make sense sometimes!!"

I think during the end times of soaps (of which we are still seeing, though I would call the current soaps more as zombies..shuffling around, ravenous for viewers, but not having any direction or will to change their shuffling patterns) ANYONE could get nominated. I think RR seems to be a nice guy in real life (which I think leaked way too much over into Alan, but instead of giving him depth, made him look like a big wuss..) and probably had most of the cast voting for him, etc. I know Toby Poser gave an interview that she gave too much attention to RR's Alan over her supposed target of Ross, as she just loved RR. But three times????

No, it was a way to get Fulton off for her three month time off clause. Lisa gets a call from her Mom, who hadnt been mentioned in years, and has a discussion with Tom about it. She comes back ( after disquising herself as a cleaning woman at the Yacht club to spy on her family and friends to see what was going wrong..and try to fix it in the usual Lisa way..believe me, it was weird then...) and tells him that her mother is doing great, and that was that.

Hmmm..so Meta was meant to be a bit "tougher"? That's okay, I like tough matriarchs who are still "good" I think Nancy Hughes change from an ironwilled town matriarch, who is a little too involved in her friends and families life, to be a more Bert Bauerish grandma was not a good think. First of all, Wagner was colder then Charita (who could give someone a bear hug right after kicking their ass..hello Holly and Rita )so it didn't play that well. A gradual softening makes sense, but a total change? If that was the case they should have brought Meta back after Bert died and involve her with Claire, (which suprisingly they did later leading up to the anniversary before MS got really sick.) She would have known what it was like to be an outsider, but also would defend her family. MS and Pratt had good antogonistic chemistry (I think in one scene Claire call Meta, "An interfering old witch" to her face and Meta laughed it off) so it would have been interesting to see that unfold during baby Chelle's early years..(not that MS was availavble at that time.) She could have still taken over the BH ( I thought it was weird that Bea, a woman who raised so many kids, and had to support them after their dad disappeared, so was "sweet"..she should have been tougher.) and tangled with everyone from Claire, to Hawk (who lived and worked there) to H.B. (and we could be spared the H.B./Alex thing.) To add another topic...I watched the scenes with Watros and GA in her detox scenes in the Bauer cabin. What a missed opportunity that they didnt follow up on their chemistry. They could have still have the Reva trial...but let's say Alan was pulling the strings the whole time..(with a recast Alan..) Phillip is angry with Alan after finding out that he was behind the "A Spaudling" mess, as is AM (prompting him to leave town with Loosie...) and even Alex ( I do think Alex should have been given a breather at that point and "rested" so this is her time to say "Screw it, I'm going to go focus on Nick and his wife and globetrorr for a bit) Amanda is the only one to support Alan, but he does not care..all he cares about is Phillip. Phillip says he is going to work to get Alan out of Spaulding for good. InAlan's sick way he sees Annie (who he knows is obsessed with Josh) as a way to demoralize Phillip to come running back and to distract him from revenge. So knowing Phillip's penchant for victimized blondes, he puts them in each other's path, while slowly manipulating Annie to enact her revenge on Jeva. Annie comes up with her sicko plan, and it is Phillip who stands by her, putting him and Josh at odds, and Alan acting like he supports Phillip. The bomb drops, which would cause him to run into Harley's arms, etc. I like Alan as a behind the scenes manipulator, not the bag of hot air RR played.

As a preschool kid my Mom LOVED Edge of Night..that and ATWT was her fave, so I remember Martha Marceau and the voice being so..comforting...( I remember a storyline, where somone was trying to drive Martha crazy, making her think that her house was haunted(maybe?) and they poured blood in her closet to freak her out...and I was hooked as a kid and I wouldnt open a closet by myself for years. Anyway, as we mentioned, TK would have been a great Meta, and she could have taken over the boardhing house from Bea like Lainie did..hell, they should have brought her back when they brought Meta...I love MS, but the show needed a strong warm figure..and I never got warmth from MS.

Maureen wasnt yet in the matriarch role that we remember her for (and got her killed off. JFP HATED those type of roles) so having Bea there made sense. Especially since pre Chelsea we didnt see the other 3 Reardon siblings...(I would have one be a cop...instead of cheesy Rusty, Reva's brother should have been a himbo trying to get a rich wife...but for that they would have not cast as they did with boring Terrell.) I have no idea why they didnt think that her as a mother figure to the new younger characters coming in (as she was with Kurt) or value that. Frank was okay as a cop but as Cheif...come on! Even for as soap opera Frank was too stupid to be Chief and Frankie D trying to be an authority figure was laughable...Frank always worked better as the sweet, kinda dumb, guy you could count on.

Bette Davis was a big fan of Lisa Brown and Eileen Fulton, etc. Shelby Foote a novelist who wrote the book the Civil War, which Ken Burns turned into a groundbreaking miniseries...loved ATWT and would take a writing break when it came on..he and his wife called it "Doorways," cause someone was always in a doorway eaves dropping. Not a celebrity, but I always remember being in the third grade, where our classroom was right across from the principal's office, hearing the theme music from ATWT as the nuns and the secretaries would stop and watch it...(imagine their chatter over what Lisa or Joyce were up to..) The whole thing about not recasting Hope as they aged up AM was dumb...I think Deas and Frankie D were less then 10 years apart and I never thought anything of it...the Lyla actress and all the Margos were the a decade apart if that. They were just too lazy to recast.

I like that...I could see Joan or Susan as sophisticated world traveler...and of course the reason she couldnt come back was that Alan was blackmailing her with something..that fact alone would make Phillip wash his hands of Alan (hopefully for a long duration this time) and set the stage for Alan to take up the real heir over the Golden Boy. Interesting to see Phillip face a nonSpaulding identity.

Someone had suggested that Joan Collins should have played Elizabeth...though they would have to explain her new found confidence...and they could have given her something meaty and good to do.

I would have loved the "real" Spaulding male heir to show up..but it would have to be someone who could act and phyically GA's size to look like a real threat. DAM would have been great in that role..but I hated the island so. I don't know how they would explain the baby surviving, but it probably would be a nurse stole "another" dead baby and replaced the Spaulding heir...of course the nurse would have been Brandon's lover..they guy got around.

PS said that on his walk out of the studio, he played TAPS on a bagpipe! So odd, that they got rid of him as they had the Phillip reveal and my Mom thought he was "SEXY" so I am sure a lot of other at that time middle aged ladies thought so as well. Justin's return was the final months of Long tenure..(Reva is just starting to go nuts) so that may have been part of it, though I am sure he had it in more for Kobe as he was mad they were getting rid of all the vets and that was really more on Kobe.

Reading the San Crud start...how the hell did Reva, who had amnesia when she went to Goshen, have a box full of San Crud mementos after (spoiler alert but come on, you see it coming as soon as he appears on screen) Edmund tries to kill her and dumps her body in the drink..only to have the ever convenient fishing boat lug her butt out of the water again...(she had it all wrapped up in plastic bags strapped to her thighs?) Dumb, dumb, dumb...though I do like at the beggining where everyone in SC hates her..."Oh, it her..she's BACK"which mirrored some of the viewers when Kimmer came back. I find Reva so much more fun when she has people hating and annoyed with her. I like Liv and I liked her being tied to the Spauldings, and of course, despite her personal probs with GA, they smoked up the chemistry and she sparring with JoanAlex was fun.) I also thought Edmund was a good addition..an entiteld prince without a kingdom or any money who has to scheme..woudl have made a great pairing with India, and I did like him with SexKitten JoanAlex.

This is why I wanted Nola to find out about the affair and cause of death two years later..when she returned. Michelle, Rick, Bridget and AM would have all had to deal with their perfect "parents" having this horrible cloud over them. Nola who had been gone for years would turn her guilt over not being there for her sister to torturing Ed and Lillian (and give Nola a good reason to go back to her bad ways for a bit.)This could have given PS something to do at the time as Ed finally returns to the bottle, and Holly rushes in to help him (so its Ed causing the issue in the Folly relationship..not Roger, though he would love Ed fall from grace and make use of it.)