Mitch64
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Posts posted by Mitch64
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On 6/15/2022 at 12:45 PM, DRW50 said:
They seemed to start down this path when she went back to work and was feuding with Vicky, but that quickly just turned into her being shamed and Beth thro
Such a missed opportunity. I think in an earlier time writers would have written a good triangle...Vanessa getting back to baiscs and going head to head with Alan with help from Billy, Matt and Beth being attracted to each other not because of age, but Matt feeling left out and Beth at the pint in her life where she felt lost also. I would have had Beth start an abuse counseling business, and maybe Matt helps her with construction on an abuse victims home and thing progress slowly, with not vixen's or villian or "old" women.
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On 6/17/2022 at 12:24 PM, MarlandFan said:
I did not have the sense that Marland was getting tired of the show or that he was looking for an exit. And with the strong ratings, I don't think that P&G was thinking of replacing him. Unfortunately, Marland's death derailed the show. Which brings me to my final point: the show never recovered from his death. Marland's 9 years were ATWT's high water mark. I'm sad that we never got to see what he may have come up with for 1993 and beyond.
I know that Marland had another show in the hoppper, one more "urban" and "darker" then ATWT...I think that he may have just moved into a different phase in his writing and wanted to go there. I think that when the show wasn't picked up he transferred that feel to ATWT, which didn't fit the show.
On 6/17/2022 at 1:43 PM, DramatistDreamer said:Otherwise, it’s just being b*tchy for no reason, lol.
Who needs a reason??? : )
On 6/17/2022 at 1:58 PM, DRW50 said:Yes as I've been watching through it I don't recognize most of it either. I think those early scenes with Betsy and Steve at their cabin fooled me, as they had the same scenes about 500 times. I would have remembered the delightful scene where Ellen asks if Nancy could believe Lisa reunited them with their grandson, and Nancy deadpans that she absolutely can believe it. Feels like a line @Mitch64 would write here...
This old nanny of Stewart's (I'm guessing she is a baddie at heart) and her cod English accent is amusing.
The return of Nancy and Chris truly does add so much warmth to the canvas. So much of this episode is devoid of plot and is just people chilling at the Hughes home and it is wonderful. Sad that it took so long for this to happen but I'm really glad the usual spiteful figures at P&G or at the show let it happen.
This is more ATWT to me then Marland's run. It was warm and goofy but grounded. I think SBH was working Marland during his first year or two and the combination of the two...his discipline, and her warmth and ability to create warm connections between between worked. I think Marland was a great writer but a bit too disciplined that his dialouge and interactions to me, never came off as "real" as writers like Long and Curlee and SGH.
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3 hours ago, Paul Raven said:
Perhaps it was also Marland running out of ideas after 7 or so years. We see it often with writers coming to a show with fresh ideas, interesting new characters .
Agreed...but we all have to admit..as good as Marland was...he was a bit..one note..good God if anyone on the show talked about "therapy" and "honesty is the key to every relationship"( I always wanted Lisa to fly in then and say, "And money and a big d*ck doesnt hurt either!!!") or ANOTHER psycho started fondling a letter opener...I do think if talented younger writers came on and Marland spent a year with them, and then was a consultant for a year or two that would have worked but unfortunatley he didnt get the chance.) His best time was the first two to three years of his work on ATWT..then after that...no sorry, Oakdale started to be full of gloom...Even Duncan and Shannon before her "death" became bores.
But damn, were those three years great! I wonder how, if he lived, moving over to GL again would have worked..how would Marland and Jilly get along???
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18 hours ago, lilyredd said:
I know this conversation has been discussed but ATWT was very dark in the early 90s and I find your perspective mirrors mine in some ways. I think the politeness and lack of passion is another thing that hindered my enjoyment of those years. Like with a trial attorney having co-counsel during the trial is immensely helpful, Marland needed someone sharing head-writing duties.
For better (for most of his run) or worse (this part of his run) ATWT was the show and material which really represented Marland's..well, I guess psyche...the wasp Hughes family and their immediate circle being oh, so polite and well, waspy (Marland's aspiration) ..the farm family (Marland's past) the constant stream of hunky muscle boys in tight jeans falling in love with the good girl and becoming part of the waspy enviornment (Marland's young sexual yearnings? Marland's aspirations.) The constant reliance on "therapy" the sexual stiffness of his characters...(Marland's repressed sexuality???) The lack of warmth even in family scenes. During the dark period maybe Marland was "going through something," All this is a bit pretentious I know and just surmising but I really do think the material reflected the man more then I have seen any other show and its writers.
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2 hours ago, Soapsuds said:
Most of the viewers disagreed with you at that time. ATWT was higher in the ratings than GL in 1991.
January for which this clip of atwt is from...
I have no doubt..I was just giving my opinion..plus there were other factors involved with the ratings then just approving of the material. But IMO overall GL was more of an "enjoyable" watch..they had family, community, friends, mystery, business, love stories, some topical things, camp and of course, humor and just fun, which the at this time morose ATWT did not have.
Oh yes, and sex..GL had some good heated sex going on, which ATWT was too polite (or depressed) to show.
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On 6/13/2022 at 5:35 PM, slick jones said:
These are a great treat!
Agreed, I LOVE bitchy Van, no one could cut someone like Maeve (okay, Bev is the queen of that...) It was a shame that they made her a matronly bore for a few years right after this. I still think instead of recasting Alex they should have had Van step into the role..they could have still had the dull as dishwater Mattessa but maybe spiced it up a bit with Van getting her mojo back.
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1 hour ago, DRW50 said:
For some slim comic relief in Marland's very dark final years, you have a fun bitchfest with Lisa and Susan (Lisa clearly happy to fill in for Lucinda during her sojourn from Oakdale).
Thank for posting! Great acting, great writing and very, very unpleasant and not fun....(just watching the bit of GL during that time against this gloomy town I can see why GL became my fave soap at the time.) Not interested in watching the fall out of a woman (who made no lasting impact on Oakdale) deal with the after effects of aborting the child created from incestuous rape! Kudos for the network for allowing this material to hit the air.
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16 hours ago, TVFAN1144 said:
My memory may not be clear but I do know she was seeing somebody else at the same time as the minister. It could have been Don
Between a minister named Wally and Don Hughes poor Lisa was really going through a bland faze!
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22 hours ago, Spoon said:
RR was so campy as Alan, I doubt he'd be much better as Mike.
When he first came on he wasn't bad...and he had kind of a sexy (I know weird) rascally vibe, he was just not to the manor born Alan and he always came off as too nice..so he tried to make up for it as being bombastic or grumpy.
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On 6/5/2022 at 2:40 AM, danfling said:
Actor Charles Siebert, who played Dr. Wally Matthews (a minister) who dated Lisa, has passed away this week. He was on the show in the early 1970s, and he was also on Search for Tomorrow and Another World.
A minister named Wally Matthews...doesn't really seem that exciting for poor Lisa after her string of men and being married to Michael Shae..did he try to "save" her???
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On 6/6/2022 at 1:00 PM, DRW50 said:
I think it would have been a mistake recasting Mike, especially with the shaky recast of Ed not long before, but I am sorry we didn't get a Mike/Alex pairing. That could have provided so many layers and so much family drama, especially if Hope returned. Alex ended up feeling much more aged than she should have been, between the pairing with Warren (who always seems very gay to me), then HB, and all the obsessive focus on Lujack and later Simon.
In a perfect world Kobe would have talked Simon into leaving and recast Mike...or gone back to the well and rehired MH and then recast Mike. The Mike/Alex thing was too could to let go and never get back to. Of course years later I would have preferred RR to be cast as Mike and someone else as Alan...especially at times they made MarjAlex seem less of a control freak sister and more a jealous girlfriend (though to be fair their were always elements of that in Bev/Alex and Bernau, but Bev knew how to play subtext and Marj..knew how to chew up the scenery (God love her!!!)
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2 hours ago, Paul Raven said:
Interesting to see that episode one year into the show's run.
The John Hughes story was front and center here but that character never was prominent and seemingly forgotten.
He did come to Oakdale for a short time. If John had have been used more some Hughes cousins could have been brought in at some point.
So Chris and Nancy thought it best that the children thought their uncle was dead rather than know the shameful truth that he was a criminal. And now Chris is lying to Nancy about seeing him....I'm sure Mrs Hughes went on blast when the truth came out.
As for lovers Jim and Edie-they were not even allowed a peck on the cheek.
Interesting that we went from evening in the first scene to late afternoon/evening after the ad break. Soaps hardly ever move to a new day in the same episode.
Les Damon,Santos Ortega and Don McLaughlin had all done heaps of radio soaps in the 40's and had probably. crossed paths on many occasions.
I think Damon was wearing a toupee as I have seen pictures of him balding from the 40's.
Have to hand it to the actors remembering their lines in a live 7 minute scene.
Never understood why they didn't bring in the Hughes cousin's and their children. I think it would have been good to have a farm girl vixen type Carly type come to Oakdale and live with Chris and Nancy so she can deal with another Lisa type.
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Loved her as Bea...can't believe Long got rid of her..twice.. with Charita gone the show needed a matriarch and they could have brought in endless Reardon kids and grandkids..and with the boardinghouse constant rotation of new young trouble makers.
I can't believe as Bea she was younger then I am now!
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4 hours ago, Tonksadora said:
Of course, Grant Aleksander playing Alec McIntyre on AMC, well he wore his Speedo well.
Speedos on guys in soaps always looks so "Skinamax" and dumb....(I have really never seen anyone wear one in real life in public...) even if you could get away with it as GA obviously could (Phillip with his shirt off yes, Phillip in a speedo..no...)
My favorite sets were Bob and Kim's house (consisting of living room, den, and kitchen) and how it morphed from this kind of simple house that Nick and Kim lived in, to this bigger place where people were coming in and out of all day. The traffic made no sense (with the murder rate in Oakdale wouldnt the Hughes lock their doors) but it was a great fantasy of having a center of town where people could go to when they were in trouble, or just needed to bitch about what Ole Johnny and Lucy were up to! I also loved the Bauer living room with that spanish influenced circular fireplace as I said before. Its one of the few family sets on a soap that was distinctly designed.
Though as a kid I still remember the Karr's simple living room from Edge and of course, the Collingwood foyer and stairs from Dark Shadows..but the ultimate was the Collin's family crypt with the lions heads which had the pull coming out of the mouth and people would pull on that to find an entrance to a tunnel, a vampire's coffin, or a vortex or two. Always was jealous of gay little David Collins who got to run around the property unsupervised always.
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On 5/11/2022 at 11:25 PM, DRW50 said:
Agggh.. Guiding Coopers...with Lucy in her "Harley Spunky" phase!! I HATED endless scenes of Nadine and Jenna making a fool of themselves over Buzz.
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On 5/5/2022 at 4:46 AM, Tonksadora said:
I've always thought that this was an error in judgment. They moved a number of people from contract to recurring at that time, obvious it was crunch time yet again over money.
I think it was more than an error in judgement..it was just a stupid executive and creative decision. You take the longest running cast member, who had become the patriarch of the show and really taken over the Bert Bauer "town confessor" role, who had three young kids who were ready to be sorased, not to mentioned father of the revitalized town trouble maker Dinah who connected to each core family and then you keep other characters, like Buzz and Frank on the canvas, all to prop Gush (not to mention Brad Cole) I give Wheeler a ton of breaks but not on this one.
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4 hours ago, Vee said:
IMO her performances leveled up considerably from the Rauch era in the last, sad years of GL while the rest of the show went to hell, and a big part of that was because she (by her own admission) stopped caring about how she looked and the scripts were a mess, so she just went off raw talent. She never reminded me more of a British soap matriarch than she did in those days. She still does.
Agreed...I actually started liking Reva again in the terrible Peapack era (despite the stupidity of them putting her with Jeffie and having a postmenopaus/post cancer baby.) Rauch, MADD and I think Zimmer herself got Reva wrong...she was not the love goddess or a Vikki Bucchan type heroine...stripped down her character was earthy and all of those shoulder pads and all that big hair covered up the cleaning ladies daughter who just wanted love and stability but continually f*cked that all up. The outrageous stories that everyone continually told us Kim "could play the hell out of" never worked for the character or the actress. And I agree, Newman looks best with facial hair but I would love to age (or just look) like him at any age.
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7 minutes ago, Tonksadora said:
So, what you're saying in a nutshell is that Megan McTavish happened to GL, right?
Nope...JFP happened first..she brought Lucy on and put her in the spotlight and force her into AM and poor saps at home, apparently desperate for a super couple to root for (never got that) were cheering on LAM (E). Buzz was eating up the show on Jill's watch, Kat left during Jill, she put Gilly with Sid Dickerson instead of AM and then McTavish came on board and just, continued the same...(though she upped Jill by making poor Gilly fall in love with her own bio-dad!!)
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33 minutes ago, Tonksadora said:
OLTL was infested with FOJs! Friends of Jill, that is. Could not stand Lucy!
The worst part of Lucy is that she was not only a terrible character, she brought other characters down with her. First were the young characters played by better actors like Bridget and Kat who got their airtime gobbled up by this non-entity, then there was AM, who had really great chemistry with Gilly, but they had to regress him to be in love with Lucy. Then there was the overload of Buzz and the Coopers and that they were trying to replace Harley with Lucy. Then they can't decide on what she was..first she came on as the "spunky" Harley lite, then she is the damsel in distress. They even threw the old soap trope, raping her, to make her a victim and somehow earn the audience's sympathy, (which ruined another great character/actor Brent Lawrence who could have been Roger's mini-me but instead became a psycho named Marion.
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15 minutes ago, MichaelGL said:
DAYS: Daniel Jonas and Melanie
What a horrible period that was.
GL: Of course Reva, but I'd throw in Cassie, Richard/Jeffrey, and Edmund too.
GH: At this current point; Carly under the current regime.
Yea, to all of those on GL...God, who thought those island people were interesting??? Reva ate up the show during Long's run but there was so much going on when she was not onscreen and she was mixed in with the rest of the cast....During Rauch's time it was the big REVA storyline, and oh, yea, everyone else. Even during the climax of the stalker storyline (which I liked...okay, so kill me...) Holly's moment on the bridge became all about Reva and Zimmer chewing the scenery. Talking her down should have been Ed, or better yet Blake, (since it was being a bad mother which set her off) but no..its gotta be Reva saving the day.
3 minutes ago, MichaelGL said:Honestly, looking back on GL, I was okay with Billy/Roger/Alexandria occupying a majority of the storylines & airtime under Curlee/Demorest. 2 out of the 3 had good writing most of the time. (Alex until the whole Mindy/Nick mess)
I never thought Billy took up that much airtime...even during the Lewis takeover in 1985. I did always think it was weird that he became this....just kinda there character after jail ..I know it had to do with Jordan's issues..but when Van came back from that stupid faked death and then sighing on the internet over "Maaaatt" I thought they would have him at least pining away for Van.
Oh, how could I forget that GL for a few years was "Guiding Buzz..let's watch JFP and the writers come up with scenes for Deas to chew up what was left of the scenery to get an Emmy from the lazy daytime Emmy committee"
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On 5/1/2022 at 12:42 PM, Tonksadora said:
I never *got* the idea that the hotel was attached. That was not working. Made zero sense.
Actually, they explained that it was an old hotel that they rehabbed, to not really attached but close, which made sense that it could be a summer hotel...as the lake could have been atttached to Lake Michigan (which makes me again say Springfield should have been in Michigan not Illinois..as Illinois has about two lighthouses and Springfield would have to a north shore suburb with their yachts and things and it never seemed like that...
On 5/1/2022 at 12:59 PM, j swift said:Logically, it would be dumb to build a lighthouse in the middle of a forest, a harbor seems more appropriate, but they rarely referenced what part of town the lighthouse was built. Was it down near Fifth Street, or uptown closer to the Spaulding Mansion?
I know, but I am saying the rando light house they had Cassie and Reva at made them look like they were coming out of the woods...lost (and hadn't Reva lived in Springfield long enough I wanted her to pick up something pink "Oh, there's mah panties I lost in 1985!!! Was it Joshua, or Kyle, or that crazy guy Cane????")
Carrying on SF real estate...I wished Rick would have moved to lighthouse (after divorcing boring Mel) and let Ross and Blake move into the Bauer house and they could have become the new tentpoles...(R.I.P. JVD!)
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3 minutes ago, j swift said:
I'm thinking of at least one kidnapping and one death that occurred at the lighthouse. Can anyone recall how many people died, or almost died, falling off of the thing?
Which is why it was odd a few years later that they would build a hotel there. It seems like an bad idea to construct a tourist attraction on the fatality site of many of the town's villains. But, then again, who would vacation in Springfield?
The clone kidnapped Reva there right? Marion kidnapped Dimbulb Lucy, Phillip locked Chelsea out in the lighthouse....light area so she wouldn't spoil Alex and his plan to take over Spaulding in the merger with Lewis, there was the infamous JFP burning down of the lighthouse...the lighthouse suddenly was restored and then years later Meta and Claire were doing a fundraiser to restore it(???) then they had the hotel built on to it...and then suddenly with the new model Reva and NuCassie are wondering around lost and end up at the lighthouse (there was no hotel attached suddenly) and its in the woods, and the last shot of the show the lighthouse is right there in a harbor with no woods to be seen. I would say the Lighthouse was in a pocket universe of its own that had some weird Twin Peaks thing going on.
2 hours ago, Tonksadora said:Yes, I hold Marty West against him. And besides not being able to act, he sold amateur video tapes of himself wrestling, he exposed his buttocks in the middle of a scene & brought down Standards & Practices, and it appeared to me that he made Aubrey Dollar frightfully uncomfortable in scenes with him.
Oh poor Marty West had to do something to pay the rent...but it was not his fault that Conboy had a hard on for him and ruined the budget to build a baseball set to get him into a uniform or threw Dollar, one of the most talented young actors GL had in those years, and wasted her on him, or made him show his ass on...(ah Conboy, we have all seen asses in our lives, its not that exciting...) Its funny how close West's facial features are to the actor who played Shane at the last, except that actor was more masculine and actually had chemistry with his parents and the rest of the cast.
3 hours ago, RavenWhitney said:I always felt that if Conboy had matched his lush production style
That was the problem, at that time GL could not afford his lush sets...Rauch had screwed the budget up as it was...but he had a lot of the old sets refurbished before he left, like the Bauers, Company, etc. and the show didn't need production, it needed writing and casting. Blame Conboy but it was MADD who hired him, let him hire Weston, let him turn the show into something even worse then the worst of Rauch.
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7 hours ago, Soapsuds said:
Interesting time at ATWT..the Dobson's are gone and Marland hadn't arrived. You can tell the writers are trying to get back a "family feeling" and an ensemble. The very start of Kim and Bob reuniting...(was Kim secretly this singer they are talking about.) Interesting seeing boring Lyla having some fire and not liking Betsy...Craig was the ultimate Momma's boy bad or good, which is what they forgot when they recast him during Gautman, and here he is starting his redemption arc..Amazing how much BVF looks and sounds like Fulton but just can't pull it off..and mmmm.Jay...I was crushing hard on him in high school. Gunnar is a bore...weird seeing Babs with no shades of grey, they are trying hard to get a storyline for Annie and Jeff but they will be written out soon.
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On 4/29/2022 at 1:58 AM, Tonksadora said:
Nancy Curlee Demorest had intended to stay out to have the child she was pregnant with and then get back in the game but she got pregnant again and stayed out another year to have this, their third child.
She said in interviews that she was moving over to GH and then found out about being preggers...and by that time she wanted to spend time with her family and not deal with the bullshit of being a headwriter. If I was Rauch I would have hired her as a consultant for at least a year, I think she would have been able to turn Reva back into...Reva instead of that self righteous heroine they attempted to make her.
1 hour ago, Patrick D said:I think soaps get it wrong when they focus on the idea of super couples. It gets tired quickly, and as was already mentioned, the stories get more ridiculous and they’re often isolated with maybe one other character in a triangle. And it repeats and repeats.
Agreed, and it also effects the budget....showcasing Zimmer constantly ( and I DO like her..not that MUCH of her) gave her too much power and allowed her to write her own ticket...when its an ensemble you can say "Here's the deal, if you don't like it we have Vanessa, Holly, Alex, Amanda...whoever over here with story...."
Also, you look at stuff like early 70s ATWT..which was supposed to be SO conservative and outdated...but its not..Dan and Susan have an open marriage, which ultimatley will fail, you have Dr. Shea seducing an older lonely woman from a core family, just for her money, she turns to drink when the town slut goes after him..town slut thinks she is in love, until she gets married to him and then they torture each other...it seems so much more adult and layered...sure Shea is a bad guy, but Lisa is not a psycho bitch and Claire is not perfect...Dan is not Jack Snyder..Mr. good guy being screwed over by Susan..they could be more cutting edge because they had Nancy and Chris back in the kitchen and everyone had shades of good and bad.
1 hour ago, Patrick D said:Betty Rea cast trained actors - when did she leave? That might’ve accelerated the decline? Because the caliber was still there with some, but never again with an ensemble like this.
It was a huge loss (Rae) but Rauch said to Mimi Torchin I believe that they had to compete with Skinamax (remember those bad old soft core porn movies..) so they had to cast model types...(as if anyone is watching soft corn porn at 2 in the afternoon and if they are they arent going to turn it off to watch models fully clothed in pastel business suits...) Remember Jim Lemay went from being played by a normal looking guy to being played by that muscle guy who I believe was in some of those movies...but he was still boring and no one cared when he died in that fire (R.I.P. to the actor tho..)
1 hour ago, Patrick D said:The show at that time was also darker, sexier and moodier. Rauch was praised for brightening the look and feel in the later 90’s but I think it exposed lower production values and made it less intimate and consequently, less exciting.
Agreed but JFP went way too dark...look at the Bauer set, it is bright for Christmas and then they kill Mo and the house is constantly shot dark..okay, storyline reasons there but the whole show was in shadow, along with Mo dying, the recasts, Alex being a cartoon shrew schreeching, Buzz taking over the show and all the women allowing this troll to obsess them..it all became depressing. But agreed on Rauch, the blinding lights on every damn set constantly looked terrible matched with the pastel clothes. The Spaulding mansion with Alan there and Alex gone should have been lit dark and more masculine, Carmen's house should be dark and isolating as her life should have been potrayed...etc.
1 hour ago, Patrick D said:I don’t think it’s a coincidence that in the end, so many characters from this era were brought back. If they knew that was how to end it, why didn’t they try to return to what worked earlier and keep the show going?
Agreed...we spent so much time in Gradyville...why? Though I think Wheeler struck a good balance during her years, bringing people back like Van and Matt when needed for the story, she attempted to get Simon, Alex was always around (though admittedly not written correctly) and not driving story (which both she and Alan should not have been doing at that time..) Why they couldnt have just brought back Mindy earlier for Rick (his only successful pairing beside Abby IMO) leads me to believe Wheeler had better intentions then Gautman, she just didn't know how to pull it off.
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Guiding Light discussion thread
in DTS: Cancelled Soaps
Posted
I thought that happened. I remember Phillip asking Mo if she had Mike's number in Washington, and she was like "I think I have it somewhere..." uh, its your brother in law (even though she was estranged from Ed at that time.) I remember at the time thinking it should have been Mike crashing on the island with Alex, not Fletcher (sorry, I could not STAND Jay Hammer in those years and they kept throwing divas at him to make it work when he just worked at a pal to everyone..) and then Mike finally catching up to Alan and putting him in prison.