Mitch64

Jon giving the creeps was a good thing...when he first came on he was the villain, hurting a young girl, a relative (and yea, sorry, there was a consent issue there.) For a few months he was the villain and it was great...like Reva's sexual ID come to life, with no constraints weaponized to do harm (whatever you say about Reva, her use of sexuality was never intended by her to harm anyone..) It also helped the TP gave off of a vibe that he would f*ck anyone he wanted, no matter the sex, to get what he wanted which was usually to hurt someone. But then he got popular and the press went on and on and Kreizman got a writers boner for him and they had to vanilla the character and the (God I hate the word...Jammi) relationship. But Jon still gave the creeps out despite trying to make him a generic anti hero. He was always going to win, not only at the end of a storyline, but in each scene (you can see the director letting TP get away with his "laugh" to end every scene) and the character quickly became intolerable. If they let him continue to be destructive, have Reva and everyone continue to stand up to him (did Billy ever get to give him a beat down) and even paired Tammy with him to show a truly toxic relationship (this was one time sexual abuse counter would work for both characters,Jons use of it to hurt others and Tammy's low self esteem to accept her attacker and make excuses for him) would have really interesting and I think both actors could have pulled it off. But GL went the cheap boring route. Too bad first couple of months were damn good.

Agreed... both did great and I couldn't stand Ehlers at that point. I think Kim channeled her "grand good humor" that Jerry said about Charita (and whatever one can say about Kimmer, and I have, at her best she does have the same thing...her fragile ego and need to compete just got in the way...) and Ehlers channeled Irna's brittleness and just not taking it attitude..which Ehlers had in spades at that time..it just didn't suit them trying to make Harley the romantic heroine (I always wish Harley had gone back to her tough girl ways after being jilted by everyman. she was with...now Ehlers could play the HELL out of that..) About Vanessa, yes, I think she should have been the end game matriarch..but paired with JVD as patriarch. I would have moved everything to have Ross and Van reunite and be the new tentpoles...Bloss and Mattessa fans be damned. Ross has the gentle warmth that would offset Maeve's icy backbone of steel (I would never want to be on the end of Kim Hughes "kiddo" but I would NEVER, EVER want to feel the quiet wrath of Vanessa, even Reva admits at the end that she is afraid of her!!!)

As far back as 97/98 Kimmer was complaining (Kimmer was always either trying to prop up the latest cheesy Reva story, or when it failed going to the press and complaining about it, or just complaining...) that they were trying to turn her into "Bert Bauer" by even having her tut tut at Cassie for something...(she also said they had 6 characters to fill in as Reva, while not making Reva..Reva) so Kimmer was NEVER interested in that role. She wanted to be the Slut of Springfield forever, and that was not going to work, nor was Reva a matriarch. So I do feel sorry for Wheeler in that she was stuck with the "star" of the show aging and getting heavier, but still wanting to cling to the past, and getting more desperate about it each day. P & G , Rauch and MADD created that monster by pushing Kim as the star of the show and kept feeding it and Kimmers ego over the years so Wheeler was left with an older, fatter star who didn't want to face reality, and she had no one to back her up. The one thing I will give Wheeler is that she rose to the challenge by putting Reva more in a support role and making her the most likeable she had been in years. I also give credit to Kimmer as she started playing Reva much like herself..getting older, getting cranky, getting tired, getting sick of having to compete..which is exactley what Reva should have been then (I will ignore marrying that black hole Jeffie and getting a ridiculous miracle pregancy..) They offered Ellen Parker the Bert role but she turned them down. I actually thought did a great job on playing Charita...she gave her that warm sense of humor that Charita played through everything (I think Bert was my fave matriarch as you know she could knock down a brown drink and tell a hilarious story) But I think I thought that episode was really good, despite Wheeler trying to use it to justify incest Jammi.

Back in preschool days ATWT must have been on at 12:30. My Mom LOVED ATWT (she stopped watching when "they got rid of the old people" and Wagner quit for a time) and she loved to hate Lisa..."Let's see what THAT Lisa is up today!" (cementing my love of bad girls with a heart who stirred [!@#$%^&*] up..) I ate lunch at Noon and 12:30 was "nap" time though I never slept, she would rock me while watching "her show" or "world turns." So my earliest memories are Nancy, Chris and Grandpa sitting and discussing events and the voices of Wagner, Hastings and Fulton immediately brought back feeling comfortable well into the last day of ATWT. My earliest memory of actually watching soaps on my own is Dark Shadows, I was so jealous of that David kid who got to live in a house with vampires, ghosts, portals, and vengeful sexy witches!!!

I take it they weren't having sleep overs at each other's house and giggling about boys? I can't imagine that anyone thought the two of them would be friends. Both are strong women with distinct visions, and both tend to favor men over other women. Its too bad, Long's heartfelt work with JFP's production work would have been great. Those clips of the Company redo with Reva acting "wild" again. You can tell that something is going on behind the scenes as Kimmer is very stiff, and not playing those scenes with a bit of desperation as she would normally do...Reva upset and trying to bravado her way out of it. I love that Reva has one sip of her drink and Abby is all concerned. As ridiculous as it is to have cute Twink J. making over middle aged Reva, it would have been a fun if they had a one nighter, while Buzz and Josh are having a pissing match over her the younger even prettier then Josh guy is going at it. Plus, the fun of having Nola and Reva having it out over it. Yes, the Josh Days guy has much better chemistry with Brown and they are sexy together. Too bad he wasn't cast as another character then, or later on just bring him back after Quint leaves. Maybe chief of police and Nola always getting in his way.

That is the problem with soaps, they don't consider or they just try to get rid of their individual styles. Long was great with GL, a community soap (especially her first tenure..all the families were in play and had their own characteristics..) but not fit at all for SB (have no clue for OLTL but her style did not seem "ABCish") I would have loved to see what she could have done on ATWT. I do think she would have respected the core famiies...though it was a lot more of an uptight colder show then free wheeling GL. Re Grillo..I remember a talk show where he totally bitched (in a supposedly good humored way) about his exwife being a drain..and this was the mother of his kids. He always seems like most of the parts he plays, an oily creep (who is about 5'8.) They did have chemistry..and it would have been interesting if it showed Cassie bringing out his good side while he brought out more of her bad side (LW was born to play a bitch) It would have been more interesting if Reva and Josh and others were totally against it, and Cassie tells them to go to hell and it drives a wedge in things. The perfect time to start this would have been after Reva pulled the plug on Prince Dickie...and both Eddie and Cassie go after her. It would have been interesting, dark and hot, for a short term.

I know she was in HW, but too bad ATWT did move heaven and earth to bring her back as Natalie, instead of that woman they recast, Granted the storyline sucked but the Dobsons would have kept her on when they came back to rejigger things and hopefully a good storyline with John or James.

Big Billy? Definately better in the sack than pretty boy Josh. He is funny, doesn't take him self too seriously and can damn well keep you WARM on a cold midwestern night! I also think that Billy would satisfy Reva's sex drive better, i.e. just fun sex, then out for pizza and beer, where Josh would satisfy the "romance" and wooing and worshiping thing Reva needed. Josh says, "How was I, did I satisfy you?" where Billy slaps you on the ass and says, "Damn you're as good as always!" I remember that Oprah and as much as Kimmer and Reva annoys me with the "Look at ME" and airtime hogging, she was OUR annoying air hog! I remember thinking, "Oprah, you do know you have Reva Shayne Lewis on, a woman who can suck a golf ball through a garden hose and go bear hunting with a stick, while you have brittle skinny Lucci..who cares about her!"

That's funny, the only time I like post resurrection Reva, was during Wheeler (though I do agree she was inept.) I would have taken a page out of MADD and Rauchie and just sent Reva to heaven...(for good this time) and watched what an over 40 heavy woman could get after that. Reva became just what she needed to be at that point, support, a unique character, and one of the last touch stones for the audience on GL. But I wouldn't have played her game.

The younger actors especially had nothing but nice things to say about Beverlee, acknowledging she was a force to be reckoned with. She would take them under her wings and out to dinner in an interview she gives a funny story about Derwin taking HER out to dinner, and it was usually the other way around. You could see that come out in Alex...she was always softer with the younger people, which I thought was cool and totally Alex, the woman who lost her son, twice, dealing with young people. Yea, MG looked GREAT and was still sexy..(hell, I loved the Stalker storyline as she got out of Rauch's pastel suits to slink around in leather!)

Zimmer was sex on a stick her first three years on the show, and after she had her babies you can see her aging and gaining weight...something we all do as we age...and not being quite the hottest thing in town despite the writing...(thought Long was getting away from that by having Reva mature a bit and giving her stories about her kid, etc.) It doesnt get full blown until she returns from the dead (funny that McTavish spits on MG for getting older and makes fun of Lucci's ego when Zimmer was not hot stuff when she returned and had an ego to match Lucci) and goes full forces when Rauch returned. Zimmer was an attractive woman, but she was not the hotttest thing in town when you had Beth Chamberline and Laura Wright there. I have no doubt that Zimmer was intimidated by matching RN up with LW...and as someone pointed out, LW is a savy woman and she knew that Kimmer would unleash her frau dogs on her and go to the press behind everyone's back to drop "news" about LW. Zimmer was famous for doing things like that, acting buddy buddy with an actor but doing the same with a reporter and dropping gossip about the other actors, but acting like she cared about the actor (example, when Marj got dropped Zimmer talked to the press about where poor Marj was devastated as where was she going to find a job at "her age"..) And yes, Zimmer's fans and some dumb press thought she was a straight shooter, because she would do the same thing, drop [!@#$%^&*] about an actor or somethign going on in the show that wasnt advantageous to her, but it was all in for herself, unlike Bev who used her clout to help the other, especially younger actors, I never liked Zimmer because of that. I do think the Rauch/Zimmer relationship is interesting. He totally hated any woman who wasnt' "hot" and she was well past the hot time, so I can only think that Kim knew which side her bread was buttered and kissed a*ss like crazy, and narked on all the other actors, as he ate that stuff up. Toxic and its really screwed the show over in the long run .

That was a huge part of it, but I also think Zimmer had the mindset of "This is how the industry works, babe, learn to deal with it. I had to get through it, you do too." And as discussed, Zimmer does tend to like and respect men more, so she could think, "Oh, its just a guy thing, tell him to go to hell" and not think through the implications that while she could tell people to go to hell, a younger/less established actress could not. Not saying her view was right.

Agreed, but it just seems that there was an understanding or contract that Maeve would return after her break (I think it was a hip replacement???) You could tell that Rauch was not invested in Van or her pairing even before the Mattessas went wacko over the "no bedroom sex scene." Also she was older and he was older, so there was that element.

I think they got along fine, but were totally different. Maeve was a "working actress" and was not tied up in being a star. Kimmer had an ego and a work ethic and insatiable need for attention to go along with it (I always wonder how families deal with an individual like that) and Maeve, just wanted to do good work and writer her poetry. I think Maeve may have resented that with the arrival of Reva and Alex she lost a lot of story, but I don't think she held it against the actresses. Regarding Rauch, she was going to sue for sexual harrassement, PG then made the move of Maeve to GL. I think she had an agreement to come back to GL in 97 or neither of them would have probably agreed to it. Kimmer loved Rauch cause he kissed her ass and made her the end all of GL, and well, its not like he was going to sexually harrass ES on OLTL, even if she was not a woman who would have burned his a** on that!

That was actually an interesting time with Meta being involved..the former Bauer "bad girl" trying to help and ring the beads of the town screw up. I wonder if MS illness derailed more involvement but it was a perfect way to work her in without having to listen to Chele whine about some dumb young guy she wanted to loose her virginity to that week. The rumors do sound good and might have been what E & B wanted to do but Rauchie or someone stopped them. He was all for a dumbed down version of GL so I am sure he would have thought no one remembered Mick's murder after a few months, and you know..we need to work on more story for Reva... The opening is indicative of what GL was becoming..before the opening showed vets and families along with "passion" but was more romantic. This was just everyone pushing and pulling each other and explosions, and of course..FauxEd (who was a very good looking guy, too bad he just sucked the life out of every scene he was in.) For once McTavish idea (though I am sure not her execution) was good. I think that the baby thing she had (some problem with Blake's pregnancy) would have been an excuse to have her loose one of the baby's (the two daddies thing was so gross) and for the one to survive to be Rick's adding more tenseness to the situation. Ross declaring he would do anything to protect his surviving son, Rick not knowing if it was his kid who survived, and Annie blackmailing, with Phillip out for blood would have had Blake on edge for months..

God, I hate Buzz but even I would not do that to him!Of course he is going to blow up the diner for Reva, cause her middle aged ass causes all the men to go nuts, and this was the same diner a year before he was saving from a fire, is his families bread and butter (dont they live there too, I never got the Coopers living arrangments )and not that anyone else on the street might be injured or he would go to jail. I can't believe no one just rewrote those scenes, McTavish be damned. Phillip and Annie would be interesting, but then you would not have had Annie the Cartoon Psycho to give worn out Jeva a story. Mmmm, uptight Ross in his suit and glasses!!!

Oh..the redo of Company, a family pub/restaraunt into a soap version of the 90s hip nightclub...so ugly. I like how Rauch just turns it back (though looking overly lit and generic as all his sets are) with no mention from anyone. I don't remember Buzz with bombs..(if only he blew himself up) At this point you can tell McTavish is just saying f you to GL and could care less. A. Spaulding was supposed to be Blake, but McTavish got pissed that everyone figured it out. I would have still gone with Blake, it could have led to Phillip being angry at her and most likely spilling the baby beans. It being Alan would have given Phillip a new reason to hate him and fight him at Spaulding, instead of calling him "dad" and doing nothing, but they drop that. Annie, and the twins..none of this makes sense with the rewrite later. They were chem testing Phillip and Annie here. Bridget's obsession and the Quint and Nola stop/start is annoying..they don't know what to do with the Reardons at this point. Bill having issues with Mom's "death" could have given them the reason to push Chelle more in his orbit to help him through it...but she is too busy hoping to get banged by an angel...Oy!!!!!

Oh thanks for bringing back "Bilan" What a dumb name and why didnt Miranda just say "Its my daughter" So much was spent on Bilan that summer (just an excuse to copy Mr. Big before Margo and Tom get a real storyline in the fall) and she was so boring and then gone..she could have at least been a trouble making bitotch.

You know things are bad when Kimmer is the grounded actor in these things, everyone is so over the top Kim thought she would have a rest day! As long as were saved from Marland's obsession with "therapy" as the answer to the world's ills.

True indeed..however, with Malloy and others, if it smells like a fish, looks like a fish...chip on shoulder, drinking, too busy for a relationship, add in his Irish Catholic heritage and you could see where he might have been deep in the closet.

Okay its a Datalounge rumor..but it seems to add up...Malloy definatley had personality issues and the drinking..supposedly Cross is gay also. Someone posted a story where one the cast members recall Larking bringing Cross to a party and they had a fight and big scene and broke up...which seems suspiciously theatrical! Though Sharon Gabbot alludes to them sleeping together but Sharon, great as she is, is like someone's cool crazy aunt. So I would think he was maybe bi, or you know some actor's will f*ck just everything on two legs. Lillian as the Bauer matriarch, I don't know how that would have gone over with an audience who still blamed her for Mo, even if it takes two to tango as my Mom would say.

Who knows...Ehlers goes through men like she thought she was the real life Reva. She must have been damn good at something, as she scored some hot a** I will give that to her.

Yea, I seriously doubt that a woman working that long in soaps could be homophobic...Three of her leading men were gay or bi ( Bernau, Malloy, Sean Island Muscle Boy) not to mention behind the scenes staff (and I know a lot of her fans are hausfraus but I can imagine she has heard "Well if it isn't Reva Shayne, the Slut of Springfield..come over here girl" shouted at her in public..)so she would have had a very hard time in her career if that were the case. Agree, by that time Ross had become the lawyer/patriarch so they may have felt they didn't need Mike or weren't the least bit concerned with having a patriarch when you have to come up with more storyline to feed the RevaMonster. I heard they asked MH to come back but he refused, I don't know how accurate that was. I do think the Steward was not the warmest actor and the show needed a Papa/Bert/Mo figure to head the Bauer family. I wish they had brought MH back in 97, and let the Roger ALS story play out..imagine watching those actors play that out with the history..After Roger is gone and Fletch is mercifully off the screen, they could have reunited Ed and Holly. I think MH's warmth would have been a nice counter to MG's ironic sarcasm "Reva and Josh broke up, oh yes, it's Tuesday."

No, I remember an interview where Ehlers said that she was split up with her husband before she got together with Derwin as he was not the type to screw someone's wife (not in those words of course.)

Not true and what Kim wrote should tell her that...Bert helped Josh after his car crash and that was because he was so upset about...Reva! Kimmer has always been very complimentary about Charita and said she was the FORCE on the show and the set. I don' t know if we ever saw her face..I think she healed Alex when she had that soap staple, a tropical fever...the show WAS a fever dream during this time, unfortunatley not in a Twin Peaks interesting way.