Mitch64

23 hours ago, SFK said:

I was very excited when I read Paul Rauch’s SOD interview where he mentioned that he wanted to bring on “the black Spauldings”, plural. In hindsight, I wonder who even brought that history to his attention.

Actually, if I remember that interview, this was before Zaz got sick..and I really think the "Amanda is Brandon's kid" thing originally really had something to do with the black Spauldings. I know they were tied to Roger somehow, I slightly remember an interview with Zimmer during that time where she said Zaz's illness made them reshuffle a lot of things, the Spauldings and something about Ellen Parker. What that might mean who knows why flashback Mo would have anything to do with them, but maybe they were going to actually resurrect her on that island and Roger was hiding her? It would have been a total ignoring of what we saw on screen but when did that stop them.

On 2/23/2022 at 6:45 PM, j swift said:

That's great idea, but I hope we can agree that Susan Piper's connection to the outcome of the plot was tenuous at best.  I mean was the secret love affair of two dying codgers worth all that trouble (and quicksand)?

Susan was one sick chick..she just did it for sh*ts and giggles! If I were her I would have kidnapped Tony Reardon and taken him to my secret evil villain lair..you know she had a round bed, leopard skin sheets (from real leopards) and mirrors.

2 hours ago, j swift said:

I would argue that somebody has to be alive in the cabin for the plot to make sense, given that Susan was keeping their existence a secret.  However, since it involved Tony why not make it a missing Reardon relative?  

My objection is the random nature of connecting the whole plot to the Spauldings, despite nobody from the family being an integral part of the story.

 It need to effect family with ripples in the community involved. I think the Spauldings work as: it had to be big stakes for Ms. Piper to be involved, and it had to make a big impact on the entire community...a battle for Spaulding (before they started happening every year) the town, and I would guess the regions biggest employer would be that "big" Take into account that the artistocratic Spauldings would may be embarrassed by this, there is a lot of money involved, and it makes sense that it would be them.

But I do agree that no one in the family was involved until the reveal. Henry could be the stand in here.  Again, I would have had this be Nola and Quint's story and give Tony and Annabelle a more meat and potatoes story with his brother that does not need to be ignited by the cottage. Say Nola feels that they need to have their own home, and she always loved this old cottage few blocks away from the BH..it reminded her as a kid of a fairy tale (Cue Nola Fantasy part 3,000th) Remember, it was on a tract of land that Alan owned to knock down for a mall or something so Quint buys it from Alex and surprised Nola with it...and as soon as Henry hears he tries to stop Alex from selling it..."That house needs to be destroyed." but he wont come clean to Alex (lets say Sharina was Henry's maid, not the Spauldings..) but he knows the whole story of Brandon's affair but can't tell anyone. Nola starts seeing the ghosts...(no one believes her because..its Nola...) etc but Nola, being Nola shoulders on. Henry is very upset by it all and we can be lead to believe that Henry was the one who was in love with Sharina, etc.

I do think it was stupid to introduce Brandon and then just have him drop dead. I think having Sharina die, then having him come back home as an supposed reformed invalid, secretly manipulating Alex and his other kid would be much more interesting...(imagine Henry seeing his old business partner again..working on crafting Phillip in his mold while secretly despising him as a bastard but not as much as he despises Lujack) then what Alex got which was the sideshow to Andy Ferris.  They needed to cast a really, really good old theater actor who could go toe to toe with Bev.) I think just because we saw him die on screen, does not mean evil mastermind Brandon could not have staged it all.

Sorry, I am doing anything but the remote work I should be doing!

2 hours ago, vetsoapfan said:

Do you mind if I ask what year you started watching the series?

I grew up "watching" it (as it was always on in the background with my Mom having it on..) so I would say the earliest that I can remember would be the Dobson's (I remember Jackie I think climbing up on a latter to hang a Christmas star on a tree and falling off and having a miscarriage.. I remember thinking..its really not that far up..) and Phillip as an annoying brat that EVERYONE was concerned about (he was a diva even as a kid and beat both Morgan and Lily out as a young character the town obsesses over..) and Chrissy as a brat living with Ed while Holly was in prison and hating Rita. It never struck as much as ATWT which was my Mom's FAVORITE..but I always liked GL the best. But yes, it was during Marland and Nola (Go Nola...GO) that I started watching...watching.

1 hour ago, j swift said:

I've heard the comment before about rejecting the Brandon "twist" because he died on screen.  So, I wonder if there is any prior generation character that could have been substituted?

It could still have been Brandon...but he didn't have to be alive for the story to be told....come to think of it, this was during Alan being off camera..instead of Victoria why not a male black Spaulding..one who totally took after the rotten to the core Brandon..to take on Alex?

31 minutes ago, Khan said:

Same.  And Douglas Marland was the best kind of head writer for GL, IMO, because he was the kind who could write different kinds of stories.

True,,but when I think of GL..I think of  Pam Long's /Curlee's GL..warts and all. I think she just brought the right amount of heart and heat to the show (as I said before, Marland's good male characters were all wimpy and he never wrote sex well..) I loved Long/Curlee writing of guys, of friends, and how EVERYONE in town was a big gossip!

6 hours ago, robbwolff said:

I only recollect Kim Hamilton portraying Victoria briefly in 1984. And then, as you pointed out, her daughter showed up in 1998. I really liked the original Vicky — Karen Williams, who would sometimes use an accent in her performances.

The things is the original Victoria was very much like her sister Alex..she was strong but subtle and seemed that she would feel the ends justify the means..so that would have been difficult to have her and BevAlex on together. However, instead of recasting Alex they could have just had her leave all her shares of Spaulding to Victoria and then we could have avoided Dear Marj schreeching all over the screen.  Or at least when Marj was written out they could have replaced her with Victoria..instead of the idiotic idea that Amanda could take Alex's place. Though I always thought that instead of bringing Amanda back in a young new vixen form...they should have made her Vicky..though I would have gotten an actress who could have at least done a credible Caribean accent...the second Vickie looked like she just got done teaching at Vassar.

On 2/18/2022 at 7:13 PM, vetsoapfan said:

TGL was never created or presented as a show to tell wildly-unrealistic fantasy/camp stories. The combination of slaughtering the pre-existing cast and resorting to Saturday-morning cartoon material was the series' downfall.

I actually think that GL was perfect for "various slightly" campy stories. The cool thing I thought about GL as opposed to the earnest ATWT is that it could do it all, family, community, business, mystery, romance and camp. Though yes, the Clone story went to far as did the rest of Reva's tedious stories...but they weren't imaginative, they were just vehicles to keep Kimmer and Newman to a lesser extent constantly on the front burner instead of letting the character (and the actress) have a breather in between stories and letting them come "organically" Sadly the only time post resurrection that Reva was more earthy Reva was Wheeler/Kreizman. 

I can understand why they cut Ellen to recurring back in the day...Both Kim and Nancy could take over her matriarch duties concerning trying to keep that sl*t Emily in line and arguing with Susan...really, even writing her out.(lets face it, the only reason she was kept around was due to Marland and the fact that budgets were bigger back then...).but to never mention her again is weird. They should have brought her back for anniversaries, holidays and once in a while to argue with Susan over Emily. It is kind of like John just disappearing...John Dixon..who had connections to really everyone in Oakdale not even mentioned by Margo? On GL Nola just disappears..never to be seen or mentioned until the last week.  How hard is it to just write someone out. 

But agreed that they should not have killed Ellen off...but I would have brought Dee back and Betsy back (and Frannie and Andy) but they were too interested in things like boring Janet.

On 2/18/2022 at 8:07 PM, Khan said:

As I've mentioned in the past, there really were plans to do more with Brandon's second family; however, P&G nixed those plans for obvious reasons.

Do you know what those were? I liked the Cabin story at first...(though it was weird that Nola of all people was sitting on the sideline during this...it should have been her story or at least Ms. Nosy would be involved to a great extent..and there was no way a woman like Susan Piper would be living in a town like Springfield but...) and thought they could have introduced Brandon's other family without resurrecting him, so it would have been interesting to see what they had intended.