Mitch64

That era is so weird...they made a big deal out of all three of those characters and then they just..disappeared! Not that I am complaining. We talk about the bad out of character writing for Alex under JFP..but this was one example that may have led them to write her being so obsessive with Nick. WHY would Alex accept Flock of Seagulls guy as her brother? They had her in one scene (setting up the Alan return) complain that Alan abandoned her...she blackmailed him into leaving town and she had been angry at him for helping Brandon with Lujack and also using Spaulding for that dumb dreaming death thing. Endless scenes of her with Simon, I can't believe Bev wasn't bored to death! I would also add Pam writing the scene where she lets Ms. Sally die in front of her to protect Alan and the writing for Alex could be screwy even before JFP.

This leads to one of my favorite scenes ever...I won't spoil it but it is a very clever meta moment unmasking Brent to the cops...(it may have happened.) Also you already saw one of my favorite lines..."You, you think I'm a LESBIAN???" even crazy Brent is shocked that Lucy is that dumb, and only crazy Brent would be pissed at being mistaken for gay instead of being a psychotic rapist /killer. Hate that scene, made both adult women look like morons. Amanda is way too subtle for that, I could see her egging emotional Blake into doing that and making a fool of herself in front of everyone. The whole story would have been more fun if Amanda was manipulating Blake to look like the Blake of old. One of McLaiby's biggest mistakes is what they do to Bridget, who grew up since having Peter and loosing Maureen and running a business.I remember Liabson saying in the press..."The Bridget we know is back" but that was over, and being more adult does not mean you have to be boring..she was even less feisty here, she just looks pathetic. This story is so gross... and too bad too, cause Griffin is sexy as hell. I can see Viv getting steamed on him but.... There is a spectrum of sexuality that some people can go in and out of, depending on special people they may find attractive...and we can leave it at that. I never trust the long distance girlfriend boyfriend but I hope he is happy and settled. I would have HATED the Abby storyline. He raped and killed too many people to be "reformed," and to have anyone in SF accept him or trust him after that would make them look like morons.

I like Jed Allan, it has to be someone who can play authority but "good" authority to oppose Alan's bad. As mentioned upthread, can you imagine how it would have been with Alan and Mike against each other, with Roger in the mix. But I would have had Roger, ever the opportunist to try to take advantage of their fighting to make his own headway. Maybe that could have been the storyline, Mike involved with Alex, but the constant fighting with Alan causes a rift (she like Mike fighting Alan when it is to her advantage, but he can be a bit self righteous and I can see him demanding her to disavow Alan publicly..) so that is how Roger lands in her bed, much to the consternation of BOTH Alan and Mike. I would like to have a woman of a certain age being fought over by two men (really three if you count Alan.

Actually, the boardinghouse kitchen set was used up to 1985 when the Reardon's were all written out but Maureen. It then came back (different set) when Bea came back when Chelsea was introduced..after Long came back the second time and wrote Bea off, it disapeared (there was brief scene years later of Mo and Chelsea in a portion of the kitchen that looked totally different again..) until right after the custody battle of Peter ended, and Ed gave the deed of Company and the Boardinghouse to Bridget. (How I remember all this but can't remember peoples' birthdays...) Rauch got rid of the kitchen set..(because really, would Cassie or Reva ever use it) but when they saddled poor Nola with the stalking Buzz storyline..and made her a pathetic sad sack...she had a galley kitchen in her sad room in the Boardinghouse..for..whatever reason but obviously to make her look more pathetic.

Your right, as opposed to other matriarchs, even Nancy Hughes, Bert had a vital life outside of her family. She wasn't just sitting in her kitchen waiting for someone to stop by and cry. She volunteered, and later (thanks actually to Pam Long) had a job running the Patient Advocacy program, had friends, it didn't seem weird if she was at a party or an event, (with Nancy even with Marland it was like she was tagging along and every felt responsible for including her) Bert was kind of a role model for aging gracefully and independently. I dont understand why they didnt bring a recast Mike and Hope back when Alan returned. Your right, his animosity towards Ed and his branch, seemed forced....but not as much as the years of Alan hating on the Lewis family, then even worse, the Coopers..(like they would be a match for Alan..they would be totally beneath his notice.) They should have had Mike in constant oppostion to Alan and Roger (Ed was too docile and had his own problems at home) especially if Alan was involved with Alex.

I think they were going with a Hope recast as they mentioned a "change of character" which I can only assume meant stronger. I think ER even by that time had..uh, not the soap look and I think a Hope who went to New York and started her own business needed a recast with a strong actress who could play a character taking on Alan (so weird that Bert's death was the perfect time of Hope to come home, maybe move into "Grandma's" old house.) But GL just made every slip it could during that time. That's why JFP got rid of Maureen with the excuse she was boring, as she was a soap rarity, a stay at home Mom (even Kim Hughes had a glam job) that harkened back to the Bert Bauer/Alice Horton/Nancy Hughes days. The focus group would obvisously find her boring as they weren't aware of the context of her role and just watching her serve coffee and be a should to cry on..well, soap audiences were already dumbed down and wanted clones and possessions. Funny thing is that I only started to like post resurrection Reva when they made her more support..bouncing in between different characters and timing things together without a huge story(I will forget her miracle baby and foisting Brad Cole on her) If GL was around today Kimmer would have been the Bert Bauer of the show (which was also funny as she bitched that they were trying to turn her into that in 97, but it was more soccer mom (which never suited Reva) then earthy woman who had lived a full life they could have made her later.

Actaully...Charita's death came as a BIG suprise...she was only 62 (she was one of those people who looked a certain age when she was young and never got older) and THAT is not old...(at least, not to me now.) Everyone thought she was okay (she died from complications from diabetes) and Charita, like Bert, was counted on to always be the "up person" who everyone counted on so she didn't let on to anyone about how ill she was post surgery. As a matter of face Gail Kobe killed Hillary, wrote off Mike and recast (disasterously) Ed as she thought people would tune in to her new GL as long as Charita/Bert was there (which is why it took them so long to do let Bert die offscreen...they didn't know what the hell to do.)

You mean when they dress her to look like someone's Mom trying to copy the look of a soap opera character (Van is not Nola but she would never dress like a frump) Or when Matt is chasing Hottie Beth and Van instead of kicking him to the curb, ponders if she needs plastic surgery? Or when they put her in a coma with Carmen's bad poison lip balm and she has to just lay there for weeks while people talk over her? Not paranoid at all but why did Rauch bring her back from her leave unless that was in her contract. I heard she left on the leave for a combo of reasons,she felt that Van's story was over once she got with Matt (disagree) she had hip surgery I think (hence the bed) and problems with Moniz...all rumors of course. But not the first time you thought "Annoying" but I 'm good with THAT!!!! : )

Oh Contessa...now you know how the rest of us sometimes feel ...though we may not say it....plus, I prefer to be annoying then boring!! Blame JFP and Buzz...Nadine was connected but once the "Super Duper Cooper" take over of 93 (?) she was stuck in that diner (as we were) pining over Buzz while Deas threw his hands up, Frankie D stood there with a blank look in his face and NuEleni was just wondering when she would get some lines. Did anyone besides the Coopers (and if you havent seen Deas over acting when he finds out that Nadine has been fish food for months you aint seen nothing yet) react to her death? Bridget, Nadine, Ed (who was Billy's counselor during his marriage to Nadine.. Someone set Ed up by hitting him on the noggin and planting an empty booze bottle in his car. This was when they were wasting David on that nobody character I forgot her name. Is that when Nola brought a Hula Hoop to the funeral. Why did anyone in SF or especially Salem ever go to a funeral when a body was not recovered. "Fool me once, shame on you,"

Not an assumption..it was a question or a "supposition," so I should have placed a question mark on that. However, it's not hard to question your likes on Otalia and I have read you credit that to Wheeler and Hurst. It is quasi incestuous, in much the same way Blake and Rick were. The only thing with that is that Blake and Rick were sorased and when playing brother and sister they were kid actors if they had any scenes at all. Alan's antagonism toward Beth and her antipathy towards him lasted years..as adults (or young adults for Beth..which adds to it..Beth was so young when Alan and she met and then he became a middle aged serve for her) the only reason Alan liked Beth slightly is that he hated Harley more and felt Harley was trash. He paid the step father that raped her money, made it look like she was dead so no one looked for her, etc. Not to mention RR looked every year of his age (no insult in that, its natural) and it was...distasteful to see them making out and banging and them "in love.' (it did get better when she started banging Coop and Alan blackmailed her into marriage again...)Reva and H.B. would have been that nasty if we watched 20 years of them. I realize that GL was riddled with bad writing from around 93 onward, and ramped up during the Rauch years, but that doesn't make this any better. Good description...I may not have liked all of Long (obscuring the Bauers, and the Reardon's and Reva Obsession) but you could feel her energy when she was writing...I have read several people say, and I remember it too, they knew when she first came back to the show in 86/87 or her first episode after the strike..it was just that kind of energy.Same with Marland, I remember watching ATWT when he first took over and the characters were smarter and more integrated with each other.

Except when she came back from the dead she forgot Peter existed. I HATE what McLaiby did with Bridget (revert her back to being a manipulator only this time with out the humor, self direction and "f*ck it" attitude of the Bridget of old, and instead we get a desperate woman who let Dinah put her down being told she needs plastic surgery. Bridget had a lot of life in her and the Van/Bridget dynamic was great..and would have been more interesting as Peter grew up Did Reva need ANOTHER long lost son...(of course she did, Kimmer had to eat up more air time...) it should have been Peter coming back as a hell raiser. Totally agree on this! And I do say Hurst gave us some good solid scene...(I take it was Hurst and not Kreizman) during the last year...Phillip and Reva talking, ( I LOVE the Reva/Hawk scene on the 4th of July as he makes her stand up with her hand over her heart when the National Anthem plays on a TV baseball game) Ed and Rick joking around while Phillip watches and thinks about his own relationship with his dad..and of course the last week. Its just the stories weren't great. The whole storyline stank and Holly never recovered. Fletcher's issue would have cast doubt on Chile's parentage (not that I want that loud mouth to have had more airtime...) but no one mentioned it.

Your personal like of her (and is that tied to the Olivia/Nat storyline) or not does not mean she is always a good writer...I love Curlee and Long, and I like a lot of Marland but I have issues with some things that they wrote...(knowing that the net and production company hands down demands which effect things..) You don't have a problem with a semi-incestous relationship that goes against history, came out of the blue, and was just kind of gross as well? Cause Hurst had a hand in it?

Can you imagine being his boyfriend and waking up to look at that mug on him! I never got the why and how he became a "sex symbol" plus, he seems generally unpleasant.

After I wrote that I imagined that they would split up Irna's stories with scenes from her shows reenacted, and you know they would over do the organ music, pregnant pauses and everything!

She was co headwriter during this debacle (and I actually like Hurst, she has been one of the few writers who cops to not doing something well i.e. MaryAnne Currathers) but why didn't she or someone in the room say, not only was Alan and Beth hooking up but having a kid was just..gross.(I still would have wrote it that it was on of Beth's splits and Alan as usual was using her to smoke out Phillip and just f*ck with everyone.0

The whole show looked trashy at that point. I know Kreizman and Wheeler were idiots, what was Hurst thinking? Didn't McTavish write in her hoped for book (God I wish that was published, what a trashy read it would be) that JFP tore all the writing up over the weekend and dictated the writing to her? If she did that with a, uh, strong willed writer like McTavish, she must have just run over Anderson.

The old standbys like Susan Sarrandon (I think SS would LOVE to play a woman fighting for her creative career against men...) and of course, Jessica Lange (with a lot of styling) would be good.. I think Kathy Bates...(who might bring too much of a jovial ball crusher feel to it..) I found Beth Ehlers annoying as hell during the last five years of GL but she nailed what I felt was the "feel" of Irna (know no movie would star her but...)who might have come close to her frustration levels at her career at that time and lets face it, a bit of bitterness.

A feature film about Irna would be so good.. I would think a lot of actresses of a "certain age" would be interested in playing such a powerful, layered character like Irna.

She starts getting boring when she marries Billy and becomes a Lewis, and while she got part of her groove back with Long's second tenure..with Alex and Reva in place they keep her muted. I think this was the time that they could have turned her around, what with the arrival of her two nemesis from the past, Amanda and Nola, who could bring out the b*tch in her. Nola by constantly not buying the St. Vanessa role, and rubbing her nose in her past "Matt, you DO know she was the town pump..sleeping with both your Uncle Tony and belive it or not, Uncle Ed" and Amanda a rival in business again. I HATE Lewis Oil and Van should have been at Spaulding. I would have written Alex out and Van goes to Spaulding and she is the one constantly trying to force Amanda out. Matt gets pushed aside and he is the one who sleeps with Blake, bnot Rick (which was quasi incestous.)

I know that this has been discussed upthread..but I really like that "genre" television and fiction can tell stories that inform and educate while being entertaining and not sanctimonious. As other's said, HIV WAS a death sentence and Brent getting blood on his shoe and freaking out is exactly what was going on then. I actually think McTavish did a good job in making an entertaining "thriller" story on a soap that talked about these issues. Let me tell you, this was more entertaining and less preachy then "Margo gets raped and has an HIV scare" that Marland wrote. That went on for months with characters talking about Margo possibly being "HIV positive" (they said this a million times and yes, that was the correct way of saying it but it sounded so fake...) and that storyline, like all of Marland's ATWT at that time, was gloomy and depressing. We all knew Lucy was NOT going to have HIV, but it gave McTavish a chance to explore how people were feeling, the hysteria surrounding that, and that people actually lived full healthy lives and had SEX when they were positive...( Lucy's gay friend, Susan.) that no other show was doing, and making it entertaining that we knew we were not going to get a "Marland lecture." On another note on the Brent/Marion storyline, I think it was interesting that GL had him mocked up to look like JFP, a misogynist who kills a mom..hmmmm? Okay, so here McTavish gets a bit preachy...we already had this story with David.

That was the problem..the show had nothing else going on..even Reva's return is just there (sorry Kimmer, MADD, Rauchie and the gang of housefraus who wrote in whenever Reva was not in one scene,, her hey day ended when she went off the bridge..she just became another charater...) The end of Marion all the energy leaves and McLaiby falls apart...Lonatrat? The twins by two dads, an Angel? Alan going nuts because a vixen long in the tooth dumps him? Buzz chewing the scenery like never before??? Oleary was a piece of ass back in the day, and when they wrote Rick correctly, as a nice guy who makes mistakes but wants to help everyone, he is really good. When they give him too much drama, let him mug, make him a looser or have him pine away they screw it up.

Ha..its like Mel...she's a doctor..oh no, she is ALSO a lawyer! I thought it was dumb to hook Rick up with another doc anyway, she should have always been a lawyer, and a very aggressive one to offset Rick being a mensch. I think she should have been very opposed to the Santos family as all of their crimes (which is soft soaped here, what the hell did they actually do) would have directly affected the poor and people of color in SF, and not the white elites that make up the show. But of course, too deep for Rauchie's GL. And the freezing in time I meant that for both actors to play the characters, they had to have been frozen in time..though I think we just take it as a soap things that Amanda didn't age in 15 years and looked younger then her younger brothers. If they made clone doc Jim and paired him with Amanda there would have been the great soap staple of the ready to help doctor hooking up with the cynical vixen. Though Jim Reardon as originally written was the cynical Reardon so they would have that in common...and of course, I would dump the dumber then hell clone. That is one of the most fascinating points in GL's history. I LOVED Long/Kobe's original take on GL and it showed in the ratings...what happened with the abrupt change in direction? I am not even talking about the Bauers but the Reardons, Van becoming a sorry sap housefrau (sorry, I could never like Billy and Van after that) the influx of MORE family for Reva (Reva was best as a lone wolf scrapping her life together) tying a family to Lillian, who I liked but lets face it, was not the most intersting peroson and Calla and Jessie were even duller, and the general change of tone from an kind of sunny soap to everyone being cynical and amoral (ALL of Kyle's weirdness was hand waved..I mean really Kyle, paitings o the Lewis family, they aint THAT interesting...) I never knew why they threw Rick and Mindy up...it should have been Rick in that big wedding...(not that I am so gung ho on every couple getting married, but if you are going to make a big deal about something, it should have been at least someone we know...) Well, yes, I do, they had to have another Shayne and they thought if they tied her to Rick people would care..I liked Roxie and they could have done more for her but...they immediatley reverted Mindy to her bitchy princess ways so down home Roxie could get with Rick..even though what originally attracted him to Mindy was her benign bitchiness. Mindy did mention Kurt when Will tried to kill her and she went into a coma and *may* have visited the afterlife, and she saw her grandmother and Kurt but NOT Beth (the tip off that Beth was alive.)

Yes..everyone had a weird reaction to a character being brutally murdered...and so young. But it was Kobe's f you to the actress, who had time off scheduled for pilot season but Kobe wanted her to film the Dreaming Death thing were she meets Fletcher in Santo Whatever the Hell it was, Clarke insisted on taking it, so they had to come in the studio on weekends to film to cover the time she was off. I never liked the actress, but have her blown up and just be in a coma and sent to the Soap Opera Rehab Center for People with Mysterious Diseases They Need To Write Out and then come back months later with a recast. I wanted Michael the Clone Doctor to be Jim Reardon, who would have gone to the same doc that Amanda Spaulding did who froze time.

Yes...she was..the show really lost its heart when she passed (Kobe always thought she could write anyone off, and recast the Bauers to hell if Charita was there) Of course, they regained partially with Maureen but GL didnt know anything unless it was how to shoot itself in the foot. Bea was in place and could have partially taken Bert's place for a bit..again, GL shooting itself in the foot. This was full of the "Dead person used to always say.." (They always gave Vanessa trite little things that Vanessa would never say when she was fake dead...) Brown is really good here..its nice to see Nola not be just an eccentric wacko...also nice to hear siblings tell each other they love each other. I know that they originally wanted to put Ed and Nola together when she came back but Simon raised a stink..but I think a warm Nola like this could have worked..but how to get around Ed being a serial adulterer which led to her sister's death. Are you sure it wasnt Ben who lost his eyesight? Poor Evie had the sex appeal of a wet rag. I wish they had brought Darcy back to shoot up the whole video gang. She did return years later as a reformed drug counselor and the actress was quite good (and the reaction of Mindy seeing her walk into Company was hilarious.) I wish they had kept her on staff at Cedars...a kind of Margaret Sedwick, with all of the alcholism going around SF she would be kept busy. Seeing India rock out to Bread would have been hilarious.

Oh God..Locke Walls..yes, I remember him, was he supposed to be a Bruce Springsteen "rocker" who Alex had an earlier affair with. He came to town to warn Lujack of the rigors of being a rock star...oddly Phillip and India of all people were fans of Locke's (India rocking out in Andoran castle..) I think the guy dies on stage..like this storyline!!!