Mitch64

Rauch and the writers would start and promise a lot of things but they would not pan out as you know...Reva. Originally they were transitioning Vanessa to be more of an Alex role....back at Spaulding and kicking ass...but then they brought Alex back and promised a big story with Alex and Vicki and then nothing. Springfield had to have known about Barbados, the Reardons were involved so you know Nola ran her mouth about it. The set up for Vicki was good...Victoria had her sugar production biz and wanted nothing from Spaulding, so it made sense that Vicki said, "This is mine too...I want it" But could you have self directed powerful black woman in Rauch's pastel paradise?

Good God no one thought that was...weird? They always treated Spaulding like it was a family owned hardware story..especially under Wheeler and Kreizman. No board, no investors, no regulatory, no concerns on changing the name of an international corporation, because its run somehow with a woman who can't balance her check book no doubt!!!! Nadine was okay in short doses but no...I actually liked original recipe Frank and Harley and poor old Pops. That is where they should have left it. Frank and Harley had a nice relationship (even if it was a direct ripoff of Tony and Nola...nice big brother and trouble making younger sister) and of course Harley was always best at making trouble or at least blue collar tough girl hiding a heart of gold. How old is MADD now...I'm sure she feels a bit wizened herself...and her body failing her (as all or ours do as we get older...)I hope she looks back on her choice and her words and feels remorse...sorry Catholic upbringing, whatever you put out in the world good or bad comes back to you and there is always a chance of redemption. What adds to it was that I am sure they didn't want to waste that much energy on a story that didn't involve Reva...so we got Cleva...Double the Zimmer chewing scenery this time in face tape..WTF???

LOL..I think Grillo went and got those tapes and had them all burned...he found his perfect screen partner! I forgot about Rob Layne..who pranced around town with a t-shirt that said "evil"! If the clone didn't tip you off that the show was geared to idiots now, that did! If only Reva had a T-Shirt that said, "Seen better days but still open for business!" And Rauch was even dumb enough to bring Rob back, recast as that dumb guy from Sunset Beach or whatever. The quotes from someone was "The ladies are going to be drooling all over their tv screens." LOL..did they mean the Rest Home that were the only ones watching??? Those scenes between he and Van are really hard to watch now..her playing an illness that was the kind that was rapidly hitting him in reality. I never knew why they didn't show Roger showing up just as Van was leaving...just one scene, "I kept your secret now you can keep mine" and then we cut. We don't know what he says to Van and when she comes back she is very nervous when anyone mentions the missing Roger..torn between telling everyone and keeping her word. And they could have worked it from there. I thought Paltro would have made a better Alan or Kyle recast.

They hit the brakes on the relationship because, as you said Moniz does not make a great heroine ( you can tell she is still playing Dark Dinah despite McTavish trying to make her the hero, so its just weird...) and Rauch/MADD were addicted to the good girl/dumb guy/bad girl formula. Problem was Grillo had more chemistry with his mirror then either one of his ladies...(I remember at the time people wondering why he wasnt cast as a Santos..now that I could buy and I think finally a Santos would be skeevy/scary.) The Dinah/Hart relationship was in full swing on screen when Grillo was a recast and eventually started banging Moniz in the dressing rooms and then left his I think, preggers wife. Dinah shoots Hart as in a misquided punishement from Rauch...they both were playing hardball at contract time and Rauch made sure (he thought) that neither could return to their old roles.

Didn't they "merge" Lewis and Spaulding when Lizzie and Bill got married? (which really there would have been a huge age difference between them but at the end they just were throwing things at the wall ...) I had always thought the Oil part was dropped from Lewis and it just became Lewis construncion, which would make more sense then having an oil company headqautered in a medium sized midwestern town (plus, Lewis Oil was so outdated and SCREAMED 80s with Dallas and Dynasty.)

Well, Grillo always skeeved me out, and that scene would really have done it...(were the writers finally finding how to use Grillo's uh, talent???)

Its interesting as Mo really fades into the woodwork during Long's second tenure...she and Ed are rarely on (Ed at least has the doctor stuff) she gets the hots for Fletch after her friend who was married to him dies, Ed screws Holly, Mo sad sacks it around and moves into the Boardinghouse and leaves Chele with Ed...she has a scene where she discusses making curtains for a "room in my mother's house" (wouldn't she own it if Bea wasn't in town...) and just mopes around while Holly moves into her house...Its not until Reva kicks it and Long leaves that Mo moves into the matriarch role we knew her as..(I think Long was obsesses with making Sarah the matriarch, even moving her into the run the BH, but she is too tied isolated to fill that role...) But yes, every woman besides Alex and the younger ones all take a back seat to Reva. I would say India escaped that but she would be considered "younger" though MKA always came off as middle aged no matter what.

True, but I am assuming they were using McTavish's outlines for a while, at least up to the anniversary show. That damn angel is still there and Chele is panting over him, Meta keeps mentioning she knows him an a "Mary Bauer" ( I know Meta was McTavish's idea for the anniversary, one of the few good ones she had but tying her to that story was the worst.. The January stuff all seems to be geared towards the anniversary, we have a lot of cameos...(Dylan, Jenna) the angel so I am thinking this big Spaulding secret is for an the anniversary and would McTavish idea of using "history" even if it wasnt on camera. I do know she wrote the lighthouse scenes for the ball or had it in her outlines as before she got fired she was boasting about all the character returns and that during the anniversary "something is going to happen to bring the town of Springfield together that will let everyone know that this is still definatley Irna Phillip's Springfield ." So it wouldnt suprise me if she wrote the Spaulding secret and it was changed but its one of those things, like Days Salem Stalker, where I would love to know what the real purpose and ending was going to be.

Van had a complicated relationship with the Spauldings that was never really explored. In the retro writing Van would have known Alex and Alan all her life and since Henry and Brandon started Spaulding, she would have as much claim to it as they did, but post Long, she seems to more identify with Lewis then Spaulding. Bev/Alex seemed to support Van, even putting her in charge several times...though then the Mindy/Alex thing came up...and when Marj/Alex hit, Van and everyone else just seemed to consider her an annoying shrew. RR's Alan was no match for Van (or anyone else.) The folder thing seemed to have been rewritten as it went along. Was it McTavish's idea or the interim writers? Van tells Roger (because he finds her alive in Switzerland) that Alex "boasts" that she has a file that would bring not only Alan, but the entire family "down" The parentage of Amanda would not have been something that Alex would brag to Henry about and it would not bring down the entire family...so the whole thing makes no sense, which is why I think it was rewritten from its orginal concept..(after Rauch wanted to get rid of Alex to get a younger version of her.)

Don Stewart should have been brought back..with a wife and children born off screen. Tylo really needed to be written out but there needed to be an exit I agree...not just because of his past 80s success but just because he was there..and I hate when characters just disappear. I think having Quint propose to Nola at the ball (flashbacks to courtship and wedding) and Nola just saying "no" she has a life here, which she had to give up for Quint's career, and now she wants her own life...(of course I would not make her Ms. Sad Sack that Rauch did, I would her her open a jazz club styled on her 1930s/40 movies, and she would be like ATWT's Lisa, knowing where all the bodies were buried and who was the baby daddy.) One last dance (flashback to their engagement dance) and we are done, Quint rides off in the sunset with a promise of a reconciliation in the future.

So true...I thought it would have been interesting if Amanda had taken some of her Spaulding stock and sold it, and invested in a tech start up (they were just getting big in 95.) The guy just wants her money but dumps his wife because Amanda insists and will not be the other woman again.Unhappy in her relationship, and surrounded by a less conservative Cali vibe (which is how I would explain how dull sad sack Amanda became Theda Bara Toby Poser) she takes up with younger man Matt (who is not a prostitute but a guy who likes older rich women and the life they can give him.) The tech guy is abusive and catches Amanda and Matt in the sack and blackmails her for more money. She then finds out he lost all of it of her money when the start up tanks, and one night he is mysteriously found dead in his pool. Both Amanda and Matt think its the other one, and go their separate ways to not implicate the other (Matt know the guy is abusive and Amanda who genuinely has feelings for Matt, though not love, cause, he's a hot piece of ass but dull as hell.) It will turn out it is actually his estranged wife or son who does him in and sets them up. Amanda, broke and again alone, takes Alan up on his offer to return home and sets her sights on getting everything she gave up including Ross. I would write it that she has feelings for Ross, the savior as he once again has feelings for a conflicted woman who needs him. But this storyline that McTavish wrote sucked as you knew Amanda was going to fail, that Ross didn't have feelings for her, and neither did Matt. But it also had to portray Matt, despite his manho status as a goody goody dullard, so there were no stakes, no nuance no interest. If I wrote the end result is that Matt and Blake hit the sack, she gets preggers with one baby and eventually Van and Ross head back together after dumping their silly young partners.

I think Roger was always jealous of Alan, born with a silver spoon in his mouth. But, again, rewriting the whole Brent story, I would have had Brent kill Fletcher not Nadine. After Alex supports Alan during his trial (he lies to her he had nothing to do with Brent or the embezzlement, it never made sense they had Alex just support him) she finds out from Brent' sister that he was behind the embezzlement scheme and she pays the sister off (thinking she is there to blackmail, not get more money from an alive Brent) and uses the info to force Alan to throw his support to AM, mend fences with him and quietly pay everything back. That is when he secretly leaves town and has Amanda take his place at Spaulding. But Fletch is investigating and Alex, to protect Alan (always her fall back) and to keep Spaulding out o fit, frames Roger by planting evidence in his office to throw Fletch off. Fletcher is more then happy to believe it as he is jelly over Rog/Holly and keeps on the Brent trail leading to him discovering Brent, not Nadine, and he getting killed for it. Brent then plants the evidence on Roger, know everyone will believe it, etc. Alex has misgivings...(she feels she set Fletch up to die) and Alan talks her into keeping quiet after he secretly destroys the evidence. That would give Roger more than enough to get back at both Spaulding's. As an added bonus I would have Amanda lie and say she was with Roger when Fletch was being killed, just so he would be beholden to her. Eventually Alan disowns Amanda because of this and her wayward ways (I would NOT make her a Malibu madame, but there is more then enough other stories to make Alan turn) even despite all of Alan's bad history (cause he is a man, but he cannot forgive his daughter, in his mind.) Amanda joins forces with Roger to bring the Spaulding siblings down once and for all.

They thought it made for interesting story, and it did, on paper. But Moniz and Zaz had no chemistry, not even antagonistic and for once you were rooting for Roger as Moniz Dinah was written as such a whiny brat...and then inexplicably a heroine for a few months...I can see both Roger and Dinah acting like they were in one to bug Ross, Van, Blake and Bridget, but when they made Dinah...love him, and immediately had Roger contemplating killing her...(not that anyone could blame him) it was over. I like Roger and Amanda but, for once I wanted Roger to go totally in on this amoral woman who was his match, and have her be in to use him to get ahead and harm her family, and be honest about it. Amanda thinks he understands the rules but Roger is secretly falling for her...(and Holly gets more then a little secretly jealous, not because she wants to be in relationship with him, but because she misses his attention.)

Well, yes, but Frankie D was cast first, but actors ego here, as he was cast as Johnny's brother, and Pam Long changed that to be Cooper, and created Harley. I think Harley was a character banging around Pam's head for a bit, and when she came back she used the opportunity to create her and made Frank her brother as he must have been on contract already, and we saw how the writers before had a lot of ill defined characters they tried to tie to the core, Johnny, Chelsea, so she diverted that. Pam also said she was NOT interested in expanding the Bauer family (so people always accused her of hating them.) I have no doubt that this is actors ego taking and I could hear production telling him "Oh, we built the Coopers around YOU" just to stroke it. I would have been interesting to see if he had become this Todd Bauer...would "Harley" have been his sister...though I think Lacy was already cast. I liked the idea of a Bauer branch being more blue collar and not ascending to the upper middle class like the Springfield branch, but they were going about it all wrong.

I loved Henry..trying to calm down the divas in town..."Now Vanessa/Nola/Alex/Jenna/Dinah..dear...." No wonder the town fell apart after 97, Henry wasn't around to politely ring anyone's beads... That example above of ignoring character history always hit me as laziness, especially this show where everyone and all the families had some kind of ties. Most glaring was when McTavish had NuChelle call Nola..."Mrs Chamberlaine"..that's your aunt you idiot...(all that Chelle could think about was loosing her virginity like she was in an 80s teen flick but still...)

I think they are trying to channel the original Billy/Van dynamic..but it doesn't work. Speaking of bored...they have a scene where Alan is ragging on Alex as she is getting ready to go on a date with H.B...(I know..freaky.) Alan suggests this if she wants an older man she should get someone from "their class of people, like Henry." Alex turns around and says, "I would DIE of boredom." This was all kinds of wrong, Henry is a father figure to them so Alan's suggestion is creepy, and Alex dissing Henry over the old windbag H.B. (who I liked but...) annoyed me. She didn't say, "That's disgusting, he practically raised us" she insults him. I still say a recast Mike Bauer would have been a great pairing, especially with Alan back or when Roger comes back. Fletcher is, as always inserted into that plot where he doesn't belong. She wants that, but she would totally have no respect for that person if they let her. Look at Fletch, for all of his bitching all he does is hold her purse and even lives in the mansion for a while.

I always wanted Nola to find that letter (the letter from hell that keeps turning up...) maybe going through Mo's old stuff to donate and finds it in that sweater, and there is ANOTHER face off with Lillian in the Bauer kitchen...."Don't think that I will be driving off any roads anytime soon, I will be around to make your life a living hell from now on!"

I actually liked the "Lifesavers" intro.(maybe because at that time was the last time I felt GL still had life in it...).I just wish they had gone back to "Hold on To Love" and the uncheap scroll of the characters.

The actor himself went on and on about Fletcher's cute "buns" Okay, Jay, we get it, you like your ass!

Hmmm, interesting idea. Rick was motherless through his childhood and early teens ( Holly as Mom..uh no..Rita? "Send the kid off to boardingschool I want to bang my hot rich neighbor") And he lost his two mother figures, Bert and Mo. Maybe an interesting idea was to cast "Lana" (still not sure if that is her name) Reardon, the missing one and Mo's sister. She would be an sexier, sassier version of Mo...and at least we would have an interesting storyline for bit...she comes back to town, everyone wants her with Ed..but she is banging Rick (but no to a Bauer father/son actual triangle..) Agreed, Mindy had it in her to make Rick interesting and provide some conflict..she is cute, sassy, prone to shoot from the hip and make huge mistakes, a bit uppity and bitchy, but actually very loyal and nice and family centered.

I think that Rick, as the last remaining Bauer, should have been that important. He didn't even need to be paired with someone to be the town go to guy, shoulder to cry on , friend when you need one. MOL at his best was warm and charming and did bring some of the Charita vibes. The problem was, he may have been loved by cast and crew, it was obvious the writers didn't feel the same and wrote Rick as a joke/looser. They did try to light a fire under him when they put him with Mel, as they lit one under FrankieD by pairing with beautiful charismatic MK, but MOL and the Mel actress had no chemistry...and Rick does not need "fire" chemistry, he needs a warm everday one but they couldn't generate that. Very true, or at least make them mob adjacent (i.e. Daddy Santos was a small time hood, and Carmen wants a better life for her and her family, and she will do ANYTHING to get that, even using the daughter in law she detests to gain respectability and access to the main families in town.) But the Santos as a full fledged mob outfit, with Carmen in charge and being there for years never worked. But yes, I would prefer them out of the mob. What does this mean? So Rauch/MADD or CBS wanted a mob family on the show, doesn't mean that was something, like the island of douches, ever worked. It was stupid to anyone (again, its a dream episode..okay...not my fave but will let it pass) I don't understand when people say the creativity was there...they didn't have the writers, the producers or the budget to do this. It looked ridiculous. Not sure why Marvel thought it was a good idea to use a failing soap that did not have the demos they wanted, to promote them...seems dumb all around.

Hell loves company!!!!! : ) Grab a seat, the scenes of Buzz trying to save the diner during the 5th Street Fire are coming up!!!! I would have had a strong Latina woman, a first generation citizen, and a lawyer (with a big family) who actually is very active against the Santos family and what they are doing to what I would make, the multi ethnic community from 7th Street on down to the river. Let's say Rick helps out at a clinic one day a week or so, and they meet. Rick and she hit it off, after the required, "I don't like you," part of him not understanding her anger and she annoyed by his white, wealthy privilege. They come to a consensus on hating the Santos family and she softens when she hears that Rick's great grandfather was an immigrant who, when they moved from California to Springfield, settled in that neighborhood, which at the time was heavily German/Irish/Greek (Bauers/Reardons/Coopers.) Eventually drama unfolds where she starts putting the Santos away and finding damning evidence on Danny, which affects Chele, so Rick gets involved. MOL needed a live wire to make Rick interesting (and avoid his mugging...) This character would eventually be very wary of Phillip and the damage that the Spaulding family had to the area and people there also..I always liked that Mel didn't seem to like Phillip but they never developed it or actually her character.

There is no way Ehlers came up with that...(the design of the suit, yes, she had to show off her abs..) but it was Kreizman and Wheeler who came up with that idea, which wasnt even a dream..it was supposed to be real. WTF, even Cleva would think that was stupid. No way did Ehlers or the designer go to Marvel and have a comic made..if they had that power neither one of them would have been on that shinking ship. So weird..they must have made the Santos' Latino as they saw that the Latin audience for soaps was strong...but did they actually think that audience wanted to see a cartoon family of mobsters running around? I think GL, an show that was built around an immigrant German family making it to the upper middle class, would have been perfect to bring in a Latin family and tie them to that core family the Bauers..but as mobsters.It really showed how incredibly dense MADD, Rauch, the net execs were.

And they had to have every woman fall for him to force the audience to prove he was "sexy" I can't ever wash the scene out of my mind where he and Beth.."did something" on Alan's desk, and then they showed Alan eating the croissant they did the deed over.. Brad Cole...I would love to find out who the hell was pushing him.

If I remember correctly both actors played it differently then written. Seb played it as a romantic fixation that he developed by romanticizing Roger's stories about Holly, and Holly played it, as if she was playing him on his "attraction.' An example of actors who overcome the writing again. But damn, why wouldn't Seb have the hots for Holly? Which brings this around to the Sebastian actor was kind of sexy in an ambigous way (there is a scene between he and Josh were Seb is practically flirting with him...) was this a character actor before their time? Agreed, there is no excuse for the outhouse scenes, written, produced, for the characters, and especially for the actors to have to do that!!!!