Mitch64

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!!!

Yes, there is a difference between being "sexy" (the Dobson's GL) and being pervy and this was pervy. First, we are led to believe that super dooper clean cut Kurt, is going to prostitutes...(I know he is on an oil rig, but have him talk about why he is doing that and how he may feel guilty about the women having to use their bodies for money..) then we have Kyle coming in and flairing his nostrils and black mailing Roxie, who was a sweet character, into sex, then she belives she is a prostitute (did she screw people for money with amnesia...) the Phillip tells Rick that HE goes to prostitutes in the past (uh, NuPhillip, we pretty much saw what Phillp has been up to since he came back older...and prostitutes werent really part of it...)it was so weird compared to the sunny GL that Long wrote up to that. And yes, having Roxie not even say anything to Reva (cause you can't rain on Reva's love parade) or have Kyle apologize for what he did was weird. But I always hated Kyle..I think Malloy past his time on Edge came off...way too stylized, and stiff and unpleasant, and bringing this group of people with him as posted above, while the cast was being gutted, was bizarre..especially since they worked for a record company (as soon as you see a "record company" on a soap you KNOW its going to suck big time with its faux hipness..or as Alex said to the dreaded Jackson Freemont when he told her he was "an artiste" .."Who told you that, the clerk who sold you that ring in your ear???)

God I hated that story. We hardly knew Roxie at that time, and it introduced a nobody character (Kurt was cute and, well, that was it) It also was just kind of skeevy...Kyle Sampson blackmailing Roxie to have sex..the weird old Madame...NuPhillip leering when Rick asked him about prostitutes....it just was weird and as you say, stupid.

Johnny Bauer's cancer, the intention of making him a faith healer, and Roxie going wacko because of it. I also did not like that she wrote that Alex watched Ms. Sally die (no lose there but) and didnt get help to protect Alan's switching of Marah's paternity tests.

Yes...their was a combo of family, romance, humor, drama, camp (come on, a castle transported brick by brick to the midwest, complete with ghost...James skulking around as a monk...) and the usual Marland tropes, which are okay, I like when writers are distinctive (i.e. Pam Long)Calhoun seemed to lighten Marland while Cato double down on the moroseness...(its a sign of the show's trend with Castle McKecknie, late of drug rings using its tunnels, murders and ghosts, becomes "The Earl Mitchel Center for Wayward Youth or whatever" complete with clunky but well meaning stories like Nancy teaching a black girl to read...

Actually, his second tenure is when I think the wheels fell off. It was morose and I thought dull (GL at the time was sparking) with all of his tropes on full display...throwing in a "socially relevant" storyline does not make a show good (i.e. all the Snyder boys horning after boring Angel Lange who was raped by her dad...)If I heard one more person talk about relationship "honesty" or "therapy" ..... The first part of Marland's tenure was the best, he restored the core, he had history on display, and he also had humor and camp. So, yes, there is always a soap viewer who would find fault! God love you, I think your the only person on earth (besides Janes girlfriends to say that!) But she was supposed to appeal to men, and that was not happening. Now if they made Carrie a lesbian..

Yes...the total destruction of Alex...(Buzz berating her in the hospital while she practically cowers and is only concerned if her muscle boy, who could care less about her, is alive) and I have to say, Hurst was writing at that time so she bears a lot of this weight! Oh lord I remember poor JVD having to wear"matching" track suits with "Carrie Todd," (Marland had every character say her whole name, repeatedly...and drinking juice and..becoming boring (he hadnt quit got to the patriarch role yet so he came off as a typical boring Marland man..) I think the problem also is...Elliot sparks no sexual chemistry..with anyone. For Carrie Todd to totally put a spell on Ross, they needed a sexy actress, and Elliot was not one.

True, and Alex would have wrapped things up and went back to "Europe" and we would have been saved the terrible MarjAlex stories drugging Alan, being beaten by Alan, becoming a drug dealer, being in a triangle with Marina (did someone HATE Marj) and just leaving Harley and the muscle thief guy for dead under a collapsed building.) However, the buck stopped at MADD, she let it happen...and well, she stupidly hired Conboy Giancarlo Episito played the genie, aka the Mirror, aka Sydney Glass (his identity in our world) on Once Upon a Time, a past guilty pleasure...(if you stream it now you can stop at the end of S1, it all falls apart there but you will be hooked..)

I thought that was a mutual agreement, Joan was tired of the grind, and MADD wanted to save money...with Rauch not around they all decided to go their separate ways with the book tour as the excuse. I am just glad Joan wasn't around to play out the way they massacred Alex under Conboy..maybe they wouldn't have if wild eyed Marj wasn't there but doubt it. I always detected a mean spirited vibe for writing for an older woman who should be powerful, she just became pathetic and the role never recovered. And the Magic Mirror aka Sydney Glass on Once Upon a Time was on GL?

Yes..Taylor was the logical end of the over hyped, campy Luke and Laura saga...didnt she curse them both (leading to Frances exit?) It was all in fun for a short time. Joan Collins was along the same lines and I bought her as Alex. And didn't Helena become a long running villain on GH by another actress?

I agree, I love the goofiness of everyone in town coming to the core families house for Christmas Eve (and someone on the writing staff is from the midwest as they called it an "open house" ) I don't care if it makes no sense (Susan is coming? I know this is before AffairGate but really) Christmas Even has to take place in the Hughes or Bauer houses, end of story!