Mitch64

It is bit arch, and I love how Hank is so...generic and nice and as this is Marland...polite (but if we had a "Hey Babs..you betta just quit being a Ho for married men!" people would have freaked!) ATWT was really ahead of its time there and it never got the credit...though I hated how Hank just disappeared. I love the scene of Bob yelling at John about the technician and then John blows it over to ask how long has he known about Hank, and Andy being around him...and then how EVERYONE in town seemed to know about Hank's HIV test...because as Bob said.."We asked him to tell Andy about it" Okay Bob..be sure to do the same when you go for a STD test from banging Suzy Q!!! I love soap conventions!

When Quint was back the second time and the Quola reunion got sidelined during the writers and exec switch..I thought it would have been interesting if they had Quint having POA over the Chambelin portfolio now that Henry and Vanessa (fake dead) were gone. Instead they had the Spaulding talking to Matt, who no moron would put in charge. I think having vixen Amanda trying to seduce Quint, and then falling for him might have interesting...having Amanda be another woman gaga over Roger was kind of stupid. I can imagine the campy cat fights between Amanda and Nola. And it was odd, while this was happening...Marland was just starting to dig into ATWT and restablishing the Hughes family and the vets. You think PG would have made GL follow suit.

Yea, Quint only worked well as a short term character..an archeologist really has no long term story potential. When Lisa came back in 95 it was the perfect time to just have them break up without any third party, Nola always resented having to twist her life for Quint and Quint really just was an egg head archeologist/adventurer and was bored being a family man (I always thought Nola was really looking for a replacement for the dad she never knew and Quint wasn't it..) When Henry died they could have brought Quint back for the funeral and show that there was no animosity between them, they just "grew apart" as Marland would write.. Lee was back on recurring until Long came back and Bea just disappeared. Again, having Bea around at the Boarding house as support for all the young characters living there made more sense then Sarah Shayne, who was just stuck listening to Reva, though I did love her giving Hawk hell.."You old FOOL!" They did some chemistry testing with Josh and Jenna, they even had Vanessa teasing him about her..."So you think she's pretty???" (I always liked Van and Josh's sister/bro chemistry,,, I am glad they never screwed the up with having them together....)

I thought Jenna and Josh (J & J ) had chemistry when they were testing them, but then he left. In writing out RN when Kim left was more about him leaving, what six months later? But I know they would just want to have a big blow out for Kim to leave...I just thought the logistics of bringing her back from the dead were messy, but they were not handled well with McTrash.

They hadn't written for Nola for at least a year, right after the Lake Elizabeth story, and she had A.J. The Haunted Cottage was a story that Nola should have been all over, investigating the cottage and dusting it up with Ms. Piper(who Nola would have been fascinated with. ) She just stood around listening and then they gave them the dumb story with that kid scientist. Lisa was sick of it and wanted out, but the Quint actor wanted to stay, and even suggested killing Nola and letting him have a Mr. Mom storyline...(luckily they just wrote both off, which is what they should have done with Josh and Reva once Kimmer left, and we would have been saved the ghost and San Crud.) Tony, Annabelle and Jim both wanted to leave, and by that time Lee Lawson wanted out as well as she was just standing around doing nothing. I don't think that Long understood Quint, but got Nola..and liked her I think. She was just tied to Quint who Long had just turned into a dorky uptight professor to Nola's quirkiness, so there they stood. Qula was one of the first fanatic fan bases and they would not tolerate breaking them up (I would have had Quint die in the explosion rather then Hillary, what does Nola do once her dream ends...I say go back to the scheming Nola of old.) They could have also had Quint taking Henry's spot at Spaulding and he and Van competing while Alex is interested in him...but then they had no interest in the Chamberin's at that point as Van was hog tied to the Lewis campy bandwagon.) I do remember an interview with Jeff Ryder, when ATWT was having its comeback as Marland just got there and they asked him if he was taking note and of course he said, "no" but he did say he asked Lisa to come back and that he promised to write for her this time but she wasn't interested.

I don't think they did get a send off..Jim just vanished but I believe it was because he was supposed to come back but the actor had another gig and Kobe let him off (she invented the "friends of" way before JFP) The way Nola and Quint left was truly stupid. It was rushed and all the characters including Bea and Henry, made Nola feel quilty for wanting to stay in SF and run her business (as dumb as Nolaaerobics was) while Quint went off..I can't believe that in 1985 they were still, "You need to be by your husband's side" ) The did do a scene where Henry told Nola she could have time to write and she says, "Oh yea, maybe the adventures of Nola" which would have been a great way to bring her back in 95, she is an author if potboiler romance/adventures (under another name) who resented being force to move for her husband all those years ago and comes back triumphant and rich to spar with Vanessa and whomever else..(much better then the sad mopey Nola whose husband cheated on her.) It would have been funny if they had her write a roman e clef on Springfield, with her heroine having a bitchy, stuck up sister in law and a brother in law is a multiple adulterer...(and a mousy nurse who has an affair with him...) That trial clip really does show how boring and weird the show was becoming...the Lewis in the center bugging their eyes, Maeve in bed...(for god sakes she spends the better part of the year laying in bed being boring..) India chasing after Simon..with his dumb magic show...faux Ed showing he has no charm..I can't believe the execs thought this was an improvement.

You forgot Larkin Malloy shouting "Brother, love ME..BROTHER" flaring nostrils, while extras run and the rest of the cast look on in shock...(embarrassment???) I was in college and the lounge erupted in laughter...and I would think we were the audience that it was aimed at. It is sad that they didn't purse a Mindy/Rick pairing with her screwing it up and then they have an off/on like an ATWT Bob/Lisa. And yes...all of Rick's pairing were boring...Abby was better just because of the actress's charm and they had chemistry...but it would have been more fun a kind of slutty deaf Amish woman taking Rick for a ride!

I never knew why they broke up Rick and Mindy so fast, again, of course, making Mindy the vain self involved girl(she had changed a bit from her old ways) so Rick jumps over to good ole down home Roxie... I still think Mindy this version) was Rick's best pairing, and besides being more conventionally cute.. Kurt was not that much different from Rick, and they could have had the same storyline(though I think Mindy, growing bored with having a med school husband, would become like a young ATWT Lisa and start spreading it around town...) I know that Mark Lewis wanted time off and they just fired him, but really, Kurt story had ended.

Ha... I think they were looking for Kyle's flared nostrils to find a place to hide their contraband....(if they even had contraband..who the hell knows...) I think the Mindy wedding was just a jumping off point for the "New GL" totally written around the Lewis family and Reva. What did they think they could do with Kurt and Mindy after this and God I hope their big idea was not to have them argue over her role as the "Sampson Girl" (to promote what..what did Sampson Industries actually produce???) Poor Kurt was just introduced in the worst way, Married to Amnesiac Prostitute Roxie, then, with a speargun forcing Reva and Kyle to jump out of an airplane..with Reva in full mink just to land in an Amish barn..Mark Lewis was so cute, but WTH?

Infinity rode off of the fumes of the last year of Long/Kobe, which I will say was really good. Everyone was in play and most of it was as grounded as a soap could be in 1984. And what you said is true..all those temp characters...(Suzanne Saxton,,, that David whatshisface...Jackson Fremont...) running around...anytime you see a record company on a soap you know its gonna suck...everyone ran around with big hair and shoulder pads as "Sampson Industiries " was added to a medium sized midwestern town...it was all really stupid...(and what was it that Infinity wanted exactly....and who the hell was Largo...) and Mindy and Kurt's wedding, while beautiful...led to nothing for them or anyone else.

That cast always seems to be like a close knit bunch...(unlike every cast on every show who says they are.) God I am old, Sandy had a stroke???!?!

Warren Andrews was one of those Kobe/Long characters (like Jackson Fremont) who stuck around forever but never provided much of a purpose. I know he was supposed to be Alex's henchman and listen to her schemes to get rid of India, etc, but he should have been recurring and free up contract money for someone else. I love soap coincidences...it just is one of those things that make soaps, soaps. Also every mystery writer on earth make liberal use of coincidences and other soap elements like eavesdropping just as someone drops a truth bomb...even Christie did. It's all part of the genre.

I think that Marland said in an interview that Lisa made sense as he wanted to point out that the most unlikeliest of people can have racist feelings (or as we would put it today, racial bias) and he wanted to show that. It would have been more interesting if Nancy had felt that way, and it would have mattered as she was the "matriarch" of Oakdale...but as someone upthread wrote..they had defanged her so much she had no pep left and had morphed into an untouchable icon. I am sure Wagner would love to play it as she had commented many times on Nancy's controlling ways. I like the interview above and how Tunie mentions her past and the Helen Wagner picture. The set up for the show looks interesting and traditional, a matriarch with an iron fist watching out for her family (part Nancy Hughes, part Alexandra Spaulding) and two different daughters..though they do make the "wild" daughter seem too "Real Housewives" cartoony, but we shall see.

I am from Central Illinois, where presumably Oakdale and Springfield (fictional) existed (the farms, etc)..and there are actually Southern accents there..it wasn't until I moved to Chicago and people kept commenting on my accent...that I noticed it..( I won't go into the Southside Chicago accent that I was accosted with..I would always say, ..."I have an accent???" ) I think the issue is..that the Reva and the Lewis' have a "stage" accent..like they were doing regional Tennessee Williams, that is very cartoonish..(again, they had poor Larry Gates say "Ya-HEWWW" before he entered every scene..and they dressed him like Boss Hogg..) H.B. and Billy, I can see having more of an accent..with Josh and Trish having less..but it was nice that they let it go past Kobe and they all talked in a more "normal" way..(Josh and Billy using "Darling"..but I think Gates got it best..with a slight twinge.) Exactley..it was down rent Wheeler..who even without the budget had a down rent vision for the show...(who the hell wants to see a convenience store set??) The set was lazy (we don't have the finish the walls and save 130 bucks..and say it reflects their unfinished relatinship, but lets hang pictures up which no one in their right mind would do..) and the backyard was just an atrocity. I still think that Wheeler and the network thought the only people were watching were trailer trash..and I think by that time... I think that worked for upper crust Alex..who was raised in the midwest...though I it didn't work for Bernua who always sounded like he came from an East Coast Boarding School. I do think the one thing that RR and Marj had going is that they did "seem" more Midwestern.

I don't know why it matters so much...Gush and the whole weird Cooper family were living in a under construction house with kids running around and supposed backyard full of junk...all choices from Wheeler which as usual was weird and offputting.

I don't know, whatever the hell the house Gush and for some reason, all the Coopers seemed to live (did they forget that a Boardinghouse was attached to Company...probably) All I remember is Reva standing in the doorway of Cross Creek yelling out, "Hey there Barbara Jean...oh Bubba, you all coot, hiya" to apparently people who were driving, walking by? None of the other SF characters besides Lewises attended so I thought it was boring, no intrigues no bombs going off in the wedding cake, just Jeva, which on their own didnt do it for me.

Ha...and Wheeler tried to convince us this was to reflect on the "unfinished" aspect of Gus and Harley's relationship...(and they were trying to sell us on them being a supercouple.) Someone upthread mentioned the junk in the backyard, that was Harley's house....I kept thinking DCFS was going to come and take those kids...I was watching the show one night and my partner asked what the hell I was watching, I told him, and he said, "Looks like a bunch of white trash hillbillies running around." I could not argue.

Yes...the only time I liked Reva post resurrection was Peapack, despite thrusting her on a character I loathed. I do wonder if Zimmer looks back on that as not only a chance to bring an earthy character down to earth, but a chance for her to connect to her old energy and imagination without the artificial propping of the Rauch era on. Her and Phillip's scene when she is putting the crib together is gold...they both put across history and Reva comes off as being strong with him, greeting her old friend, and a bit of a flirt (and how she pulled off a middle age flirt who is pregnant and not wearing any make up, without making it gross or ridiculous is anyone's guess.) I can even see why Josh would go for the messier, let's face it..fatter Reva more then the overly made up middle aged bore she was during the Rauch era and beyond. And I would have loved to Reva and Nola as endgame matriarchs of SF...not sweet old ladies but full older women with their own eccentricities and living life while taking care of their people (as someone upthread put better then I did.)

Perfectly said. I know people don't like the change (and there were too many) but Long had all the families in play, the Spauldings with their dysfunction, the Lewis with their rowdiness and crassness as contrast to...everyone else, the Bauers the center of it all and their Reardon's brining the blue collar warmth even as they argued as a big family does. New characters like Reva and Alex and India, etc. Then it all fell apart and it became a show about people in shoulder pads and big hair and a show that was kind of eccentric, all over the place, and warm, became a cold show, and a copy of...some other show.

She had a "zest for life!" So Liv being overly sexual I could see her just going wherever the wind blew. I think some people just read more into this romance as it was one of the few featured on soaps (never got why people liked the ATWT gayling storyline.) and it actually had a beginning middle and end...and despite it being gay, it was pretty old fashioned soap, with longing and road blocks that came from within the character and not an outside force, and believe me I thought Natalia was dull as dirt. I gotta say tho. Liv and Phillip were hot as hell. Funny that the actors didn't really like each other that much.

I can't imagine that VW put up with any of JFP's crap. JFP's worst nightmare was women like VW and KZ who knew their own worth and were not going to let her walk over them.

I know what you are saying, but if my work told me...yea...we will call you when we need you and just pay you for those days, I would look elsewhere too. It shows you are not valued...especially when they keep Cole around playing that misogynitic tw@t he was playing. It also show poor planning. They did that to Marj during Rauch, and just when the FauxAnnie was starting to get interesting because Alex was ready to take her on, they didn't write for her so she said...yea later, and moved to AMC. Though Beth Chambelin worked more on recurring then she seemed to on contract so... Jessica was raped? I never liked her much but this long term character who was a black woman of power..they had someone rape her and NO ONE thought..uh, let's not do this?

Absolutely agree on this! Such a stupid move..let's get rid of the patriarch while we are on our last leg...(but let's keep Brad Cole....) I love that Wheeler and the writer went over Otalia scenes word for word,,,,if only they had done it for ALL of their scenes

I think It was with Henderon Forsythe ..I thought they knew but kept going as that is what they did...a wall falls down and you keep going its live. But maybe not.. No one in American wanted to hear Nancy say, "I have given it a great deal of thought..." again!

Love that opening (Liz does play it well and makes it fun..without being too jokey or silly) and wish they would have kept something like that every once in a while..Lisa "Oh honey, come sit down with me and let's see what ole Lucy and Johnny D are up to now...maybe we can have a nice gossip too?" Nancy, " Hello dears, come have a cup of coffee with me and see what mess I will need to fix next!"