Mitch64

I thought I was the only one who thought Tonio was both a bad villain and too boring to the ladies man they made him out to be...though maybe it was PB's diction (trying to sound latin) that just took forever for him to finish a threat or a come on. LOL on the first sentence...I love writers bringing in these characters and they just disappear..they tried to make Miranda intersting by being snobby and having an issue with Frankie, but they dropped that and really, what was the purpose of "Bilan." ? Colin and Deas are really on fire, though the material is not. As Tom and Margo they are this weird, flakey, eccentric but lovable couple. While I can't see their version of Tom and Margo in Kim's kitchen talking to Gram... I could see them eventually maturing into the couple Marx and Smith played, but they would NEVER have become Holmes and Dolan Tom and Margo.

Everyone in Oakdale during the mid to late Marland period, acted like they were on Xanax..perhaps that came with Marland's love for "therapy." Even live wires like Lisa were more downbeat..the only one to escape with Lucinda. It made me kind of love people like Lillith, who, while being calmly nuts..maybe would plant a bomb at the "Earl Mitchell Children's Center of Boredom" and get everyone to wake up!

I don't even remember this storyline. I did remember Burke, and remember thinking he was sexy...non soap operas...a big guy, who wasn't a cut muscle "hunk" and thought his character was refreshing in that he wasn't so placid and polite as the rest of Oakdale at this time, but he got lost in Marland's endless "Ambitious guy is bad, but reformed by love" he started with Ross Marler and...would...not...drop. Even if that annoying Courtney was his sister...(who was trying to be a "model" though she looked like a normal person..another storyline Marland loved to recycle.) But Gail??? She looked like Marland was setting her up to be killed. What happened to her?

Agreed...but I think the poster might have a point...the last ten years of GL had Reva and Josh acting like they were still 27, passionately "always," until they are not..lather rinse repeat...boring. Josh acted more mature without Reva being a dad and friend, but as soon as they were together (part of that was the actors egos to be on all the time, but ..) Alan Spaulding never changed, etc. the show would have been much better by allowing the actually at that time 40 something crowd of Rick, Phillip Harley, Beth grow up, appropriately age up there kids ) and using the older generation of course, but not having them repeat the same damn stuff over and over.

I thought it was historically in character and Long set this up for Alex after Lujack died with the horrible Simon storyline. Simon comes to town and claims to be Brandon's son, no evidence nothing and Alex begins to believe him and obsess over him. Then suddenly Ross has evidence he wasn't (to mercifully end the storyline.) Alex had to loose a lot of brain cells for that. But of course, I never thought Alex would let Roger near her but she was a hard character to write for, a smart tough cookie. Oh yes to this! And its weird, when you see VI interviewed he seems charming and nice...I know it's a character but could they have let him infused his character with a little of that. No one was going to put a foot up his ass, especially annoying Fletcher who when not nagging Alex was totally supportive of Nick and not telling him he was an being an a** to both women.

I didn't mind Alex outing Mindy...(Alex admired loyalty above all else) it was the constant grind of Alex going after Mindy that got too much. I can see Alex not loving the idea of Mindy getting together with her son, and subtly working against it, but Alex became the boring "rich bitch" that she never was. I also thought they set up Mindy's affair with Roger well, she was feeling left out of her friends life (they were covering up Phillip being alive) and a disconnect with her family, and she DID have a daddy complex...so. Curlee being toxic..hmm, I didn't see that..she was very respectful of the actresses and really wrote to Alex's feeling of having a longer hottie blond unsurp her, without belittling the character...compare that to the way the writers wrote Van/Matt/Beth and how they wrote Alex during the insipid "triangle " she had with what's his face the jewell thief and Marian...Alex on her death bed would not be intimidated by "Marina Cooper"!!!

Frank was always a character much like Fletch who was just there, and his popularity stemmed more from MK's star power than his. But characters like him make the show more believable, but I never got the show trying hard to make him work like making him a cop and chief of police especially since it didn't suit the character or the actor( keeping Frank, like the actor, a nice sweet guy, who is the sane person in the family worked but not an authority figure..and keeping him and Deas on contract over JVD was a crime. Lillian is another support player and a show needs a nurse...I just hated how she supported Beth's new personality without calling her on it. With PS gone I would have recast Mike and got him and Lillian together but having her as the Bauer matriarch might have blown peoples fuses! I would have brought her back during "Who shot Phillip" and she would have been the one to fake his death and hide Phillip as he got well...the character had her her own money and her own mental health issues, so it would work.

Definitely Bob Hughes....Chris and Grandpa Hughes must have been good too, but that was before dad's screwed their son's spouses so they were run off the mill. Bob had an active sex life (hello Susan, and horny Lisa was always ready to get her claws in him preKim so you know he was a good lay) but he still managed to act like a dad! And I love Henry too and H.B. later incarnation, when he first came on the show he was a horny old coot loving to cause trouble (and more fun too) before he became the voice of reason. Long wanted to eventually pair him and Bert but Charita became ill, they would have made a great team.

Don't forget...Pops..who died in a fire...(how many times did that damn diner burn down) I always thought Frank and Harley were just Tony and Nola all over again, but whatever Pam Long... But yes, they were always the fringe family but JFP elevated them and for some reason Hurst and the other writers and Wheeler thought they actually were the core family...(those dumb ass touch football games just because they could shoot them outdoors.) Frank and Harley, originally recipe were good and a contrast of the rest of SF, and Nadine..well, she was way too pretty..she always should have been trashier, and that might have been fun (I wish they also would have made Sarah Shayne a "Hello Doll" kind of rough battle axe. Also that the 5th Street Fire, JFP wanted it to be a Buzz only episode but a wiser network exec said no. But still she got a chance to give Deas a platform for that Emmy.

Of all those people Caso was forced to retire????? THAT is why soaps died a miserable humiliating death!

Wasn't McLaibson from AW? I can't figure out why at least with JFP, she was tanking so they move her to their traditionally lowest rated soap.

Whoever the director was who told him to calm the hell down deserves a medal...I would say it was after JFP but MLaiby had him swinging those stubby arms around as the cliched "ethnic" actors stood around him in a circle jerk proclaiming him the King of Fifth Street! He must have loved NY or you know JFP would have hired him away to devour another show.

After a year or two, I would say during McTrash's stint, Buzz became this super duper father, community anchor. There was a couple of times that someone would mention Buzz's past as a sh*t head, (amazingly during ConWest when Frank and Rick had an actually real conversation about their fathers' failings, and how neither Buzz or Ed were solid dads like "Ross") and Deas did play his wisdom giving later as world weariness (that may have been after a director told him to "tone it down" and he checked out.) LOL..if that was Tom Reardon I too would have left him to rot at the bottom of Lake Elizabeth! Bea was an interesting character, when Charita gone she was the natural persons to fill in at least part of the matriarch gap...she ran the BH and could nurture all of the boring new "hotties" that came to town..they brought her back to usher in Parker as Mo...and then she was on recurring when they brought in Chelsea but as soon as Long came back she was out. Long seemed to want to place Sara in that role,(cause it's all about Reva) but she was confined to the Shayne Lewis orbit and did not have an effect of the rest of the town. If you watch Marland's staff, Bea was more of take no [!@#$%^&*] Mom, and Long made her more passive.

I HATE Buzz and Deas "Look at me Im ACTING" acting...but early Buzz was funny and entertaining as he was supposed to be annoying scam artist and everyone in SF looked at him like he was Mars. It's later when we are supposed to see him as this great romantic hero who was always right, even when he treated both Nadine and Jenna like crap....that I hated him, and then they turned him into the 5th Street Bob Hughes..ughhh. I didn't watch the clip but if it was the one when he is working at Lewis Oil and acting like he was talking on the phone to impress Van, and she calmly walks over and says "This might help" while plugging the phone in the jack...was hilarious. I liked her as Mindy..she had a hard act to follow with KS...(not Anne Hamilton) I think if they wrote more of an edge to her (a pissed off Mindy is sick on men telling her what to do, and is not going to take anymore [!@#$%^&*] from Alex) it would have worked. Plus, she actually had chemistry with MOL, who also needed a partner with an edge to wake him up...(the Rick Abby thing made my teeth ache...)

I agree that an affair was stupid. They originally brought back Nola to pair with Ed, but sourpuss Simon put up a stink and said that they are two different. That is why they had her making a bit of trouble when she found about Lillian. But a better idea would have been that Nola comes back to town as she is tired of expeditions and basically living Quint's life. Maybe she missed out on hearing about Mo's death as they were in someplace cut off from communication. Nola finds out she missed the funeral and blames Quint (I would even maybe have it Nola had the affair to punish Quint and Quint later tells Henry he was the reason the marriage ended to protect Nola) and moves back to SF for a bit to "save the family" and try to mother Michelle and she winds up getting in everyone's hair. But her discovery of the Ed/Lillian thing could have led to an earlier version of the Ed/Lil discussion at Mo's grave the last week of the show...with Ed finally taking responsibility for it too. While I did not like Fletch I thought he and Nola might be good, a crusading journalist that Nola is constantly trying to "help" with his stories and ends up getting kidnapped most of the time. I do think Brown gave off an eccentric earth mother vibe so it would be interesting to see her drawn to the baby, knowing what it was like to be different and everyone thinking your weird..and yes, much better then her and Buzz! LOL..but we would not have had Rusty saying her name as only the cheesy guy like him could ..."ROOOOzzzzzzzzzeeeee!" Didn't Rusty date the infamous Rae Rooney too or was that Rick?

I can't even remember that "romance" they just threw every diva at Fletcher and it never worked...I think he was like Frankie D, he must have had blackmail pics of execs at P & G to stay on the show for that long. They should have never recast Alex and let Van go back to her more controllling ways as rich matriarch of SF.

I also thought it was that BevAlex was not a "business woman" but more of a business manipulator and picking people who can run things for her (first Ross, etc, ) and that is why she drifted towards Roger, who was more cut throat because of his hunger and she could blame him for being the bad guy. Then things went south with the Towers project and that was the beginning of the end. They made Marj when she first came on more biz like, until she just became Alan's busy body sister..which was not Alex.

I got what you meant...(and I loved that hat pin scene...Van was so much fun and then she married Billy and was a bore...I just watched Nola's return in 95 and she and Van going at it, and it must have seemed like Nola was a crazy bitch to talk to St. Van that way but it made perfect sense as she left just as Van was transitioning to bore) That was the only thing that made sense about ED being Margo, I think both previous Margos were kind of "guy friend" types. Which reminds me why I missed about Post Resurrection Reva...original Reva had a lot of guy friends...(Fletcher, Phillip, Rick, Johnny) and was great with them...it made sense that Reva would feel easier with guys..the weirdos thing is when they tried to make it that she and Holly (who also wasn't big on women friends) were friends.

Original recipe Alex was motivated by an almost feminist idea of power. She had a horrible father who (while heaping more mental and physical abuse) favored a weaker brother , just because he was male. Alex was smart enough to get out, while choosing a sub par partner to run with, while her weaker brother chose to stay to somehow get his father's approval. The original story had Alan helping Brandon hide Lujack and that is where her anger came from...she always protected her brother, but he in the end betrayed her. That was the dynamic which haunted their relationship..she loved her brother but could not trust him, or really any man, who represented her subjection. Alex was always going to try to trust Alan, and he was always going to fail her. That is why I agree with Bev, that Alex would never have trusted Roger, but it could have worked but they skipped a few beats...(accepting that a man who was actually as abused by a patriarchal father..and retro written that he knew Brandon and Henry who didn't accept him..she finally trusts a man who was an equal..even though he wasn't and destined to betray her like every other man) and fed into Alex/Nick...(yet again a blood relative who would turn his back on her) and again Alex always admired loyalty above all else, so being betrayed by Mindy, retro written as growing up in Alex house, doubled with then going with her own son, really made sense for the first two years, but after that it made Alex look like a nut (and bored the audience.) MarjAlex..is anyone's guess what she wanted..besides hating Mindy and having an almost incestous relationship with Nick. Her Alex favored Alan over AM, which would have never happened, (as much as AM failed, he was always TeamAlex) and she really almost had a weird fascination with Alan which was less Gothic then Bev/Alex and more..weird.. Under JFP and Curlee and Bev leaving, Alex became a plot point, a shriveled up older woman desperate for love and power..taking all the complexities out of Alex. Well, Van during that time was the rich bitch antogonist...( a great Nola wedding scene, they are getting ready in the church basement and there is a volley ball net, and Van or course turning her nose up at it all, eventually comes around to the group and in her bridesmaid dress, punts the volleyball over the net) and after that Van became a sniveling wife and the Reardon's were broken up and Mo was more concerned with her husband's ridiculouss trauma baby. So Van was a villain then vanilla. Agreed, but damn, if Long's first years were great..she wrote the Bauer/Spaulding/Reardons great, and individual scenes and characters were top notch...she just lacked a exec who knew the show and her her in.

First there was Harley and then Nadine as a Nola stand in (though Frank was a less sexy and definitely less smart Tony stand in...) I think that is why I always disliked the Coopers..they were all rip offs. And yes, I think JC really did make Nadine more sympathetic than the writing did..never my favorite character but consigning her to pine for Buzz in that ugly diner was punishment enough! I always wondered what an Ed/Nadine short term pairing would be..especially when Nola found out that she manipulated Bridget into the attic.

Actually the writer Hurst said they were trying to figure out a way to take advantage of BC and KMK's chemistry (I don't remember it) but she admitted they didn't really do it as well as they should have (I like her, she is very open about story slips..unlike other writers who will defend to the death their work.) I to think the comments on Van's age were from Rauch grinding his axe..which is funny, the rest of the cast had to comment on Reva's beauty in scenes and Zimmer is attractive (and was a complete knock out when first on the show) she looked rougher then MK. I do wish they had written it as Van getting her groove back in the biz world, and doing long hours and loving it...but much of it is in avoidance to dealing with the fact that the bloom is off the rose with boytoy and she is bored with him. That leads Matt to help Beth on a project (I would have her rehab a rape counseling facility to give her something to do then hang around the Spaulding liquor cart, humping the couch and chasing after anyone in pants) and they develop a bond and attraction, with no bad guys, no ageism, no Beth being a petty b*thc.. Matt creeping after Dinah during Wheeler's time was creepy..."Matt, do you have a job, a family, anything but chasing after your, gotta admit, sex on a stick step daughter." Where she uttered a classic line..a character talking about Liza's producing her work on a show called something like "Guiding Light".....where Liza says, "Not my best work..let's move on" ! LOL That's a good idea...they originally were going to cast a blonde "model" type for Amanda, and I can see that after spending time in Cali she goes blonde and high fashion...seeing an icy Amanda like early Bev/Alex would be cool. Thou I will always love sex pot campy vixen Toby Poser's Amanda, even if it made no sense!

I don't know if they had to..Zimmer and Newman would bitch if they had two days off in a row off..and Zimmer had her little group that could stir up to write in. I think the difference is that both actors were smart enough to know that being together meant being pushed into listening to other's problems and then being scenery. They also wanted to work with other actors and knew that again, Jeva will come around again...and again...and again.... I remember that it was a love scene and they were on a couch and the crazies were pissed they didn't get a bed! While the stories weren't great...they did have the couple on a lot with the baby thing, Van at work, dealing with Dinah...and the Beth thing,,,which I have to say, did have potential if it was written more sensitively and if Beth was not another spoiler ready to drop her panties for any guy she could get.

Oh I really liked that Van vs. Vickie thing, but then they brought back Marj and dropped that, only to drop Marj in a few months. I always thought Van was the natural successor to Bev/Alex and Marj should never have been cast..Van figthing her old lover Alan for Spaulding would have been good..with a well cast Alan not RR. And yes, anything is better then Van spouting poetry in pajama pants...lol! I also agree on Frank being more believable than Matt....Frankie D is a terrible actor but in his early years he did have charm and he was always believable as a not so smart, nice guy who wanted to do good for his family..while Matt never connected to Bridget or Nola, and he should have seen Ed as another father figure but every time he calls him "Uncle Ed" its weird. I think the actor is pretty but really, not engaging. Did Paul Rauch hate the Mattessa fans??For once I agree with him, if only he held the same disregard for Java fans, etc. Well, I gotta say I always found Derwin sexy (not a great actor but...) and still find him that way..there is just something naturally masculine about him ..so I can see older women like a pairing with Slezak...though again, it makes no sense.

Nola having anything to do with Buzz is just nasty....I can see them as sparring partners/friends, with Nola bringing Buzzard down to earth and vice versa, but sad sack Nola stalking him? And yes, I thought the Nola fantasy got old when Long was writing them and they should have gone away, with Nola being an adult woman. I never bought Matt as a Reardon..for such a long running character, he was totally underwritten, what did he want in life besides Vanessa..he never seemed especially close or have chemistry with Bridget, Nola or Ed...he just was this fantasy figure for older women watching? The worst part is that Van became a sighing sap with him..they looked like they were going to light a fire under her when she went back to work at Spaulding, and Matt was panting after Beth, but this was Rauch so the older woman had to be pathetic instead of Van just icing Beth to death.

I don't remember the fantasy laden story..but I thought it would have been fun to bring Nola colorful and eccentric, rather than the lump of drab she was. They could have used her to bring back the new Michele (she picks her up on her school trip and takes her around to see all the Reardon relatives ) to explain Chile's new personality...(well the casting would have had to been better) so Ed is pissed off at her and Van ...(she was heavy into her holier then thou bore period with Matt) and it would have been fun to make mention of have her past "Well remember when you were dating Matt's uncle...no not Ed, I meant Tony..though could dating been what you called it???" And to have a past with Dinah "Oh that summer I spent with Aunt Nola and Uncle Quint in Marrakash gave me a new look.I was a bit drab before but not after Nola took me to that great lounge...and..what's the matter mother, you look like you have gas?" Her confronting Ed about Mo could have also finally put that storyline to bed with Ed admitting guilt (or something other then fish lips.) Maybe Nola could be writing romance adventure books and decides to hang out in SF for while...(I could see her staying at the BH and being the wacky landlady with money.) etc. Anything but a sad victim of Quint screwing around.