Mitch64

John Dixon faking his death to frame James Stenbeck...but unfortunately his love obsession, Dee Stewart was put on trial for it. It was not the shows best era as the Dobson's had stripped the show of its base (Wagner quit, McLaughlin was on recurring and the Hughes were obscured) but it was a good fun plot (if you overlooked the fact that Dee was being charged with no corpse being produced.) Margo and Tom broke off because of it, even as she was preggers with his kid and John revealing himself in court was a great soap moment! The only problem was that Dee was being played by Vicki Dawson who was a weak recast.

I went back and watched March 2005 and it was quite good..not Curlee/Long good, but good just the same. As usual with GL, all the elements were in place to pull it out of a hole, or at least keep it afloat and entertaining and then an abrupt change of tone dumps it all back. They had Sebastian and Liv set up to fight at Spaulding, with Josh, Holly, Blake and others getting thrown into the mix (I really can't forget the scene were Sebastian was kind of flirting with Josh and Josh acted like he was kind of liking it..not written in the material but the Sebastian actor played it that way and Newman went along with it) Jonathon was still a little pr*ck and was mixing it up with Dinah, Dinah was all shades of grey, Alan was actually acting manipulative and Harley was not yet dropped into her love goddess perfect woman act and Ehlers wasnt schrieking yet, There were bombs...that actress who played weird china doll Lizzie, the overload of Coopers, the reliance on Prince Eddie past his expiration date and of course Brad Cole front and center and Phillip still "dead." but for what was to come, it was good. I always wondered what happened to drop all the momentum at this time and at others. I was okay with all of that...anyone who hated Post Resurrection Reva and her shrieking trash sister I want to buy a few rounds for...but I hate that they made them both NUTS to prop those bores up and not just cool "I'm India Spaulding and yes, I am a bitch but you will never catch me getting my hands dirty..I HIRE that OUT!" bad. Everyone says oooh Reva was so great but no, in her second go around they needed Annie to keep them afloat and then a clone and every other stupid storyline. I wish they had moved Annie more into other areas...fighting it out with Alex would have been cool, but especially former friend Vanessa. I would love to have seen Van drop boring Matt and the rose garden to go a few rounds with Alan and Annie. But to do that would leave boring Reva and Jarsh to their own devices. But my fave line of all time...Dinah..."Oh Reva, just SHUT up!"

You don't remember the famous line..."Oh Reva..just SHUT UP!" Lol..I immediately liked the annoying Dinah for telling newly self-righteous loud mouth Reva to F off! Oh that damn summer camp with the lake monster! I remember them stranding Roxie and Billy on an island (uh, how big IS this lake) to try to chem test them for a storyline which would have been weird but really kind of interesting..taking Roxie to her trashy roots "Come on Big Daddy!!!" and make Van roll her eyes even more!

They wanted to forget Carol ever existed, and did, when Steve and Betsy became a thing. She was never mentioned in relation to her marriage to him. Would have been interested to see her pop up and warn Betsy, but they would never have done that. Agreed, she should have stuck around on recurring, would be interesting to see a non judgemental character with a Christian background dealing with all the nonsense in Oakdale..much less her former, and much married mother in law Lisa.

I love the off kilter music they use when the focus on the package...this was the high point of Marland's ATWT..the Hughes as the center of it all, great use of history to spring new story...so much character interaction...and bit of campiness. It was all down here into morose stories focusing on the Snyder's quasi incest and a unknown kid popping up every other week...(Duke, what the hell was the point with him???) Compare this to Sheffer/Gautman Christmas time in what 2000? The Huhghes, who made a big deal on Christmas since Nancy and Chris, all are two busy to have their "open house" and are split apart for most of the episode, and since they have no house set anymore, they have to have dinner at the Mona Lisa. Sad indeed.

Unfortunately...MOL thought he was funnier than he was (and I like him.) During Rauch's time they didn't know what to do with Rick..he wasn't this "grand, passionate" character..he was a normal guy which all soaps need. So I think MOL made up for it by trying dumb schtick to get attention. That nasty nurse was Charlotte (I forget her last name) who ends up being murdered at Cedars..with of course, Ed, Claire Mo and others being suspected. Her sister (unknown to us at the time) was an equally nasty TV reporter who did her in..(why, who knows...) The problem was Charlotte was right, and GL, which had lost its moral grounding at this time, was making excuses for Ed (who I believe did fall off the wagon at this time, but he was FauxEd so nobody cared.) This was the time the played around with Fletcher and Mo..(UGGHH) before Claire became an outright psycho herself overnight.

The show before it started to fall apart...(showing its tears here...Eh...NuEd!) The rehabilitation of Brandon is odd...the storyline was dumb but its too bad they threw the Timberlaines away. Vicky could have been a great character going against Alex...but again..."let's do another Reva storyline."

Too bad we had to see it over..and over...and over again. Yea, weird about Gentry's return..("my" Eds were always PS and MH.) but he really had no chemistry with anyone. Say what you will about MOL, but at that time he had great friendly chemistry with everyone..except his own dad. I think the Bauer/Blue fued would have been great, if Jesse had a sister going after Bill or Nola's kid, etc but Jesse was a dud of an actor, and they just got bored of that. They got bored of anything that didn't involve Reva and that is why I really began to not like the character.

Lainie really didn't work and wasted her talent...I wish she was a recast Bea Reardon.

Nice article....I do love that actors, celeberties and stars are so happy to give interviews about the "love of their life," only to later find another one and do that same interview, over, and over ...so they kind of are like soap opera characters. Sad the quote about Don McClaughlin and the "smiling furniture" which he was about to become under the Dobsons and then Bunim fired him...until they brought him back and he was too sick to be anything but...I hope those last years made him happy.

He did appear in summer of 80 during a writers strike. He was played by some muscle guy who couldn't act and was involved in that dumb start of the drug storyline, but the show was a mess at that point so they didn't do much with him and I don't think he interacted with Bob much. It was a shame that the Dobson's killed Melinda off (supposedly the actress was getting too involved as both Zenk and the Dee actress were fighting to be the top heroine of the show...) as she was Kim's niece, Bob's step daughter, Barbara and Frannie's sister....and of course, Lisa was her friend. So many connections to just get rid of her. The Julia crazy storyline was during the time MADD was in charge and foisting similar storylines on her two shows...(David comes back with a new face, as does Annie) and since the Annie storyline was popular and they were trying to make Jack and Carly into Josh/Reva. At least ATWT never got a clone, or a stupid fairy tale island.

Blake and Rick was idiotic...they were raised as brother and sister until they were , in soap time, ten years old. It was written as a joke too, with MOL mugging through it, while it should have had a greater impact that Rick screwed his step sister, wife of his dad's best friend who was like an uncle to him. A better way to go would have been Matt and Blake...Van kicking Matt out since she found out he was manho and the then reconciling just in time for her to find out a younger woman is carrying his kid. I would have used this as a possible path to Ross and Van getting together and becoming the core couple..but boy would the crazy Blossies go nuts. Rick and Beth would have made sense if anyone gave too sh*ts to write it correctly so yes, a big vote on that.

Thank God for network interference for once...a whole hour of Deas chewing the scenery as he talks to himself??? The episode was bad enough.

Lord, this guy is almost as bad as the Alan..."You and Scott had great scenes together.." and then Deas says, "Really, I didn't think we did that much.." and the interviewer.."Well, I guess you had to have..." Anyway Deas is an oddball as he seems to admit but more articulate and not annoying...( I know, I know, he's actaully not Buzz...)He looks great for being in his 70s and who could not like that he is still madly in love with Colin, quite the difference from misogynistic Buzzard. Thought it was interesting that Paul Mayer told Deas he would never be a leading man and Deas called him an [!@#$%^&*]...also he was on ATWT much longer then 1 and a half years. Thought it was funny that Phelps wanted the horrible "Buzz on the diner rooftop during the fire" be a total one man show and the net said, "Uh no.." What was the thing she had for this guy? I can't believe she never tried to lure him away from GL. Also insteresting that the talks about how Buzz became just a "dad" for the last 15 years, which is when I found him most tolerable. Good interview because a least the host lets him talk. Though really Sonia Satra???

As a big Halloween fan (the original) I can say..its sucks. FF the whole thing and go to the last 20 minutes which is how they should have ended the 2018 reboot and left it at that. Why anyone in Haddonfield would celebrate Halloween, and not just lock their doors and wait for Nov. 1st....

Yea..he really does play Rick the Pr*ck in this one...(a name the Blossies called him when he knocked Blake up..until he didn't.) But he doesn't even get the chance to get killed by the real Michael Myers. He does a good job..

Good for him, it seems he is finding steady work, God please don't let him try any "comedy" in this or I am going to be screaming for Michael Myers to off him!!!

While I like MOL in his younger days I have to say that I think most of his affection for his later work was out of sentimentality. I re watch some of his time and he just seems to always hit the wrong note...kind of being condescending and a bit self righteous (he has a scene with MarjAlex where he is rude and one with Jessie where he just comes off as an ass) and some where he tries to break out of the goofball mode but he comes off as too...too..(there is a scene with he and Abby after the stupid twin reveal and he is almost brow beating her and comes off stalkerish...) or he just totally leans into the goofballl mode and thinks he is more funny then he actually is. Maybe it was the writing (one scene was McTavish) or the production and directiong (one scene was early Rauchie and he always wanted over the top emotions and that is not what Rick was...) I think Harley was played out by the time that Ehlers left and she needed a break...maybe for a year or two and then come back as a recast...)

No, Maggie and Frank left earlier. Maggie got a bit dull at the end with catching the typical soap female baby fever. Marie and Cal were murdered off first as they were expendable...(Lisa had buddied Cal and Fulton wanted something to happen between them...and wanted to wear black after he was dead but they said no...there was no romance between them and she said, "Well, you don't know what happened in the broom closet!" ) I agree that Diana would never make over Lilly, Karen would befriend to achieve a goal and Ariel would have hilarious comments about Lily....she started functioning as a bitchy greek chorus in Oakdale at the end.

I never understood why they built the final years of the show around the Coopers as the core family (no matter that it didnt resemble the Coopers of the Long years...) when you had JVD as the strong patriarch with connections to everyone in town. Instead of that cutesey pie simpering "Marina" why they did not bring a recast Sam back...she was friends with Harley, Phillip's sister, etc.

I LOVED "Aunt" Charmaine...and she just disappeared when Lisa returned. Would have loved to see her and Fulton's Lisa team up. Karen and Ariel were fun too, and I wished Diana and Maggie stuck around for Marland.

He had issues with Bob and his son ran against Tom for D.A. and also was the prosecutor for Dee during John's "murder" trial (as dumb as it was to have a murder trial with no corpse...this was really good and the Dobson's best work on the show.) But you have to understand Chris and Nancy were obscured so Wagner left, and then the put poor DM on recurring to just disappear so Bob and Tom were the only Hughes in town. The day Whit was murdered was the day Fulton came back to the show to discover his body, or as Fulton said, "I came back to trip over ole' dead Whit!" It would be interesting to see again. The show was really good and fun then, the real Lisa returned to prance around town in big hats and furs dramatically looking for the murderer of her husband and trying to help and but her nose into her step kids lives, annoying Whit bit the dust, Kim and Bob were moving towards each other and the return of Nancy and Chris coming..all more lighthearted, fun and admittedly campy and free wheeling then Marland would do (not a critique on DM.)

Recast...yes. I see a tough guy who made his own way...kind of rough around the edges..disdainful of the Hughes, likes Johnny D...Lisa and he love each other but bicker...they tried to do all of those things with Whit but it failed due to the actor and writers just using him when James was busy.

Ha..TPTB go pumping the same well, they would have her commit suicide and pin a murder charge on Reva! I would much rather have Annie come back, she has been getting help and she is sane but still bitchy, or better yet, Annie comes back with "Solita" and they Thelma and Louise Jeva..."SISTERS!" I know Kimmer would just LOVE to share the screen with both Watros and Forbes at the same time (imagine the passive agressive bitching to the press that would unfold!)

Speaking of Watros...since she was open to doing a couple days on a soap, I wish they had brought her on at the end of the awful FauxAnnie story to reveal that she was actually a fake, a fangurl who took up Annie's life or better yet, Annie sent to screw with the idiots of Springfield.