Beetle Bailey

Someone has uploaded some new Search For Tomorrow videos on youtube.  I watched some of them and I thought after the show ended in 1986, why didn't P&G Productions hire Marcia McCabe (Sunny) to play Hope Bauer Spaulding on Guiding Light?  They already knew her work and she would have fit in over there better than on OLTL and later AW.  I don't think the show would have lost as many views if there had been another Bauer woman rather than just Maureen after Bert died.  

Also on GL, instead of that weird actor, Doug Hutchison, playing Roger's son, Sebastian, it should have been Bronson Picket.  He had already played Diego on World Turns and some character on Another World.  He had the sexual energy and charisma for the role and had played a villain.

I also noticed three actors that could have played triplets.  Gregg Marx (Tom on ATWT and David on Days), Todd McKee (Ted on Santa Barbara and Jake on B&B) and Ernie Garrett (the 1st Mark Wheeler on Texas) could have swapped roles and no one would have noticed, even if they were all different ages.

I'm watching the Dynasty episodes on Pluto.  They start from season 1 and end at the end of season 5.  I think these are the best years of the show.  However, what was with the casting from season 4 on?  Whose idea was it to cast Helmut Berger as Peter DiVillbus?  He was terrible.  Maybe he was a big deal in 1970, but not by 1984.  Leonard Mann would have been a better choice.  He had already worked on another Aaron Spelling show, Charlie's Angels.  He was involved with Farrah Fawcett's character as a prince.  In season 5, Esther Shapiro wanted Rock Hudson to play Daniel Reece.  He was not well and he had no chemistry with Linda Evans.  Dirk Benedict should have been cast instead.  Ali McGraw was not a good fit as Lady Ashley Mitchell.   Jaime Lyn Bauer would have been a better choice.  She could play provocative and mysterious and would have made better acting choices in the role.

There have been several times when I stopped watching a soap due to either a storyline or time period.

GL - Killing Maureen Bauer and keeping weak and selfish Lillian Raines until the very end of the show.   Then later on Nadine getting killed off in a cheap stunt.  My guess is since Reva was back on the show, Nadine was not needed.

OLTL- Having Bo be in a clear case of police brutality with RJ and the show explaining it away as Bo having a "midlife crisis".  Since Antonio was an old enemy of RJ, it kind of made sense when he ignored Bo's treatment, but when Hank even took Bo's side over his own brother, that really turned me off the show.

AMC - I remember turning off AMC for good in 1984 when Jenny was killed off.  Her and Greg had been through so much agony to get together only to have cut short because of a fatal attraction.

Eastenders - After watching Tiffany being disrespected by Grant for almost all of 1998, she finally realized he was never going to change.  She was trying to leave Walford with her daughter only for Grant to catch her and snatch the baby away from her.  She begged for him to give her the child, he knocks her down in the snow.  Then she gets hit by a car, bangs her head on the sidewalk and dies in the first seconds of 1999.  What turned me off the show was that Tiffany never got justice and Grant was still there for another ten months after that.  He left the show with his child.  I could not look at the show until long after he was gone.

I think The Doctors could have survived if NBC had left it in its 2:00 timeslot.  I dont know what Fred Silverman was thinking in making AW an hour and a half a day, once that did not work, creating Texas and making that show an hour instead of a half hour.  I saw the 1980 episodes and they are way better than what is being written on soaps today.  

To me, the problem with Flamingo Road was that it was on the wrong network.  Mama's Family had the same problem later on and it did not become successful it went to first run syndication.  Back to FR, it looked and felt like a CBS show, but it was on NBC.  If it had aired on CBS after Dallas instead of Falcon Crest, it would have lasted at least 7 or 8 seasons.  For some reason, southern style shows perform better on CBS than on NBC.  In the Heat of the Night is an exception, and even that migrated to CBS for its final season.

Watching the show in Italian makes it look like a telenovela.   To me, John O'Hurley and Roya Megnot are the actors holding my attention.  The problem with the show in general is that it feels so generic.   It does not have an identity like the other soaps of that period did.  To me it feels like early All My Children, Love of Life with the college aspect, Y&R with the physical attractiveness of the actors and actresses and Days with the off the wall plots.  Plus Jim and Shana remind me of the Thorn Birds.

I think the clips being uploaded are from 1984, 1985.  It seems most of the characters have been recast.  Except for Roya Megnot as Ava, I liked the original actors better.  Chris Macantel was the best Curtis, Linden Ashby has a creepy vibe to him.  Teri Keane was a warmer Rose Donovan, Dorothy Stinette has a colder prescence.  Marilyn McIntyre was better as Noreen than Elizabeth Burr, I don't think James Kiberd has the same chemistry with her either.  Shannon Eubanks had such an elegant vibe as Ann, Callan White seems like she is copying Linda Gray's Sue Ellen from Dallas.

Never mind, he wasn't.

Wasn't he nominated for an acting Emmy for All My Children in the early 80's?

Woody Brown looked similar to Chris Atkins, only a little older.  He played Skipper Weldon on Flamingo Road.  He would have been a better Peter Richards.

I did not like the Peter Richards story either.  I think Dallas should have copied what Knots Landing did with Lisa Hartman.  After Ciji Dunne was killed off in the 4th season, she was brought back in the 5th season as Cathy Geary.  After Timothy Patrick Murphy was killed off as Mickey in Dallas' 6th season, he should have been cast as Peter Richards instead of Chris Atkins.  TPM played a college student in Hunter in 1986 and he was believable even though he was in his mid to late 20's at the time.  To me, Chris Atkins did not have chemistry with either Linda Gray or Charlene Tilton.  Greg Evigan or Dennis Christopher might have been a better choice to play Peter.  

Even though Grant Aleksander was on Guiding Light during Dallas' season 7, he would have been a great Peter Richards.

Laurence Lau could have worked.  The show should have cast a mature looking actor yet also look college aged to play Peter.  

Sorry in advance for the long post!

While I think Emmerdale is better than the remaining American soaps, they need new producers and writers.   The show does stand-alone episodes and stunts very well, the regular episodes sometimes are tedious to watch.  The show kills off the wrong characters and puts the other characters in wrong storylines.  Faith, Al, and Liv should never have been killed off.  Instead of killing Faith, Zack has barely been in the show the last three or four years, he should have been killed off.  Without Lisa, he was a spare part anyway.  

With Al, Cain should never have been involved in the cheating storyline with him and Chas.  But, since the writers inserted him, instead of Al getting shot in that barn, it should have been Kyle.  There really would have been a reason for their feud then.  As far as Liv, if Isobel Steele wanted to leave the show, why not take a page from the US soaps and recast?  There is more story with her being alive, then being dead.  

Then you have the teen scene.  Instead of this stupid internet story with Amelia, she should have been killed off instead of Harriet, and Dan vs Sam and Lydia should have been fighting for custody of baby Esther.  Noah is one of the only Tates left and Kim should have been trying to groom him to take over.  Charity would have problems with that, so then you have Charity vs Kim.  I would have Samson vs Jacob battle over a new girl in the village, not Chloe or Gabby!

Since Laurel is still being listed as Laurel Thomas instead of Laurel Sharma, I guess her marriage to Jai is not going to last long.  Charlotte Bellamy and Chris Bisson do not have any romantic chemistry.  She only worked with John Middleton (Ashley).

Am I misremembering things or when Julie Philips played Sally Frame in the early 80's, didn't she try to have Eileen Simpson sold into a white slavery ring because she wanted Joey Perrini for herself?

Cameron Mathison

Ricky Paul Goldin

Michael Lowry

With regards to Jenilee Harrison, I don't think she was a bad actress, but I think she had the same problem she had on Three's Company.  She was a limited actress there as well, not very funny.  Unfortunately John Ritter nor Don Knotts gave her any tips or took her under their wing.  Maybe if they had, she would not have been demoted and replaced with Priscilla Barnes, a more experienced actress.  To me, Jenilee did not have enough fire to play Jamie.  She might have fared better as one of JR's girlfriends or one of the Ewing Oil secretaries.

Just heard about Nicolas Coster's passing.  I think he would have been a great Alan Spaulding on Guiding Light after Chris Bernau's passing.  He had the elegance, style and warmth.  On the subject of Alan, Ron Raines should never have been cast as Alan.  Even Daniel Pilon was better suited as Alan than him, even though he was essentially playing Max Dubujak in Springfield.  Raines should have played a recast Justin Marler.

I agree about the casting of Jack and Jamie Ewing.  Since The Dukes of Hazzard had ended in spring 1985 and it had been Dallas' lead in for many years, either Tom Wopat or John Schneider should have been Jack.  I would have cast John Schneider as Jack and Tom Wopat as Matt Cantrell or another character.  As for Jamie, she should have been a Southworth, from Miss Ellie's side of the family.  Dallas should have casted an unknown actress and saved money.  Maybe Susan Dey could have played Jamie?

Instead of Falcon Crest hiring Camille Marchetta to write season 8 and Miami Vice's old writers in season 9, they might have been better off hiring Eileen and Robert Mason Pollock to write those seasons because I think their writing style would have suited the show better.  Although FC was my favorite primetime soap of the big four (Dallas, Dynasty and Knots Landing), it was more plot oriented than the others.

Instead of Days hiring Ron Calivati to be the headwriter, I think Pamela K. Long would have been a better fit for the show.

I think Chris Goutman would have been a better executive producer at either Edge of Night or Ryan's Hope.  I saw the interview he did with Alan Locher and he still has an affection for Edge.  I do not think he really liked ATWT, he said more than once it was very midwestern.  Whatever that means.  I don't know why Alan did not press him about that.  Maybe the show was not edgy enough for him.  

Instead of GL moving to Peapack in 2008, why didn't the show move to Brooklyn and share resources with ATWT, since it was already located there?

I completely understand why ABC soaps were more popular than the CBS and NBC soaps during this period.  Although I was never the biggest RH fan, I always thought it was overrated, the acting was good.  Edge of Night was on fire like AMC, OLTL and GH, the problem was that fewer stations carried it and it did not always air at the time it was supposed to.  In my area, it aired a day behind at 10:30 am, that is until 1983, when they finally aired it at 11 and then had Loving air after it.  At least it was no longer a day behind.  If it had aired after GH, it would have been at least number 2 or 3.

AMC had those offbeat, flashy characters you would never see on the other networks, interesting storytelling, OLTL had Karen Wolek, Marco, Dorian, Joe, even their good guys were interesting and not sanctimonius, like the P&G soaps tended to.  GH had the action and adventure stories.  I remember that ATWT and OLTL aired opposite each other.  In 1979, both Joe Riley and Dan Stewart were killed off their shows.  When OLTL aired Joe Riley's funeral, it felt raw and real,  it was like the audience was able to grieve along with Llanview, while Dan Stewart's funeral was so stiff.  It seemed to me as if the writing was too caught up in being dignified rather than mourning the loss of this important character.  Dan Stewart was the love of Kim's life, Kim was too stoic.  And this was the contrast between the two shows.

The only two non-ABC soaps that were riveting viewing during most of the 70's was AW and GL.

I don't understand why Texas was created at all, especially since AW was fading.  If Somerset, Lovers and Friends and For Richer, For Poorer did not work, why did NBC think yet another spinoff would work?  It would have been better for NBC to invested more time and money into The Doctors like ABC did with General Hospital.  Instead of that stupid idea on AW being 90 minutes, the schedule should have been Days from 1-2, The Doctors 2-3 and AW 3-4.  And then if the ratings did not increase, then make adjustments.   Or maybe Days should have had the spinoff and ran it for 30 minutes and TD the other 30 minutes and kept AW as the last soap of the day.

Whatever happened to Peter Davies, he played Jim Vochek on Loving?  After he left Loving in the last 80's, he has not acted much.

I am rewatching the original Dynasty on Amazon.  While the first season is one of my favorite seasons along with 2, 3 and 9, I completely understand why Matthew, Lindsay and Walter were axed.  They were all good actors, but for me, Matthew and Walter felt like Dallas characters, Lindsay seemed like she belonged on Family hanging with Buddy and Willie.  However, she should have been brought back the next season like Claudia.  Maybe she would have been less depressing if she had interacted with Sammy Jo or Fallon.  As far as the rest of the show, the Carringtons felt fresh and more sophisticated than the Ewings, so I could see why all of them returned for the 2nd season.

While Falcon was my favorite of the big four primetime soaps, it was the only other soap where I rooted for the villains, Passions was the other.  I always like Angela better, even though she was wrong most of the time.  While Robert Foxworth is a good actor in other shows I have seen him in, he should not have been cast as Chase.  He just was not likable like Patrick Duffy, John James or Ted Shackelford.  I felt that Bill Bixby would have been a better and more likable Chase.   Another Gioberti that was miscast was Cole.  Billy Moses was boring and unattractive as Cole.  Timothy Patrick Murphy, Billy Warlock or Todd McKee would have rocked in that role.