DeeVee

I think Long deserves at least some of that credit. It's obvious the Lewis/Shayne families were a labor of love for her. (One reason why people point out they act more like they're from Alabama than Oklahoma, most likely). She created the Four Muskateers, she created Alex--and to this day, I'm impressed by how seamlessly she brought this never-before-mentioned Spaulding into the story. She had to deal with the fallout of two writers strikes, and IMO she set the ship right pretty quickly. She had to deal with the fallout of Bernau's exit and quickly reset when they decided to bring Roger back from the dead. She quickly realized Maureen Garrett would be an asset to the show, so she grew a short stint into a long-term story. Obviously, I did not like every story she wrote or every choice that she made (coughRevaandAlancough) but I UNDERSTAND the reasoning behind a lot of those decisions. Kobe, OTOH, made decisions I don't get at all, starting with decimating the Bauers, getting rid of most of the characters from the Dobsons/Marland era, killing off characters out of petulance because the actors wanted to give Hollywood a go. I'm sure she made good decisions, too, but the bad ones kind of stick out.

Santo Domingo--where Roger held Holly captive back in 1980? Who's the sick so-and-so who came up with that "brilliant" idea?

I wanted to love that show SO much. It was created by the Dobsons! How could it be bad? Every time I tried it I was like, no, just NO. I totally did not get it. It was too wacky for me.

They got away with what happened with Bernau because back then AIDs was a death sentence. In Breen's case, he was HIV+, it happened when there were a lot more hopeful treatments coming out. Indeed, as far as I know, Breen is still alive.

That's exactly right. They kept up the fiction that he was coming back for a VERY long time. I've said it before--the stigma around AIDs was SO strong at the time. Partly maybe they wanted to respect his privacy (though after how they treated Zaslow, I kind of doubt it). I SORT of understand why KZ was keeping up the ruse even as late as 2012 in her memoir, because actresses who played intimate scenes with actors who had AIDs got a lot of crap because of it, like they were diseased, too. But mostly, I think the show just didn't want the negative publicity. Now knowing some of the BTS stories, where they had to have been planning a permanent replacement for him as early as Fall of 1988 (when they would have approached Zaslow about replacing him, and he suggested returning as Roger instead) it's obvious they knew perfectly well he was not coming back.

The thing that never made sense was Alan despising Beth. Anyone could tell she was a lovely girl and not a gold digger. If they had been consistent--with Alan hating ALL of Phillip's women--then it would have made sense. He would have seen them as threats to his relationship with Phillip. He liked Mindy, he just didn't want Phillip to marry her solely because she was pregnant. He liked Chelsea, who was from even a humbler background than Beth. He liked India, too, but they weren't married by then. Of course he hated Blake, but he had good reason to hate her. He liked Harley when she was with AM, but that was because he thought he could get his hands on AM's trust fund. And, let's face it, AM was basically a non-entity to him compared to Phillip. I don't remember if he liked Harley marrying Phillip, I kind of blank Raines out for the most part.

Oh, they were more than together for a bit. There were THE couple on GL for almost two years. They built up the character of Lujack like you would not believe, spending crazy amounts of money making a music video featuring him doing a Bruce Springsteen cover. Then, because Vincent Irizarry, the actor playing Lujack, wanted to leave--COMPLETELY understandable, pretty much every young actor does so after their first taste of soap success (as Grant Aleksander did)--they killed off the character onscreen because they were so annoyed at him. INCREDIBLY stupid move, both because of how popular the character was, and how they built up the whole story about Alex searching for her son the minute she hit Springfield. Then they tried to replace Lujack with a character named Simon and replicate Lujack's romance with Beth by introducing a girl named Jessie (Beth's cousin). One of many reasons 1986 was an awful year for GL. Alex ADORED Beth, both when she was with Phillip and with her son. She was like the anti-Alan, loving Beth regardless of her humble background. (Yet she despised Harley, go figure). She didn't even seem to mind when Beth pivoted rather quickly back to Phillip after Lujack died. She was that determined to have her as an in-law, LOL.

Utopia - a British series from 2014 on Amazon Prime. People were talking about it recently on X. Very strange and kind of prescient, considering the events of the last 6 years. I like it.

Yes, that is correct. Ironically, I believe it was written by scab writers during a writers strike and yet it's one of my favorite GL scenes. I wish other writers had built on that backstory more. Instead of wacky stuff like Brandon being Amanda's father. It's also sad that it was close to when Bernau finally left because of his illness. He and Beverlee were amazing together. In any other case, I would have been annoyed by the "sudden sibling" showing up. But they killed every scene together. I don't think they took as much advantage of that as they should have. Agree with both points. Bringing back Roger helped revitalize the show. He and MG basically pumped new life into it. Even though he didn't replace Bernau as Alan, he basically took Alan's place on the canvas as the attractive and somewhat malevolant plot-stirrer. Which was very much needed. And I totally agree that it should have always been a toxic relationship. I know there were new viewers who loved the two of them together, but for veteran viewers who remember their previous relationship, it was hard to watch.

WOW, that's INTERESTING. Again, I don't remember the name of the actress that Long favored, so yeah, it's absolutely possible Flockhart is the one being referred to in the TV Guide article. And you know what? Flockhart would have been more believable as a Marler!

He definitely shows up other Christmases--1986 (he gets Alan to help out blind and homelss people), 1987 (he helps Chelsea deal with Phillip's lingering feelings for the "dead" Beth), and 1988 (he helps Alan Michael and Harley who are fighting about getting married). I would assume 1989 because Long was still writing the show, but I don't remember that one.

When Brandon was shown in the late 1970s, he was a sick, broken man in a nursing home. The backstory was that Alan had stolen the company from his father, the implication was that he was a terrible father, but as far as I can remember, few real details were given. Alan seemed a little bit sh!tty for neglecting his sick father, in fact. Alan talked to Hope about his family when they were on the deserted island, but, again, he gave very few details. He did confess that he thought he hadn't been a very good father to Phillip up to then, but that he was still a way better father than Brandon. Brandon retaliated for Alan stealing the company by leaving all his Spaulding stock to Amanda without ever explaining that Amanda was Alan's daughter. (Yeah, I know, that was changed later, I refuse to acknowledge it). During the Dobsons and Marland eras, it was never mentioned that Alan had any siblings. Alex was mentioned the first time just before she returned to Springfield. They explained her long absence by saying she floated around Europe most of her adult life. Alex comes back with a clear vengance agenda against Alan because she thought he conspired with her father to steal her son from her. Because this was the point where Chris Bernau made his first exit from the show, they didn't spend a whole lot of time on this. Clearly, Alex wanted her father's love, she named her kid after him, but the implication again was that he was a terrible, very controlling father. Then they brought Brandon back to life--ugh, another thing I prefer to ignore. They concentrated on the mystery story more than the relationship between Alex and Brandon. They did reveal that their mother died when Alan was born (but not before she killed someone) so they grew up motherless. The one time Alex and Alan had an honest discussion about their father was during the storyline when everyone thought Reva was going to die. Alan had switched DNA results to make it look like Josh wasn't Marah's father. Alex found out and was going to tell him. Alan reminded Alex how they always looked after each other, how he had protected her from their father. Because of this, Alex agreed to keep the secret. So there was another heavy implication that Brandon was an abusive father. If not physically, then mentally and emotionally. They were clearly terrified of him when they were growing up. So, no, Brandon being an abusive father was not a late retcon--it was implied for many years.

This had to be deliberate because Long was actually VERY good at using history in her stories. As you said, it becomes awkward because then it reminds the audience that Roger was a serial rapist, not someone who raped Holly because he "loved her so much," or whatever. There was total rewrite of history, both to keep Roger a viable leading man, and to keep up their "star-crossed" lovers schtick with Roger and Holly. Also, by making the choice to write out Alan the first years of Roger's return, all the nuances of their rivalry from years before were pretty much gone once Alan was brought back. He should have been there for the time Roger was married to Alex. Back in the day, Roger was the major threat to both his personal/family life and his business. Even the way they wrote Alan out--having him chase Roger with a gun--was completely out of character and went against their history. He had the perfect opportunity to kill Roger when he "faked" his death. But Alan never went that far, and he certainly wouldn't dirty his own hands. To him, money was the way to solve problems, not violence. By the time he returned, Roger was in no way a threat to Alan. He had reason to hate his @ss, sure, but no reason to kill him. HOLLY had more reason to shoot him.

I recall there was a TV Guide article about the process of casting for soaps, and they used Sam's casting as a case study. Interestingly, Long was not for Suzy Cote. There was a blond actress in the running that she preferred. (Unfortunately, I can't remember her name). So she was overruled. I think she liked the other actress for more reasons than her physical appearance, but it is interesting that they didn't stop to think about family resemblence. When they cast Amanda's mother Jennifer and sister Morgan, the three of them looked like they could really be related--they all had the same freckles! And definitely when they cast Grant and Carl as Phillip and Alan Michael, they both looked like their biological families. Rick I think was meant to look like his mother Leslie. And the Reardons...every single one of them looked like they belonged in that family. (Except for Sean, he was an outlier, LOL. But his son and daughter looked like Reardons). Or course, appearance shouldn't be the primary reason they cast someone, but it is nice when people in the same family look related.

The story goes that Clark wanted to go to California for pilot season. Because she was in the middle of a big story (that dumb Dreaming Death story) they were forced to pretape weeks of her scenes. It supposedly ticked off Gail Kobe (the executive producer) so much, she decided to kill off the character. She did something similar when Vincent Irizarry (Lujack) left, killing off a hugely popular character without leaving the door open for a return. Which is why they eventually created Lujack's twin. Whether these stories are 100% true, I don't know. It is pretty obvious that Kobe was fine with decimating the Bauers. She thought it would be enough to keep Bert and Ed, but then Charita Bauer died. So, yeah, in the long view it was a big mistake to kill her off.