DeeVee

I know probably everyone thinks the cliched answer is Karen Wolek testifying on the witness stand on OLTL and revealing to everyone she was a prostitute--and it is an AMAZING scene--but there's another big moment during that trial that beats it by a hair. The trial was about the murder of Marco Dane (Gerald Anthony). So we all saw the dead body. But this is a soap opera, right? The reveal they did here was absolutely brilliant. They just showed the courtroom, they weren't really focusing on anyone in particular, when a man walks in and simply takes a seat. My sister and I were watching this together. We looked at each other, because the guy looked familiar but we couldn't place him. See, Marco Dane had a beard and dressed kind of like a punk. This guy was clean-shaven and was wearing a suit. Little by little, it dawned on us who it was, even though he was just sitting in the courtroom as if he was an anonymous spectator. We started screaming at the TV and each other, "It's Gerald Anthony, it's Gerald Anthony!" Of course, at THIS point, they explained this was Marco's twin, Mario Dane, and for quite some time the audience accepted it--until there was ANOTHER great iconic scene. Karen had been raped by her brother-in-law Brad Vernon, "Mario" figured it out, and he harangued Karen until she admitted it. Then she--and the audience--realizes he's not Mario, he's actually MARCO. The thing that's so great about all of this is you could NEVER get away with these kinds of reveals today because of the internet. From beginning to end, what a great storyline. Sigh. Miss those days a lot.

Damn, yeah, he ruins everything. Revised: IF they had had a decent Alan recast, then I would have liked to see a Holly and Alan pairing. (There are so many characters who slept their ways through entire families, I don't think one more is a big deal).

"a tycoon nobody likes with three wives, a bad reputation, and a ruthless nature." First thing I thought--that could be a description of Alan! Maybe he was Alan's prototype. That description of her father explains a lot about how Holly was when she was young. (I'm going to say it again: I don't understand why it never occurred to anyone over the years to pair her with Alan. Because she sure as heck must have had a ton of daddy issues. Why wouldn't she be attracted to a man like her father?)

It's a shame because the gown and cape are quite nice. But they couldn't stop there. It was the 80s. 😂

I looked up some dates: Will started June 1987. Sonni started July 1987. It says in Wikipedia that Long returned July 1987, but they were still crediting the previous writers in the very few July episodes that I could find. By August, she is credited as head writer. So it seems like it was the previous writers who invented Will and Sonni. Sonni was in SF for a little while before she and Josh "remarried." It had to be autumn, because they got married outside and Josh gave Sonni a beautiful white fur cape to wear for the ceremony. I found a picture, in fact:

The reason this storyline jumped the trolley HAD to be because of the strike. Long was not prone to writing overly-convoluted mystery plots. Even if you didn't care much for her mystery stories, they were pretty straight-forward and understandable. That's true of both the Fishing Trip Mystery and the Barbados Mystery. I'm not even sure that Long created the characters of Sonni and Will. I think Will came on before she returned, maybe Sonni, too? Will and Josh must have talked about her, at least. I believe Long came back just after Josh dumped Reva over Mara's paternity. Literally one of the first things she did when she came back was put Reva in her red dress and cause a scene at the country club, where she caught Alan's attention. So she inherites this story, and then there's a long writers strike. I'm not even sure Will and Sonni were intended to be these dark, almost twisted characters in the beginning. Then when the scabs came in there was so much wacky stuff: Will and Sonni having this weird, sadistic relationship, plotting to kill Josh while Sonni was still jealous of Reva (because, of course), Will once being a priest, Sonni (or was it Solita?) being a porn star in Argentina. Sonni fell off the cliff, no, Solita fell off the cliff, no, Solita was impersonating Sonni, Sonni was caught in bed with Will and whipped almost to death by her father, no, it was Solita, who ended up hanging herself, then Sonni took over Solita's persona, blah, blah, blah... It was pretty insane, and totally not the kind of mystery story Long had written before. As crazy as the story was, the audience did like Forbes and Breen, so Long had to figure out ways to keep them on the show, at least until their contracts ran out. I can't envy her coming back from the strike, because she had to put out a bunch of fires: Bernau was gone, she had to fix the Sonni story, she was told to bring Roger Thorpe back from the dead, which changed whatever direction she originally intended for Blake, etc, etc.

Don't forget, Bev and Marj were playing Alex in two very different decades. The 90s calmed down fashion, even for rich ladies. When they put Bev in that Pepto Bismol pink that was so popular back then I wanted to hurl. Totally wrong for her age, coloring, height...ugh.

Honestly, I can't stand either Rebel Without a Cause or East of Eden, though he is quite fantastic in both. The only reason to see them at this point in time (IMO) is simply to see all of his performances and sigh over what might have been if he hadn't died. I agree about Liz. She was criminally underrated as an actress. I have always loved her work. When she had a good role, she could play the heck out of it. That was one of her iconic performances. I'm certain Miss Ellie on Dallas was based on Leslie in Giant. There was no internet, so stuff didn't get saved forever until much later. Which is likely another reason they did it. Not every soap viewer read every line of every soap mag, so it still would have been a surprise to a big portion of the audience.

Don't forget every James Dean and young Marlon Brando movie for the Lujack storyline. The GWTW obsession was a little much for me. I wonder if Robert Newman hadn't left if we would have found out that Josh actually was more love with a male school friend than with Reva in their Cat on a Hot Tin Roof replay. (Actually, that might have been interesting, LOL). What's gagging me the most about that article is how she came to New York to become an actress in 1980, accomplished that with a major role on a soap, and by 1982 was head writing soap operas! Replacing some of the best in the business at the time! WTF. (There HAS to be some tea about THAT). Yeah, I know Texas was already on its last legs when she wrote it and she had a co-head writer in the beginning at GL. But this isn't like, say, Harding Lemay being plucked from playwriting to write a soap. As far I know, she had zero writing experience before writing Texas. Also, talking about writing from character, the Dreaming Death storyline had nothing at all to do with the characters, it was totally plot-driven nonsense. But I've always assumed it was nonsense she was commanded to write so they could compete with GH. I give her a lot of credit for the good things she did with GL, and soaps probably should have given more newbie soap writers chances, but her backstory for how she got into writing soaps is still wild. Oh, yeah, we knew she was coming and we knew she would be Alan's sister. They made a big thing out of it. I think they did that to get the audience 1) excited about Bev coming on the show and 2) used to the idea that Alan had a sudden sister. It worked.

Come on someone, SPILL THE TEA! 😂

Wow, I had no idea! What a shame (since that TV show flopped, IIRC). I'd always heard he was very upset about being fired, but by 1990 Kobe was gone and he must have been more open to the idea of coming back for a while. It wasn't that Pennock was bland, he just was the wrong type to play Justin. Although Justin was always successful with the ladies, he had a definite intellectual vibe. Pennock kind of looked like an aging surfer dude at this point in his life. Maybe they were trying to make him look more like he could be GA's father?

Yes, I remember thinking at the time, "Now, THAT"S Roger Thorpe's daughter." It's a shame that they didn't build on that.

I hate how they muted Blake's character. Once she was so capable and manipulative she could have Phillip involuntarily committed to the loony bin without breaking a sweat. Now she can't even pick up the phone and call a plumber.

I can't even begin to imagine her in either role. She seems all wrong for both roles, unless they would have changed the characters to suit her better. Jada Rowland was too old to play Faith. Nancy Barrett did not fit the role, either. I could see Kathryn Breech as Faith, though. Ironically, she was replaced by the incredible Judith Light on OLTL, so maybe she should have gotten over her aversion to being a recast. 😂

Yes, it is very strange that they completely dropped a legacy character and she was never seen again. She might have been mentioned, but it became like she never existed. And they didn't have the excuse of her having a rapidly SORASed child, like they did with Hope. They put a lot into the Dylan/Samantha pairing . It just never took off. They were the nice intellectual girl in love with the blue collar bad boy trope but they never clicked with the audience. I think they were hoping they'd be another Phillip/Beth pairing, or more accurately, Lujack/Beth, in popularity. To show how much the show had invested in these characters: they was an article in TV Guide about casting Samantha. That's not something you saw much outside of soap magazines. I always got the impression that Morgan Englund, who played Dylan, felt like he should have broken out and become a star on the show. Maybe that's mostly ego, but they immediately connected him to two major characters: Reva, by making him her son, and to Harley, by making him the father of her daughter. You do that with the anticipation that this character is going to be a big deal on the show. (Nowadays he speaks very positively about his GL experience). As for Justin, they tried recasting him but it was another flop. I adored Christopher Pennock when he was on Dark Shadows, but he was not the right actor to play Justin. Tom O'Rourke, the original Justin, probably would have never come back. He was furious when they fired him. Unfortunately, Douglas Marland never understood the character of Jackie at all, pretty much destroyed the character, and then killed her off before they ever did the reveal about Phillip's parentage. By the time her daughter arrived in SF, Samantha may as well have sprung from Justin's head.