DeeVee

My theory is cops get names like Wyatt because of Wyatt Earp. So it's kind of a collective unconscious thing. Hope and Rita, for sure. SO much unresolved stuff, plus they were both Bauers, one by blood, the other by marriage. Even though I wasn't terribly fond of the character, they should have brought back Mike. Actors are a different issue. I would not have expected Elvera, Lenore, or Don to come back. I don't think Mart or Judi would have come back if they were asked. Mart made it sound like he was at least partly let go because he was active in the actors union. And Judi heavily implied in interviews that she was not happy at GL.

Russians were fave villains of the 80s. GH had them, I think OLTL did, too.

The difference is, as long as winners don't come back the following episode, missing episodes don't matter as much as they do with soaps. I think most of the ones you listed had self-contained episodes.

I know there are LOTS of coincidences on soaps, but Bill Bauer having had an affair with Sarah Shayne is just too crazy to contemplate. It was silly enough that Dylan landed in SF where his Tulsa parents ended up living. Besides, Billy already had a "surprise" child--Hillary. I'm glad that never happened. They could have had Cassie be Mike's kid--though not necessarily Reva's sister. I mean, were they even that close? I believe this is accurate.

OMG. Is that why they gave her the clone story? So she could play two characters?

Yeah, people just wanted her GONE.I think Gloria Monty was mad at Francis for leaving and wanted to get Tony in another pairing quickly as a kind of f@ck you to Francis. It backfired. The fact that people accepted Luke with Holly shows that it could be done, you just couldn't force it. (Though most liked her better with Scorpio). I had no idea they brought Jackie back. WHY? Why bring back a massively unpopular character? That is WILD.

An early one from Y&R was when they toyed with the idea of Katherine Chancellor being in love with her companion Joanna, I think her name was? They backtracked on that REALLY fast. I remember Joanna roasting Katherine's son Brock for DARING to imply there was anything like that going on between them. It was really funny. Also from Y&R, decades later, they brought in Kevin's abusive father Tom played by Roscoe Born. They really played up a pairing between him and Ashley--they even did spreads in the soap magazines featuring them. The audience reaction was negative, so they dropped it. Another pairing that got dropped fast was when GH brought in Demi Moore to be Luke's new love interest right after Genie Francis left the first time. They also did a big push in the mags for that one. The audience was rabidly against it. Her character did not last long. I wonder whatever happened to her? 😂

The thing is, home VCR use didn't really become a thing until the late 70s. We got our first one around '77. My mom and I bugged the hell out of my dad as soon as they hit the market. They were expensive at the time--I think around $800--and my dad was, ahem, on the thrifty side. But he came home with one. (To this day, I'm certain it fell off a truck.) A lot of people couldn't afford that (or lacked my dad's connections, lol). So anything pre-1977 is probably going to be either from an actor's personal collection--they usually only keep episodes they are in--or something the network overlooked. The Bells were smart to keep all of B&B. The reason most of Ryan's Hope is available (at least the early years, before it was sold to ABC) is because creators Claire Labine and Paul Avila Mayer conserved the tapes. It's heartbreaking that so much television history was tossed or taped over.

Wow, so this is happening: Of course, B&B has the advantage of nearly a complete catalogue, but it would be great if more soaps followed. If this is a success, it just may happen.

Yes, yes, yes! Why did they do that? They still need to recast Tomas but I think the ladies could have carried it. This storyline had TONS of potential and it just...DIED. After pushing Derek/Ashley/Andre on the audience for almost a year when no one wanted them, why they did this, I have no idea. I was hopeful the pairing of Eva and Izaiah would be great, but...yawn. That's it. No stakes. That's the problem with a lot of the storylines. I agree with this as well. It just goes to show how debilitating a poor pairing can be to a soap. Derek is way, way more palatable since they separated him from Ashley. I literally used to cringe when he came on screen, now I am actually interested in what's happening to him. I still don't like Ashley, but she's more of a side character than the third side of a major love triangle, so she's also more bearable. I also think the cancer storyline is being done very well. It shows how when you give them strong material, the actors will meet the moment. But, as been said, the show can't be all about that.

I think the real problem was no one knew what to do with Frank. No writer during his entire run seemed really interested in him as a character. Maybe I missed it during a period when I didn't watch the show, but beyond his romance with Eleni, did Frank ever get a storyline that focused on him? It's like they kept him around to give someone for Harley and Buzz to talk to and because Frank D. was easy on the eyes.

Thanks! It helped that everyone here was so welcoming. 😊

My first memory of watching GL was Ed and Deerfield's Holly having a confrontation about Christina being Roger's child. I clearly remember Ed lamenting that things had been so much better between them over Christmas, so I assume this was fairly early 1976. Then I remember sometime after this, Holly (still Deerfield) trying to get in touch with Ed to stop the divorce before it was too late. (IIRC, it was RITA who, possibly unwittingly, didn't get the message to Ed in time). The next memory I have of Holly is MG's first appearance. I remember thinking, "She's different." But somehow she quickly became Holly. There was this scene (not sure if it was that first scene or sometime later) that seemed like a throwaway--she had made Ed some banana bread. She was saying the texture was wrong, and Mart was so cute, he made this funny face when he ate it. They had a really nice chemistry right away. Unfortunately, I can't remember the exact dates, but I'm fairly sure this all happened in 1976.

@alwaysAMC Happy Anniversary! I just realized I'm coming up to my one-year anniversary here, too! April 5. Wow, I can't believe it. I have to say, I'm REALLY looking forward to your reactions to the San Christohell story. I thought it was 6 months. (Or is that DOOL's schedule?) As you point out, it makes it really hard to pivot when something isn't working out. OR, to take advantage of something that takes off that they weren't expecting. For instance, I wouldn't have married Andre and Dani off so fast. I understand the financial reasons for it, but it does undermine one of the advantages of soap storytelling, which is the ability to try things out without committing to it until you're sure it's clicking. When you watch old episodes of GL you see lots of chem testing. They even chem tested Alan and Sara McIntyre. They were chem testing him with Rita for quite some time before that storyline took off. The same with Mike, although after Elizabeth they never found a strong pairing for him.

It's not just that--there's no conflict, there's no real story! Kat and Tomas arguing about living arrangements is not a storyline. I have no investment in them as a couple (beyond the fact that the actor playing Tomas should have been fired or replaced ages ago). The ONE thing that might have made them interesting (a triangle with the half-sister Kat despises) was quickly scuttled. This makes no sense to me.

IMO, it does really well with family relationships but falters big-time on the romantic love stories. Their one attempt at creating a star-crossed couple flopped so hard it was almost funny. I don't know about other people, but that's the main attraction for me when it comes to soaps. I want this show to succeed SO much because it's a chance to revive the whole genre. But I find it harder and harder to tune in regularly when there's no captivating central love story. I don't understand why they don't get how important that is to a soap.

People went nuts a few months ago when BTG's Anita had a doctor with the last name "Bauer." Some even speculated he was a child of Rick and Mel who had at some point reconciled. It would take SO little to please fans of their erstwhile shows. Things that would not require them to pay anyone royalties. Primetime shows do Easter eggs all the time.

GUUUYS...someone started a thread on X about how someone needs to start a streaming service to show old soaps...that SoapNet happened too soon...that GUIDING LIGHT, for instance, has 72 years worth of episodes just gathering dust in warehouses... And I'm like, 😭😭😭 no, my dear fellow fans, most of those tapes are likely gone forever. Soap fans are like silent movie fans, certain someone unwittingly has what they want sitting in a garage or attic. But it was nice to see so many people say they would love another SoapNet-style channel.

It's not a lie about her being SA when she was 13 or 14. In fact, Josh and Reva are referring to the scene where she confronts the man who did it to her. It's probably in an episode or two before this one. (Hate to sound like a cynic, but it came across as an obvious bid for an Emmy). Being the late 80s, of course they skirted around the issue (you notice she says he DIDN'T rape her, but she was a minor, so yeah, he actually did). It sounds like what the man was doing was grooming her. Besides, I really can't imagine Billy having sex with a 14 year old. She must have been older than that, I think it happened after Josh broke with her. (The timeline with all this is weird, because then Billy marries Mindy's mother, THEN marries Reva).

Putting Blake and AM together simply makes sense in a--I don't want to say in a Romeo & Juliet way, but something LIKE that--just because their family members hated each other. If they had a child that was a Spaulding/Thorpe/Bauer/Norris, that would be a lot of conflict! Soaps need conflict! Once Holly got over Blake seducing Ross away from her, there wasn't much there there. They had to come up with crazy stuff like twins that might have been fathered by two men, yadda, yadda. But a grandchild that forced all these people who hated each other to deal with each other? Seems like a no-brainer. (Poor, Liz. It's tough to come in after someone like Sherry. I grew to like her, but I did not like what they did to Blake).

Eleni was Alan Michael's Reva--an obsession that just made him the spoiler in the Frank/Eleni pairing. (Did anyone REALLY care Frank and Eleni that much? Maybe some did but I sure didn't). I guess they thought making him manipulative like Alan would work but it kind of ruined AM for me. When he started he was mostly a sweet guy--troubled, because he was young and had difficult parents, but kind of endearing. Yeah, sure, little sparks of Alan came out now and again, but there was also the Bauer side to him. It's just hard to believe that the guy who was so easily manipulated by his father and then by Blake would then turn into a master manipulator.

LOL, how many careers did Harley have? Sling hash at the diner, waitress, nanny, aspiring fashion designer, computer genius, cop, detective, head of Spaulding...talk about a job hopper! 😂 I'm sure I missed a few.

IMO, that ship had sailed. They never put Hearst with Ehlers, right? If they wanted to delve into the past to pair someone with Harley, it should have been Josh. (Yeah, I know).

That's just it. He shouldn't have been "the villain." He should have functioned on the canvas more like Victor Newman does on Y&R. Victor started out as a really bad guy (i.e. imprisoning and feeding a rat to his wife's lover) but he eventually evolved into the show's patriarchal figure with the gray morals who stirs the pot now and then. Alan definitely could have become something like that, though IMO a Bauer should have been the patriarch.

That's a really good way of describing his performance as Alan. I think the word "urbane" also fits. He gave Alan a patrician air (Bev did this with Alex, as well). It's like they were psuedo European aristocrats while still being very American when their ruthless sides came out. Either Raines never picked up on that or it was beyond his acting range. When I read Bev wanted Daniel Davis to play Alan, at first I thought, no way, the butler from The Nanny? But then I watched some episodes of Texas where he played Elliot Carrington. He gave Elliot that same urbane air. Even though he was not anything like Bernau physically, I do think he could have pulled it off.