DeeVee

I recently watched these episodes on the German channel. I couldn't find the one where she kills the snake, but it was about Alex looking for info on Alan's sorjourn in San Rios (she became ill and was nursed by a Central Casting Latina lady). Johnny, Simon, and Jessie followed her to San Rios. Because, I don't know, they needed to give them something to do? They got captured by some Central Casting Sandanista-types (Jessie was shot). This got folded into the Vanessa searching for her child story, as she erroneously thought Jessie was her child, so Ross went to San Rios to find her. As far as I can tell, no one ever found this Encantadora chick. I assume this was a story that was dropped for one reason or another (probably because someone realized it was STUPID, or maybe it was reused in some ways for the Sonni/Solita storyline later). Mostly, it ended up being about Alan (who was safely back in SF) being sought by the faux Sandanistas for some undefined crime. He had his own wanted poster and everything! Luckily, since this is a stereotypical Central American country, a sudden regime change meant Alan was in the clear AND Spaulding got the mineral rights for the whole country.

What I find most interesting about this is how "on" Jordan is in the scene, as if this is being taped for the show, not an audition. I would guess one reason KZ got the role was because she was able to keep JC from totally dominating the scene. The chemistry between her and RN is less obvious. I think she's said it took a little while for them to vibe.

Every single thing here sounds like stuff Nola should have done, not Blake.

What principal roles were recast in 1989 besides Mindy and Beth? I really don't count Blake because she didn't become a major role until Sherry stepped in.

HOW did I forget that? That was definitely the worst of the worst.

Oh, sure, but a lot that was left out was pretty bad. 😂 I will say, the one thing that I liked about that year was Alan and India's relationship. I found a few more episodes on the German channel that weren't on Spauldingfield. CB and MKA had great chemistry. I really enjoyed how they cautiously circled each other and messed with each other in between the flirting. Never will understand why they didn't really run with it.

Thanks for posting this. Since I recently watched 1986, can't say I disagree with anything said here. They pretty much nail it on the storylines they touch on. (Ugh, Phillip's novel. A strong contender for biggest time waster in GL's history). But I wonder if this is a review of the entire year, as there is no mention of: Chris Bernau's return Robert Newman's return That horrible summer camp storyline That horrible Andora gold storyline Beth's disappearance/"death" Vanessa's search for her child The restart and quick dissolution of Reva and Kyle's relationship The intros of Johnny Bauer and Chelsea Reardon I'm sure I'm forgetting some stuff. Maybe they just ran out of room. 😂

Maybe not as close as he was to Ed, because they were colleagues, but they were friends. No, Jackie was not using Mike to make Justin jealous. After her divorce from Alan she was very much after Mike. She caught Mike and Elizabeth together because she decided to "surprise" Mike by showing up unexpectedly at his law conference. She was furious and hurt because they were betraying Justin, yes, but also because she had built up her relationship with Mike as more than it was, at least from his perspective. Mike knew she was interested in a relationship with him but didn't discourage her, even though he was still crazy about Elizabeth.

I liked him much better when the Dobsons were writing the character. He wasn't sanctimonious at all. He was pretty flawed and human, stringing Jackie along and jumping into bed with the married Elizabeth, later terrified Jackie would out them to Justin. His hatred of Alan was totally understandable vindictiveness because Alan ruined his relationship with Elizabeth. Fast-forward to the beginning of Marland's tenure, and he's suddenly lecturing everyone on honesty and values and wants to bring down Alan for truth, justice, and the American way. Like he hadn't just been banging his friend's wife in a hotel room and desperately trying to cover it up mere weeks before. 😂

Ed was still eating his heart out over Rita when he started dating Mo. She was also getting over a divorce, so they had that in common. Vanessa was definitely a minor blip for Ed.

I seem to recall Ed throwing a lot of it back in her face back in the day. Typical Marland scenes of a Bauer lecturing others about their imperfections. 😂 But maybe she meant later on, after they moved on from each other.

It was over before Maureen and Ed met. TBH, I never bought Vanessa's friendship with Maureen. Van didn't like the Reardons and looked down on them. (Yes, she eventually married one and had a good relationship with his sister, but that was later). Her friendship with Trish was only believable because they were sorority sisters. Van is the type of woman who doesn't have deep female friendships, she's much more interested in the company of men.

I believe Roger, involved with Alex, is a huge reason why they should have brought back Alan way sooner. And I think it would have been a GOOD thing if Alan wasn't always so focused on Phillip for a change. Which is another reason AM should not have been stuck in the Spaulding musical chairs game about who would run the company. It's tedious. As discussed earlier, he could have become a lawyer. Perhaps mentored by Mike, and could have even taken Mike's place as Spaulding nemesis, getting back at the father who valued his biological son less than his adopted son. Considering she had an affair with Ed while he was still married, that would have been just a tad hypocritical. (Yes, Ed and Rita were pretty much done, but Vanessa did tend to flirt with lots of men regardless of marital status, so...) Which reminds me. I've been watching the German episodes that include her affair with Ed. Did Ed and Van EVER recall or refer to their former relationship after that? It seems to me they totally memory holed it after it ended. (I still don't quite get why they were ever paired up in the first place. Can't imagine why Van was so keen to catch him).

Which begs the question, why didn't they bring back Alan sooner? (And hopefully, with a better actor than RR).

I know this isn't GL related, but we've had a lot of discourse about her... Jill Farren Phelps is joining Y&R as producer. Comments on X pretty much amount to: "Show killer!" 😂

Here's my theory for why this happened: Alan was no longer on the canvas, Phillip was reunited with Beth, so the obvious contender to take Alan's place as the Spaulding manipulator was AM. Before, he was used by Harley (up to a point) and Blake. Later, he manipulated Eleni into marriage, which was a classic Alan type of thing to do. Now I'm realizing why I despised that story so much, because AM was a sweet guy in the beginning. They should have emphasized his Bauer lineage instead. Pulled in one direction by the shiny things on the Spaulding side, pulled the other way by Bauer values. So yeah, they changed the character, and IMO, they shouldn't have.

I can't believe they made MG pose for that picture. (The kids look so miserable, which they may have asked of them. Or maybe they knew it was stupid, too).

If I had to name worst character ever on GL (and there are many contenders) I'd have Ben in a tie with Jeffrey.

There's actually a really good scene between Reva and Alex when Dylan and Harley kidnap Daisy. She flat-out confesses to Alex that Dylan is her son. Since Alan Michael was involved, it was one of the few (or maybe only) time they came together on something.

I agree with P.J. She was so well known at that point for playing darker characters that, ironically (since she once played the character), it would have been difficult to sell her as Hope by then.

I thought of Schultz, too, but maybe she was too young to work as Alan Michael's mother. (If we're rewriting GL history, we could have not SORASed AM so quickly, though it would be sad to lose Carl). Dee was written as a sad sack. I remember her doing a short stint on Y&R as a wedding planner and she was quite vibrant. Another who could have worked was the last actress to play Annie on ATWT, Mary Lynn Blanks. She had that warmth and sweet blonde looks.

I'd have to agree with that. Even though I see Rita as a sultry brunette, Tonja would also be better as a Rita recast. Another thought I had for a Hope recast was Marcia McCabe, who played Sunny on SFT. I think she would have brought both warmth and strength to the character.

I thought she was fine, just rarely got a good chance to emote. She had a warmth that was very appropriate for the character, much like Mart Hulswit. It's funny you mentioned Sharon. I've often thought she could have been a good recast for Rita. If it wasn't for the quickly SORASed Alan Michael issue, I was thinking how great it would have been if Marcy Walker had been cast as Hope when they brought her on the show, instead of a palid new character no one cared about.

1983. Starts around the middle of the year, June or July, I think? Soon after they wrapped up the Mark Evans storyline. The problem always with bringing Hope back was how quickly they aged Alan Michael. The funny thing is, Elvera was playing much younger than her actual age. She was around 35 when she left, so she could have credibly played the mother of a teen by 1987. The issue, I've heard, is they didn't want her back, even though she was interested in returning.

I finished watching Hope's exit story on the German channel, and I have to say... What a WASTED opportunity. It was so well done. It would have been even better if it hadn't been accelerated and compressed, probably in order to get Elvera out by the end of her contract. Because of that, some really important story beats were missing. Can I believe Alan would wake up one day next to Hope in their comfortable middle class existence and decide he'd had enough of playing suburban husband and dad? Yes. Definitely, the framework was already being laid down by PFS and other writers before Long took over. Even the scabs during the brief writers strike in 1983. (There was a really good scene between Hope and Phillip where she comforts him because Alan is too distracted to pay attention to him. She says something like, "He'll come back around to you. Just like he'll always come back around to me eventually." Yikes, that's a sad thing to admit about your marriage). It was a perfectly valid story choice to have Alan revert to being the crumb he was while he was married to Elizabeth. I totally believe he would have wearied of trying to fit into the mold he needed to in order to be with Hope. Again, it was just the rushing and lack of subtlety in the change that bothered me. Plus, just from a storytelling perspective, Alan is much more useful as an egomaniacal narcissist, because that's the type of character who drives story. Once they get past setting the story up, I was very impressed by the writing. The way Alan manipulated and gaslighted Hope was so awful, I wanted her to shoot him. He was SO cruel, tearing down her confidence, one minute bemoaning the state of their marriage, then shutting her down every time she brought up reconciliation. She starts having a flirtation with Warren and Alan shuts it down, mainly because it's rebuilding her confidence. (Yeah, Warren was a scumbag, but some potentially juicy stuff got put to the side, like Warren juggling two neurotic women, Hope and Lesley Ann, while still bootlicking Alan). He also manipulated Trish--dangling a promotion while never really intending to give her one, seducing her by crying on her shoulder about Phillip finding out the truth about his paternity. I feel like they could have skipped the whole acoholism thing because the resolution of it was ridiculously simplistic. Her family intervened, she went to one AA meeting, and she was sober and stronger. It was enough that he was ripping apart her self-esteem. She has a last scene with Alan where she satifyingly tells him off, walks out of his office...and as far as I can tell is never seen again. They must have mentioned at some point that she and Alan Michael left SF, but I couldn't find the scene. There could have been so much more. The story could have gone beyond this, and Hope could have been put into new storylines as an evolved and stronger character. I think the other person who got badly treated here besides Elvera was Rebecca Hollen. I'm pretty sure this is the only major storyline she got her entire time on GL, she did a great job, and after it was done she faded back into the woodwork. She mentioned on the Locher Room that she and Jerry verDorn wanted their characters to be in a romance, but other than teasing it for a while nothing really happened. Then after this really good, really strong character-driven story...they put Alan in that dumb, plot-driven Dreaming Death story. 🙄