DeeVee

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.

Even though they weren't that much younger than Raines, IMO, both were too young. Raines for some reason played older. (Maybe that's why he kept the beard the whole time?) Lane Davies, totally wrong for Alan. I can't even picture it. I think Born would have made an excellent Roger recast. Dennis Parlato would have been a much better Alan. Conversely, I think Coster was too old. If he was maybe 10 years younger he would have been a good fit. That's a good point about Jed. My main memory of him was as Don on DOOL, and he was totally a good guy. I've already mentioned some I thought would work: Jim Storm, John Gabriel. Oh, and another one who occurred to me the other day--Jerry Lacy. He definitely could do the suave thing and he had often played characters that were gray in the morality department.

Thanks, I'm going to definitely check it out. There's been at least one Mexican remake of Tu O Nadie that was not nearly as much of a success (it actually really blew). It's possible it was the chemistry between stars Andres Garcia and Lucia Mendez that made the original work. The reason Ugly Betty succeeded where others failed, IMO, is because Salma Hayek was one of the producers. She started in telenovelas and understood what made them work. BTW, she also produced the series Like Water for Chocolate on HBO. It is SO good, and I'm saying that as someone who adores the book and the original movie adaptation.

THESE I've heard of before. For some reason I never saw them when they aired. Tu o Nadie was one of my absolute favorites of my telenovelas, and I was always sorry I missed seeing Acapulco Bay. Do you know where online you can see it? Is it on YT?

I'm guessing this one was based on a Chilean telenovela called La Madrastra (The Stepmother) which was remade several times in several countries, sometimes under a different title. It's about a woman who was framed for murder in a foreign country. Her husband abandons her and tells their children she died. 20 years later she's released and blackmails her ex into marrying her again so she can be near her children as their stepmother. All the while trying to solve the murder she went to prison for, certain someone in their circle of friends at the time framed her. I watched a heck of a lot of telenovelas during the 80s and 90s, so I'm surprised I don't recognize more of these.

Wow. This scene shows exactly why I checked out of GL for a while during this period, even though it is considered one of its strongest. "Roger is only a problem to Holly because she let's him be a problem" is just plain old victim blaming. I hate it. Also, I don't believe she would be pushing Vanessa to go to the authorities about her attack because the system had TOTALLY failed her. Why would she press her to go through what she went through when she flat-out admits Roger never paid for his crimes? I understand why they had to whitewash Roger and his past, otherwise he would have never been a viable character going forward. But it makes me cringe to watch it..

I'm going to guess the reason for that at this point is they were moving away from Alan--I think Pilon appears only a few more times late 1989, then Alan is gone for the next five years. So maybe they decided, why dredge up any history to do with him? I find it almost hilarious that Ross was acting hurt over something that didn't even happen over 2 years previously! Were they toying with a Holly/Johnny pairing? 🤢 Honestly, watching teen-aged boys obsessing over babies is kind of bizarre. And how ironic that AM ended up never having children. (Ross almost slept with Meredith? I do not remember this!)

This is one of my biggest gripes about late-stage GL. TOO MANY COPS, TOO MANY COP-ADJACENT CHARACTERS. It wasn't Edge of Night or even GH, they never did mystery stories well, in fact, a lot of them flat-out SUCKED. This also shows how much the overlong relationship with Ross ruined Blake. She was a business woman when she first came on, and she was pretty good at it. Why not have her go back to that? I grant you, she wouldn't have been welcomed at Spaulding, but they could have thought of some other business for her to get involved in. They could have even made that the story, how a woman who spent time raising a family had a hard time getting back into the business world. A lot viewers could have related. I think she started in PR at Spaulding, why not have her start a PR business? Anything rather than another cop.

Same. LOATHED him as Ben, but rather liked him as Craig. I thought he and Cady had a nice chemistry.

You've pretty much described India's entire history on GL: besides being a spoiler in Phillip/Beth's romance, they didn't know what to do with her. I really like MKA, she had good chemistry with John Bolger and Chris Bernau (she never clicked that much with Grant, IMO). Sort of like what happens with the San Christohell bunch, or the music business people during Lujack's era, she stuck out like a sore thumb in SF. What was she even doing in that rinky-dink town? (Beyond making Alex's life miserable, that is).

That was always true about these characters, even in the better days with better actors playing the characters. The Spauldings saw people who other Spauldings loved as a threat. That's why Alan hated Beth--there wasn't a damn thing wrong with Beth (not back then, anyway). She was just a threat to his dominance over Phillip. (This also showed how much he preferred Phillip over Alan Michael, how deep down, Phillip was the "real" Spaulding to him. He was fine with AM marrying Harley. Of course, he was motivated to get some of AM's trust fund but he should have loathed Harley. Back then, he had no problem with her). Alex and Alan were always threatened by whoever the other was involved with. (Chris and Bev made those scenes pretty funny, the ascerbic barbs always landed perfectly). Yep, you could see it as something mildly incestuous. Alan and Alex grew up protecting each other against an abusive father, they were probably isolated from others by him. It makes sense. In the end, they really only loved each other. The way Chris and Bev played it, it wasn't icky. Underneath the humor of their constant making fun of each other's partners, it was sad. But in the later years, with not as good writers and actors who didn't play the subtleties of their relationship, it came across as very cringe.