MLH

Seemed like by the mid 90s, it was nothing but redoing old storylines but with horrible writing and too many recasts. By November 94, the whole Alan returning story fell flat. Talk about becoming an inflated balloon just losing air slowly. They drug all that out for that boring ending. Even Jenna's storyline ended up so boring. @alwaysAMC Don't bother. As usual, at first Holly is all into giving back to the Spaulding family and the next she isn't. It was all interesting at first, but after dragging it out forever, it doesn't even matter. Then that lame 2nd 5th Street fire happens.

When has Phillip not been a jerk though? He acts like a drama queen to me. IMO, Frank and Johnny are the same. The writers tried to hook them up with just about every female character. Frank was just lucky, because they needed someone to run that stupid diner. @alwaysAMC I finally watched some of later 94 and to me the only good storyline was Roger and Holly teaming up against the Spaulding fam/Alan and Alan using Roger to get control back from Alexandra. All the other storylines are boring as hell. I am at the part where Tangie/Alan Michael/Roger are helping Alan by taking him to Eve for help. Oh, and at least in 1994 Hamp's Birthday is noticed. They really didn't know what to do with Blake. This starting to work for Frank's PI thing came to nothing. She doesn't even know that Alan is already out of prison.

How many times can they do the 'Roger's new girlfriend or wife is jealous of Holly'? That's all they used Holly for to me. I just rolled my eyes with the 'Dinah is in love with Roger & Roger is using Dinah' bit and Roger faking the car crash bull. Laughable. In reading Michael's book, he mentioned in 96 how he was working beyond the agreed 4 days to 5 days and how it affected him mentally with the whole speech issues he was having. He agreed to a cut in pay to go down to 2, but it didn't even seem that way to me. However, he had just came back from a foreign trip where he fell and then was in full blown panic attack mode. He was pretty much a zombie from no sleep. That's when they brought him in and told him he was basically on unpaid leave (the amount he got was barely nothing).

To give an example of how Roger and Holly's relationship went from them basically living together to starting from square one, is this episode from 1996. The hate that Holly is giving had me scratching my head, because there wasn't anything that Holly said to Dinah that indicated anything about what she is saying here.

You are right. He left in July 1996. Breaks my heart that they didn't even act like he left. GL really did a BAD job when it came to this. Even with Roger they acted like he didn't exist.

That's what gets me about Phillip. He acts more hysterical than any teen character around and he gets to be head of anything Spaulding? Rick keeps getting used by him and he still keeps being his BFF. They might as well have gotten married. Meridith and Johnny were so boring! I didn't get how Johnny lasted so long. Heck, they tried Holly and Johnny. @alwaysAMC Hamp left in 1995. If it were me, I would have had Hamp become a High School football coach and thus be a way to be tied to the youth and the Lewis family. There are so many aspects of characters just ignored. I would have had Beth still be part of the arts. Instead, they just made her crazy. @alwaysAMC Another reason I hated Hart. He didn't care his SON was leaving to freaking MN!? It's hard for to me to like GL when I read things like there was a new Dylan?! I just can't.

I found old posts about these Fan Fairs they used to do in Michigan. They were huge! However, I noticed that the only big name on GL that would attend them is Michael Zaslow! In 94 it was him, Michele Miner and the guy who played Little Bill! In 96, it was only Michael! The other soaps had many more actors attend. Really surprised me. I wish that there were vids or pictures. There was a vid from 95, but it was on the days he wasn't there. Correction, Kevin Mambo and Michael O'Leary (Rick) also attended in 96. @DeeVee Thank you! IMO, Phillip has always been a jerk!

The storyline was wonky to me. Just didn't seem like good writing. @P.J. Who did Monica play? Was she on the show later on? Speaking of attorneys. I wish this divorce attorney stayed around. He was so funny.

This is the scene between Holly and Roger on July 22, 1994. They act like a couple that Ed/Maureen should have been. Don't get me wrong, I thought the scenes between them were great since the car accident in 1990 where Roger admits to being allergic to skunks. I just think building all that only to make them start from square one made no sense.

I didn't think them having Roger and Holly basically living together made sense to begin with. I think they paired her up with Fletcher, because he was the only guy available to pair her up with. I may be wrong though. I don't recall Holly interacting with Lucy at all during this. Or very little, if she did. That is so wrong for the show to treat Bev that way. Her leaving really crippled the show. Thanks for posting the link. There goes Nick...looking for Mindy. LOL I liked the tension between Alan Michael and Vanessa. Vanessa isn't falling for his BS.

I do think that for those that really hadn't started watching until that storyline, it would seem interesting. I wouldn't have had Holly and Roger together in late 94 into early 95 in the first place. That whole Dinah thing wasn't well done, IMO. I couldn't stand her from the start. The second Fifth Street fire thing was a bore, IMO. I wasn't into the whole Matt/Vanessa storyline. Bridget was stuck storyline wise, IMO. Nola was too. Amanda didn't really kick in for me until late 1996 when she and Roger teamed up to talk over Spaulding and Annie and Alan teamed up too. I wouldn't have had Holly be the one to help Roger after he got shot. It would have been Bridget and then tying in David into the story. Bridget witnesses Billy shoot Roger. However, she keeps quiet about seeing it, but helps Roger get mended up. Creating a better connection between both characters & her ending up wanting Hart to return. Her helping Roger also creates more friction between her Vanessa/Billy/Lewis family (as well as Matt) and create a better bond with Nola. Dylan wouldn't have returned and David has to make a decision about his friendship with Bridget. If the show wanted Holly with Fletcher, then they should have teamed up at that time to find out where Roger was and who shot him (I would have had Gilly end up breaking the story) and carried into the Brent/Marian storyline while WSPR is in competition in breaking the story with Tangie stuck in between. It should have been a Dinah/Amanda/Vanessa/Matt storyline that drew in Ross helping Amanda when the whole Madam thing came out. Causing friction between Ross and Blake already on thin ice with Dinah. I would have had Amanda date Marcus for the initial period of time she first arrived. It would have an older woman/younger man with race, and class aspect of the Spaulding family and would have created more reasons for Amanda and Dinah to be friends (especially against Blake). Roger likes independent, feisty women and notices that about Amanda. Drawing him into her world when he asks to have an exclusive interviews with her and eventually starts to woe her to getting revenge on the Spaulding family. Then that is when I would have the triangle aspect between Roger/Holly/Fletcher happen. Lastly, I would have had more of a Giallo type aspect to the Brent/Marian story or no rape at all.

To me the whole Lucy rape storyline was why they had to break up Holly and Roger in the first place. Brent was not a good villain. It would take two seconds to figure out that was a man dressing as a woman. If we the audience could tell right off the bat, the characters would too. I would have killed off Fletcher over Nadine though. He was a horrible reporter. I would have stuck him to the editorial page in the first place. He had no place reporting anything as he was always way too emotionally triggered. @Contessa Donatella Exactly! But, I really don't think they wanted to get rid of Alexandra nor Fletcher. I really do think that Alexandra wasn't acting any worse than any other character on the show had done. Did Bev say what specifically she wanted changed?

Me! It was a great job of explaining all those storylines. @Mitch64 Oh, I missed that about the picture! That is so cool how the show used their history!

Looking back, Chelsea was hindered by being with Johnny. She should have been a reporter at the newspaper instead of singing at that place Hamp and Fletcher ran. Or be an investigative reporter for WSPR and write for the paper as well. She was a good investigative reporter. Chelsea was the one that interviewed Adam (Roger's Dad). Didn't she and Johnny discover that Adam Malik was Roger Thorpe or am I wrong? I sure wish I could just watch it on YouTube in English. Just watching the episodes from 1989 and seeing episodes from the 2000s are like night and day with the quality! You would think by the 2000s they would learn how to stretch a dollar!

Wow, that storyline sure did cause a lot of ripple effects! @DeeVee Thanks for the background story for Alexandra's and Alan's mother. @chrisml Only thing I would have changed was making a way for her and Fletcher to still be in each other's orbit. I never get why they totally isolate characters. I keep forgetting to ask. Did the show ever show the relationship between Blake and Alan or was it implied?

I thought was Roger or Eric, but Roger made no sense. That's why the Blackout story sort of fell short to me. I also didn't buy Blake and Ross being under the covers with a comforter during a heat wave. The writers should have watched Body Heat. LOL

@Speed Racer I guess Mindy having babies was out of the storyline for her. I do think Nick should have been with Eve over Mindy though (unpopular opinion). Their backstory could have created some great storylines for them. Mindy never needed to come back, IMO. I do have a question. Who did Mindy see at the train station? I wanted to add that I never bought that Mindy was in New York and Roger helped pay for it and no one could find her.

I do think the 2 fathers thing was a good twist to the 'who is the father' troupe, but it being Rick made no sense to me. Then the fallout from it was wrapped up way too quickly and Ross ended up being the Dad to both anyway. @Soaplover Fletcher and Chelsea never made any sense. After what happened with Dana, I wouldn't pair her with Frank either. I think the pairing of Blake/Christina and Phillip made a lot of sense. The Beth Is Alive storyline was very well done and there really wasn't much storyline for a relationship with Chelsea.

IMO, Jump the Shark storylines end up not being thought out. The writers ended up making Ross the father of both twins anyway. The twins brought nothing to character development, IMO. Blake using Annie to help her and then balk when Annie wants Blake to help her was another thing that made no sense to me. The whole Brent/Marian storyline wasn't a well thought out mystery to me. We all knew Marian was Brent pretending to be a woman. Where was the suspense? Just made people look stupid for not being able to tell to me. These storylines should be creating and destroying relationships, shaping the characters for learning lifelong lessons. To me, it regressed character development. Well thought out storylines were the Chelsea/Johnny being stalked storyline (I could care less about Chelsea, but it was well thought out), the Beth Isn't Dead storyline that started in '89 and ended in '90 (Blake was married to Phillip at the time) and caused a ton of storylines from that alone. In the 79/80, the storyline from Roger raping Holly with Roger making Alan help fake his death, because he had proof that Alan created two affidavits in Alan's bid for custody for Phillip. That storyline is why Alan hates Roger and thus why he hated Blake/Christina from the start.

@Mitch64 I would think Rick being a Doctor would have him care more about STDs and someone becoming pregnant. Heck, his ex wife doing basically the same thing (but for the twins thing) with Phillip should have gave him pause. Yeah, Blake just came off so stupid to me. @Contessa Donatella I agree that the Brent/Marian thing wasn't thought out. I skipped so many things with it. I never cared that much for Lucy and I hate when they use rape to elevate a charater

Speaking about Buzz, I still remember this one scene between him and Tangie and Marcy literally put a finger in her ear, like his bellowing was way too much! LOL Do you guys think after the Blake having twins by two different dads was their 'Jump The Shark' moment and they kept having to go over the top after that? Not well, thought out stories?

I always thought it was dumb that there wasn't a major real estate agent on the show. I would have made Nadine the real estate agent. She was made to be one! She could have been making major bank and not have to be stuck at the diner.

The interview was from 1983. I don't recall if the tabloids wrote anything about Zaslow until his ALS in the 90s. @Contessa Donatella @Mitch64 @DeeVee I agree that there was a void for a period of time with Mike Bauer gone. It would have been a no brainer for Alan Michael to become a lawyer/attorney working with Ross. Instead they had him at the newspaper. I actually would have given Leo a bigger role on the show. Anyone know why he never got a bigger role like Sid got?

That's another actress playing Iris. I found one from 1979 with Bev and guess who else was in the episode but Maeve, who played Vanessa on Guiding Light! Small world! LOL I would have liked to at least see how the storylines would have changed, if it was her and Raines.

Or made him elevate his performance? I just watched on the Archive the scene on 4/13/90 between Alex and Roger that blew me away! Roger admitted he beat and raped Holly. I will try and look up Iris.