vetsoapfan

They did bring back Barbara Berger for a while, and had her interact with her family a bit, but the show did very little with her and then just let her fade into oblivion again. Adam Thorpe returned for Blake's wedding, but mysteriously vanished halfway through the day, and his disappearance was never mentioned or explained. Something must have happened backstage, but it was a clumsy mess.

I agree it was probably just happenstance, but if TPTB had cared about the integrity of the show itself, they would have put in the work necessary to weave important, missing characters back into the fabric of Springfield.

While I don't think SSH would have been right for the role of Alexandra, I was disappointed in Marj Dusay's performance.

Julie was a complicated vixen, with both flaws and virtues. It was what made her fascinating and popular, I believe. The audience could root for her and want to strangle her at the same time. I also think it was a mistake to kill off Addie. The story would have been more complicated and layered if Doug continued to be drawn to Julie, even though he loved Addie and Hope. Seeing Addie grow as a person, realize her value as a human being, and regain her own self-respect, would have been an inspirational story. She could have finally left Doug, not settling for a man who wanted her daughter, resulting in a significant growing experience. And then she could have found a man who loved her for herself. Watching Doug squirm as that man then bonded strongly with Hope? Fireworks!!!

I was watching when Michelle was born, and saw Miner be cast and grow a lot as Michelle. In situations like that, viewers are more likely to become attached to the performer. Jada Rowland grew up on screen as Amy Ames on The Secret Storm and Kimberly McCullough grew up as Robin Scorpio on General Hospital. Replacing them would not be looked upon favorably by the audience, I'd say.

There were so many major, beloved, essential characters whom TGL gratuitously axed in 1983-84. Ignoring them and bring back Miss Sally just annoyed me, to be honest. She was basically irrelevant to the show's history. Patricia Barry was wonderful on DAYS. The idea was always for Doug and Julie to wind up together, but Barry's poignant portrayal of Addie made a lot of fans to root fror Doug to stay with her and forsake Julie. When Bill Bell killed off Addie to facilitate a Julie/Doug reunion, fans were enraged. They called for Bell to be fired, and they protested loudly.

Budig was perfectly adequate as Michelle, but my favorite adult version of the character was Lenz. NSA was by far the weakest. The REAL Michelle, in my eyes, will always be Miner, who was so solemn, so "still waters run deep," so endearing in the role.

IMHO, her best and most poignant work was as Addie Horton on DAYS. The audience loved her fiercely, and rained down hell on Bill Bell and the show when the character was killed off.

Not to add more confusion to this question, but I believe the lists are correct. I kept detailed scrapbooks of several of my favorite soaps in the 1970s (I had no life, obviously, LOL), and I recorded information in them which I had culled from watching the shows live. According to my personal records, Russell Kubeck was Somerset's final writer. Just for what that's worth.🙂

Ahhh, sadly, the list of deserving-but-overlooked shows and performers who were never nominated is endless, while we all can name names of mediocre winners in various Emmy categories. It is, indeed, infuriating. After 50 years of this, it is not going to be remedied any time soon, alas.

I had never read this great article before, so thank you very much. I loved it.

Oh, very good additions! I was just about to post these same three, so you saved me the trouble!😉 I just wanted to note that Dr.________Prentice's first name was John. I wish I could remember the name of the first character on TEON whom Martha was accused of killing.

That's why I've never really gotten around to giving The Archers a try. Since so many years are unavailable now, I'd at least want to have recaps of the story from the beginning in order to get my bearings before I dive into the show. A soap that has been running for 74 years must be doing something right, however, so I'm curious about its appeal.

Has anyone ever listened to The Archers, the British radio soap that has been broadcasting since 1951? Just curious.

Of all of these stories, the Lorie/Mark saga was by far the most compelling and the most devastating.

ITA about the infestation of Dingles, and how they have permeated the fabric of the village thoroughly. Trying to decontaminate the show of the entire horde would probably leave Emmerdale in tatters, and ultimately not salvageable. To me, DAYS has long been contaminated with abject idiocy, and the ludicrous stories foisted on its characters have destroyed their integrity and viability (exhibit A: Marlena Evans). I came to the conclusion long ago that the soap would be better off dead and buried than limping along in its present state. Of course, there are still viewers out there who watch it, and I'm not selfish enough to want them to lose their show, so the best solution for me is just to pretend it is already gone. The show I knew, admired and loved died decades ago anyway, for all intents and purposes. Sounds like General Hospital, with its fixation on glorifying rapists, unrepentant murderers, degenerate mobsters and the like, and treating them like the charactes we are supposed to root for.🤮 Yep; 1966-1976 was a rich, golden era for the show. It was such a complete and utter change from the magic we had seen before, it was hard to stomach...and ultimately downright revolting. He worked some elements similar to DAYS into Y&R, and then a lot of Y&R's elements into B&B. I always found B&B to be a weaker copy of Bell's earlier work. It helped so much that Edward Mallory and Susan Flannery as Bill and Laura, and Bill Hayes and Susan Seaforth as Doug and Julie, exuded great chemistry with each other. And their characters were layered, complex, and intelligent (characters in later years tended to be one dimensional and dumb as rocks, LOL). I stopped being a daily viewer when Pat Falken Smith was fired as head writer in early 1977 and replaced by Ann Marcus, whose style was not a good fit for the show. Bill Bell was still credited as story consultant, but Marcus made it clear that she dismissed his ideas when and if she saw fit...and it showed onscreen. That's just it. His style was to tell long-range storylines that lasted for years, and often moved at a snail's pace (we waited almost a decade for Bill and Laura to get married). It's didn't matter, however, because his characters were rich and the stories were engrossing. You felt mesmerized into watching and it was hard to turn away. The genius of Bill Bell, Irna Phillips and Agnes Nixon was that they could deal with adult, controversial, topical material in such a subtle way that the audience still knew exactly what was going on and what was being said. For a long time, daytime TV dealt with strong subjects that primetime shied away from. I think Y&R handled subject matter in a franker way than DAYS, but both soaps dealt beautifully with their plots and respected the audience's intelligence. Two siblings in love with EACH OTHER was a theme played out on Bell's DAYS and Y&R, too.

@Maxim, that GIF is hilarious...and illustrates exactly why I came to loathe the pod version of DAYS that was borne (or should I say spawned?) under JER. Let's just say that your contempt for Emmerdale probably corresponds to my animosity towards DAYS, and for several, similar reasons. The slight difference being, at least Emmerdale did not go full-out, sci-fi/supernatural camp. When I actually have the time and the energy to write my encyclopedia-length tirade about how TPTB destroyed a once-great show, you'll be the first to know.😉 Do you find any redeemable qualities in the current version of Emmerdale? Are there any elements, plots or characters you would want to keep? Or do you think the show is simply beyond repair and redemption at this point?

Bwahahahahaha! The explosion would burn down the house, no lie.😂

Do you reeeeeeeeeeally want me to tell you, LOL?😬🫢🙃 In my honest and brutal opinion, it died in 1982 after Pat Falken Smith was fired, and its remains began being cannibalized with the advent of JER. Some of what has been presented to the audience since then has been inexplicably sick and sadistic, and huge portions of the once-mature and erudite, sophisticated soap have just been embarrassingly, painfully STOOPID. (This is me being restrained in my commentary, ROTL.)🤣

Yes, eventually, TPTB at PP would discard various newbies while keeping a lot of the original players around. Parkins' point was that during the periods when extraneous characters were hogging up air time, fans were unhappy. I agree that if the show wanted to enlarge the cast so much, going to five nights a week would probably have made the expansion more palpable to the audience who disliked seeing their original favorites on the sidelines. Never resolving the missing-Allison situation was troublesome enough, but firing Dorothy Malone was a major blunder, IMHO. Barbara Rush and Elizabeth Walker just did not exude the "je ne sais quoi" that Malone and Farrow had, and Marsha and Carolyn Russell were just not that interesting.

Barbara Parkins said as much in an interview once, that the show kept sidelining the core characters in favor of (ultimately) irrelevant newbies who would take attention away from the core...and then get written out and replaced, themselves, by even more irrelevant and temporary side characters. She theorized that the show might not have begun to falter if TPTB had made an effort to concentrate more ofnthe vets, in whom the audience had an emotional investment. Yes, the sudden push towards social relevance ended up being jarring, and clashed with the show's original romanticized, almost lyrical tone.

Bwahahahahahahahaha!🤣

Alas, most people's hotness quotient fades with time.🥺 That is the perfect way to describe her. What a dish, with real star appeal. I loathed the Schusters. Particularly Doris. I wanted her killed off from day one. I agree. At least TPTB realized the gold they had in the cast, and elevated several of the younger players to full leads. I can't help it; I'm just honest to a fault.🤷‍♂️😁 Personally, I found Halloween II to be a major failure after the excellent original film. To me, the only good films in the franchise were Halloween and Halloween H20 I've never like anything Guza penned. Miller was at TGL from 1986-87 and 1995-97, IMHO two of the show's weakest periods. I don't know about you guys, but personally, if I am going to daydream about anyone in water, I'll stick with cutie Chris Evans. But that's just me.🙃

That comment could be interpreted in some interesting ways. Just sayin'.🫢

Shoop showed more depth and versatility as Allison in RTPP than she ever did in the awful films she made. It was probably the material that made her (and most of her co-stars) look bad in those productions, but IMHO she was likeable on RTPP. Lola Albright was a lovely woman and would have fit right on another soap if given a role of her own. I just found Dorothy Malone too likeable and charismatic to be replaced permanently. (She was also va-va-va-VOOM gorgeous.) Ohh, be careful, don't jinx yourself! Never turn down a potential life-saving organ!😬 Like almost all soaps (Y&R being one major exception in my mind), PP had growing pains in the beginning. Some of the most intriguing characters were originally in the position of supporting players, while some other denizens of Peyton Place, whom I felt didn't "jell" well, got screen time which I really wanted to go elsewhere. One couple, in particular, bored me to the point of grating on my nerves. Still, TPTB worked out the kinks, and the show always boasted fine acting, nice sets, good direction and interesting camera work. And it treated us to Dorothy Malone's awesome hair, LOL.🤣 I was instantly mesmerized by her intricate hairdo and marveled at how anyone could get her hair to hold in that style. (Mia Farrow, much later, said it was a wig.) I thought I was such a weirdo for fixating on this woman's head, until I asked a friend if he had seen PP yet . He instantly exclaimed, "Of course! I had to watch that hair on Constance McKenzie!" (I suppose this only means that both my friend and I were nuts.)🤷‍♂️