vetsoapfan

What a kind thing to say; thank you. I am simply acknowledging your perceptive and erudite commentary, which I always enjoy reading.👏

It seems that every time I scroll through the comments here on SON, I find another post written by you that is perfectly expressed, and which I agree with 100%. Bravo. You're saving me a lot of time by typing out my thoughts for me, LOL!

This certainly was a curious piece. I only recognize Hansen.

Whenever I finally abandon a once-beloved soap, I do tend to continue keeping up with it slightly (maybe 2-3 episodes per month out of habit) for a while. I monitored OLTL like this for a few years, and while I acknowledge Peggy O'Shea was a good writer, the tone, feeling, stories being told and the cast of characters involved changed so much during the 1980s that Llanview no longer felt like home. Losing Pat, Karen, Carla, Ed, Sadie, etc., just made the show feel foreign to me, and even though O'Shea was a decent scribe, it wasn't enough to keep me invested on a regular basis. I'd say with confidence that virtually all soaps have their good years and bad years, depending on TPTB at the time. Some writers and producers just "get" certain soaps more than others, while we have all suffered through scribes and suits who are totally incompetent. For me, personally, I am more tolerant of weaker periods on soaps if the characters whom I care about are still featured regularly. If many/most of them are written out AND the writing sucks, I am more likely to turn away from the show. I think in his first tenure, Malone started off making various mistakes (short-term stories about people we didn't care about), but he became much better over time. The less said about his second run on the show, the better.

I watched and loved OLTL from 1968 to 1983. I would say it was always good, but its best years were in the early days when Agnes Nixon was at the writing helm, and then later when Gordon Russell and Sam Hall worked as a team. The show started to lose me after Russell left, and so many negative changes began crippling the show in the 1980s. A slew of important, beloved actors getting axed, and the writing drifting into the toilet, made me finally abandon ship.

I wanted to say that Bob and Frannie had been living in his parents' old house at the time, but my memory is hazy on this point. It's weird; I can remember all sorts of trivia in minute detail, while other facts are but elusive shadows in te back of my memory. It's so egregious that ATWT began to marginalize Fulton around the time of Sheffer's reign of terror, and then kept her on the outskirts of the backburner forever more. She deserved better.

I love BBQ chips. I usually pick up Ruffles, but I'm going to give Pringles a try! I don't recall for sure, alas.

Thanks, @DRW50, vintage ATWT from the 1970s is always a treat to see. Those Pringles potato chips look delicious!

I always appreciate your informative posts and contributions to this site, @slick jones. 👍👏🙃

Gracias, @slick jones.

That's amazing. Thanks. I'll definitely be checking the channel out. It's been so long since I originally watched the early Emmerdale Farm eps, the series will feel like brand-new again. It's unfortunate, but I suppose it's to be expected that some ancient episodes would go missing, particularly after several decades. The best thing about these earliest episodes is that the Dingles have not yet infected the community.

Fingers crossed. I loathe when shows allow men (Sonny, Luke, Jason on GH: Todd on OLTL, etc.) to commit all sorts of heinous, degenerate crimes, and then encourage the audience to accept them anyway, as romantic leads who forever go unpunished.

I don't mind if the new Sugden is moody or temperamental. I realize the show needs conflict to create drama. I just don't want TPTB to write the character into a corner; make him irredeemable to the point where he needs to be eliminated from the canvas. No rapes or murders, please. I want a viable Sugden who can remain center-stage, on canvas, for years to come.

Wait, what? I had not heard about this. What is the name of the channel, please? Also, I am curious: how is the introduction of the new Sugden character coming along? I hope TPTB are making him a character who is viable to be a long-term presence on the series.

Thanks for the alert. I was one of those obsessive soap addicts who used to set up tape recorders in my house to record the audio of soaps which I was not able to watch live, for whatever reason. I reused the same tapes most of the time, but kept copies of special episodes that I knew I'd want to listen to again later (Jennifer Brooks' death episodes from Y&R, the finale of How to Survive a Marriage, the reconciliation episode featuring Steve and Alice from AW in 1973, in which only Courtney and Reinholt appeared, AW's 10th anniversary from 1974, Adam and Nicole's wedding from TEON in 1973...lots of things.) I just never thought anyone would else would even care about recordings that were not on video.

Thanks for the alerts, @slick jones!

WORD!!!👏👍

Marland also somewhat gleefully announced in the press how Lenore Kasdorf supposedly loathed Hulswit. The writer referred to MH as a "dodo" and applauded the new, "younger, sexier Ed." It's the only time I ever saw DM be a bitch.

It's open and fluid; just use your personal judgement. 🙃

In no particular order: --Reva the Clone --Reva the Time Traveler --Reva the Ghost --Eli Sims, The Girl in the Lake and the Ghost in the Attic --The Dreaming Death --Harley Cooper, Super Hero --Everything San Cristocrap --Everything Involving Carrie Nye --Ben Reade's Sad End --The Nursery Rhyme Stalker --The Santos Mob Invasion --Amanda Spaulding: Alan's Sudden Sister --Jeffrey O'Neill --Floyd Parker: Insta-Killer --Brandon Spaulding is Alive (although we saw him die on-screen) I have to stop; I'm depressing myself, and I've already gone beyond ten choices!

Oh, dear God in heaven. That was fast. I'll have to think about this.

For me, the problem was that Davidson came across as younger, and Reckell looked older, so it was like a 15-year-old was with a 30-year-old. It made me uncomfortable.

I think there's enough room at the bottom of the toilet for many of TGL's heinously-awful plots, LOL. San Cristocrap and the clone excrement have a lot of competition clogging up the drain, alas. I wonder if we all listed our choices for the Top 10 Worst TGL Plots of All Time, how many stinker stories would overlap and appear on the majority of lists.

I cackled with glee when TGL finally killed off that smarmy Richard. Then I cringed in horror when they brought him back.🤮 Thank you, @dc11786 for all the work you're doing in tracking down these clips.

It must have been under Labine, because May Merisi (or whatever her name was) could be seen among the group listening to Meta's toast. Meta specifically referred to Reverend Ruthledge of Five Points, whom she listened to when she was a girl. There was no mention of nor reference to the newer, alleged grandson. I doubt there was supposed to be a connection.