vetsoapfan

As the years went on, I grew to accept Clint. He was okay, but I never felt any major romantic chemistry between him and Viki, like what I saw between Joe Riley and Viki. I guess TPTB have the mistaken idea that nice guys are boring, but to me, what I find tedious on soaps now is the heavy focus on criminals and degenerates. They've been dominating daytime dramas for 40 years. I say, fewer Sonnys and Jasons and more good guys like Larry Wolek would be a welcome and refreshing change! Once upon a time, if soaps wanted to keep characters viable, TPTB wouldn't cross the line and allow them to commit heinous crimes. Nowadays, characters can murder, rape, kidnap, drug and do all sorts of unspeakable things, and their monstrous misdeeds are brushed aside and ignored if the actors become popular. I find it irresponsible. Yep, yet another soap he screwed up. I remember that when he was finally replaced at OLTL, a critic in the press commented that the only thing about the show Rauch had not decimated was the theme music. Right. There were so many irrelevant and useless newbies floating around Llanview in the show's final years. Larry could have been a good anchor character to provide familiarity and continuity. But no. Modern soaps never learn. Everything about her apartment was lovely. I've always wondered who the little boy in the framed photograph (seen here on the table by the balcony doors) was. MTM's real-life son?

Yes, I was quite conflicted and sad watching Larry pine for Viki. To me, Viki and Joe Riley were soul mates and my preferred couple, but after Joe died and Larry's marriage to Karen fell apart, I would have taken a Viki/Larry pairing over Viki and Clint. I had known Larry for a decade by that point, and Clint was a stranger. I'm sure! Sadie was a strong, maternal figure to many people in Llanview. She could have, and should have, been used throughout the entire run of the show as a wise, sensible and supportive talk-to. As for Paul Rauch, his derogatory treatment of people has been documented for so long. It's always amazed me that he kept being hired to produce so many soaps, since at most of them, the bottom fell out and the shows became unrecognizable under his reign. Michael Storm and Larry Wolek were much more likeable and interesting that many of the revolving-door newbies that would take center stage after he was phased out. Soaps should always strive to keep their core, original characters as long as possible, particularly ones as popular as Larry (and Ed and Carla and Sadie). I've dreamed about living there for 54 years!

After Meredith died, Larry developed romantic feelings for Viki, and I'm sure his closeness with her intensified his disdain for Dorian. Relationships on soaps were so complex and layered back then. The best part was Dorian's shock at what was happening, and her astonished "Oh!...Oh!...OH!!!" LOL! Then she snarled at Karen, "I will see you barred from this hospital, along with your husband!" It was such an exhilarating moment that my heart leaped in my chest and it made me catch my breath. Just like on Another World, when Alice lunged at Rachel and chased her down the stairs and out of the Frame house. My adrenaline went into overdrive. The indifference soaps have shown towards beloved veterans in recent decades (if forty years can be considered recent) has always infuriated me. Eliminating Carla, Sadie and Ed was EGREGIOUS! Letting Larry drift into oblivion was too. My daily viewing of OLTL ran from 1968 to 1983, and there were so many strong legacy characters from that golden age who were gratuitously cast aside in later years. Yes, I believe are are thinking of the right house. The Riley living room was gorgeous. I wanted to live there. (Actually, the TV set that I dreamed about living in the most was Mary Richards' first apartment on The Mary Tyler Moore Show, but I digress!)

ITA. If a man hides/lies about essential facts which are likely to affect a woman's decision to sleep with him (like his having AIDS, his being a close biological relative, etc.) that is abusive. It strips the unsuspecting partner of informed consent, full body autonomy, and is repugnant. Good point. Well said. The entire genesis and handling of the Jammy ((ahem)) "romance" was skewered and immoral. It reminded me of the violent and ugly start of the Luke and Laura craze on GH: a degenerate raped a married teenager who clearly fought against him and was left severely traumatized by the attack. Then the TPTB suddenly decided to sanitize the entire abhorrent situation and claim the violation was "a seduction" because the show became enamored with a scene-chewing actor. No wonder Leslie Charleson openly admitted on the Donahue show how irresponsible the treatment of the story was. And no wonder Genie Francis acknowledged that her "blood ran cold" at GH's romanticizing the rape.

The award for worst writer in TGL's history has A LOT of nominees, LOL! I'd put Jeff Ryder, Megan McTavish and (particularly) Ellen Weston--among several other names--in the ring. Going back into the show's glory days, James Lipton's work was always mediocre on every soap he wrote, but he thankfully did not last long on this one.

No, the Larry-Dorian feud originated before the Victor Lord saga. In 1974, when Dorian was a practicing physician, she began a sexual affair with a young doctor named Mark Toland (who was married to Victoria Lord Riley's niece by marriage, Julie.) Through incompetence and careless decisions, Mark and Dorians accidentally killed Rachel Wilson, one of Larry's Wolek's seriously ill patients. Larry was suspected of and arrested for Rachel's "murder," which Llanview-ites blamed Dorian and Mark for, when the truth eventually came out (resulting in Larry's acquittal of all charges and Dorian's medical practice being terminated.) To be fair, Dorian had wanted to confess to the truth early on, but she was seriously injured and left in a coma, leaving Larry to face charges. Larry never forgave Dorian for Rachel's death and his legal battle, whereas Dorian felt unjustly crucified by the townspeople for Larry's legal nightmare...when she was unconscious in a coma. (I could see both sides, actually. Rachel Wilson would not have died if Dorian and Mark Toland had not inadvertently screwed up her medication, but really, when she was in a COMA, what was Dorian supposed to do?) The Larry-Dorian animosity lasted for years. It reared its ugly head again when Karen Wolek was revealed to be a prostitute, during the time Viki was on trial for Marco Dane's murder. Dorian marched over to the hospital with Colonel Hutchinson, a member of the board, to change the locks on Larry's door and have him barred from the hospital. This move was absurd and unjustified, of course, but when Karen discovered what the Colonel and Dorian were doing, Dorian crowed triumphantly, "Your husband has been asking for it for a very, very long time!!!" In one of the most satisfying scenes in this show's history, Karen replied "So...have...YOU," before pouncing on Dorian and whupping her a$$. UGH. Granger was pretty dreadful on OLTL. He was forever stumbling over his dialogue, forgetting his lines, and not-so-subtly reading from the teleprompter. I LMAO when he received an Emmy nomination for the role. Clearly, name recognition alone precipitated his inclusion. The same must have been true for acting legend Uta Hagen, who was nominated for her brief "supporting" appearance on OLTL, even though her performance was marred in the same way Granger's had been: through inability to remember her lines and stumbling through awkward scenes I loved many of OLTL's sets in the 1970s. The Rileys' carriage house had such a warm, cozy appeal.

I agree. Capitol was often a mixed bag; working well sometimes and falling flat at others. Slesar and O'Shea were good there. I will, however, always contend that TEON was Slesar's ultimate achievement. His lengthy Jonah Lockwood murder mystery was the most intensely suspenseful story I've ever seen on daytime TV. It was a masterpiece, and in my Top 10 storylines of all time list.

I'm happy to see he's doing well. Greg and Jenny and Jesse and Angie were a wonderful and memorable set of characters. AMC struck gold with them. So often, soaps' young-love romances just fall flat or the actors fail to generate chemistry. These four were notable exceptions. Yes, it's long rumored that MK and Rauch had issues, Susan Sullivan publicly announced her health woes a while back, but she's doing better now. https://people.com/falcon-crest-star-susan-sullivan-lung-cancer-surgery-exclusive-8420665

HS did a lot of work outside the soaps, some of which I've tracked down and been able to enjoy. To me, however, his crowning glory was his writing for TEON. He was also excellent on Somerset. The only series that he worked on, which I found did not "gel" well, was One Life to Live. I wonder if he and his co head writer didn't have the same vision.

Copies of Ryan's Hope were unearthed in Ireland long after ABC had wiped the early episodes here in the USA. The Edge of Night aired on a Canadian network, the CBC, throughout the 1970s, so who knows what they may have kept? Am I holding my breath to see unearthed Monticello treasures? Sadly, no, but then again: I never expected to see The Doctors and Dark Shadows resurrected. I never thought early B&B would become available anywhere, and now scores of eps are on youtube. While I do believe in my heart that golden-era EDGE is lost forever, overall, the recovery of the special 90-minute broadcast from 1975 gives me hope that other surprises may one day come to light. Hope springs eternal for soap fans!

ITA. By that time, the "suits" were trigger-happy and intent on micro-managing down to the nth degree. I imagine that even if Lemay had the patience to tolerate the environment, he'd be restricted from doing what he could do best.

@slick jones, I appreciate all the tremendous work you put into compiling these lists. It's a herculean task!👏

Interesting; IMHO, Laurence Lau looks significantly better in these new pictures than he did when he appeared on AW. (He'll always be Greg Nelson to me, LOL.) There were not many actors present at the reunion from my favorite era of the show, but it's nice to see "old friends" looking well!

I agree. Some of the problems with Dusay's interpretation of Alex could be the fault of awful writing or directing, but honestly, McKinsey was not an actress who could be easily replaced.

I, too, half-hoped that FMB could help turn the show around, but as we've all seen many times before, just because a writer or producer excels at one soap does not guarantee his/her success at another one. I thought Lynne Lathan was great at writing Homefront on primetime TV, but her daytime soap stints were less-than-memorable IMHO. Ann Marcus was a good fit on Mary Hartman and made the ratings increase quite a bit at SFT, but her work on DAYS was a mess. John Conboy's success at Y&R was never really duplicated (to the same degree) anywhere else. I would have preferred to see him get a shot at headwriting ATWT or TGL, over many of the inferior writers who ended up being hired by P&G in those soaps' declining years. HL's character-driven style would have been similar to Irna Phillip's original handling of ATWT. Even if the ratings never increased enough to save them, it still would have been nice to see the remaining P&G soaps die a graceful death with quality writing and producing...instead of what they got handed by the likes of Jean Passanante, Chris Goutman and Ellen Wheeler & the Peapack experiment.

I began watching The Edge of Night before Henry Slesar took over as head writer, and kept with the show until the bitter end. While Slesar might have had a rare, weak story or two, his success rate was stellar. He was a scribe who excelled at mystery and crime plots, romance, family drama, and even comedic vignettes. He also created many complex, multi-dimensional characters. In my experience, not all soap scribes have been so adept at versatile storytelling. He's not talked about on the internet as much as Irna Phillips, William J. Bell, Agnes Nixon, Harding Lemay et al, but I've always considered Slesar one of the greats. The biggest tragedy here in that P&G fired him before TEON came to a close. Watching the series crumble under Slesar's weak replacement (Lee Sheldon) was painful. Sharon Gabet put it best when she later commented about how much she loved Slesar's work, and how much she hated Sheldon's. That sees to have been the general consensus among long-time, die-hard viewers. While I wouldn't wish advanced age on anyone, LOL, I wish more posters had been around to watch Slesar's masterpiece stories: -The Jonah Lockwood/Keith Whitney reign of terror -The Stephanie Martin conflict -The Elly-Jo Jamison saga -The Serena and Josie mystery There are far too many to list, but that just goes to show how consistently brilliant HS was. And to think, in decades gone by, I simply took quality writing on "my" soaps for granted, with Phillips, Bell, Nixon, Lemay, Marland, Labine, Falken Smith, Slesar, etc., in their prime.

This is wonderful news. With GH's gratuitously bloated cast, filled with disposable characters, Mac is one whom I WANT to see on screen!

Thanks for the update, @slick jones. Didn't Mark also lose a Somerset-themed site years ago, or was that someone else? It's a tragedy to the community that all his hard work is just...lost. He must be devastated and very, very vexed.

That's terrible. Another reason to wish for hellfire and damnation upon vile internet hackers.

I am not the sort of person who critiques material without having first-hand knowledge of it. I hope this puts your mind at ease.

This is a first! Yikes!😱 Still, our opinions are not completely out of sync. I did say how much I liked Gentry in the role, and you agree that Hulswit was more likeable. Plus, we both agree that neither Peter Simon nor Richard Van Vleet gelled well during their tenures on the show. I don't see a contentious board war on the horizon. 😁

Reilly was so handsome, so charming and so endearing as Dan's relationship with Kim blossomed. Sigh. *I* would have married him!😊 IMHO, the chemistry between Kim and Colenbeck's Dan was noticeably more muted. (Though, to be fair, I enjoyed Colenbeck with Jane House's Liz Talbot.) The vast majority of the time, I am resistant to recasting major soap roles; it diminishes my investment in the characters. Sometimes, however, the talent, charisma and "je ne sais quoi" of replacements cannot be denied. Along with Rodell and Reilly, Maureen Garrett was another example of a replacement who took over a role and made it more compelling than it had been under the original actress. And while I loved Robert Gentry as Ed Bauer, Mart Hulswit ended up being the perfect and definitive Ed for me.

UGH! I could write a thesis on how disgusting the Ben Reade debacle was.😡

I loved Rodell in the role and accepted her immediately when she was cast. She projected a sweetness and a vulnerability that was not as apparent under Adams. Count me in as one of those viewers who would have preferred to see Rodell continue on as Leslie. Another recast I appreciated more than the original was John Reilly as Dan Stewart on ATWT. John Colenback was fine, don't get me wrong, but Reilly came across as more charming, more affable, more masculine, and had wonderful chemistry with Kathryn Hays. To me, Colenbeck always seemed more aloof, less passionate.

I think by the time Jonathan was introduced, I had become so disillusioned with the show, and given up any hope of its recovery, that I didn't watch much of Pelphrey. My mistake had been to actually endure scenes with other characters I loathed (like Buzz and eventually Harley) for far longer than I should have. By the time TP's Jonathan was being focused on, I was fast-forwarding through most of the show. I only kept recording TGL and ATWT at all, just to catch glimpses of the few remaining characters I still cared about. I know I should have abandoned both soaps long before The End, but a decades-long addiction was hard to break, LOL.