vetsoapfan

This is cool. I had never seen this photo before, which is from Steve's and Alice's first wedding in September of 1971.

Setting fire to the iconic and beloved Horton living-room set is an insensitive decision which will only anger fans. There is so much emotional attachment to that set. What's next? Will they take a baseball bat to the Hortons' Christmas ornaments? Boo! Hiss! This is worse than the vile shoot-out in the Bauer kitchen.

DAYS, too, alas. But on GH, Sonny, Carly, Jason, Finn, and Drew need to be shown the show sooner rather than later. Core characters should be center stage. Bring back Serena Baldwin, Tommy Hardy, Lucas Jones, and other descendants of important families. Give Scotty (the longest-running character on the canvas right now) more to do. There are so many characters/actors the show could be focusing on.

The actor is objectively decent enough, just NOT as a Jagger recast. Shades of Kassie DePaiva taking over for Mia Korf, Wesley Pfenning being cast as Alice Frame, Susan Batten taking over as Connor Walsh, Roger Howarth following the wonderful Paul Holroyd as Paul Ryan. Why not just cast this new guy in a new role? He will never be Jagger.

TGL: Slaughtering the majority of the fine, existing cast in 1983 and 1984, changing the show's style and tone, and basically cutting off decades' worth of history from pre-1983. TGL: Amanda Wexler is Alan's daughter. No, wait, she's his sister! (An impossible retcon after what had transpired on screen.) TGL: Brandon Spaulding is dead (we saw him die on camera). No, wait, he's alive, so ignore what you saw! TPTB do. TGL: The patriarchs of major families all went fishing together decades ago, long before they even met or lived in Springfield.😑 TGL: Kelly Nelson asks Ed Bauer if Ed remembers Steve Jackson, Ed's former father-in-law, colleague at the hospital, and the GRANDFATHER OF ED'S SON.🙄 TGL: Reva the Clone, Reva the Time Traveler, Reva the San Cristobelian Queen, Reva the Illegal-Immigrant Savior, Reva the Amish Amnesiac, Reva the Portly Sex Goddess of EVERY MAN'S FANTASY.🫢 TGL: Harley, the super-heroine. TGL: San Cristocrap never ends, and Bradley Cole gets rehired.🤮 TGL: The Santos Mob, with a preacher in the family (Rev, Ruthledge was surely rolling over in is grave), a shoot-out in the Bauer kitchen (JFC!), and 587 weddings for Danny and Michelle. TGL: Peapack. Springfield is morphed into a muddy and run-down looking Walnut Grove with inferior sound and video equipment. Whew! I need a break now, LOL!

Going back a while... Duncan Eric, Search for Tomorrow Bill Prentiss, Love of Life Adam Drake, The Edge of Night Liz Stewart, As the World Turns Dan Stewart, As the World Turns Chuckie Shea, As the World Turns Greg Mercer, Somerset Mary Matthews, Another World Steven Frame, Another World Alan Quartermaine, General Hospital Tony Jones, General Hospital Bill Bauer (the second time), The Guiding Light Hillary Bauer, The Guiding Light Maureen Bauer, The Guiding Light Jennifer Brooks, The Young and the Restless Liz Foster Brooks, The Young and the Restless (Yikes! There are way too many characters to list, LOL!)

At various times over the years, Harding Lemay was guilty of this too, claiming that AW went to number one during his tenure, when in actuality, it mainly went to number one IN ITS TIMESLOT. Y&R fans have also long asserted (erroneously) that Paul infected Nikki with an STD. In reality, she gave it to him. (Doug Davidson has jokingly lamented the besmirching of his character's reputation more than once.) On Another World, fans (and even Harding Lemay) put forward the myth that Pat Matthews killed her first boyfriend, Tom Baxter, by stabbing him. In reality, she shot him. (episodes surrounding the story have surfaced.) Daytime TV's past is inundated with mistakes and myths, alas. Exactly. The typical atrocious writing was mean-spirited and sadistic, and alienated legions of fans. You don't kill off the show's beloved matriarch by ramming doughnuts down her throat (sick and repugnant). Forgetting any of this dreck ever happened was the best course to take.

That's right. Liz Stewart fell while running up the stairs, and later died from the injuries she sustained. Of course, critics have always been wont to mock and denigrate soaps, so they took the opportunity to ridicule ATWT by dishonestly spinning the situation as Liz "falling up the stairs." The character's being hurt while running upstairs is vastly different in meaning than purporting that she died by "falling up the stairs." I doubt the critics who started the myth/lie cared about accurately reporting the incident, and as time went on, the myth became established "fact" to those who didn't know any better. I tend to agree. Particularly when characters cross over from one series to another, I see those shows as being "related," so to speak. Yes, Irna wanted to kill off Liz for a while, but P&G originally stopped her. So Ellen Stewart marched into the hospital and saved Liz with a "bottle of hope" (long story, LOL), and Liz survived that first attempt to kill her off.

The abject miscasting of the "new Jagger" is a detriment to the effectiveness of the story, however. What a curious choice of actor for that particular role.🤔 Trying to manufacture chemistry between prospective romantic partners on screen is just uncomfortable when it's forced. Either chemistry is there or it's not.

I was gifted a CD years ago, with mp3 files of TGL from 1950. I forget now, but I think there were 90 full episodes. A while later, many more from around that era popped up. I had broken my foot at the time, and basically binged dozens of eps continuously as I was relegated to the couch. It was a sanity saver, LOL!

@Matt, thank you so much for all these great recaps which you are gifting to the board. With the dearth of quality soaps on television these days, I'd be more than happy to sit back and listen to several golden-age radio dramas. Has anybody else listened to the extended stretch of The Guiding Light episodes from 1950? It's a miracle that so many survived, and what a treat it was to enjoy.

Sadly, when it comes down to a choice between offering us gimmicks and stunts or developing characterization and relatable, human drama, TPTB almost always take the easy way out and heap more cheap stunts onto the soaps. They continually fail (or refuse) to comprehend that investment in human drama and characters we care for is the salvation of soaps.

The truth can be accurate and hilarious at the same time, I guess.🙃 Thank you. I fully understand that every kind of material will thoroughly engage some folks and totally turn off others. I loved the work of Irna Phillips, Agnes Nixon, William J. Bell, Pat Falken Smith, Harding Lemay, etc., but intimate, character-driven and adult drama is not everyone's cup of tea. I mean, some people actually chose to watch Hey Vern, It's Ernest! and Beavus and Butt-Head. C'est la vie, as they say.🤷‍♂️ It's curious that you are so ready to relegate soaps to the "lesser-than" category. As someone who was around to see the soaps' earlier years, I'd counter than many of the legendary writers of the genre gifted fans with stellar material, often on a par with or equal to the dreck that primetime television foisted upon us. It's difficult to believe such a petulant and unsupported retort was even offered.😬 All traditional, network programming exists to sell advertisers' products. It does not preclude artists working within television from doing their best to produce quality entertainment. There is a plethora of evidence available to support the contention that superior TV exists. Yes, even among the beleaguered soaps.

As previously noted, it all depends on what you enjoy and prefer to watch. To each his own. Passions was created to be exactly what it was, and that's fine. There's an audience out there for everything, and all viewers should be served. On the other hand, Days was created to be, and found its highest ratings and biggest success as, an erudite, literate, adult soap with quality writing. When Masterpiece Theatre is suddenly morphed into Ren & Stimpy Meet the Great Gazoo, some folks will love it and others will loathe it. Strong and varying differences of opinion are not new among TV fans.

It depends on what you like to watch. There are, of course, viewers who enjoy the sort of material that Reilly was responsible for, but I am one of the veteran viewers who preferred the mature, sophisticated and adult writing of Bill Bell and Pat Falken Smith. I found Reilly's camp writing to be embarrassing and painful. To each his own, as they say.

ITA. And the more control and authority Sheffer and Reilly gained, the more ATWT and DAYS went to hell.

He was okay at the very beginning, but was allowed to run wild and create an unappealing sh*t show, damaging a lot of characters and the show's integrity in the process.😖

During Agnes Nixon's tenure, Steve came to Bay City as a debonair, well-off business man, fashioned after Cash McCall (a character from 1960's film of the same name), according to George Reinholt. Steve originally had no family ties. Later, Lemay created revisionist history for the character, inventing previously-unheard-of relatives, most of whom were not well off. Soap operas often foist insta-relatives onto existing characters, and I could tolerate the idea that Steve had lied about having no kin because he wanted to distance himself from his roots, so I grew to accept the sudden changes. Steve's sister, Emma Ordway appeared on AW first, in 1972, briefly played by the divine Beverlee McKinsey. Janice Frame, Steve's and Emma's sister, came to Bay City later that same year. Willis, another Frame brother, arrived in early 1975. These were the only Frame relatives to be introduced while George Reinholt was still on the show. Sharlene was introduced in 1975, the year Reinholt was fired, but she arrived in the fall, after Steve was gone.

That's why I added "among so many others," because when I started to think about all the casting misfires on ATWT, it was like an overflowing cornucopia! Along with KMH, Marie Wilson as Meg belongs on that list.

ITA! Those recasts were egregious. Plus Jason Kinkaid as Tom Hughes, Susan Batten as Connor Walsh, Roger Howarth as Paul Ryan, and Grayson McCouch as Dusty Donovan (among so many others) on ATWT. And Wesley Pfenning as Alice Frame on AW. Kathleen Tolan as Mary Ryan on Ryan's Hope. The list of inexplicable, painful recasts is endless, but some are PARTICULARLY heinous.

Drag them all behind the barn, pronto!

I was just about to mention the same pair. And Ellen versus Susan, too. There might not have been physical cat-fights, face-slapping or hair-pulling, but Ellen shaded both Lisa and Susan for YEARS after what they did to her family. No one held a grudge for more decades than our Ellen Stewart!

As dreadful as it is to lose a grandparent, parent, or even a dearly-beloved pet (yes, losing pets can be crushing to one's spirit in a very real way), at least we expect such losses as a part of life's natural progression. Losing a child is not "supposed" to happen; you are expected to pass before your children do. I don't know how anyone survives this kind of loss. I would literally prefer to die, first, than to see my child perish.

Them's fightin' words, LOL!😉

A friend of mine once said that you don't know what overwhelming, abject, and paralyzing TERROR really is, until you're faced with the potential loss of your child. My heart breaks for this family.