vetsoapfan

I agree. I like Kevin, but he and Laura have absolutely no romantic or sexual chemistry together. It was a case of short-sightedness and poor writing, to take Laura out of a relationship with Scotty (with whom she had had a long history and shared lots of chemistry), only to leave her floundering around until pairing her with Kevin, with whom she shares no spark. I say, let's go with Laura and Scooty, Round Three!

OMFG. I had the hots for Scotty SO BAD, back in the day. How Laura could dump him for that icky degenerate, Luke Spencer, I could never understand.

RC is painfully childish and unprofessional. Every television series, every film, every book, every record album, every piece of art ever created is open to commentary from the public. Why should the public give him a pass?

During her heyday, Courtney was hugely popular, so it's always annoyed me that ABC suddenly dropped her from OLTL in 1983, claiming "lack of story for the actress" (regardless of the fact that she was already being groomed for a new frontburner storyline with Michael Zaslow and probably Robin Strasser). It was also inexplicable how AW brought her back in 1984 and then barely used her and kept the actress on the backburner until dropping her again in 1985. It's been theorized that she was eliminated from OLTL in preparation for Paul Rauch's arrival, and that her returned to AW failed because Gary Tomlin and TPTB failed to research her character enough to understand her history and significance to the show, but who knows for sure? Even the most popular superstars need good material to thrive, and savvy PTB to use them effectively.

After Alan-Michael was suddenly SORASED to his late teens, I thought that Courtney would have made a good Hope Bauer. IRL, she was the age that Hope would have been with a young-adult son, and she had had her greatest success as the leading heroine on AW. Courtney's star appeal would have been an asset to TGL (if TIIC had used her correctly), but I do think her strength lay in portraying "good" characters rather than darker, more manipulative roles. She did not fare well as Maggie Ashley on OLTL or Diane (was that her name?) on Loving. Still, if JC had been cast as Alexandra, I would have cheered her on!

I am already known for endlessly castigating TGL over all its blunders in the show's painful, final decades, but I must add my voice to the chorus condemning this egregious storyline as well.

Yep. That's one of the reasons that I grew to loathe the character. To me, the show's resurgance, which took place while she was "dead" came to an end after Reva returned as a ghost. I acknowledge that there are viewers who agree with you. Do you mind if I ask what year you started watching the series? My experience has been that viewers who believe TGL was suited for campy material became viewers in the 1980s. My most vehement objection to the entire storyline that it was historically impossible, since we had seen Brandon die on ther show. So to trash established, witnessed history, to dip the show's toe into the water of a "controversial" plot that went nowhere, was frustrating.

Don't even get me started: Reva the Ghost, Reva the Amish Amnesiac, Reva the San Cristocrapian Queen, Reva the Illegal-Immigrant Savior, Reva the Blind, Reva the Clone, Reva the Time Traveller...EEEK! When TGL went over the top, it plunged into the abyss, and it plunged...hard. TGL was never created or presented as a show to tell wildly-unrealistic fantasy/camp stories. The combination of slaughtering the pre-existing cast and resorting to Saturday-morning cartoon material was the series' downfall. Of course. I know various viewers who vehemently disagree with me. There are those who loved Casey the Space Alien on General Hospital, Marlena Possessed on Days, Viki's Trip to Heaven on a Space Ship on OLTL, etc., which (to be honest) just baffles me, LOL. But, as previously noted: to each his own!

I fully acknowledge that there are viewers who enjoy "camp" material, and I can get into it, too, depending where it's served. John Waters? Sure. But clones in Springfield or The Great Gazoo pestering Maggie Smith in Downton Abbey? Nooooooooooooooooooooo, thank you. LOL! There's a time and place for everything.

Hillary Bauer's brother, Paul, could have ended up being Bill's biological son, but the show seemed to completely forget he ever existed.

There were so many potentially-great ideas/relationships/stories that could have played out...and yet we ended up getting The Ghost in the Attic, the Dreaming Death, and Susan Piper. 🙄🤮

Actors should never have the power to dictate storylines, IMHO, no matter how popular they are. If everyone tried to do that, it would be anarchy behind the scenes. After TGL killed off Leslie Bauer, the show never really found a suitable love interest for Stewart's Mike Bauer again. Various characters were tested or rumored to be in the running (Anne Jeffers, Ivy Pierce, Jennifer Richards, Trish Lewis, Lillian Raines, Alexandra Spaulding), but none of those potential or proposed matches panned out. If a triangle had developed, I would have gone with Jennifer/Mike/Alex. The mileage from Mike and Alex alone could have run for years, fueled by Mike's contentious relationship with Alan. In the long-run, however, I would have had Mike end up with Jennifer, tying Amanda to the Bauer family. This could have caused more friction between Mike and Alan, with Amanda being both Mike's stepdaughter and Alan's daughter. (Yes, I know TIIC tried to rewrite history and claim that Amanda was Brandon's child rather than Alan's, but that was all total BS and impossible in accordance to what we had already seen play out on screen. Amanda was Alan's daughter, period. I will die on this hill, LOL!)

After Hope Bauer gave birth to Alan Michael, Don Stewart gave an interview in which he said it was a major mistake to "make the show's number-one leading man a grandfather." He felt it aged Mike unnecessarily. Stewart claimed that the writers had originally intended for Hope to lose the baby, but changed their minds after the audience reacted so negatively to Amanda's miscarriage. TPTB did not want to incur the audience's wrath again. Then Stewart opined about Mike's romantic life. The show was flirting putting him together with Trish Lewis, and he said that he didn't understand the reasoning behind that, considering her youth made Trish age inappropriate for Mike. He said that he and the more-age-appropriate Deborah May (Ivy Pierce/Renee Dubois) had had good rapport and chemistry, and he was sorry to see Mike's blossoming relationship with her suddenly dropped. (These comments surprised me, because the general theory among fans had always been that Stewart had actively campaigned to have Mike paired exclusively with much-younger female co-stars.) Very possibly, particularly when TPTB knew they were losing Charita, they might have wanted Stewart to remain in order to provide a glimmer of continuity, but it's hard to say. P&G/Kobe/Long/whomever, gutted almost all of the pre-existing cast in 1983 and '84, so I doubt they cared too much for continuity or the desires of long-time viewers. The show might have fired Stewart even though Mike had years' worth of storyline potential left, the way it axed Hope, Hillary, Amanda, Justin, etc. Right. Marland (in an uncharacteristically mean interview) said that the show preferred going with a "younger, sexier" Ed. He called Hulswit a "dodo," and threw Lenore Kasdorf under the bus by announcing that SHE supposedly loathed working with Hulswit and found him icky. I hate to be blunt, but Hulswit was a lot cuter and sexier than Peter Simon--or even Marland, himself, LOL--so who was DM to snipe? Nobody among TPTB at the time seemed to understand or care about TGL, its core and its audience. This is was why it was allowed to be decimated so quickly and so completely.

The extraordinary aspect of Slesar's writing was his versatility. Mystery/suspense stories were his claim to fame, but he was also wonderfully adept at romance, family drama and characterization. He could do it all. (And his scripts had characters speaking like intelligent, real-life people actually speak!)

I had not even thought about trying to find soaps on dailymotion, which is probably strange because I've searched (and found) rare movies and bootlegs of Broadway shows and concerts there. I'll check it out. Thanks. I'd love to see the Jingles story again, for sure, but my number one choice would be Slesar's absolutely terrifying Jonah Lockwood storyline from The Edge of Night. It was a masterpiece; filled with endless twists and turns, involving most of the cast, and acted extremely well. That and the Stephanie Martin saga, also from TEON, were probably Slesar's best stories, IMHO. I more often write about TGL and AW, but I sure do miss the glory days of TEON too! And even though Somerset had its ups and down, it was still better than any of the soaps being produced today, and I miss that soap too.

I'd love to be able to sample this show--and so many others--but alas, foreign soaps are geo-blocked, and I can't even get Emmerdale any more. This was indeed a creepy scene. On American soaps, Henrey Slesar was the only writer who knew how to scare the living daylights out of the audience. His best suspense tales were truly terrifying, not unrealistic and ridiculous, low-brow camp nonsense like so many other "writers" dished out. I miss the days of when the mysteries on soaps were well-written and well-produced enough to make viewers cringe in terror, LOL.

Back when morality existed on soaps, and everyone in town did not glorify and bow down to degenerate mobsters, rapists and murderers. We need Audrey back on GH. (Yes, yes, I know that will never happen.)

I agree that Charita Bauer was an essential component of the show, representing its core and heart, but there was literally nothing the show could do to keep the character of Bert on canvas after Charita became ill and passed away. That being said, TPTB could have, and should have, tried to minimize the damage of losing Charita/Bert by doing everything they could to keep continuity alive and strong. Hiring Richard Van Fleet as Ed Bauer was a major gaffe; he was miscast and unlikable. Mart Hulswit should have been asked back. Or even Robert Gentry. Killing off Bill Bauer, a legacy character who could have been rehabilitated and function in a role similar to Papa Bauer was gratuitous, cruel and foolish. Eliminating other, essential legacy characters like Mike and Hope Bauer was damaging and unfathomable. Eliminating Hillary Bauer served no purpose and further weakended the show's core family for no discernible reason. In 1983 and 1984, we lost all these characters as well as Kelly Nelson, Jennifer and Morgan Richards, Amanda Spaulding, Eve Stapleton, Justin Marler, Nola and Quint McCord, etc., etc., etc. Since TGL was being completely gutted anyway, why not just cancel it altogether, and replace it with a brand new show: Texas Meets Scooby Doo? 🙄

Along with being consistently well produced throughout its first several decades, storyline and character continuity were first rate. I think this is why many viewers became so attached to the show: they felt like they were watching family, friends and neighbors (same with ATWT). Of course, many great actors paraded through Springfield over the years. Actors were hired for talent and charisma, not because they were hair models. The most important element that helped TGL shine brightly, however, was the writing. Viewers were treated to years of excellence thanks to material penned by the likes of Irna Phillips, Agnes Nixon, Jane and Ira Avery, Robert Soderberg and Edith Sommer, the Dobsons, Douglas Marland, Pat Falken Smith and Nancy Curlee. IMHO, the writing tanked for the last 15 years of the series (and from 1983-1984 to about 1988 or so), but that does not negate the decades of high-quality drama that had come before.

I started to distribute blame among P&G, Kobe, and Long when I read an interview with the writer in which she spoke about working very hard to fix TGL, by "getting rid of all the dead wood" in the cast in the first few years of her original reign. Later, it was proposed that the show re-expand the Bauer family due to continued and voracious complaints from the audience, but (again, as reported in the press) Long vetoed that idea and instead went ahead with creating more newbies of her own creation. I have NO DOUBT that P&G and Kobe encouraged the cast slaughter (or at the very least allowed it to happen), but I believe Long was a contributing factor.

I always love reminiscing about vintage soaps! AMC and OLTL were excellent in their early years!

The fan reaction to Steve Hardy's guest appearance? It's hard to say for sure because there was no social media back then. No Facebook, no Twitter, nothing. The people in my circle of friends loved the crossover, however, and I'm sure most fans of both shows got a kick out of i

Y&R: Jill (I literally don't care about anyone else) B&B: No one DAYS: Julie, Doug, Maggie GH: Scotty, Laura, Bobbie, Monica, Tracy, Mac, Lucy (most of whom rarely appear, alas)

Yes. Steve Hardy appeared as a consultant to Viki's sister Meredith's medical issues.

Of the age-appropriate men on the canvas at the time, I could have tolerated Bert with Henry, but we couldn't see Bert reunited with Bill, I would have preferred her with Steve Jackson, since Bert and Steve were both Frederick's grandparents, and all the Bauers already considered Steve to be a member of their family anyway. Either TPTB didn't have the talent or the wisdom to understand this, or they simply did not care. I doubt Pam Long would have been so ready to slaughter her own pet families, the Lewises and the Shaynes, the way she did the longtime core families whom the audience knew and loved. Join the club, LOL. It still boggles my mind that Peapack was allowed to happen. Good point. Somewhere along the line, most soaps lost touch with lower and middle-class families, with so many people being filthy rich. There's something to be said for preserving "normal," middle-class characters to whom the majority of the audience can relate.