vetsoapfan

Thank you so much for posting this vintage ep and tagging me!

--The Friendship Lamp from The Guiding Light (the original light which Rev. Ruthledge kept in his window to guide lost souls to hiw door). --The first globe from ATWT --The hourglass from DAYS --The red photo album from AMC --Josette's Music Box from Dark Shadows --All the original show bibles still in existence

My principle quest would have been to re-establish the Bauer family and give it all the support and opportunity possible to become the core, central family it was supposed to be. Hence my desire to see Courtney as Hope. That being said, it was frustrating how TPTB simply discarded Elizabeth so easily, when there was still a great deal of story for her to play, and then left the character's fate totally up in the air. For years, we had no idea where she was; if she was alive or dead. I would have been fine with Courtney in the role of Elizabeth, particularly if TGL cast Reinholt as Alan. This on-screen coupling would have made my loyalties shift from Alan and Hope reconciling, to Alan and Elizabth being paired long term. Maybe Robin Mattson, who had been tepid when she originally portrayed Hope, but who had grown tremendously as an actress since then, could have returned to that part.

This is really embarrassing. It's what happens when there's no viable competition, and when the judges don't watch the submitted material.😑 In no universe is DAYS a well-written show.

This has been my thought for years. Hope springs eternal.

When I read on-line reports that Frank has called Mo "the star of the show," it turns my stomach, truly. If anyone on the canvas today deserves that honor, it should be Genie. True, as things stand right now, at this momednt, Genie Francis and Laura are in a solid place. I know this is a soap and everything can change on a dime without much warning, but...fingers crossed. 😀

That's how and why the original Barnabas Collins story on Dark Shadows worked so well. The overt supernatural and horror aspects were sparce at the beginning, grew slowly, and a lot of what was happening was implied or at least "played small." It was played straight rather than as camp, and the results were genuinely tense and creepy instead of coming across as STOOPID. I'll lend you my taser, LOL. To me, any story that allowed/encouraged DAYS to go full-blown camp and make the show a laughingstock is in my black book. I understand some fans enjoyed and appreciated the Possession, and that's fine, but it is literally the story that truly turned me off DAYS forever.

I truly don't think they even care about anything "tracking" or making sense, as long as they get eyeballs in front of the TV (which...they are failing at, anyway, so whatever!🙄)

The Sonny Saga could have tolerable if it had remained a B story, and ended at its appropriate time, 25 years ago. But the show has just harped on my and retread over the same ground ad nauseum. Enough already, geez! It's like The Reva Saga on TGL: neverending and increasingly ridiculous and annoying. Reva the Ghost. Reva the Amish Amnesiac. Reva the San Cristobelian Queen. Reva the Clone. Reva the Time Traveller. EGADS, make it stop!🤢

TPTB have seemed to honor and cherish certain male actors over their female counterparts for a long time now. I seriously doubt they ever would have dropped John Beradino from his contract, yhet they had no qualms about releasing Emily McLaughlin and Rachel Ames. The show bent over backwards to pamper and appease Tony Geary, but never showed Genie Francis the same respect. And as for your comment that Sonny should not be a lead...YES! A thousand times, THIS. I just fell in love with you, LOL. The show should indeed be about the personnel of the hospital. How it got to center around a greasy, Teflon mobster who never pays for his heinous sins, I will never know.

Knowing that I have watched soaps for several decades, someone asked me recently what I thought were the WORST storylines ever told on daytime TV. I tried to compile a list, but became overwhelmed quite quickly, because there were so many to choose from. The Tale of the Two Romans, The Garden of Eden, Melaswen, Marlena's Possession, Princess Gina...DAYS has had a lot of absolute, painful stinkers

I don't trust the soaps to keep anyone on canvas, no matter how beloved by the fans or important to the shows' fabric they are. They've written out Laura multple times before. Still, I hope you are right about them not letting her go...AGAIN. I agree with you yet again in that Laura should be a wise, talk-to; the tent-pole, heart and center of the show, surrounded by family. Lucky, Lulu and even Lesley (as much as Denise Alexander wishes to appear) should be around her. The show needs a strong core family again; one which is NOT driven by mobsters, killers and general degenerates.

I've hated most of DAYS' story choices for the last 30+ years. I don't think the current writers on any soap opera are capable of telling erudite, thoughtful, well-crafted stories. Nor are they capable of writing three-dimensional, intelligent, believable characters. To be honest, I'd rather the shows come to an end than continue indefinitely in their present, crippled state, although this sentiment always invokes a chorus of protest ("I don't care if the show is a steaming pile of doo-doo. You would just shut up and accept it the way it is, if you were a REEEEEEAL FAN!") Grunt, LOL.

Again, I agree, except that I do not believe the current PTB have the will, interest, talent and ability to write continuing storylines for stable, mature, evolved "older" characters, even though their evolution would be totally understandable and desirable in real life. We've already seen how Laura, Scotty, Bobbie, Monica and so many others have been put out to pasture and/or discarded completely because the show can't or won't write anything for them that is "traditionally exciting." My concern is that with unimaginative producing and writing, the show won't keep up with good, evolved, stable characters long term, and will end up letting them go the way GH phased out beloved vets like Audrey Hardy.

I agree 100% that in real life, a stable, steady, uneventful pairing like Laura and Kevin would not only work, but be a great thing. As I age, myself, I don't look for or expect ROMANTIC FIRE! ENDLESS PASSION! NEVER-ENDING DRAMA! I just want peace and tranquility. But that doesn't work with couples on soaps, alas. I still root for Kevin and Lucy too, but if the show ever gets a good producer and savvy writers again (I know I am dreaming in Technicolor) they could make anything work, even Laura and Scotty. If not, *I* will take him! LOL!

Weak, incompetent writing has done in many a fine pair or would-be storyline, alas. I blame Frank and the writers for most of the show's failures. Genie and Kin could pull it off with the right support from TPTB. I like both of the characters too, just not as a couple. On soaps, when there's no fire, no passion, no spark, boredom sets in and the characters are backburnered or settled into "old-people, tent-pole" status. GF and JL are too charismatic individually for that fate.

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.