vetsoapfan

So true. Teri Keane was a wonderful actress, loved by TEON audience, but she was handed the role of a retcon character who had never existed before, whom we did not know nor care about. Worse, she was given almost nothing to do. Viewers who were still resentful about all the beloved, "real" Bauer family members being purged from the show, didn't seem enamored with this new branch of the family tree. Starving dog, meet rubber bone. It didn't work at all, IMHO.

Soap opera ages often fluctuate and become ambiguous, but in a 1950 episode, when Meta was on trial for murder, she told the court that she was 31 years old, or born in 1919. That's the year Virginia Dwyer was born IRL. It could have worked. And after the atrocious treatment she got at AW, it would have been poetic justice to see Dwyer emerge the matriarch of another core family on another soap!

OMG! Now I'm going to be up all night trying to make up my mind.🤭

I wanted Ellen Demming (the actress who had previously played Meta for 21 years) to reprise the role. She was only 63 years old in 1985. Springfield needed the stability and comfort of seeing familiar faces back on-screen. Having her and Mart Hulswit return would have mollified me a lot. Having Don Stewart and Elvera Roussel asked back as well would have helped me forgive TGL for all the crap it had heaped on viewers for the last few years.

I had to stop myself; I was getting too mad, LOL! I didn't bring up Reva Dissolving into the Painting, either. I figured y'all didn't need to endure any more reminders.

To be fair, the writing was often so poor in the show's dying years that many stories were ridiculous, not just those foisted on Kim Zimmer. Harley the Super Heroine comes to mind. Dear God in Heaven! The problem with the Reva plots was that TPTB were so desperate and determined to keep her on the front-burner continuously, they just kept throwing anything and everything at Reva, no mater how ludicrous it was. I started in about 1963, although I later acquired a huge library of radio broadcasts from a kind-hearted and generous friend who had hundreds of eps from before the television era. I got to hear a significant amount of 1950, centering on Meta Bauer's murder trial. It was thrilling. The show really started collapsing in the 1980s, when a huge number of the core characters were wiped out (including most of the Bauers), the tone and style changed significantly, and the writing went drown the drain. It miraculously picked up again in 1989 or so, and was great for a few years, but TIIC killed off Maureen, the fine writer from that period left the show, and it disintegrated once more (with some ups and downs) after that. Of course, this is just my personal opinion. I do know other viewers who enjoyed various parts of the show after I felt it had become unsalvageable. There's no such thing as a "wrong opinion." Everyone has the right to hold and express his own. I was just crushed to see how this once-fine soap had been decimated. From what I could see, many viewers loved Rachel Miner as Michelle and others appreciated BJL, but no one ever seemed to warm up much to NSA, who was tepid at best and had no real spark with anyone. Yep, by the time it was cancelled, putting the show out of its (and our) misery was akin to a mercy killing.

@Reverend Ruthledge is 100% correct in his assessment of Robert Gentry's portrayal of Ed Bauer in the 1960s, of course, but I couldn't help but be won over by MH's much needed warmth and affability, particularly after dear Papa Bauer passed away. I preferred MH over Don Stewart, who always struck me as emotionally remote (although I never would have chosen to let Stewart go if I could help it). I had never heard that TGL tried to lure Hulswit back. I wonder when that was and who made the decision 100%, but TIIC seemed to be allergic to making good decisions which would benifit the show. I would not have hated that idea, and it would have tied MW to core characters and used the show's history. A win-win situation. .

I've always felt that General Hospital showed Marland at the top of his game and was his best work. It was astonishing how he revitalized that dying show and turned it around. Talk about soap miracles. DM also understood and used ATWT's rich history and the importance of the Hughes family to the series and the audience. I appreciated and was grateful for that.

It really was like watching a corpse rotting to dust in the arid desert sun. Rauch ultimately decimated TGL the way he had OLTL and AW. Reva the Clone was one of the biggest excrement stains in soap opera history. The majority of the Reva tales in the show's dying years were total garbage: Reva the Ghost, Reva the Amish Amnesiac, Reva the San Cristocrapian Queen, Reva the Blind, Reva the Illegal Immigrant Savoir, Reva the Clone, Reva the Time Traveller...🤢

Right. One of the final nails in the coffin that guaranteed TGL would never recover was killing off Maureen Bauer. Viewers had come to embrace her as the beloved Bauer matriarch, and what did TIIC do? Fire Ellen Parker, allegedly to pay for Justin Deas as Buzz Cooper (🤮) to come aboard. I don't know if I totally believe that, but TPTB were woefully incompetent and clueless about the show and the audience, so I can see it as a possibility. Sadly, Michael O'Leary did not age well, and his increasingly-grotesque mugging over the years became unbearable. Between his Rick becoming an abrasive buffoon and Peter Simon's Ed being being listless and morose, the Bauer family, as a hub of the show's wheel, crumbled into non-viable existence.

The shaky cameras, the weak and spotty sound (although both eventually improved to a degree), the poor writing, all the extraneous characters, the STOOPID storylines; the show became a painful chore to endure in its final years.

As you know, I cannot disagree with anything you have written. Ed had been a surly, abusive douche throughout Gentry's tenure, and RG played the role very well. But emotionally, in my heart, I wanted Ed to grow, mature and soften; to become a more viable tentpole character. I was primed and ready for him to stop being a jackass, and MH's affable, gregarious (but still hot-headed and passionate below the surface) take on him allowed me to have the transformed Ed I wanted to see. Was the character transformation completely believable? Do people ever truly change that much? Maybe not, but Bert grew up a lot. So did Meta. So I allowed myself to embrace the older-and-wiser, gentler Ed, particularly after Papa died. Don Stewart's Mike did not exude the warmth that Papa had, but Hulswit's Ed did, and I wanted that warmth to continue on display within the Bauer clan. Agree. He was a wimpy douche; listless, morose, and generally colorless. RVV was appealing as Chuck Tyler on AMC, but just...all wrong on TGL. UGH. Like Wesley Ann Pfenning as Alice Matthews Frame on AW. What were TPTB even thinking?

Yep, we are very biased indeed. I adored Hulswit, and he was my favorite Ed, for the reasons you outlined. I never fully forgave Marland for promoting MH's dismissal. Ed Bauer never recovered. I will readily admit that Gentry was excellent as Ed in his first tenure on the show, and captured the character's essence extremely well. I was Team Gentry at the time. But as Ed grew older and matured, he changed under Hulswit's interpretation to the point where MH became the one and only Ed Bauer to me (just like Judith Light became the one and only Karen Wolek on OLTL when she assumed that role). When Gentry returned to TGL many years later, he no longer fit the character (IMHO), although I'd take him over Simon or RVV in a heartbeat. All of this: perfectly said. Bravo!

@jam6242 , thank you for posting and letting us know about this. I adored Lynn Benesch as Meredith Lord Wolek. May she RIP.

Simone Kinkaid appeared on-screen in 1977/78, and was played by Laryssa Lauret, best known for her role as Karen Werner on The Doctors. Paul Kinkaid was spoken about but (IIRC) was never actually seen. He was the son of Victor and Simone Kinkaid, although viewers have speculated for five decades that he (like his sister Hillary Bauer) might actually have been Bill Bauer's offspring as well.

OLTL had Eileen Riley Siegal, who became a meddling, controlling mother type after her husband David died. Like Mary Williams on Y&R, Eileen was never obnoxious like this until becoming a window.

Marland almost always came across as a gentleman. I was really disappointed when, in a magazine interview, he snidely referred to Hulswit as a "dodo bird," whom Lenore Kasdorf allegedly couldn't stand working with and begged to be separated from. Imagine anyone thinking Peter Simon was "a more dashing leading man."🙄 PS was good on SFT, but as Ed Bauer, he was listless and morose, and lacked the charm and passion MH brought to the role. A few years later, when TPTB slaughtered the Bauer family, it would have been a comforting link to the past to have Hulswit in the role. Instead, we had the sparse remains of the core family on screen, and a non-descript actor as "new Ed" (which is how I referred to him for the next 27 years, LOL). Dalton, as Elizabeth, was never one of my favorite actresses, but it was short-sighted and damaging to the drama, to have Elizabeth just disappear and remain off-camera, in limbo for years. We didn't even know if she was alive or dead for the longest time, until it was acknowledged she had died years before. An actress of Maureen Garrett's caliber should never have been written out. She and MH's Ed worked beautifully together. Yes, she became a supporting, talk-to character; supporting instead of a lead. I hated the way she was written out: announcing she was taking a three-month sabbatical from Cedars...and then disappearing into the ether and never being seen or heard from again. Why not just SAY she was retiring or moving away permanently? Again, a poster in this forum who is a more creative than the actual TGL scribes from the 1980s, and from after Nancy Curlee's departure.

Jerry ver Dorn's natural charisma, charm and sweetness also helped. ❤️ Hope's absence was explained in a fairly well-written (!!!) scene on camera. Hope telephoned Alan-Michael before the wedding. The show had hired a voice-actress to play the role and even I (who resented TGL for firing Elvera Roussel and never bringing the character back) thought the performer did a great job (much better than the voice-actor chosen to play Mike Bauer--with a Southern twang, no less--in a different telephone call. Although A-M voiced his bitter disappointment and vowed not to let Alan anywhere near her, Hope told her son that she was feeling too fragile, and was simply unable to bear being at the wedding if there was any possibility she would run into Alan. She believed Alan would come after her if he knew she was in Springfield. It would decimate her already precarious mental health, so she had to stay far away from him indefinitely. Lord, yes. The monster-SORASING of A-M (and later Leah) really screwed up the Bauer family's time-line and viability. But the revisionist version of Amanda (whom I refer to as "pod Amanda") was so blatantly changed and so poorly cast, she just wasn't Amanda anymore. Making her Alan's sister, after establishing for years on-air that she was his daughter? Nooooooooooooooooooo. 🤮 That was one of the most egregious and idiotic blunders in TGL's history. I'm still vexed about it. As I have no doubt you already know, Mattson had previously played Hope in the 1970s. Unfortunately, at that point, she had not developed into a strong actress yes, and her Hope was bland and inconsequential. An editor in Daily TV Serials (I think it was) wrote that her potential pairing with Ben didn't work because she was a "bland baby girl." I was pleasantly surprised to see Mattson's much-superior work on other soaps, later on. I would have wanted Jacquie Courtney as Hope. You are a much better, and more creative, writer than anyone hired by this show post-Nancy Curlee.

As always, I am interested in reading any and all synopses you are kind enough to share. :)

Thanks, @DRW50 ! I don't believe I've seen this episode before. What nice quality! And any time I get to Meta is always a treat.

I've always considered the 1970s to be be soaps' finest decade. So many of the shows were burning on all cylinders. Do you have specific shows which you felt were the very best of those years?

Oh, of course. You are 100% correct. I appreciate you catching and correcting my mindless boo-boo. Having "senior moments" like this irk me, LOL. When I get too excited and type too quickly, I tend not to proof-read.🙃 Another absolutely terrifying moment was when Tango stumbled across Jonah Lockwood's true identity. As he was walking out of the apartment she shared with Laurie Ann, Tango breezily (and stupidly) taunted him by calling him "Keith." The look on his face said it all. We immediately knew Tango was done for. Then we had to wait through three more episodes before Laurie was home and looked outside the window, only to see Tango's dead body in the alley below. EEK! The climax to the story, when Jonah chased Laurie into the tower, intent on murdering her as well, but fell to his own death, was perfection. Actually, this plot would also be in my top five (and not just the Top 10, as I previously wrote). The only storyline I would rank above it is the Alice/Steve/Rachel story on AW. I LIVED, rather than just watched, both these tales as they unfolded. I'm so glad you got to experience them as well! We were lucky to witness, first-hand, soaps' golden years.☺️

THIS! Seeing how tepid and poorly thought-out most "mystery" stories on soaps have been over the last four decades or so, it makes my deep admiration for Slesar skyrocket ever higher. I wish everyone could have seen the brilliant Jonah Lockwood/Colin Whitney storyline. It was Slesar at his best. So complicated, so intelligent, and often scary as hell. No wonder the ratings were huge. This will forever be one of my Top 10 favorite soap stories of all time.

I really wanted that to happen too. Alas, viewers are almost always more sentimental about beloved, past characters than new PTB are.

Greaza's last year on the show is credited as 1973, but as you remember, he appeared sparingly towards the end. The last time I remember Winston having "plot purpose" was during the Jonah Lockwood story, when he showed up unannounced at the apartment Laurie Ann was sharing with her tacky roommate, Tango, and stumbled across Laurie and Jonah passionately making out on the bed. Winston was NOT impressed, and made that fact known. I adored him. The 1974 Christmas episode of EDGE is on Youtube. Rose and Joe Pollack, Nancy's parents, visit the Karrs for the holiday, but Winston is neither seen nor mentioned.