Khan

It's still so weird to see LK back on Y&R but not as Lindsay Wells.

What is it with KZ and dressing rooms? If she wasn't complaining about having to change at a Pump 'N' Munch in Peapack, she was begging Frank for a dressing room when she went back to OLTL. Does she think changing her clothes in anything less than a penthouse suite is an insult to her people? Just put your damn clothes on, Kim, and get on that stage and act!

Having Diahann Carroll join the cast of TC instead of Morgan Fairchild would have been fabulous! Building a new soap around a glamorous, successful woman of color would've been an excellent way for viewers to see how TC wasn't like their grandmother's old stories. Especially in '95, when the notion would've been REALLY bold.

Good point. It's easy to forget how MTM and Norman Lear helped CBS draw younger, more upscale viewers in the '70's after appealing so much to rural audiences.

Between the Four L's (Lance, Leslie, Lorie and Lucas) and Larry and Linda Larkin, Bill Bell was giving the "L" key on his typewriter a real workout.

"But, don't you see, Nick? HE'S CHANGED! He isn't the same, mixed-up guy who hurt me all those years ago." "He didn't just skin your knee, Sharon. He raped you." "Yes, and if I can get past that, why can't you?" ;)

I'm not sure CBS has ever found that audience. I mean, look at their current programming slate. I doubt many 20-year-olds are making it a point to watch "NCIS" every week, lol.

I'm still not convinced Josh Griffith won't at least tease a Matt/Sharon hookup down the road.

Same here. If nothing else, Jean Passanante has earned her rest.

True - and Lord knows everyone here has seen more than one side of me over the years, too, lol. But the fact that the contrast between the Frank who gives KS chance after undeserved chance and the Frank who froze out Susan Haskell at OLTL, for example, after likely selling her a bill of story goods is so stark...it kinda proves my earlier point. Just about every EP in soap history has had their favorites, but Frank seems to make it personal, and that's just f'ed up. (The armchair psychologist wonders if such behavior is rooted in his childhood or adolescence, like maybe he grew up so introverted that it's hard for him to separate professional from personal relationships. Again, really f'ed up, lol).

At the end of the day, Frank Valentini has to decide whether he's everyone's boss or friend. He can't be both.

Obviously, Josh Griffith has never met anyone who has survived a sexual assault; because, if he had, we wouldn't be forced to watch him and try and redeem a creep like Matt Clark just to give Roger Howarth a few more paychecks. I'm really trying these days to see everything more from the TPTB's POV, but everything about this story is just offensive. Somebody needs to be fired for this, and yesterday.

IIRC, Rudy Giuliani was mayor back then, and he was getting good press for revitalizing Times Square after decades of neglect, so I think that played a part in those shows' development as well. Suddenly, NYC was a tourist destination again, and I guess the networks wanted to capitalize on that any way they could.

It's a tale as old as time: 90210 and MP become the new hotness (tm @kalbir ) and transform FOX from a brash outlier (that you still need 'rabbit ears' to watch in many places) to a major contender; so, CBS, whose shows traditionally have skewed older, poaches the man responsible for both hits, asks him to create one like those for their network, then panics when their older, more conservative viewers balk. SMDH, lol. Does it EVER occur to these networks that chasing after the newest phenomenon never works? That the last thing viewers want in a 500-channel (plus streaming) universe is more of the same? I mean, if I wanted to watch 90210 and MP - and let's be clear, I didn't - then I would've watched 90210 and MP, not some other network's Designer Impostors version. When you have a hit show like Darren Star's shows were BITD, the object of the game is not to pump out more like 'em, but to counter-program and give your audiences something they aren't getting anywhere else. That's how you end up with success stories like CBS' Saturday night lineup in the '70's, or NBC's Thursday night lineup in the '80's and '90's.

Heck, I'd take him over Sam Behrens for Danny, lol!

Better that, I guess, than, "I still can't believe how Spinelli, Maxie and the kids all died in that plane crash!"

I still remember Peggy O'Shea talking to Soap Opera Weekly about her experience as a consultant for SaBa. O'Shea said they asked her to watch the show and give her thoughts about which, if any, changes were needed. O'Shea did what she was paid to do and told them that SaBa was fine as-is. "Then, they went and changed everything!"

True! If I have to watch one more of those damn procedurals, I'm gonna scream, lol!

James Burrows' death will sting for a very long time.

I agree. O'Shea, Sam Hall and Gordon Russell all knew how to write stuff that was off-beat or risky, but not so risky that it would have alienated the more conservative viewers, or so dumb that it would've insulted the average viewer's intelligence.

I agree.

Mia Farrow and Farrah Fawcett are both strong choices, @Franko . Maybe they weren't among the hottest names in '95, but they certainly were hotter than Morgan Fairchild, lol. I think I would've approached Jaclyn Smith or (if she had not been stuck on the prairie, amputating people's body parts for no good reason) Jane Seymour.

That all reminds me of what John Whitesell told the press when he was named EP at SFT in '85 (or so). Specifically, he said that half-hour shows like SFT shouldn't try to compete with the hour-long ones by breaking up each act into a bunch of shorter scenes. Instead, he said, he wanted fewer scenes per episode, with maybe one long scene per act. (Unfortunately, Whitesell, who did some marvelous directing at GL, wouldn't last long at SFT. P&G promptly moved him to the hour-long AW).

I agree: "Masquerade" was just a nothing-burger of a mystery. I, too, wonder if Agnes Nixon/Dramatic Creations played a part in ABCD's decision to make TC a continuation (of sorts) of LOVING. Like you've said, @EricMontreal22 , the network might've been bound contractually to launch the new show with characters from the old. (If that's the case, then maybe they were better off bringing back "Mike & Maty," lol).

Every time I watch the moments leading up to Victoria Principal's exit, I just shake my head and laugh. And if you were to ask me to sum up the Jeff Freilich era of FC in one image, it'd have to be that car plunging into the waters, lol.