Khan

Now, more than ever, I advocate for digitizing and making available to the public all episodes of DAYS that Corday and Sony have archived. We are losing so many giants from this genre; and with them go the history of soaps themselves. Charge a subscription fee for that [!@#$%^&*] if you gotta, but if we can go out of our way to preserve all other, fading forms of entertainment, why couldn't we do the same for the soaps?

Several weeks ago, I said DAYS needed to reunite Doug and Dougie while they still had the chance. Now, that chance is gone. Getting me to cry for two people whom I've never met is not easy...but here we are. I'm reading the news of Bill Hayes' passing, and the tears are literally streaming down my face and onto my shirt that reads "Keep Calm and Date a Big Guy." You can't begrudge a man for living every single one of his 98 years to the fullest, but man, does this one hurt. In a way, it's tough for me to separate "Doug and Julie" from "Bill and Susan," just because the two seem so intertwined. After all, Bill and Susan met IRL around the same time that Doug and Julie did on the show, and they married roughly around the same time as well.* So, it's almost like you can't talk about the one without talking about the other as well, know what I mean? DAYS' longtime EP/director Al Rabin once said that the essential ingredient for every couple on his show was the belief that one loves the other more than they love themselves. Never was that more true than it was for Doug and Julie (and for Bill and Susan). All Susan had to do was to look up at Bill with those gorgeous, closeup-ready eyes of hers, and all Bill had to do was to return her look with one of his own - with eyes that remained impish and charming to the very end - and you just knew. Julie never would ache for anyone as deeply as she ached for Doug, and Doug never would recognize the best parts of himself the way he recognized them in Julie. Doug and Julie weren't soaps' first supercouple, nor were they its' most influential, but for me and for generations of others, they were its' most gratifying, because they proved to us all that love always wins. My heart goes out to Ms. Hayes, to her and Bill's loved ones, to everyone at DAYS and to fans of the couple and their love story (both on-screen and real-life) everywhere. May we all find that someone who cares for us and makes us want to be our best selves for them the way Bill and Susan Hayes always were for each other. *We'll just ignore the forced break-up, the remarriage, the second, forced break-up, the years apart (on-screen, not off) and the truncated reunion that rushed Susan off the show in the early '90's. (Damn that stupid show, lol).

Yep, lol. IIRC, too, they wrote it into the story by having Nola redecorate it in some weird, purplish hue. I could buy Nola "sprucing up" Company, but never to that degree, lol.

Didn't GL's Danny and Michelle start out as one of those forced marriages?

At this point, I'd settle for episodes uploaded from somebody's old Betamax tapes.

All those GL sets look(ed) terrible, IMO, especially when you compare them to the ATWT sets that @Liberty City posted in the ATWT thread. I don't know whether GL's budget was any smaller by that point than ATWT's, but you could tell just from looking at those sets on camera that GL had become so bare-bones. If Marshall Hilliard had been cast either after or instead of Jeff Phillips, he might've lasted longer on the show. As it was, he was, like, the fourth actor to play Hart (including the temp recast, Sean McDermott), so I think he was doomed from the start.

I joked once that I think even I played Patti Tate for a few episodes in the '60's, lol! I agree!

I agree.

I agree.

I agree.

In that case, good for him! I think ageism is a BIG problem in the film and TV industry, so I'm glad whenever any older writer who is 50+ lands a steady gig.

Is there any truth to the rumor that the producers found her working at some fast-food joint and offered her the gig? Or was it one of those "discovered at a drugstore" tales that PR people love to make up? (Personally, I thought the concept of someone with no prior acting experience landing a role on a hit TV series after being noticed at a fast-food restaurant would have made for a great Hallmark movie, lol).

Good God, lol.

That "Step by Step" reunion will be bittersweet without Suzanne Somers there.

That was one thing that I did not like about Abby. I could understand why, to her, "suburban" equaled "dull," but to me, it always sounded as if Abby was judging Val just because she happened to prefer that lifestyle. The thing is, Abby should have understood more than anyone how much work went into being a suburban mom, especially when you have no spouse on hand to help you. Then again, as Mary Jo Shively points out in one episode of "Designing Women," it has always been the "stay-at-home moms" vs. "working moms." Maybe, in their own, subtle way, KL was attempting to reflect that. *shrug* I struggle all the time with how Charlene Tilton or Lucy could have fit permanently on KNOTS. As it was, even DALLAS' producers had a hard time coming up with anything for her. In the end, I feel like David Jacobs might have been right and that Lucy was just too "big" of a character to work on a comparatively more realistic show like KNOTS.

Thanks to Pluto TV, I've been able to re-watch some of JHB and Barbara Esensten's work on "Dynasty." I have to say, theirs were some of the better scripts during that show's final two seasons.

At this point, I just assume that Doris passed away, off-screen. If Richard Dean Anderson were up to returning to soaps - and yes, I know, he isn't - he'd be a good candidate to play "Roger Collins." (I don't think they ever said Sharon's father's name, so I'm just naming him "Roger," lol).

Bobbie was helping human trafficking victims when she died? Oh, dear. Why do I feel like they're going to reveal that Bobbie was murdered in Amsterdam?

I really like @Paul Raven's idea of introducing a long-lost, shady half-brother for Sharon. Someone who could stir up serious trouble and get this show moving again. But I'd also love to explore what really happened to Sharon's dad. Who knows? Maybe Sharon killed him accidentally when she was a teenager (before she and Doris moved to GC) and has blocked it out all these years.

IIRC, the last time we saw Jeff Cunningham, Abby, through some deputy, served him with a restraining order, barring him from seeing Olivia and Brian again or else he would face charges. I don't remember what happened to Jeff after that, or whether the restraining order was allowed to lapse, but, yeah, I think there were several occasions when he could've returned. For instance, Jeff could've shown up during Olivia's battle with drugs. That is, if Abby ever allowed Jeff to be notified (and I doubt she would've). I wonder what role he might've played in Olivia's recovery or even in Peter Hollister's death, since Abby and Olivia both were considered suspects. Jeff also could've returned during Olivia's relationship drama with Harold. For once, he and Abby would've been on the same side, agreeing that Harold was "bad news" and that Olivia was better off without him. And even though Abby would've hated doing it, I even could see her and Jeff concocting some scheme to have Harold arrested and/or Olivia leave town with her dad, too. For sure, Jeff should've been there after Olivia had attempted suicide. I can just see it now: Karen notifies Jeff about Olivia; Jeff returns to Knots Landing to be with his daughter; Abby discovers Karen was the one who notified him; Karen (who, IIRC, wasn't entirely unsympathetic toward Jeff when Abby had double-crossed him years before) tells Abby that Olivia's father had a right to know what had happened; Abby tells Karen, "He gave up that right when he tried to take her and Brian away from me. I told you before, Karen: no one hurts me." The thing is, KNOTS wasn't entirely averse to bringing back characters. Remember Mary Frances Sumner? Unfortunately, the Lechowicks were the ones who brought her back; and not only was she almost entirely different from what she was before (and I'm not talking just physical appearances either), but like everyone else during the Lechowicks' run, she was there only long enough to service the plot; and when she had serviced it, they dispatched with her in the ugliest way possible.

Won't it be difficult to host a murder/mystery party on a $.02 budget?

I will never stop laughing if they did, lol. Nope!

Hopefully, he has aged into his talent as well.

When was the last time any soap marked the real-life passing of one of their veteran actors appropriately? I know Y&R's memorial episodes for Jeanne Cooper, Kristoff St. John, etc, get some love, but if you ask me, I found those episodes to be rather hollow.

TBH, I'm surprised GH is acknowledging JZ's passing at all. I know I shouldn't be surprised, but I wouldn't have put it past them to have ignored real-life events and kept Bobbie alive but off-screen and out of town with the attitude of "Jackie/her fans wouldn't have wanted it any other way." (Besides, how long was it before this show acknowledged Shell Kepler's passing even obliquely?)