Khan

I hate to say it, but even finding out that Whitley is on Megan's payroll and that Megan has paid her to brainwash Abe would be welcome at this point, lol. I'm just afraid that, down the line, we're going to get a scene where Abe bumps into Marlena or Kayla and mistakes them for characters on his "favorite soap opera." (Again, DAYS, this is how you treat one of your few, Emmy-winning veterans?)

I don't get the difference either, @carolineg. IIRC, "Eddie Maine" was just a stage name; he wasn't a split personality. Ned was still Ned, and he still knew who he was and who his family was, too. In my mind, Ned is playing a game with this Eddie Maine stuff, so he can lull Nina into a false sense of security, only to lower the boom on her later (preferably, during her and Sonny's wedding).

I agree, @Wendy. MSNBC and NBCUniversal are like everyone else in the media. They don't recognize the danger in continuing to give that man airtime. They see only dollars and cents. A long time ago, before he ever stepped foot inside the WH as Commander-in-Chief, Donald Trump said that the press and the media needed him, because, without him, they'd never sell as many newspapers and magazines and commercials. Sadly, he was right.

Maybe "Darling Nikki," lol?

It doesn't make any sense to me either, @carolineg. Maybe an explanation as to why Synclaire, I mean, Whitley was so obviously obsessed with Abe that she kidnapped him is forthcoming. At the moment, however, the fact that we know nothing about her motivations makes this story even more bizarre than it is already for me.

I don't know why, but I feel like Abe's story would be much more effective if Renee Jones were back and playing Kim Coles' role. Of course, RJ's return wouldn't be permanent, since she's probably very happy in her retirement; and Whitley couldn't be working as a nurse at University Hospital, since it would seem odd to have someone who looks like Lexie working where she had worked but nobody bats an eye about it. On the other hand, Abe could have recurring, gauzy flashbacks of Lexie and assume that that person and the individual who's keeping him now are one and the same, with RJ's Whitley maintaining the illusion that they have been together for a very long time.

The Mac/Rachel/Janice/Mitch storyline was probably the last time fans were excited about AW.

Unfortunately, @Cheap21, I don't think the reboot is worth checking out. The reboot should have been an opportunity to retell the story for the late 2010s-early 2020's, with a greater emphasis on character development. Instead, it took the worst aspects of the original series - the paper-thin characterizations, the improbable plot twists, the emphasis of style and gloss over substance - and turned them up to eleven.

Wow, Larry Hagman looked really good in that ad, lol.

I agree, @Paul Raven. Consistency is one thing, but ATWT seemed to lapse into inertia by the late '70's. Characters appeared to be playing the same scenarios over and over again. The show definitely needed a jolt.

Something tells me they won't have to worry about Trump's passport. I could be wrong, of course, but I don't think he's the type to color his hair, put on some eyeglasses and flee the country like someone on "Unsolved Mysteries."

I agree, @dragonflies. However, like I said in the Y&R July thread, even a brief return could still impact everybody's lives down the road, and it's becoming clear to me that this story probably won't have such an effect. In fact, I predict that, this time next month, it'll be like the whole mess had never happened.

On the one hand, springing Cameron from prison and bringing him back to Genoa City in order to terrorize Sharon and her loved ones so more seems pointless since it's likely the story will be wrapped up and forgotten by the time I finished writing this post, lol. On the other hand, however, even if Linden Ashby won't be sticking around for the foreseeable future, his abbreviated return still should shake up the canvas significantly; and I'm afraid that it won't. Again, if his return doesn't impact the Newmans' lives for years to come, then what was the point of bringing him back?

Elizabeth Hubbard was and is one of my all-time favorite actors, but it's hard to take some of her opinions seriously when she professed that Althea Davis was her favorite (soap) character to play. She thought Douglas Marland's conception for Gloria Walters was "cheap" and "obvious"? Well, that's peanuts compared to how Eileen and Robert Mason Pollock wrote for Thea on THE DOCTORS

I agree, @te.!

I agree, lol.

I can just imagine what the three or four other Marlenas would be doing right now. You have one clone living in squalor in a trailer park in Florida; another living a life of splendor as the wife of a wealthy businessman in England; a third living and working as a nun in an African orphanage; and maybe a fourth who is now a spinster librarian at a college somewhere in the Midwest.

It's continuing, because Ron Carlivati personally believes that if you pound a silly gag into the viewers' skulls often enough, sooner or later, the viewers will begin to love it; and if they don't, then, at the very least, they'll become so numb to it that they'll stop resisting. Speaking of head trauma, I'm sorry, because I'm trying very hard these days not to criticize the folks who make these shows, but what this show is doing to Abe Carver and to James Reynolds is so foul that Ron, Ken Corday, Albert Alarr and everyone else involved should be indicted.

Oh, you are so not kidding, @DramatistDreamer, lol! That scene had to be the lowest moment I've ever experienced in all my years of watching ATWT. Lower than anything Stephen Black and Henry Stern could've done and did during their brief tenure as HW's for the show.

Well said, @Vee! I guess it was for those moments when he inevitably found himself out of toilet paper.

I do, too, @P.J.. However, I would have brought back Scott Eldridge for that function. He, like Rick Ryan, was a virtual blank slate with a sketchy past and multiple ties on the canvas. Plus, imagine playing "bad" Scott against his "good" half-brother, D.A. Tom, with their mother, Lisa, who was once Oakdale's most notorious "bad girl," caught in the middle.

Maybe there could be some storyline where Marlena agrees to do a limited podcast series where she tracks down each clone and shares intimate, one-on-one conversations with them, lol.

I did. At no time did I ever believe that Ben had anything but his own, personal, self-serving interests at heart. Even when Paul Rauch/B&E tried to sell us on a Blake/Ross/Ben triangle, I didn't believe for one second that Ben had any romantic feelings for his sister-in-law (which annoyed me, because there was a time when Blake wouldn't have been so gullible). To this day, I wish that either James DePaiva or Philip Brown had played the role instead. Except, I wouldn't have wanted for Rick to be so two-dimensional. I would've wanted an actor who could put SOME emotional layers into that character so that he wouldn't come across simply as this out-and-out bastard who was beyond redemption or empathy.

I have no words for the "Body and Soul" crap. None.

I tried to come up with an instance where I saw Hunt Block play any role with anything other than smarminess, and...I couldn't.