Khan

I know SaBa fans didn't care for him as a Ted Capwell recast, but I thought he did a better job playing that role than he did playing Joey Martin. And he looks okay today, but he's gotta lose the 'stache and goatee.

RB and LD would have been too young to play Alan, but who knows? I'd put nothing past JFP. The thing is, Chris Bernau made such an indelible impression as Alan that it's literally impossible to picture anyone else playing that role. Daniel Pilon couldn't replace Bernau. Ron Raines DEFINITELY couldn't replace Bernau. I'm not sure anyone could've replaced Bernau. Another casting mystery: before she left GL, Joan Collins told the press that they had recast Roger Thorpe - "and you'll never guess who's playing him," or words to that effect. Of course, because she left soon after, whatever plans they had for bringing back Roger fell through, but I've always wondered: who was this mysterious actor she was so clearly enthused about? I doubt Dame Joan ever followed daytime, much less GL, so it had to have been either someone she'd worked with in the past, or someone who was well-known outside of daytime. My hunch? Gordon Thomson (ex-Adam, DYNASTY). He had played her son on one show; and now, he was set to play her ex-husband on another. Again, just my hunch, nothing more. Knowing Ellen Wheeler and her plucky, can-do spirit, I'm surprised she didn't have cast members literally pitch in and build sets in Peapack! "Come on, everybody, it'll be just like doing summer stock!" I know I'm coming across as someone who hates EW. I don't. I think she's a fantastic actor who deserved the two Emmys she won. But she was not EP material. I suspect, too, that P&G knew that, but hired her anyway, because they knew she could be the one to finish off GL (which she did).

I think that was the week when Val learned her babies were alive, but don't quote me on that. Ironically, David Jacobs HATED that storyline; yet, it might have been his show's most successful.

"Mama's Family" even referenced "Deceptions" in one of their episodes. Of course, they changed the name (from "Deceptions" to "My Sister, Myself") and the sisters' occupations ("one's an axe murderer, the other's a nun!"), but they still mention Stefanie Powers' name, so you know what they were really talking about, lol.

Sex?

"And if watching Suzanne Somers and Anthony Hopkins give into their lust for each other as he chokes her is your thing - well, just come and knock on OUR door, Clarice, 'cuz this miniseries has been waiting for you!"

Of course, the ratings spiked during the clone storyline. Even if you thought the premise was ludicrous - which I did - you still tuned in, if only to laugh at the utter insanity of it all. (Rapid growth serum? GMAFB!) However, the storyline set a bad precedent for GL. No matter how...over-the-top GL could be in past years, you always could count on it being, for the most part, a realistic show. The clone storyline changed all that. Now, nothing was off-limits, not even pure sci-fi. (The same thing happened to DAYS once Marlena became possessed by the devil).

I agree, @dc11786. In Labine's hands, such a storyline would have amazing to watch, as she would have written to the complexities of the situation without making it seem forced or one-sided. That would have been amazing, too, as would the Tony/Tiffany and Damian/Anna pairings you've suggested above.

I'm just saying: I would love to see that relationship die; and the uglier its' death, the better. It makes no sense, either on paper or onscreen; it involves two actors who share no chemistry AT ALL; and the longer they stay in it, the stupider they look, too. IT HAS. TO END. I would be happy with a good, old-fashioned courtroom shootout; one that ends with Diane taking a bullet in the heart, like Sharon Lawrence's character did on "NYPD Blue." Then, if neither a Robert/Anna redo or Robert/Holly redo is possible, I would let Scorpio be the happy bachelor for awhile until he meets up again with Jackie Templeton (played once more by Kim Delaney).

I wouldn't either. If I were coming aboard GH as EP or HW, I'd kill that relationship dead and then dance on its' ruins like the female praying mantis after the male has serviced her, lol.

I've wondered about that myself. Another EP, recognizing the importance of a character like Alan Spaulding to GL, would have held out for a "name" actor. (I, myself, might have approached Larry Hagman. Hey, all he could do was say "no," right, lol?). Even Paul Rauch knew he had to "go big or go home" when it came to bringing back Alexandra again, so he landed Dame Joan Collins (a startling move that, unfortunately, did not work out as most had hoped). So, why would JFP settle for someone like Ron Raines - who was, IMO, never suited to playing Alan - unless Raines was a second choice and the actor she likely wanted - Jed Allan? Nicolas Coster? - turned her down?

If anything, Robert and Anna should be sharing the job of Police Commissioner, or Robert should be Chief of Police, with Anna as his superior.

In terms of gaining viewers from the other shows? Probably not. As you've said, @j swift, the average soap fan probably wouldn't be tempted to change soaps or sample a "new" one after abandoning their favorite unless they were extremely tempted to do so. IOW, if you ain't happy with how GH or SaBa is going and you quit, you probably aren't going to try out GL as a substitute. More than likely, if that's the only soap you're following, then you'll probably stop watching soaps altogether. I do think it's interesting, though, that, after years of trying to compete with GH and losing, SaBa, toward the very end of its' run, made a concerted effort to go after GL's audience instead, hiring both Pamela K. Long and Kim Zimmer to lure fans over to their show. Of course, the ploy didn't work: SaBa fans, or what was left of them, felt the show becoming unrecognizable; and GL fans weren't interested enough to switch over to SaBa either.

Ah, the same time that it ran down here, in OKC, except we were a day behind until sometime in the '00's, I think, when our local ABC affiliate moved AMC to noon.

Also, Pamela K. Long kept her job as HW for as long as she did the second time, because, while GL didn't gain many viewers during that time, it didn't lose that many either. That's what makes Nancy Curlee and her work on GL so remarkable, IMO. She was probably the first HW since Douglas Marland to bring viewers to GL, or to bring them back. If JFP and P&G had not interfered in their own, respective ways, it's very likely that Curlee could have brought GL back into the Top 3.

With all due respect, @kalbir, I must disagree. I think TCS will see the light of day again, once we learn how to separate the artist from his/her/their work, because of the positive images that the show still presents about black families in this country. It never reinforced stereotypes the way shows like "Beulah" or "Amos & Andy" did - two shows, IMO, that come closer to never seeing the light of day again beyond cultural studies about the depictions of race on American television in its' earliest days.

WTB? was a show that deserved smarter writing than it got.

I agree. 1993-94 was the last time when GL entertained me on a consistent basis. After that, the show tended to be hit-and-miss for me, with good stories happening less and less frequently as time went on. (It rallied somewhat during the tail end of '97 and into '98, but even that period was marked by dumbed-down, simplistic writing that was catering more to couples 'shippers and people who thought Carrie slugging Sami at the altar on DAYS was the golden era of soap operas). By the time Ellen Wheeler was named EP, if you were still watching GL, it was strictly out of loyalty (and a need for self-punishment).

No. I'm fine with regular, on-location shoots for primetime (network/cable/streaming) shows, but daytime drama is a different animal. For many, it's the closest we'll ever come to watching live theater (four-camera sitcoms notwithstanding).

Now, that story, I hated, lol! Liz Vassey was good, but Michael Brainerd and Greta Lind were so boring. I didn't understand why Emily Ann went off the deep end for a drip like Joey, lol. That was when I, as a lifelong AMC fan, began to feel something was very amiss with "my show." I never could quite put my finger on it - God knows AMC had told a wacky tale or two before then - but I just had this sense that the times, and the show, were changing, and not necessarily for the better either. Same thing with OLTL, by the way. In my head, I knew that getting rid of Paul Rauch as EP was the right thing to do, but once I started watching Linda Gottlieb and Michael Malone's work, my heart just wasn't into that show as much anymore.

I would have much rather seen GL's cast reduced to twelve and the show forced to tape using just three sets on LOVE OF LIFE's old closet of a set than be made to endure even thirty seconds of Peapack. And you can quote me on that, terrible syntax and all. And most of the cast looked exactly like that, too, whenever they were on camera. I'll never forget Ellen Wheeler's pitiful attempt at hyping the production changes by saying things like, "We'll finally get to see Cassie plant real flowers in a real garden!". Bitch, I don't CARE about some damn flowers. I watch GL for the characters and their stories. And you don't need to sweat your balls off in NJ to provide them either.

Oh, I *loved* watching "Poor Little Rich Girl: The Barbara Hutton Story" as a kid. I still think it's some of the best work Farrah Fawcett ever did (critics be damned, lol). Sidney Sheldon ALWAYS gave good miniseries. Judith Krantz, too. "Deceptions" played like the recipe for a perfectly trashy '80's miniseries. Take one Stefanie Powers and one Barry Bostwick, add 2-3 internationally famous co-stars (Jeremy Brett! Gina Lollabrigida!) and an eccentric "comic relief" (Brenda Vaccaro!); throw in a precocious child or two (Jeremy Miller, Fairuza Balk); stir in a preposterous story with a forbidden love element (OMG, the bad twin sister's gonna sleep with the good twin sister's husband!); also, toss in enough jewels and furs to make the characters on DYNASTY look like bums in comparison; simmer for four hours over two nights; and voila! Just the thing you need to help you forget how much the Reagan administration and Moral Majority are [!@#$%^&*] you over. Sigh. I miss the '80's.

I agree. You'd think Lifetime, with their TV movies that verge on being exploitational, would know how to produce miniseries that were in the spirit of those made during the '70's and '80's, but it's almost like they want to play it safe. I confess, as hard as I am on soaps whenever they're being trashy, I much prefer the "trashy" miniseries over the "classy" ones. After all, the "trashy" ones aren't trying to win awards; they just want to tell a good story.

It never bothered me either, @All My Shadows. Even when I was in junior high, and my history teacher showed our class the miniseries, I knew "Roots" was, at best, partly fictionalized. I hadn't read the book yet, nor had I heard all about the issues over its' veracity, but I reasoned that whatever anecdotal evidence Alex Haley had uncovered had to have been relayed to him second- or third-hand, and was likely embellished. Besides, it wasn't as if Kunta Kinte, his descendants or any of the other slaves on the Harvey plantation were allowed to keep daily, detailed journals, so who the heck knows all that went down back then or how? What was important to me, then and now, was the message behind the storytelling. If any of the events that were depicted in the book or the miniseries were not real, or if they did not occur as described, or in the exact same order, it almost didn't matter. What mattered was what both Haley's book and the subsequent miniseries had to say about the history of enslavement in this country. Period.

I miss the golden era of network TV miniseries. They were like mini-soaps, but with more money for location shoots, lol. One that made a big impression on me as a child, though, was "Judith Krantz's I'll Take Manhattan," starring Valerie Bertinelli. I watched it again years ago, and it struck me how the first part, written by Sherman Yellen, was almost like a period drama; while the second, written by Diana Gould, was just straight-up '80's trash. Of course, there's a cameo from a certain ex-president who shall remain nameless, but it was a different era, one where most of the country was clueless about him.