Khan

The stuff that dreams (and gifs) are made of:

I agree.

I remember that episode. IIRC, too, although Vanessa made a lot of dumb excuses for turning in an inferior project - her friend, Janet, had someone to help her; Rudy was always bothering her, etc. - she also made what I thought was a very good point: Cliff had given her a pitiful amount of money to complete the project. Cliff (to Vanessa): "Is the class too advanced for you?" Me: "No, you too damn cheap!"

Yeah, even Patch's "death" underwhelmed me.

It's funny how Lemay personally abhorred plot-heavy writing; yet, in the times when he was forced to do it - Iris' real mother, Sven, the Greg Barnard murder - people actually really liked it, lol.

I think "Cruise of Deception" was the last time I was truly satisfied with the storytelling on DAYS. Even Roman and Marlena's returns felt flat to me in '91.

God rest his soul, but Fred Silverman really destroyed NBC in the late '70's. If not for the success of "The Cosby Show," who knows where that network would be today.

And the man who "gave" Nikki that chronic illness is the same man who is writing this current story. See, that's why I said saddling Nikki with MS was a bad idea.

Didn't Harding Lemay basically say in his memoir that Sylvie was Jewish? IIRC, P&G flinched at the idea until either they or Lemay looked over at Paul Rauch, who was himself Jewish.

I think of pop music themes as a 1980's convention, simply because you don't hear of soaps incorporating contemporary, "Top 40" music before then in any significant amounts. (Although, I could be wrong. Did soaps use a lot of pop/rock music before the '80's, @vetsoapfanor anyone else who was around then to know for sure?) Yes, DAYS and Y&R incorporated music into its' storytelling. As you've said, though, @j swift, it tended to be standards from the pre-rock era. By the 1980's, however, MTV and similar programming was becoming very big among younger audiences, and soaps were eager, if not desperate, to do everything they could to cater to them. I always figured that these shows were fiscally conservative, pre-MTV/Luke & Laura, and they didn't want to use up any more of their budgets than they had to. On the other hand, I can think of at least one instance where THE DOCTORS, for example, had a pop song playing in the background of some nightclub scene, although I can't remember the exact song they were playing.

I tend to look at 1994-1997 as one of those periods when Y&R was still delivering consistently, but nothing on a whizz-bang level like when the George Rawlings or David Kimble storylines were still going. It wasn't bad, it wasn't NOT bad, it was just chugging along.

Listen, I *still* don't understand why Nikki would name her son "Nicholas," after how her own father, Nick, had treated her. Speaking of Nikki, I guess it makes sense for her to be tortured into falling off the wagon again, but...I dunno...I feel like that's a well they've gone to far too often. And has her MS even been mentioned during this ordeal? Wouldn't the stress she's under cause her to have some sort of relapse?

Daytime was trying very hard to appeal to the MTV demographic. Ironically, I think DAYS did that stuff - the theme songs, the musical montages - better than "Miami Vice" and all the other primetime shows who got all the praise BITD.

I agree. I really love your brief analysis of Rachel vs. Iris, @Soaplovers. If only you had been there to write for the two in the early '90's, lol.

IIRC, too, they all were filmed in Portland, OR, where Gloria Monty had a studio and either wanted to tape a soap opera there, or wanted to create a soap set there, or both.

With this news, I have the feeling CZ is playing Eve, who's now back from the dead and truly pissed.

"Who Shot Alexis?" would have been just the shot in the arm that DYNASTY needed at that point. I mean, she finally - FINALLY! - got the revenge she had long sought against Blake. What better time to have someone try and off the witch in her penthouse? There were certainly plenty of suspects to go around, lol.

I agree. If Heather Locklear had played Lindsay instead of Sammy Jo, she would have had two reasons for seducing and then marrying Steven: to grab a piece of the Carrington fortune for herself; and to humiliate Claudia for humiliating Matthew when she admitted to the affair with Steven at Blake's trial: a revelation that led to the breakup of the Blaisdels' marriage, which, in turn, caused Matthew to flee with Lindsay to South America, where he ended up getting killed. (If I had been in the Shapiros' or Pollocks' position, I might even have thrown in a twist: Blake, concerned that Steven's homosexuality will prove to be an embarrassment to the family and a detriment to Denver Carrington, offers Lindsay $1 million to seduce Steven into marriage, and another million if their union produces an heir). To make matters worse, Lindsay pretends to bond with her new stepmother-in-law, Krystle, despite still being angry over Matthew and Krystle's affair, because she knows how much it would hurt Claudia to lose both her husband and her only child to the same woman. Kirby exemplified the Pollocks' tendency - both on DYNASTY and on THE DOCTORS - to make their "good" characters passive to the point of being frustrating. I would have gone in a completely different direction with Adam. For one thing, I would have introduced him as a priest, someone who wants even less to do with the Carrington empire than does Steven. If nothing else, it would have provided actual conflict with Steven, as Adam struggles with reconciling the tenets of his faith with his long-lost sibling's homosexuality. And you still could have the triangle with Kirby and Jeff, and even the baby, but you wouldn't have needed the rape, because Adam/Kirby clearly would be the couple to root for, with Kirby marrying Jeff and lying to Adam about the baby's paternity, because she doesn't want to cause Adam to leave the church.

True. DYNASTY wasn't everyone's cup of tea - it certainly wasn't mine! - but even I would be hard-pressed to write the entire show off as a failure. It's just my opinion that what it was in its' first season - and, to a lesser extent, what it was again at the end - could have been a successful show in its' own right, too.

If the Shapiros had cast a more charismatic actor to play Matthew: 1) they wouldn't have needed to kill him off between seasons; and 2) they wouldn't have needed to introduce Dex later on, as Matthew could have fit that bill. If Gil Gerard had been cast, for example, his Matthew could have become involved with Alexis, thereby setting up a triangle between the two of them and Claudia. And if Heather Locklear had been a Lindsay recast, Alexis could have become both her stepmother and her mother-in-law.

It's great to see Colleen Zenk on a soap again...but how is Aunt Jordan connected to the Newmans? Is there some backstory that I'm missing?

Played by actors who were drips. I would have cast someone like Gil Gerard as Matthew. (That is, if Gil Gerard were available. He was probably still busy with "Buck Rogers" at that point). If not him, then maybe James Brolin. I also would have recast Lindsay in season two with Heather Locklear instead of bringing her on as Sammy Jo.

Believe me, as a diehard "Charlie's Angels"/"Hart to Hart" fan, I know that as well as anyone, lol. If DYNASTY had started out as nothing more than mindless, campy entertainment, where outrageous fashions and even more outrageous one-liners took precedence over actual storytelling, then that would be one thing. I'd accept the show for what it was and keep going. As I've been saying all along, however, the first 1-2 seasons betray that notion. In its' first year, at least, DYNASTY had much more substance to it than in the 7-8 years that followed. There seemed to be a concerted effort on the part of its' writers to give characters some layers or dimensions, so that they weren't all good or all bad. DYNASTY wasn't perfect - neither were KL or FC when they premiered - but it had potential. All the show needed was a little more time and patience on the part of everyone involved in making it. Unfortunately, I think the Shapiros, Aaron Spelling and ABC misunderstood the viewers and what they had responded to during the first season. They thought the folks at home didn't care about the Blaisdels or the oil fields; I say, at the very least, the Shapiros and Aaron Spelling didn't do enough to MAKE them care. Their hearts weren't totally in the casting or writing of those characters. As a result, those elements were left vulnerable to being phased out in the second year. Moreover, the producers dialed up the glamour and fantasy, because they thought that's all viewers wanted to see every week. I say glamour and fantasy are fine, as a way into the show. However, the producers assumed glamour and fantasy had to come at the expense of character; when, in fact, it's the characters that KEEP the audience watching long after the glamour and fantasy have lost their charm.

...Colby? Colby Dexter. "Cole," for short. (I'll grant you, it's not particularly inspired, lol.)