Khan

Better yet, since Annabelle was also involved in the cottage mystery, it could've been her not-so-dead-after-all mother. (Don't ask me how that would work. I'm just throwing it out there.)

Agree.

That might've worked. But, again, you had the very skittish folks at P&G bristling at the idea of Brandon Spaulding as a miscegenist (sp?).

I think Claudia loved Kate, but I think her personal history made it difficult for her to express that love properly. To Claudia, loving someone meant doing everything in one's power to keep them close. And I mean everything. To me, it's that twisted sense of maternal love that helped differentiate Claudia from the other "power bitches" on KNOTS. Abby wanted to succeed in a man's world without losing her femininity, and Anne wanted to be taken care of and to avoid adult responsibilities (such as working for a living or being an actual parent to her daughter). But Claudia wanted always to do what SHE felt was best for her loved ones, and for Kate in particular. As long as the writers had kept that want in mind, I think Claudia was a very effective character (sort of like a Karen on steroids, lol). It's only when they had her do stupid and insane [!@#$%^&*] (...such as getting her own son killed...) that everyone lost track. (Plus - and this is just my own opinion - but Claudia as the ultimate, overprotective mom was always going to be the hardest of sells when Stacy Galina was just so damn annoying as Kate. Like, why is Claudia even bothering with her when she should be kicking her whiny butt to the curb, lol?) I think that (Val's restoration) was almost accidental: a byproduct of a new showrunner and his team of writers, who had no prior knowledge of the show, and who likely wrote her IN character (or, as in character as she'd been in years) because they simply didn't KNOW her character, or know what else to do WITH her. That story, along with the Mary Robeson story, worked for me more than the Nigel Treadwell story, which tied together everything (sometimes, ridiculously so) but which was also so underwhelming compared to similar plots from seasons past.

Ron Carlivati should never be allowed to write another day in his life.

I think Victor respected John Abbott, because he saw John as a legitimate businessman, and not a playboy and dilettante like "Smilin' Jack." And I think you're right, @Vizion, that Nikki was the original "Real (and Really Bored) Housewife."

If Johnny is Craig's new, secret bf, and they were seeing each other BEFORE Johnny became possessed by the devil...? Oh, [!@#$%^&*]. No matter how you spin it, this is bad.

Also, let's not forget that ADW managed to survive and even thrive beyond the departure of its' original lead (Lisa Bonet). I don't care which show proceeded it on the sked. There was no guarantee that ADW could have withstood such a blow even with the Cosby lead-in.

Which is just as well. I think the revelation of a third child born to Donna at the same as Marley and Vicky would have been too much.

Same. And Douglas Marland was the best kind of head writer for GL, IMO, because he was the kind who could write different kinds of stories. Overall, though, I think the P&G shows - not just GL, but also ATWT, AW, EON and so on - appealed most to literate fans who enjoyed variety in storytelling.

If anything, I think S13 showrunner John Romano and his team made things worse - first, by having Claudia attempt suicide (and having Karen practically beg Kate (and the audience) to forgive her mother) either out of guilt over how Steve Brewer's death had come between her and Kate, or as a means of manipulating herself back into her daughter's life; then, by having that skeezeball, Alex Barth, blackmail her and subject her to almost round-the-clock psychological torture over the circumstances surrounding Ruth Galveston's death. It's one thing for karma to reward Claudia handsomely for being responsible, however indirectly, for the deaths of her mother and illegitimate son, but it seems as if Romano & Co. were so intent on punishing her that they made her an even bigger victim than "poor Val"! Ann Marcus salvaged Claudia somewhat in S14, exposing the secret that Alex held over her head, getting her back in the thick of things with Greg and Paige at the Sumner Group, and putting her in a triangle with Anne and Nick. However, I think the leftover stench from her actions in S's 12 and 13 made it difficult, if not impossible, for Claudia ever to be viewed again as a viable character. If CBS and Filerman/Jacobs/Lorimar had miraculously agreed to a S15 for KL, then Claudia (and probably Anne) would have needed to be written out.

I don't like the suggestion that ADW was just another "time slot hit." To me, that suggests that the show, like most other time slot hits, didn't have any merits of its' own. Granted, the ratings did fall once "The Cosby Show" was no longer its' lead-in, but other factors -- like NBC's constant anxieties over its' topical content, and the fact that the show had trouble transitioning toward a new crop of Hillman students -- played a part as well.

Claudia was just so blatant in her villainy, you know? Even Alexis Colby would have begged her to be more subtle. In retrospect, I don't believe the Lechowicks had much respect for the soap genre, and certainly not enough respect for KNOTS. Like I said before, they were just sitcom writers who needed a job. "Homefront" was more their style of show: a mix of screwball comedy and family drama, with some soapiness thrown into the mix to keep things from getting too dull.

Well, that was the problem with the Lechowicks: everything was played for laughs; and what wasn't played for laughs was earnest to the point of being heavy-handed. It's what happens when two frustrated comedy writers who couldn't get a job writing for sitcoms have to settle for producing a primetime soap instead. The Lechowicks say they were offered jobs on all three Lorimar shows (DALLAS, FC and KL) but chose KL, because they found it to be the most relatable. Yet, the two wrote material that was so outrageous that they might as well have written for DYNASTY. Overall, I love KNOTS, but I could have done without the Lechowicks' irreverence and slipshod plotting.

Jane Elliot, Robin Strasser, Kathleen Noone.... Someone at KNOTS was a BIG ABC soaps fan, lol. I feel like that (Kathleen Noone's performance) was the only thing that "saved" Claudia for me. Otherwise, I could have done without her. When it comes to the Lechowicks, I have found, you have to accept that you won't always get good stories from them. You might get good SCENES, or good individual episodes, or just good lines of dialogue, here and there. But, as captivating as their work could be, there were very few of their stories that didn't carry some fundamental flaw. Like blogger Tommy Krasker suggests, the Lechowicks were so busy being unpredictable, they forgot to be logical, too.

Well, you could have knocked me over with a feather, lol!

We will when Tom and Alice's long-lost sixth child, Kyle Horton, comes to Salem.

Lynn Marie Latham didn't do much for Y&R, but at least she did that!

Zach Morris is Asian??

Tom and Alice had five kids. She probably demanded they switch to twin beds so she could get some rest.

Another reason why (referring to what I wrote in the 90210 thread) I think it would have been a good idea to bring in Michael Filerman and/or David Jacobs to help Darren Star at least initially w/ CPW. They understood better how to pace so that viewers got to know the characters before thrusting them into heavy-duty stories.

Well, we know Gary and Abby didn't exactly "fall in love." We know how she schemed her way right into Gary's shorts. But that's Abby's story, and she's sticking to it. And I love how Abby asks Karen to keep an eye on Olivia while she's gone. Because, when you think about it, she's not really asking her to keep an eye on her daughter the way anyone THINKS she means it. It's more like she's saying, "If you think I'm a handful, just you wait!". Man, the Lechowicks really went off the rails with Claudia fast, didn't they? I mean, she didn't exactly kill Steve Brewer with her bare hands; nevertheless, she placed him in the worse kind of danger just to keep Kate close to her, and how do you bring a character back from THAT!?

Translation: "I'm. Gonna. Sue."

I can't argue with you here. I, myself, have always wanted GH to explore Laura's commune days further. (Although the revelation of another, long-lost child is probably out of the question.) And I can't really argue with you here either. But, again, I don't believe you can contradict what the audience saw for themselves, or suggest/imply that what was happening in your retcon happened simultaneously with what happened on-screen. The latter was my particular issue with the Theresa Carter/Secret in the Attic storyline: those events (leading up to and including the murder) supposedly happened alongside the David Hamilton storyline (or maybe immediately after, I can't remember which at the moment). To me, that flies in the face of my firm belief that audiences are essentially like flies on the wall, observing every moment in characters' lives. You tell them once about something that they logically should have seen and didn't, and pretty soon, they'll start to wonder what ELSE has their show been withholding from them -- and once that level of trust is gone....

Not if he's gonna wind up like Ji Min. (Who? Exactly.)