Khan

Fine. I stand corrected. Craig Carlson wrote for LB's Cassie (for awhile) during the very final days of Rauch and during that week or so when Charlotte Weil was producing OLTL on her own as well. But "Incident at Loon Lake" WAS early Malone/Gottlieb. That's my bone of contention.

Look, @Vee, you've said so yourself: you started watching OLTL in '93, long after these stories were over. I'm older than you, and I watched OLTL (and followed all the latest in all the soap mags) a lot sooner than you did. So, with all due respect, shut the [!@#$%^&*] up. Rauch hired her, but neither he nor Carlson/DePriest/Laiman wrote for her. Michael Malone wrote for her first, starting with those scenes between her and Bo and the aforementioned meet-cute. How do I know? Because I was watching the show -- WHEN YOU WEREN'T -- and I was reading all about it (and the other shows at that time) in three different soap magazines.

Just as long as we don't have Wes Ramsey come back as yet another fraternal twin of Jason, Franco and Drew's. I mean, I can't keep 'em straight anymore, lol!

Amen! Y&R was BUILT on the idea of the haves versus the have-nots. It's time they get back to their roots.

I'm just glad they're recasting. To me, it seemed like TPTB were holding onto Hunter King (even though, IMO, she was awful) because letting her go would have looked bad in light of the Muhney thing.

No. I distinctly remember Malone (or Gottlieb) telling one interviewer how they were paying homage to APITS with Alex and Cassie in the lake (even though APITS was about a social-climbing jerk who drowned his homely, pregnant gf in the lake so he could be with Elizabeth Taylor). And I distinctly remember, too, watching Bo and Cassie's meet-cute scene (where Cassie's suitcase accidentally opens in front of Bo and all her underwear falls out) and hating Malone's work already. (He also wrote the scenes where Cord and Tina suddenly turn the tables on "Hudson King" -- a.k.a. Cain Rogan -- and I thought I would get whiplash from watching them, lol.)

Didn't Crystal Gayle (or her handlers) tell TPTB that she wouldn't appear on the show unless she had more to do than just show up and sing? Between Crystal Gayle (with Gary Morris) and Ronnie Milsap, it seems like AW was making a big push for the "Urban Cowboy" crowd, lol. That sequence was almost Hitchockian in how it stayed with Jill and Val throughout. I mean, you try devoting almost a half-hour to two characters on a network show nowadays and see how far you get, lol.

Yup. She went from another easily disposable DAYS bimbo to someone I wished was given more to do.

Didn't Alan kill Ray when the latter was beating up on Rhonda? IIRC, Alan threw Ray off Rhonda; Ray fell back into some window and he died. I also recall - for some strange reason - that that (the Alan/Rhonda flirtation) was the story where we had to endure Stuart Damon wearing western clothes and learning to line dance, lol.

Once, on "Hotel Malibu," an Abby-like vixen, played by Romy Walthall, used (I think) a laundry basket to remove the body of an older gentlemen, played by Robert Ridgely, who (again, I think) had passed away while the two were having sex. IIRC, another character asked her where she got the idea for the laundry basket, and she said she saw Abby do the same thing on "Knots Landing." I thought that was a pretty clever nod, lol.

I just hated that Cassie and Rob Coronal couldn't work things out, lol. Same. As someone whose memories of OLTL go all the way back to '81 or so, I didn't think Bo and Cassie's pairing made sense. But, Michael Malone needed a damsel-in-distress for his inappropriate "A Place in the Sun" homage with Alex at Loon Lake (or wherever), so....

I wanted a story that tied up the loose end that was Ted Orsini. Even if it was some silly plot about Ted kidnapping Tad and taking over his identity, it was better than leaving him to wander those woods forever. (I'm not saying I enjoyed Ted; I just hate loose ends, lol.)

Thanks for the updates, @Toups. It breaks my heart to see what's unfolding in Canada.

Knowing Frank Valentini, he'll just bring back Wes Ramsey later as Peter's twin brother, Porter.

I'll never forget his first run as Mitch Laurence on OLTL. Mitch was probably the most venal character, male or female, ever to appear on a soap. I mean, there was absolutely nothing redeeming about him from the get-go. Yet, with Born in the role, Mitch was also the sexiest irredeemable villain, and the most thrilling to watch. Born, as Mitch, made being an evil s.o.b. look like so much fun; and his chemistry w/ Andrea Evans' Tina was SO scorching that I think some writer (Michael Logan?) said it was the closest soaps ever came to being like an X-rated movie. To this day, I recall a scene where the two had sex on a bed covered with money, and the thing is...? I'm not sure that even happened, but it's something I can see so clearly in my mind's eye that I'd be surprised if it didn't.

IMO, many young people watched the show, too, if only because they looked at Jessica Fletcher as being like the parent, grandparent, aunt or teacher they had or wished they had. Like I said upthread, Jessica was never judgmental. She was always curious about people and willing to try new things (as long as they didn't involve getting behind the wheel of a car, lol). They really should have called that show "Dumb As a Rock." The cast was totally wasted.

Are you sure we can't Jennifer Finnigan to play nuSarah instead?

God, I miss Roscoe Born. That man oozed sex. Agree. If anything, I wish Miss Wyman had been around to play Ann Douglas. No offense to Betty White OR her fans, but I think JW would have knocked it out of the park even further in scenes w/ Flannery.

Hogan Sheffer wasn't writing for AMC, because God is real.

They'd do it even now with no money, because Gloria Monty would insist upon it.

She might've been. Wasn't she still "Executive Head Writer" at that point? I remember Tad and Ted shared memories of someone (Ray?) wearing a gold watch on his wrist and locking them in a trunk of a car, so I assumed that the two men were related somehow. But those and other clues just didn't seem to add up to anything in the end. It's sort of like that other story about Janet hiring a Will lookalike to terrorize Dixie or something. Megan McTavish, still in her first run as HW at AMC, would come up with these bizarre ideas that were tough to explain. I'd blame that on Brian Frons' trademark interference and James Harmon Brown and Barbara Esensten's trademark shallowness.

That's what I'm saying!

Ted Orsini's backstory was so damn confusing. Were they trying to say he was Ray Gardner's son/Tad's twin brother, whom Ray abandoned in the same way he'd abandoned Tad as a child?

As I've mentioned in the past, there really were plans to do more with Brandon's second family; however, P&G nixed those plans for obvious reasons.

Okay, you don't have to bring up the clone, even I couldn't get behind that mess, lol!