Khan

Granted, the storyline was built on an absurd premise (that Bill Bauer, Henry Chamberlain, H.B. Lewis, Tom Reardon and Brandon Spaulding were all friendly with each other and liked to go on fishing trips together) that contradicted established history. (For one thing, the Lewises and Spauldings weren't even IN Springfield until the 1970's and early '80's). But, on its' face, I think it was a well-told mystery that affected all the major families in town. And it was a damn sight better than the Maryanne Caruthers mystery, too.

Please, @Soapsuds, this show is disgusting enough, lol.

Erika Slezak (ex-Viki, OLTL) had the right attitude: you go to the studio, you do your job, and you go home. Period.

Don't worry, they'll just say he suffered a brain tumor (or something), fix whatever's wrong with him with some magic pills, and he'll be as good as new. (Just ask Ben.)

I'm so sorry for your loss, @DramatistDreamer. And I hope you're looking out for your mental and physical well-being, too. You know, there's nothing wrong with wanting to pray for our nation. But, for God's sake, Cameron: PUT ON A DAMN MASK. "Disastrous" almost doesn't cover how the Trump administration has handled everything related to this pandemic.

Unbelievable. Just...unbelievable.

It's past time for CBS and Sony to admit that Josh Griffith has no idea what to do with this show.

RSW might be weak, but I feel like he still gives his all in his performances (even if it's all in vain, lol). So, in the end, he gets a mild "pass" from me. And I definitely agree with you about Jan's storyline!

I'm wishing your brother a speedy recovery as well, @amybrickwallace. I wish we could just leave this damn virus behind with the REST of 2020.

I'm still holding my breath that Donald Trump won't literally burn down the WH on his way out.

Yeah, I can't abide SB (or any actor) dictating storyline to the degree that he has. You're being paid to act what's on the page, Steve. If you want to write, then write.

LOL!! Really, though, that story needed Mary-Ellis Bunim to work.

"Free the Oakdale Three!" LOL!! I'm pretty sure that was Goutman's (lame) idea. TBH, I thought it had some SLIGHT potential. Especially with the idea of taping on real-life college campuses. But, its' half-hearted execution was bound to fail.

Good point!

Oh, okay, lol. For a minute there, I thought Sharon had a helluva lot of nerve, lol.

Perhaps. I could be comparing her too much to someone like Erika Slezak. In her final years as OLTL's Viki, Slezak often had to play material that was, quite frankly, beneath her as an actress. Yet, the only times she ever complained publicly about the work -- during the Leah Laiman/Susan Bedsow Horgan era, for example; and later, when Dena Higley was HW -- the criticisms were very much warranted.

Well, she doesn't have to gush all over it the way Martha Byrne does, but the implication is always there that, for her, Althea was the "better" role, and that just irks me. Lucinda wasn't always written well, but even when she wasn't, she remained interesting. Althea? I was just glad to see the bitch gone. Well, I do agree that Barbara playing the hapless heroine/victim was getting stale. Any woman in her position would want to "wise up" after all the agony she had suffered with James, Gunnar and Brian. But, even after Marland had tarnished her a bit in that quadrangle with Hal, Margo and Tom, it wasn't TOO long before she was back into heroine-ish mode. And I think that's because, as exciting as it was to see Barbara "being bad," it was also very limiting for that particular character. Unfortunately, it was Hogan Sheffer who took things a step too far, getting Barbara out of another story rut by turning her into a total loon.

Jane Elliot fiddled with his dialogue, too, but, like JE said he told her, he never cared, because she was just too good. I can't see him not feeling the same way about someone like Hubbard.

And I just remember watching that story unfold, with all the flashbacks, and thinking it was so intense and raw and so not like anything that was going on on any other soap. On the one hand, I can see where she's coming from in regards to Marland's preference for writing for younger characters. But, you know, even Irna liked to write for younger characters, too. I mean, before there was Luke & Laura, or Doug & Julie, there was Jeff & Penny.

Not necessarily. On more than one occasion, MTS has expressed how much she loves playing Nikki as a falling-down drunk -- a storyline that Bill Bell was right to eighty-six and sweep under the metaphorical rug BITD -- and hated when then-HW/EP Lynn Marie Latham gave her something to do other than lounge around the Newman Ranch and accuse Victor of cheating on her all day. From what I can see, Elizabeth Hubbard would rather have played the Nancy Hughes role. But, Liz, honey, even Nancy was a bad bitch way back when.

To a certain extent, they're STILL having trouble. It's not 1984 anymore. Marlena is too damn old to keep being abducted by supervillains, or keep fighting aging ho's like Kristen and "Gina" for John's, um, affections. Especially when the woman -- a psychiatrist, by the way, who should have more sense than she does -- has children, grandchildren and maybe even GREAT-grandchildren who could be positioned into those kinds of stories. Again, is that the kind of [!@#$%^&*] EH wanted? Because, I guarantee you, if ATWT had ever subjected us to Lucinda being put through that sort of wringer, no way would we have kept watching. Well, there's being bad, and then there's being [!@#$%^&*] crazy. You might be able to sustain a character on the former, but the latter gets old REAL fast.

And Eileen, like Liz, had a character who practically wrote herself, if the writers and producers had ever bothered.

If anything, he'll say, "Well, if he hadn't been busy trying to steal my wife....". For Christ's sake, you're not an actor so you can play Leslie Howard in "Gone with the Wind" for the rest of your life. You want your audience to sit up and pay attention just by entering the room. Otherwise, you're in the wrong, damn profession.

Plus, that's just not where Elizabeth Hubbard's strengths as an actress lie. It's one reason why I ultimately found watching TD reruns from the Pollocks' era on RetroTV to be such a chore. Not only was the Althea/Nick/John/Cathy storyline so idiotic on its' face, predicated entirely on the ridiculous premise that a competent, professional woman like Althea was too stupid to see that her new husband was a total psycho, and too stupid to leave him the minute she found out, but anyone watching even for a few minutes could tell almost immediately that EH was too smart and too sophisticated to play such material convincingly. I mean, you look at EH's disposition and whatnot and you just KNOW "long-suffering heroine" is not in her acting wheelhouse. That's not what's gonna show her off at her best, or make people tune in and watch. (Same goes, by the way, for my beloved Jane Elliot. Give HER a story like the Kim/Dan/John triangle and even she wouldn't have been able to keep a straight face through it.) And Penny! My God! Penny [!@#$%^&*] Davis! Even Lucinda, who often thought the moon and stars hung on Lily's happiness, would have slapped the [!@#$%^&*] out of Althea for putting up with that thot of a daughter! I could see missing the initial romance between Nick and Althea, but the John Morrison b.s.? If that's the kind of stuff EH missed playing, then maybe she should've hightailed it over to AMC at some point and made her services available as an Anne Tyler Martin recast. At the very least, they might not have killed off the character in that car bombing.

Exactly. Actresses like EF know that those kinds of characters are what get viewers talking, pure and simple. Honestly, though, I take Colleen Zenk's ambivalence with a HUGE grain of salt. After all, this is the same CZ who still thinks her on-screen pairing with Trent Dawson's fey Henry was money. Need I say more?