Khan

So, now that Willow has been exposed as Drew's shooter, could we please go one step further and admit she also faked her cancer? Hey, maybe that's how ol' Will can seek redemption! She could pretend she's sick again, so everyone will feel sorry for her and let her off the proverbial hook.

ICAM!

I say let her go to jail and be terrorized by a gang led by [enter OLTL alumni here].

Does that he mean he's gonna tape a PSA educating us about organ donation? (IYKYK)

Oh, FFS. Why won't H'wood let "Star Search" stay dead!?

So, a comment I've made in the OLTL thread has brought this question to mind: as we all know, KL employed many former daytime actors over its' 14 seasons, including (off the top of my head) Ted Shackelford (AW), James Houghton (Y&R), Donna Mills (LIAMST), Jane Elliot (KL), John Considine (AW, Y&R), Allan Miller (GH, OLTL), Rosemary Prinz (AMC, ATWT, HTSAM, RH), Barry Jenner (AW), Jon Cypher (ATWT, GH, SaBa), Douglas Sheehan (GH), Alec Baldwin (TD), Peter Reckell (DAYS), Robin Strasser (AW, OLTL, PASSIONS, DAYS), Sam Behrens (GH, SuBe) Robert Desiderio (OLTL), Kathleen Noone (AMC, SuBe, PASSIONS), Philip Brown (LOVING/THE CITY, SFT), Marcia Cross (EON, OLTL) and Maree Cheatham (DAYS, GH, SFT). (Louise Sorel (Bess), Michael Sabatino (Chip), Hunt Block (Peter) and John Aprea (Manny) don't count here, since they worked in daytime after being on KNOTS). A long list, to be sure, but aside from Shackelford, Mills and maybe Baldwin and Sheehan, did any of these people (or any other daytime alumni who appeared on KL after working in daytime) ever get worthwhile material to play? Because, it seems to me the show wasted a lot of 'em. (And is it just a coincidence that Val's two ex-husbands were both played by GH alumni, lol?)

Yeah, KL did Robin Strasser no favors. Dianne Kirkwood was a plot device and a red herring for a bizarro stalking storyline, who had no inner life whatsoever beyond "I hate Karen, because she got the hosting gig (with ZERO experience) that should've been mine." Then again, I'm hard-pressed to think of ANY former daytime stars who fared well on that show. Most, if not all, ended up saddled with dead-end characters.

She was. Well, she and Jeff Ryder were.

LOL! A storyline like that leaves you with only two options: either the spoiled heiress reforms, which would have been death for a schemer like Anne; or she stoops even lower to get her money back...which she did, and which was awful to watch, and which made a marginally tolerable character even less tolerable in the end.

Nah, the soap gods wouldn't be that kind to us. She's just going on maternity leave.

Same here. Whenever the Lechowicks would just tell the story, and not attempt to play gotcha with the audience or hit you over the head with some soapbox issue, they did a pretty good job. They injected a lot of humor into the show, which helped them keep and gain new viewers, I think. For me, S13 remains the point when making it through just one episode becomes a chore. Literally nothing worked that season. Not Pierce Lawton, not Tidal Energy, not Brian Johnston and Linda's murder and whatever the hell it all had to do with Greg, nothing.

Has Ben Gavin been cut? Or is this just wishful thinking on all our parts (including mine)?

I agree. I don't know whether she would've been able to save SaBa, but I do think it would've gone out on a better note.

I couldn't even understand why Jean Hackney (or whoever she was working for) wanted Greg Sumner dead, or why she wanted Ben to be the one to assassinate him. Laura and Val were friends (although, not as friendly as Val and Karen, or Karen and Laura), so I guess the thinking was, if one friend's husband had to kill the other, then that would put the friendship in jeopardy. But, to me, it would've been more impactful (if no less stupid) if Ben had had orders to kill Gary, or even Mack; or if Jean had blackmailed someone who had an actual connection to Greg to kill him. (A dicey proposition, I guess, since the only one who was close to him at that point WAS Laura). Otherwise, the whole story plays so random and off-the-top-of-the-head: "Doug [Sheehan] says he'll stay another year if we give him a story, so let's say he used to be a spy and now someone wants him to kill someone." "Who wants Ben to kill somebody?" "Uh, a lingerie saleslady?" "And who's Ben supposed to kill?" "I dunno! Greg, maybe? Anyways. Let's talk about Nicollette. I don't think we're doing enough for her." "She's literally in every scene!" "Yeah, I don't think that's enough. Maybe we could have her play her mom in flashbacks, too?"

For that, I give credit and thanks to Brandon Tartikoff and Grant Tinker. Those two CARED about the network they ran and the shows they placed on their lineup.

ICAM. To me, MSW never treated its' audience as morons, nor did it ever go chasing after trends. The show was a class act from beginning to end and a true antidote to those who abhorred excessive violence and gore in their entertainment.

In a way, what happened to JFP the first time she worked on Y&R reminds me of what happened to Felicity Huffman's character on "Frasier." You can insult the man, you can insult his loved ones, you can even insult his expertise as a licensed mental health professional. But the minute you insult his choice of hand towels....!

If GL had gone that route with A-M, I would've had him turn up eventually in, of all places, San Rios, lol.

IIRC, removing the wallpaper that always hung over the stairs in the Chancellor mansion foyer and changing the original yellow/cream color scheme to some eye-gouging, blue/gray monstrosity was what got JFP canned. As soon as she was out the door, they wrote a scene where Jill accosted Billy for changing the mansion, dipped a paint brush in some paint that matched the house's original colors and painted a stroke on the wall, as if to say, "THIS is what the mansion should (still) look like!" As a matter of fact, I think it was a soap mag (which someone on SON reposted?) that said, in so many words, "JFP could do whatever she wanted with Y&R, but when she changed the Chancellor mansion, she had to go," lol.

Another choice for Gerald Davis: Michael Higgins, a NYC film and theatre actor, who was in the original B'way cast of "Equus" and who appeared in films like "The Stepford Wives" and "The Conversation," as well as many early TV shows during the '50's and '60's. ("Andy Griffith Show" fans might remember him in Don Knotts' final appearance on the show during the eighth and last season. "Law & Order" fans will remember him as the retired college campus security guard who shot and killed a student during the '60's anti-war movement and then dumped him and his VW van in the river, not knowing that the student was actually working undercover for the police).

Erica always felt threatened by any woman who challenged her ability to entice men sexually: Brooke, Natalie, Barbara, Maria, even Tara and Claudette. I think that's because, in her mind, all she really had to offer was her so-called feminine wiles. Without those, what good was she to the world?

TPTB just don't get it: surprising the audience is not the point, because, if you've done it right, the audience knows "what happens next." The object of the game, therefore, is (say it with me now) to MAKE. THEM. WAIT. That's why the announcers always would invite viewers to "tune in tomorrow" or again, because even if we knew what would happen, we didn't always know when. And you know already how I would reintroduce the now-grown Sly Eckert and pair him with Liz (and that was all before even I knew about "The Bear," lol).

ICAM! Just as I always equate Henry Slesar's writing on EON with classic film noir. Slesar and Bill Bell were the most stylistic HW's ever to work in soaps.

Could I just express one more time how much I love reading your analyses of all things soaps, @dc11786 ? You always bring so much insight that I'm often left feeling breathless. And everything you've written about Bill Eckert is spot-ass-on, too, lol.

A little late to the festivities, but here's wishing everyone a safe and happy 2026!