Khan

"Off the Rack" is a perfect description for that show, lol.

To me, Tad and Dixie were like Cliff and Nina: whenever they'd reunite, you knew it just was a matter of time before they'd split up again. In fact, you could set your watch to it. And the more the show put us through that, the less I liked them being together at all. If I had had my druthers, I would've brought back Laurence Lau as Greg and tested a Greg/Dixie union, while Tad would've moved onto other relationships.

I agree. Just as I find it hard to believe that she wanted Julia Santos to suffer or feel some guilt for having an abortion. If she really felt that way, then she would’ve had Erica suffer a lot more than she did for having hers. Heck, look at what Bill Bell did to poor Ashley Abbott on Y&R after she had had hers! And as for Cady McClain: I won’t argue that she isn’t a lot to take, both on-screen and off. Do I believe she deliberately sabotaged all efforts to reunite Dixie with Tad out of boredom and because she wanted to work more with Thorsten Kaye and Vincent Irizarry? Absolutely. Do I blame her for feeling that way? Not really. But she’s also someone who has long championed for soaps to stop telling these off-the-wall stories about situations that nobody can relate to, and to get back to Agnes Nixon’s philosophy of education-as-entertainment. (Or so I’ve been told, lol). Oh, how I wish it had been Jack who was killed with that bullet, lol.

Same here, lol! As we all know, there have been plenty of story ideas for soaps that sounded awful "on paper," but actually weren't half-bad once the shows were allowed to play them out. Endgame, no matter which version of the story (Geary's or McTavish's) actually landed on the air, was never going to be one of those ideas. It wasn't 1981 anymore, and Geary and Genie Francis were just damn too old to still be mixed up in action/adventure capers like that one. Everyone involved should've known better.

ICAM, @Jonathan! With her memoir, McTavish had an opportunity, not to point fingers, but to take an honest, unflinching look at her career and examine some of her successes (and why they succeeded) as well as some of her failures (and why they failed). "Regardless of who rewrote what," she might've said, "the buck ultimately stopped with me." She could've even retraced the steps that led her to her gig as the head writer for her "favorite soap" - and by the way, I know THAT ain't true, because I still remember when McTavish mentioned being an avid EON fan - and showed how everything that had happened in her life - from her childhood in New England and/or Illinois (which is it, Megan?), to her college days at Northwestern, to her early career as an actress, including her role as Lola Fontaine on GL - prepared her for the work; and how we, too, can achieve the job/career of our dreams. Instead, McTavish chose to waste 70-plus pages on deflecting criticism of and blame for her shitty story ideas, as well as on spilling tea about a lot of people who, in many cases, didn't deserve their names being tarnished, and who actually come off looking more sympathetic than the heffa talkin' [!@#$%^&*] about them. (If Susan Lucci was paranoid about her age and job security on AMC, she had every right to be. And I say that as someone who still remembers when practically the entire soap press was touting Sarah Michelle Gellar as the NEW Susan Lucci.) All in all, McTavish's memoir is the most disgusting thing I've read from any soap scribe since the time Elizabeth Page wanted people to feel sorry that she couldn't afford $400 haircuts while she and the rest of the Writers' Guild were on strike.

In a way, I think pitting “Knight Rider” against “Dallas” on Friday nights was smart counter-programming. On the one hand, I’m sure a lot of male viewers enjoyed watching Larry Hagman/J.R. But, on the other hand, there might’ve been just as many men out there who weren’t comfortable with watching a soap opera. For those viewers, therefore, KR was a perfect antidote.

I see what you mean, @Vee. FLF and HBS do appear to have much in common, although I’d argue that HBS has more comedic timing than does FLF. I can’t see FLF being as eccentric and witty as HBS was as Margo on ATWT. If you’ll notice, very few women who are mentioned in Megan McTavish’s memoir are treated sympathetically, which might explain why AMC itself became so misogynistic and “anti-woman” in its’ final years. Clearly, McTavish was/is someone who perceived any other woman in her profession or in the industry to be a threat. I mean, did we really NEED to know that Felicia Minei Behr had a big ass, or that Eva La Rue’s boobs always stood at attention? God forbid anyone talks about the time FMB allegedly walked in on you doing lines of coke in your office, right, Megan? One other point: McTavish talks about how the Cullitons betrayed her at AMC, despite their longtime friendship (she claims she introduced Richard and Carolyn to each other at Northwestern and that she was their daughter, Emily’s, guardian). As with everything else she writes, you have to take it with a grain of salt, if not the entire shaker. However, her comments about Richard in particular do track with what Another World Homepage’s Eddie Drueding (sp?) has heard in the past about him, as well as what many of us have heard regarding his dealings with Tony Geary at GH.

No way, lol! If Brenda comes back after helping Sonny die (yep, I said it), I want her paired with someone who's new to the show, mature and sexy as hell. My girl deserves the best.

I think Leo works only one way, and that's as one of the victims of the Salem Sniper.

I'd never suggest that Susan Victoria Lucci of Garden City, NY, was as pure as the un-driven snow - the time she threw expensive china at Helmut during an argument proves the poor dear is a little cuckoo - but I just don't buy that she is as neurotic as Megan McTavish makes her out to be (or that Agnes said she could only hope that Susan would get hit by a truck). Oh, and I liked Felicity LaFortune - but as Leigh Kirkland, not as Laurel Dillon.

Weren't there rumors at that time that Rachel Miner was being considered for Risa? You have to remember, though, that Roscoe Born suffered from bipolar disorder IRL, which might explain his actions (that is, if Megan McTavish is telling the truth, lol). Yep. Another lightbulb moment: why Laurel, as played by Felicity LaFortune, whom McTavish presents as a friend, started off strong with the con-artist background, Lily's autism storyline, Denny's murder, marriages to Jack and Trevor, before eventually fading into the wallpaper at the Dillon homestead and then getting shot to death on the set of "The Cutting Edge" at the climax of the Michael Delaney storyline. I see now that there might've been two reasons for that: 1) as with Kate Collins, LaFortune had reached a point where she just didn't want to work with James Kiberd anymore; and 2) being a friend of Megan's might've made her a target (pun intended). If it's true that Susan Lucci didn't want to work with younger women, then why in Black Agnes' name did we have to endure all those ridiculous feuds with the likes of Annie and Greenlee? Did anyone else catch Megan McTavish's not-so-subtle digs at Felicia Minei Behr's weight? Personally, I thought it was ironic for McTavish to call her fat, considering she's not svelte herself.

Wait, that happened during McTavish? I thought the original story (Janet assumes Brooke's identity) was Broderick's. To this day, I don't know why they didn't just have the Dillons leave town. Remember, though, that Julie Hanan Carruthers is BTG's EP/Showrunner. Wisner Washam, on the other hand.... (Oh, you just know there's a story between those two, lol!)

For me, that was the greatest mind!@#$%^&*]. She's the Nancy Kerrigan to your Tonya Harding, and you're actually PRAISING her? Don't play us cheap like that, Megan! But she also praises Michele Val Jean, which proves my point: MVJ is just too damn good at what she does.

I suspect it had something to do with what happened - or, more accurately, what DIDN'T happen - at Trevor and Laurel's wedding. IIRC, Janet was supposed to blow up the church during the ceremony. However, after Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols bombed the Edward P. Murrah Federal Building in OKC, Mattson expressed her concerns over continuing the storyline as written to Felicia Minei Behr, who forced Megan McTavish and her writers to change course, turning Janet's bomb into a gun. Mattson even taped a disclaimer that aired before the episode, I think, claiming that what was written was written before the real-life tragedy had occurred. Unless I'm misremembering, too, it was at that same time that ABC had announced that McTavish was leaving AMC and that Hal Corley would be assuming HW'ing duties on a temporary basis. (I actually remember watching when Corley took over briefly; and even though you could tell a lot of rewriting was being done, I thought it was the most watchable AMC had been since before McTavish had taken over, lol). So, my guess? Behr and Mattson asked for the rewrite; McTavish told them to go to hell; Behr finally had the ammunition she needed to get rid of McTavish ("and not a moment too soon," my sixteen-year-old self would say, lol). The thing is, if McTavish had been allowed to tell the story the way she wanted, either Janet would've been killed in the bombing, or she would've been carted off to jail or to Oak Haven. Either way, Robin Mattson would've been off the show. So, perhaps, McTavish looks at that as one actor's successful attempt at using a real-life tragedy to keep her job? Again, I could only guess.

Yes, I would, but only to help usher Sonny, now dying, out of Port Charles, and Maurice Benard off GH. (She could return later with the news that Sonny has passed away).

I'd keep maybe three and just create new ones, lol.

I dunno, maybe it’s time for David Hayward to show up in Port Charles? *shrug*

IOW, they’d be doing pilates.

And I wouldn’t blame him for being so against it. Max and Luna together just plain didn’t make any sense.

Could Megan McTavish execute a storyline competently? Yes. But the sheer outrageousness of many of her ideas often overwhelmed whatever value there was to be found in the storylines that followed.

Clearly, Chuck Schumer never received the memo informing him that "politics as usual" was dead.

Obviously, they'd have to do the latter. DAYS can't afford gym TOWELS, much less a gym set, lol.

If certain writers had had their way, practically all the men in Salem would've been shirtless AND pants-less all the time (with Leo always standing nearby, salivating worse than a Saint Bernard).

Don't you just love how the P&G soaps would occasionally treat their audiences as if we were morons, lol?

Charlotte Cassadine as Port Charles' answer to Rhoda Penmark. Man, that's a chilling thought, lol.