Khan

I chalked that up to Tracy's incredibly low self-esteem and the fact that most of the men in her life had been nothing more than losers who were after her money.

Whenever I think of Mark Dobies and his OLTL run, I think of the one, odd request he had made to producers before they outed Daniel: "Please don't put me in black leather pants."

But that's presuming MVJ and/or Guza can't just whip out their red pens, draw an "X" over the [!@#$%^&*] that doesn't work and either force Ron and/or Jamey to try again or rewrite it themselves - something which is done all the time in soaps. (Remember when Patrick Mulcahey said Bridget and Jerome Dobson would draw "X"'s over whole pages of SANTA BARBARA outlines and then tell him to "do something else"?) No offense to anyone, but in reading these threads, I get the impression that some actually WANT BTG to fail, if only so they can point their fingers and say, "That wouldn't have happened if that dummy Michele Val Jean hadn't have hired Ron Carlivati or Jamey Giddens to write for her show!"

I'll say this much: I would've taken Luke/Alexis over Luke/Tracy any day. And you all KNOW how I feel about Jane Elliot.

As good as Colin Egglesfield was or might have been, at the end of the day, he was in an impossible situation, playing someone who, barring another retcon (one that revealed that Jeff and Erica's baby did not survive and that Josh was Greg and Emily Madden's biological son), was never going to be accepted by the audience. Like a poorly bred, poorly socialized dog that gets put down for attacking another dog or a person, Colin and Josh were set up to fail.

And if she does want Ron, Jamey and the rest of her staff to "camp it up," that's not to say it won't be GOOD camp, know what I mean? As you've said, @NothinButAttitude, she's hired them, because they're experienced - and that's what she needs right now, too: writers with experience, because she's too busy just trying to get this show off the ground to have to stop and train new writers on how to write outlines or scripts. Maybe, once everything settles, that'll change. For now, however, I'm trusting MVJ to know exactly her vision for her show and how best to achieve it.

I, too, would rather see Robin Strasser on BTG, lol.

I am dipping briefly into this thread just to say that some of y'all need to stop giving Ron Carlivati and Jamey Giddens more power than they have over Michele Val Jean or BTG. I realize most of us have soap fan PTSD when it comes to those two, but you're acting as if Ron and Jamey, and Ron and Jamey alone, are shaping the direction and tone of this show, or that the Black woman in charge is too damn stupid or weak to push back on their more heinous ideas. Frankly, it's insulting - to her, and to everyone else connected with BTG. Just. Stop.

Which is ironic, because Luke's dream in life was to BE a family man. Luke wanted the house in the suburbs, with the white picket fence, and the two cars in the driveway, and the 2.4 kids and the dog, just as much as Laura. Part of what drew Luke to Laura, in fact, was the hope and belief that he could have those things with her, even as he struggled to overcome his past and his feelings that he never could measure up to her. Seriously, Bill Bell would never have put up with so much interference from his actors. He would've told someone like Tony Geary to say the g*ddamn lines and STFU.

I still can't believe GH's writers wrote a cult story and did not touch at all on Laura's history with them.

The only explanation I can come up with - and even this is a reach - is that Frank somehow pulled a bait-and-switch on Eva, promising her that Natalia wouldn't be so virulently homophobic, or that there'd be ample justification for her point of view, and then not delivering. Ned and Lois must've taught their daughter that there's no such thing as a free lunch, even for Quartermaines.

And she (and everyone else at MSW) did it without resorting to violence or melodrama, too. Just good, old-fashioned, thinking-person's mysteries.

Ironically, it was Marj Dusay's work as Myrna Clegg that convinced both me and my mom that she would be perfect to succeed Beverlee McKinsey as Alexandra Spaulding on GL. Of course, that was while GL was still in reasonably good shape. MD just had the misfortune of joining GL right as it was beginning its' long, downhill slide.

You know, "Desiree DuBois" wouldn't have been the first past-her-prime showgirl to work the Las Vegas Strip. But I thought it was a bridge too far to presume no one would recognize world-famous supermodel Erica Kane hiding under that gloriously cheap, blonde wig. Victoria Lord Gordon Riley Burke Riley Buchanan Buchanan Carpenter Davidson slingin' hash in Paris, Texas? Believable. Erica Kane Martin Brent Cudahy Chandler Roy Montgomery Montgomery Chandler Marick Marick Montgomery Fortensky doing kick lines in some sleazed-up Vegas casino? Absolutely not.

At this point, Natalia could march in the Port Charles Pride parade, wearing an Indigo Girls t-shirt, and reciting entire chapters of "Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit" through a megaphone. I just. Don't. Care.

For her to talk candidly about her time at GL would be admitting that she had no real objective in joining other than to give everyone at AMC and ABCD the finger. And you are right about how she dragged Michael Conforti. Save that [!@#$%^&*] for the message boards, lol!

I'm not surprised either. "Bus" has all the hallmarks of first-season MSW: a veritable feast of guest stars (Michael Constantine, Rue McClanahan, Larry Linville, David Wayne, Linda Blair, Terence Knox, Albert Salmi, Don Stroud), an ominous-feeling locale (a roadside diner during a violent thunderstorm at night) and one of the most ingenious solutions you'll come across in the show's entire history. Kristin Shepard might have shot J.R., but Jessica Fletcher was the lady who killed DALLAS (with an able assist from none other than Steve Urkel, lol).

Tom Lisanti's work has inspired me to write my own book: "Where the Ratings Ain't: A Comprehensive Oral History of CBS' Groundbreaking Soap Opera 'Where the Heart Is'...As Told by the Few Who Still Remember It."

In that document, McTavish says she signed her final contract with AMC knowing she would retire afterward. As usual, though, I'm not sure whether I believe her. IMO, I think she wrote what she wrote, largely because she knew her reputation was toast and that no show - and certainly, no ABC show - was ever going to hire her again. Having nothing to lose always empowers you...even if very few care what you have to say or believe you. I'd say just before her new meds started to kick in.

Well, Catherine Hickland and Jess Walton go without saying. But I also liked Debrah Farentino and Nicholas Walker. (He was terrible as a Max Holden recast on OLTL, but very good on CAPITOL). And Bill Beyers had a nice, sweet quality, too. He might not have been much of an actor; nevertheless, I found him to be quite likeable. That's a good question. To be honest, I'm not so sure that things would've been better had the Karpfs stayed, if their work on the miniseries "Captains and the Kings" is any indication. (Of course, Taylor Caldwell's novel was nothing to write home about either, lol). It's like what happened with Sally Sussman and GENERATIONS: some fantastic ideas, compromised by lackluster, day-to-day writing. (I do know, though, that the reason why the Karpfs left so soon was because Conboy was impossible to work with and kept [!@#$%^&*] with their material. Or so someone very close to them has told me).

IIRC, much of the soap press was too busy praising Beaty's performance and McTavish's audacity in telling such a story to see what was really going on. Personally, though, I thought the Brent/Marian storyline was transphobic - before the word even existed, I guess - and not at all the kind of story that should have been on GL (or anywhere else on daytime, for that matter). As awful as stories like the Dreaming Death or Infinity had been for a lot of GL fans, even those tales couldn't have been as offensive as having a psychotic rapist going around Springfield dressed as Jill Farren Phelps and murdering people just to keep terrorizing his victim.

My thoughts, exactly, lol. You signed on to play a homophobic momager, Eva. What did you EXPECT would happen? That America would shove Sally Field aside and make YOU its' newest sweetheart?

I'm a fan of Cypher's, so I would have LOVED to have seen what he would've done with the role. Not that I thought Ed Nelson was terrible, lol.

I still believe Megan McTavish only took the GL gig, because she was pissed about getting fired from AMC, and wanted to prove to everyone that she didn't need Felicia Minei Behr or Agnes Nixon to make her [!@#$%^&*] look good. All in all, she was like Pat Falken Smith, but without her talent, lol.