Khan

I agree!

On paper, Amanda was so...wimpy, so you needed a very strong actress who could play against that. Otherwise, Amanda could have been downright insufferable - which was what she was, IMO, since it seemed like Peyser chose to play what was written and nothing else.

It seems like H. Ross Perot opened the proverbial floodgates for every kook and weirdo in our lifetimes to run for president.

Poor Jane Elliot.

Basically, Gary and Pat were supposed to have an affair, but when the producers became skittish (for obvious reasons), Lynne Moody complained, so they decided she had to go. You know, when it came to casting, the Lechowicks were funny people. More often than not, good or great actors they hired were wasted in bad roles and storylines, while some of the most bland actors I've ever come across in all my years of TV watching got the comparatively juicier parts.* Even Kathleen Noone floundered as Claudia until the last season, when Ann Marcus figured out what to do with her. (*I'm convinced that the ONLY reason why they hired Sam Behrens to play Danny was because Behrens, like Douglas Sheehan before him, was a GH veteran. And the less I say about Penny Peyser as Amanda, the better.) Frankly, I think they wasted her in that role, and I definitely understand why she turned down their offer to return, too. That was probably the worst role she'd had since she played Christina Karras Martin on AMC.

To me, it was pretty remarkable how MKA could return as India in 1990 or so, play out scenes with Grant Aleksander's Phillip, and share a certain chemistry with him as if she'd always played opposite his Phillip. In fact, I'd venture to say that their chemistry was miles ahead of the chemistry she had shared previously with John Bolger.

"Rich Man, Poor Man Book II" gets a bum rap for being too soapy when compared to the first miniseries, but it's not as if Irwin Shaw's original novel was the stuff of great literature. IIRC, "Second Chances" premiered on CBS the same year ABC had cancelled "Homefront," so it was nice to see the Lechowicks' work back on TV after such a short period. SC also was different from most other primetime soaps by being a sort of soap opera/crime drama hybrid, with the first storyline centered around the murder of Connie Sellecca's character's husband. SC was rough in places - from what I can recall, there was another mystery involving police corruption that wasn't as solid; and as usual, some of the Lechowicks' casting choices left much to be desired - but I thought they did a good job integrating Jennifer Lopez's character and her family with the rest of the show. It's just unfortunate that the Northridge earthquake, which destroyed many of the show's sets, forced CBS to cancel it rather than give it the full season. On the other hand, "Hotel Malibu," which spun off Lopez's character from SC, screams "contractual obligation," due mostly to the fact that it was burned off during the summer, lol. This time, the Stanleys have joined the Lechowicks in producing the show; and it's soapier and more lighthearted than SC - there's even a shout-out to KNOTS in one scene, lol! - but as hard as they worked to get you to tune in every week, I kinda knew there would be no point in waiting for a second season (summer, or any other time of the year).

They've got to stop doing those "let's ask these 'undecided' voters what they think" panels. They're hardly scientific, and just about all of 'em are rigged as hell, too.

Little Bobby has brought shame to the name of "Kennedy" - and with a family that includes a virtual murderer's row of family embarrassments, that's saying something!

What, if any, effect will RFK's exit have on the race?

It won't, lol. I tried watching one or two GAC Christmas movies last season, but it was clear to me that they were written and produced for people who still believed in a white Christmas, if you know what I mean.

For me, the question would be: if someone were to revive KL today, which KL would we get? Would we get the KL of seasons 1-3, with self-contained episodes about the ups and downs of married life in the suburbs; the KL of seasons 4-14, with sudsier, less middle-class storylines that rivalled the other primetime soaps of the day; or a hybrid of the two?

A sure sign that the revival is in trouble.

Well, part of the problem, I think, was that the Lechowicks didn't understand that Abby was not a villain the way J.R. Ewing and Alexis Colby were villains. Alexis and J.R. would have had no problem at all with planting drugs on their daughter's new boyfriend, or being in cahoots with a known killer (like Ted Melcher). Abby, however, had lines that she wouldn't have crossed. I look at the scene where Abby shows Ted the photos that incriminate him in Rick Hawkins' and Maeda's murders and I think, "The Abby Fairgate Cunningham Ewing Sumner of the past wouldn't have cavalierly shown him those photos or held them over his head as some form of leverage. She would've been appalled by the lengths her partner-in-crime had gone to in order to secure Lotus Point, and she would've worked double-time to expose him to the authorities while still keeping herself out of trouble." When it comes to the casting of Lucy Ewing, I'm more on Katzman's side than I am Jacobs'. I think Stepfanie Kramer would have been all wrong. Lucy NEEDED to be your typical Texas blonde, with big hair, big boobs and big attitude. But she also needed to be played by someone who could ACT, and who could give her emotional layers (because, after all, Lucy was a girl who starved for her parents' affections) that CT simply could not. And if not her, then the OTHER Heather (Thomas), whose sultriness definitely would have fit in well with the rest of the cast, if nothing else.

I agree. After all, KNOTS had CT cross over for one episode during S1 and look how well that turned out, lol. Mary Crosby's post-"Who Shot J.R.?" crossover episode was marginally better, but still proof that KNOTS and DALLAS operated in two entirely different worlds. As crazy as it sounds, I would've had Ana-Alicia join the cast after FC, either as the not-so-dead-after-all Melissa Agretti, or as a new troublemaker on the scene to go toe-to-toe with Nicollette Sheridan/Paige and help ease Donna Mills/Abby out the door. The producers probably would've needed to trim some dead weight to pay for her, but I think it would've been worth it in the end. I can't say that I blame Julie Harris for turning down that offer, although I *wish* KNOTS had had enough dough to bring her back in S14 after Val's "death." To me, it would have made sense for Lilimae to come back for Gary and the twins' sake, while side-eying his blossoming relationship with Kate, lol.

"Nancy? You in danger, girl!"

To this day, I RME at the idea of Josh Lewis becoming a minister. Again, a tremendous leap for your average GL fan to have to make in order for it to make sense, lol.

Won't argue with you there, lol. Meanwhile, I think his story - disgraced politician goes into business/private practice with his daughter - has the seeds for a really good, one-hour dramedy.

John Edwards might be a shitheel, but he never gets credit for predicting that the WWC would turn away from the Democratic Party before most everyone else. If they had listened to him instead of pursuing his "baby mama drama," things might've been different.

Probably not. Just as I don't think DALLAS would have lasted as long as it did, had Friday nights not become such a wasteland by then (ABC's "TGIF" lineup notwithstanding). Definitely. In order to have survived against a juggernaut like "ER" and the rest of the NBC Must-See-TV lineup, KNOTS would have needed to reinvent itself from the ground up, but do so with a severely reduced budget. Frankly, I think that would've been impossible. It's almost as if you could have put all three shows (or at least KNOTS and MSW, since I'm not sure when ITHOTN switched networks) on Sunday nights, lol. Frankly, unless Olivia was, in fact, his killer, and Abby took the rap in order to protect her daughter, I didn't see the point - certainly, not the point of having his murder be any sort of mystery, since it didn't seem like that many had reason to kill him in the first place.

Exactly. As absurd as the premise was - even the suggestion that Josh would agree to clone Reva because he was so upset over her second presumed death was so out-of-character and a huge leap for viewers to take - there still were opportunities for the audience to connect with the storyline, and with Reva, emotionally. But, as James Harmon Brown and Barbara Esensten admitted after leaving the show, the Rapid Aging Serum became a bridge too far for the folks watching at home. Leave out that plot device, and I think the story could have worked (or, worked as well as any story about human cloning could work, lol). I don't get it either, but I would imagine that Paul Rauch championed the idea, likely because of a similar story that he had done in the '80's with OLTL's Viki. As a matter of fact, if you were to do a side-by-side comparison of Viki and Reva, you'd see that, under Paul Rauch's care, both characters were at the center of some very OTT stories. However, the difference between Viki's stories (Heaven, Eterna, Wild West, etc) and Reva's - and the reason why Viki's stories worked where Reva's didn't - was that Viki (that is, when she was Viki and not Niki) was not a larger-than-life heroine who wore her emotions on her proverbial sleeve the way Reva always did. And that's absolutely the secret to making an outside-the-box type of story like time travel or cloning work, IMO: it has to be told through a character who isn't so larger-than-life that they're actually battling for attention with the outrageousness of the plot. (Case in point: Dr. Marlena Evans Brady).

Even with KZ still in the cast, GL finally had in Robert Calhoun what it hadn't had since Allen Potter left in '83: an EP with a real sense of story. Unfortunately, Calhoun had the same problem that all EP's at GL had once production moved from Chelsea to EUE/Screen Gems: godawful-looking sets. Seriously, from, like, 1987/88 onward, very few GL sets were all that attractive to me or made any sense at all, lol.

I think the main reason why Erica Kane's stories never felt inflicted upon AMC was because AMC itself had what Michael Malone once described to SOD or SOW as a "bright, cartoonish quality." It always was in its' DNA to be a little broad and campy. Here's the thing about Reva (and what I think TPTB had forgotten after a certain point): whenever it came to her emotions, Reva Shayne Lewis was an all-or-nothing gal. If she loved you, she loved the hell out of you; and if she didn't....! Her circumstances, therefore, NEEDED to be mundane, run-of-the-mill soap opera - like they were when she married H.B. and when she miscarried their baby - or else she becomes too much for the audience to take. That's why stories like Ghost Reva, Amish Reva, Clone Reva, Princess Reva and so on didn't work, IMO. Not because they were too larger-than-life for GL, but because they were for a character who was already larger-than-life herself.

If there's ever a point in KNOTS' long run when following along becomes a chore for me, it has to be S13, when the show is being run by someone (John Romano) who displays no knowledge of KNOTS' history, no aptitude or affinity for the type of show KNOTS has always been and no willingness even to redefine the show in ways that could attract a new and different audience. Even the Lechowicks at their most audacious still could keep you from tuning out, if only to see just how far they'd hoped to go with some of their [!@#$%^&*]; but S13, IMO, commits the even greater sin of being boring, something you could not ever say about any other season that comes before. I agree. It might be a little too "smooth jazz" for some, but I think it works perfectly for the post-Reagan era, when everyone was coming down from all the excess and getting back to basics, so to speak. I think the only mistake they made that season with that opening was not including shots of each cast member as the camera surveys the sandcastles.