P.J.

Maybe a basketball court set is too big an expense for that specific of a function, but a couple of shots of balls going through hoops, guys dribbling and bumping into each other until some blow up happened between Kial and Carlton doesn't seem that hard. Even the confrontation between Vanessa and Deanna was a let down to me. While Vanessa has gone on about Deanna for the past six months, that's not a substitute to seeing their relationship. I needed to see Deanna figure out that Vanessa was sleeping with Joey over more than three episodes. (or actually one) I just need the plot over Leslie's mansion to disappear. It's stupid.

IA. It would've been a lot more meaningful to see the animosity on the court between Kial and Carlton, not be told about it second hand. It's always too much build up and not enough follow through. The gala Winterfest was a HUGE disappointment. And while I get that it's hard to predict location shooting, a couple of outdoor scenes would make a huge difference.

No, I wasn't. My memories of SFT are few. If I ever did know, I'd forgotten. I probably shouldn't have been surprised, as plenty of broadway folk worked daytime too.

I definitely agree Rick and Liz had chemistry---but it was a gentler chemistry, not the raw edgy chem that SS had with him.

Truth. While she's grown in the role, deep emotion is not in her wheelhouse. For a moment I thought she was going to snot-cry, ala Kelley Meighan Hensley.

Mary Stuart sang?

I get your idea. It's just hard for me to buy into given how they started out. Maybe if Curlee had stayed, she could have built something like that.

It's not the theme, it's the arrangement or maybe I mean orchestration. The switch from the original to the synthesizer version makes it more "zippy" (for lack of a more technical term.) At least imo. I don't think they would've put Blake and AM back together had SS stayed. There was just too much bad history between them. While that true with a lot of couples, GL wasn't going to pin AM and Blake down with each other.

Thanks for the tag! I had never heard of this show. It's funny how different Eileen's voice was later. I would cringe whenever Lisa sang on the show. Don's voice is exactly what I thought it would be. GL used to have him sing at Christmas, but I hadn't heard him otherwise. (I guess GL didn't believe in having a lawyer moonlight as a lounge lizard. lol)

Patrician was the word I was trying to come up with, but couldn't. lol. Definitely with British aristocrat vibes. Baklava entrepreneur and resale shop owner. (lol sounds better than junk store owner..)

I think Hearst understood how to play a Spaulding from working with Bev. I would hope if she had still been there when RR was cast, he would've taken a cue from her and played it differently. I'm not sure I see a resemblance between Heast and Bernau, but I think Rick is talented enough to pull it off.

The real problem is that Chris Bernau had this reserved formality ( that's the best I can describe it) and way of holding himself that made him unique. Like Raines, i think most actors would lean into the bellicose yell-y mustache twirling aspect. Of course, the writing doesn't help Raines, but it's like he went out of his way not to connect with anything CB had established for Alan.

Of the two, I'd choose Coster, but mostly because I'd at least seen him as Eduardo. I've only scene Allan in episodic TV. I don't think either quite fits the role. Coster somehow doesn't seem imposing enough. Allan seems too straightforward to be a behind the scenes master manipulator.

He's not there for long. But yeah, he is very likeable as Max.

I think it's a wonderful scene. And an excellent use of history. I can understand Holly's point of view. Vanessa had already chosen to report it. She could see Vanessa was backing down, not necessarily because she wanted to, but because she felt she needed to protect Bill and Henry. Is it a pie-in-the-sky idea of Holly's that she'd be "whole" if she'd been vindicated and Roger had gone to prison? Maybe. I do think GL chickened out on another opportunity to have Roger confront his past. Because, unless I'm just skipping over episodes, Roger pretty much kept his mouth shut about the entire situation. Gilly makes reference to Roger (who's running WSPR) preference on how the story is edited. But normally, Roger would've been licking his lips at the chaos at Spaulding and looking to gain an advantage through it.

re: Alan, there's also the fact that Alan/Vanessa were never that serious a couple. I wouldn't think they'd need to remind the audience about Van/Billy's connection, but maybe that was part of it too? There was a period where it looked like Holly/Johnny were vibing. She was trying to build him into a media host, Chelsea was jealous, etc. Frank is even trying to flirt with her and Johnny heads him off. Van and Ross were on the outs, but still kind of circling each other. Then during the AM/Dinah/stolen motorcycle drama (where they'd crashed into Harley) Alan proposes to Van. Van doesn't give him an answer, but Alan lets it "slip" to Ross. Ross storms off. I'm not exactly sure how Meredith got pulled in, but in one episode, they're naked in bed. There's some joke about limp pizza, which can be interpreted as meaning nothing happened. For whatever reason, Vanessa shows up at Ross', and I think Meredith walks out in his robe. Van runs out, and accepts Alan's proposal via telegram. Alan and Reva are in Hawaii on a "business" trip. Alan then goes out to buy Van a ring, which Reva appropriates to teach Alan some kind of lesson. Alan then lets her keep it, and buys a second ring for Van. It should be Nov/Dec '87. Josh and Sonni then show up in Hawaii on their honeymoon, and Van shows up and there's tension there between Reva/Alan/Van about the ring. There's some kind of realization on Reva and Alan's part that their games have hurt Vanessa. I'm not sure a lot of that's up in English, though.

Well, at this point, Van was trying to get Ross' attention...but I guess I get his point a little more now, that he'd need more time to trust that the second Billy crooks his finger she'd drop him, or that part of her interest in Ross is a reaction to realizing he's interest in Holly, which he isn't admitting to. Well, at the end of '92, he' was done being DA and gave up being Senator. I'm not sure if Roger actually put some kind of squeeze on him to punish him for being involved with Blake. But Ross was always bouncing between private practice and DA/Corporate work. And in '94-'95 there was still lingering hostility between Van and Ross over the custody trial, I'd imagine. Vanessa did not attend his wedding to Blake. So them working together while she ran Lewis would've been a no-go. There was a very weird scene of Ann Hamilton's Mindy skeet shooting, when Kimberly Simms' Mindy never acted like a girl who'd done anything more than shop. It wouldn't have hurt if Jordan was still there to help Barbara Crampton in the role, but I just can't see it being more than a band-aid. Crampton just wasn't able to channel some inner "Princess" persona, if you know what I mean. The similarities between Vanessa/Holly and their relationships with their daughters is why I don't understand why Van wasn't more involved in Nursery Stalker story. I'm sure GL would've loved to do a Holly/Roger/Sonni triangle (and maybe add in Van and Ross) if Michelle had stayed.

What's odd---just from a continuity point of view---is that they've completely written out Vanessa's engagement to Alan. If you didn't know the history, Ross makes it sound like Vanessa just walked out on him to go take care of Billy. They had broken up. He had either slept with Meredith or come damn close to it. She was engaged to Alan, and ditched him to go help Billy (not only because it was Billy but essentially because she admitted to herself that she didn't love Alan and knew he was using her as an emotional buffer to Reva) It was less than two years before, and written by Long, so why the situation was oversimplified, I don't understand. Van is unusually ham-handed here, even jokingly comparing Billy to Roger. What I do find appealing about the Ross/Van relationship of this era is that they kind of drift back into teenage behavior. Ross will kind of poke fun of her (NO ONE did that to Vanessa, but Ross could get away with it.) and Van pulls out her coy flirty girl with him. (she'll flash him a smile, ask the "would you, if I wanted you to", and at the Heartbreaker's opening, he's with Nadine and Holly and kind of beckons her over and she won't, she makes him come to her...it's so endearing.) If you watch the preceding episode, Billy is trying to get her attention, and her attention is all on Ross. The set up for Ross/Holly had clearly been in the works before Maeve even returned. But it would've been interesting (if Jordan hadn't returned/or not returned full time) to see a Van/Ross/Holly triangle.

As far as I can tell, that is the last scene between Maeve and Jordan for four years. It's so sad in retrospect. "I'm throwing my arms around you---ungrateful wretch that I am---and telling you I love you madly." Billy and Vanessa had just come home early from their honeymoon. Billy had also surprised Vanessa with a house after their first marriage. I can't find a contract player that was a cop either. Lt Wyatt was there for years, and there's a guy who's kind of hounding Lujack's every move for a while...but that's it. They're pretty random until Rusty and then Mallet. The Reardons also didn't have a priest/nun among their ranks. Then again, maybe that's where the mysterious 7th child was. Other than thinking Jeff Meek came before Scott's return, I agree. Scott managed to make Craig sympathetic while he was set on inducing Meg's miscarriage of Paul's child. Quite a feat. I only begrudgingly accepted Lindstrom when it was clear his Craig was not going to be Teflon ala Block.

As chaotic as Dinah was, yeah, she's pretty amateurish in her schemes. It was always a mistake to kick Blake out of a true business setting. If nothing else, she could've run WSPR and kept dabbling in the local power structure. At some point, GL abandoned the idea of the workplace backbiting (outside of anyone named Spaulding) as a conflict, which really meant that everyone just ran around mostly concerned about their love lives.

Well, Alex had plenty of reason. Alan tended to lose his mind when he became obsessed with a woman. coughRevacough comes to mind.

And why Ross should've moved on. By this time, Block's must've been on the chopping block.

Oh, now I'm SAD thinking that Company ended up in Buzz's hands. (even though i probably knew it at the time, but it was soo long ago.) Mo was always too busy mothering the townfolk.

Yeah, the main problem with setting up RR's Alan is that he has no romantic chemistry with anyone. And I don't think GL really cared about that. They used Alan as a manipulative [!@#$%^&*] villain, and that's really all they wrote for him.

Well, Josh could've bought it for Hawk and Sarah. But I think you're right, I think they only ran it. Whether Mo owned it, or simply was the only Reardon left in town at the time to deal with it---I'm not sure. When Kurt worked there, Bea was still in town, because there's an entire plot point built around her running interference while Kurt and Roxy are trying to outsmart Immigration and see Mindy and Rick on the side. Mindy and Rick move into the boardinghouse's only available room. There's also a kind of running joke once the Reardons start dwindling in town, where random people end up serving at Company. Mindy works there, there's an episode where Henry helps out, Jessie is left in charge while an unexpected crowd rolls in, etc.