P.J.

Kim has every right to her feelings, and maybe even some valid points. But as a fan, GL's decline started way before '04. That's just the breaking point for her. And it's not professional to go and complain to your EP because (god forbid) your character isn't on "in a couple of episodes". I don't know how she thinks Wheeler "tinkered" with the character of Reva. But good grief, every town bicycle eventually needs new tires. The Inside the Light idea was fresh, but should've been used more sparingly. And it really was insulting to "wrap up" Ross in one. RME. Isn't she wrong about the Katrina rebuilding? They may have also shown it on the web, but there was an entire episode devoted to it, which I thought aired during sweeps, which I thought was a mistake. God, I hated that "hairy arms" opening. HATED.

LOL...well, they had. But when you grow up with it, so to speak, it's just what you know. Then again, maybe I'm just used to it---on ATWT, a lot of family members slept with the same people. But some of that is also about having kept core families for years.

There must have been a gap between Brittany Snow and the last girl? Were they afraid of aging Harley...or Reva? 'Cause ol' granny Reva shouldn't be out clubbing with her granddaughter. And you know she'd do that. LOL...the marriages will drive you crazy. For example, Susan's grandparents (Buzz/Nadine and Billy/Reva) intermarried. Buzz was briefly married to Reva, and Billy and Nadine were married for two hellish years. Ugh...it's one of my pet peeves too.

LOL...sometimes it's even hard for us old viewers to remember how everyone's related to everyone. The unique problem with Susan is when she was first brought up, her name was Daisy. You can also get used to her age---she only ages about another six years over the last 10 years of the show. Meanwhile, Marina, who is her cousin and born on screen about 5 years after her, ends up about ten years older than her by the end.

Since Strasser was nom'd and Slezak wasn't, I would imagine Strasser was. OMG...Brian Bloom beat MEK, Jack Wagner and Michael O'Leary.

I always side-eyed Matt for passing the baton to Vanessa to turn Dinah in. If he was so hell-bent on doing what was right, then he should've manned up and done it himself. And since he later asked Beth to change her story, truth wasn't all that important to him. Yes, Dinah was a manipulator, and Vanessa made plenty of excuses for her, but Matt was delusional if he expected Vanessa to turn her own child in. Thank God for Billy.

Michael Tylo, bless him, was always a bit mannered, if not exactly stiff. It works in the eighties, when Quint is all mysterious and sort of the center of all these eccentric characters like Nola, Helena, Silas and even to an extent Henry and Vanessa (who is much more devious at this point in her life). the '90's stuff is just sad and just not in character for who Quint had been established as being. Locher doesn't really get better at interviewing. He doesn't even seem to have a list of questions ahead of time, which just seems like Interviewing 101 to me. There is a fairly long interview with Kim up at All Interviews | Television Academy Interviews if you're interested.

Now that they're talking about him...duh HART. Sweet farm kid, angry Roger hater, and then the strange mixture of angry son/turned back to good guy. Another case of recast driving character changes.

There's potential, but I think the writers decided they needed to hook the viewers with these revelations, and they just feel empty because there's no real connection to the history. Sure, maybe Dani really loved Bill back in the day, but where they are now is just toxic. Like you said, it's like walking into a show years in and expecting to understand how this impacts everyone. The only plot for me that's seemed to grow organically is Joey/Vanessa/Doug, which just got a little more interesting with Vanessa flipping the script on Joey to get Doug out from under Joey's thumb, but also clearly falling for Joey.

Vanessa Prentiss, Lance and Lucas' mother. The first storyline I remember is Morgan/Kelly/Nola, Guiding Light. Nola was so damn mean. When Kelly finally read her for filth, that scene I swear went on for fifteen minutes as Nola tried to wriggle out of everything.

It's strange, other than Anita/Vernon/Nicole/Dani, none of these people seem truly connected. Revelation after revelation doesn't bond characters, those smaller moments do. One of the cornerstones of this show should've been the friendship (or loss thereof) of Naomi and Hayley. Instead, if you hadn't heard Naomi complain about it those first few weeks, you'd never have known they were friends. I don't know how but

Martin's secret is only two years ago?

well, that's a unique moment in history. surely unforgettable.

Well, yes. But that's in the '00's. And if memory serves, before the Janet Jackson/Justin Timberlake debacle. I meant in 1983/84 when the first love scenes for Billy/Van and Josh/Reva aired, Jeva's were more risque by the standards of the day, which dictated that women had to have some clothes showing, even married characters. But by the early '90's, the standards had loosened, because I recall a hubbub over Nick and Mindy's love scenes. Billy is, isn't he? Even when Josh was a bad boy, he was as serious as a heart attack. Ugh...the actresses who ruined their looks getting surgeries. And now the young actresses who get it---SMH. I know there's pressure, but damn.

Uhm, am I ignorant, but I thought the actors just submitted the scenes they were in, not the entire episode. The scene she must be talking about shooting next is the "Proud Mary" sing with John Bolger. So...a little bit of irony there. She does seem happy.

Well, something put that smile on Vanessa's face. Not to mention, any woman would probably find herself fighting Josh the next morning for mirror time.

No, it seems to be Dorothy. Mr Grasso is played by Eugene Troobnick? (the same actor who played Stavros, Frank's great uncle) His name is either Ted or Tate.

It literally drove me nuts, not remembering who she was when I was watching the episodes. Then I finally connected her to Wings. lol.

Rebecca Schull played Mrs. Grasso on Guiding Light in August, 1986. (8/18 is the episode I found her in the credits.) The Grassos had bought the house of Dinah's adoptive parents, the Carters, who had been killed. She helped Vanessa find the name of the lawyer the Carters used to adopt Dinah.

LOL...funny story about your mom---I'm sure I would've loved her! And not just because I'm a Billy/Van fan! I think sometimes people hang on to names. And with all the writer turmoil in the mid'80's, it's really hard to pick out one to blame. (I had no clue before I started following the thread how bad that situation was.) There's even a part of me that understands preferring Jeffrey over Josh. Mostly because Josh/Reva had been riding that rollercoaster for nearly 20 years by then (when you subtract their time off the show). But I just couldn't stand Bradley Cole.

Well, Reva and Josh get more explicit love scenes (and honestly, at this time on GL I'm sure it was risque..) and honestly, except for a flashback of what led to Dylan's conception, Billy only slept with two women on the show, Vanessa and Nadine. So even though it's a rather limited field, let's just say Billy seems like he'd be fun in bed. Whereas Josh would be playing "mother may I?"

Well, you know how much it pains me to agree with Kim. lol But while in an ideal setting, Oprah would've listened to her producer about her guest's concerns, would that have really changed Oprah's mind set, or did walking off drive the point home and signal Kim was serious? It would be interesting to see if any of those segments are up at utube and see if it really changed. Or if Oprah just threw out a softball to Kim and then went right back to the AMC ladies.

DAMN.....the onion story is about Jordan/Maeve! I don't recall where or when I first heard that story, but I'd always assumed it was Michael/Lisa. I don't think Kim's take on Billy/Reva is surprising. At least in the respect that it was more a physical thing than a love match. When HB confronts Reva about Alan paying her to bust up Billy and Van, she even admits that she married Billy for the Lewis name and money. And I've always thought that what stuck in Billy's craw over the years (and why he took so much crap from her in their "friendship") was that he knew Reva never loved him, and that he kept trying to prove to her she should have. But Billy better than Josh in bed? Yeah, I buy that. Fans enjoyed Jeffrey/Reva? GTFOH. Honestly, I don't blame Kim for her reaction to Oprah. It was unprofessional of Oprah to show her bias, and frankly, nothing was more annoying than those damn bait shows and NOT hearing from the person you were interested in hearing. If Oprah had wanted to do a AMC lovefest, she should've just had AMC actors. And I'd love to hear Strasser reaction to being somewhat ignored.

Vanessa started looking for her daughter in July, in part because Grace would always send her a note that included a phrase like "everything was fine at home and away", and hadn't that year. Dinah is looking for her "sister", and I think they are both at Camp Cayoga, but she didn't realize it was her because the only way she could identify her was by a birthmark on the back of her neck. Ross isn't aware he has a daughter until October or so, when Vanessa's forced to tell him as he's going off to San Rios to help rescue Simon and Jessie (who's been shot) who I think went to rescue Alex (I don't have a clue why she's there, but she got sick). I will say, for being such a secret....no one around town seems overly surprised Vanessa has an illegitimate child. Ross is angry for about half an episode. Henry seems angrier with Grace. And Billy seems angrier about the lie. Not that I can recall. I'm sure part of it is the HW changes, although Dinah's initial reaction with Gatti is really, really cold. Turco is the outlier, but I think that's a course correction by that regime, who might've been more interested in trying to make Ross/Vanessa work. Moniz and Tognoni are more in line.

It's hard to determine when Vanessa started acting strange. Gatti debuted sometime between May 9th and June 19th, just on a quick survey of the credits. Vanessa goes to Grace's in July.