P.J.

Originally, Alan was Alex's younger brother. Sometime during Bernau's second run, that got flipped, and he's the older brother protecting Alex from their father. Ugh...that's right. But I constantly forget that. Given that's it's 2003, probably. It begins October 17, 2003, if you're looking for a start date. It is too bad they wasted Ariane Munker in the role of Christine Valere. She had the right look for Hope, and seemed to have chem with Chris Bernau. She had played Melinda Grey on ATWT (Barb's half-sister).

So, there was a writer's strike in '81?

I would bet that part of the reason Alan wasn't recast sooner was Phillip's absence. Yes, Alan-Michael was also his son, but the dynamic was always about Phillip.

No kidding. No matter who, it seemed like Frankie was always out there casting a line, hoping to land anything swimming by. In '89, it's even with the likes of Holly and Vanessa. On reflection, Pilon's not as bad as I remembered. He at least seems like he could match wits with Roger. It's harder to judge RR in some respects, simply because the writing and his adversaries is so much poorer. His Alan is perpetually a chump.

I will say, I had forgotten that Blake and Frank were "friendly" back in the early '90's. GL's wrap up seemed to want everyone happy (although Matt's misery tickles my funny bone as he mopes around the last few weeks, Maureen introduces him to her teacher at the end...) so everyone "got" someone or some kind of fresh start. Which led to some silliness about Blake/Frank and online dating.

So did Jackie Marler. And Bill Bauer's original death was in an airplane crash. At least from what I've observed from '89 to '93, if they start playing the actor's pictures, they run the cast list.

sorry...I must've missed that. I can understand having fond memories of Fletcher. Honest. If you had asked me before I started rewatching, all I probably could've recalled about him was his humor and the fact that he'd raised Ben.

Just FYI---Fletch did marry Maeve. Maeve died in a helicopter accident in '88, shortly after they married. If she didn't remember that, I'd speculate that she was talking about Chris Bernau's Alan, not Daniel Pilon's.

I guess I understand them needing to explore other romances (even Phillip and Beth have a relatively short initial romance before Lujack enters the scene) for Rick and Mindy, and some of it is bad timing (MOL left, so enter Rusty...RME)...but yeah, they could've gone back to Rick/Mindy either then or even with Kimberly Simms.

They didn't put a lot of effort into any of Rick's romances after Mindy. Sometimes, the way he seemed to gravitate to older women, it was like he was either looking for a mother or looking for his own version of Maureen.

I'm gonna have to scour '89, because I don't recall Nadine and Billy conspiring that way. Billy and Nadine met because she interviewed Hamp right after he came to town. Then there's a party at WSPR where Van is ignoring Billy while she watches Holly and Ross (he knows she's not listening, while he's trying to talk her into them having a family outing with Bill, and he goes "...and then I'll peel you like a grape..." she says something like "I'll check the schedule," and walks to Ross.) Vanessa and Nadine met when Phillip had people over for drinks at the mansion, if I recall correctly. But I thought shortly after that, Nadine realized that she couldn't compete with both Holly and Vanessa, and left Ross' cottage with a little dignity.

ALL this. Zas could make you hate Roger, but then turn around and sympathize with him. Roger knew somewhere in his craven heart that he was the architect of his own disaster. Cole couldn't convince me the sky was blue.

Was that one of those weirder ITL episodes? 'Yeah...ick. And YEAH, I love that Vanessa scene. I never particularly cared for Mel, but no one came at Vanessa's kids and should've expected her to walk away.

It's something about how Reva always initially has to lie to keep Josh's love. When she comes to town to break up Billy and Van---it's not any attack of conscience that prompts her to give Billy, who she never loved, a divorce, it's Josh withholding his feelings that does it. It's about how she'd rather be in a loveless marriage with HB than just move on with her life after they broke up. Or allow Josh to believe she'd been raped than admit she'd had sex with and gotten pregnant by Billy. And much much later, it's how she's prepared to leave town still allowing them to believe she's dead because they've moved on. Or when she's got cancer, she'd rather break up with him than simply tell him her diagnosis. They rarely bring out the best in each other. Together or apart, at least in my opinion.

As much as I would've loved them to at least have a real chance, I do adore them as friends. And in '08, there was the Max saga, only he died. The way the show struggled against the WASPy Vanessa not just bluntly saying "that baby is black!" is more restrained than I would usually give them credit for being.

I do tend to forget about Roger/Sonni, so Holly/Roger/Sonni could've definitely been a plan before Forbes left. I'm less sure that Nadine was ever in a planned quad with Ross. From the little I've seen of her in the first half of '89, Nadine seems a little more savvy and blatantly a golddigger than she was with Billy. They seem to softly have rebooted her. She's gone when Vanessa arrives back town in July. She's probably gone a month, which seems a little strange since she'd only been in town six months.

Jenna was a jewel thief. During the blackout, she made friends with Michelle, who she was trapped in an elevator with. Yadda yadda---Jenna needs to avoid deportation and knows her father has some connection to Spaulding. She enlists Henry's help. Henry realizes that her father had invented something that Spaulding made huge profits from, but he thinks Brandon Spaulding stole it, and left her father broke and imprisoned. And that Spaulding would owe her TONS of money. Henry lies to Jenna and tells her that he's her father (poor Vanessa bugs out on that news...). hoping he can give her the life she deserved without losing the company. It all backfires due to Roger (who's seeing Jenna) (long, long story), and he talks Jenna into suing Spaulding to get what she's owed. They end up winning, and Henry, Vanessa, A-M and Nick lose almost everything. Nick and A-M end up running the Springfield Journal and Vanessa goes to Lewis and starts poaching Spaulding clients. Henry and Jenna bond all through this in spite of being on opposite sides. Jenna and Roger eventually lost Spaulding, but Henry treated Jenna like another daughter. I'm not exactly sure how Vanessa and Jenna bonded, but they did, and Vanessa was the only person in town who knew Jenna was pregnant with Buzz's child when she left town. Later, Jenna and Vanessa are pregnant around the same time. I never quite bought their friendship, but *shrug*, that's probably because I generally didn't like Jenna.

More of the end of '86 and early '87 have come up, and I can already see the writers (Anderson and well, whoever) don't understand Ross or Vanessa, separately or together. Both act like they haven't spent the last three years being parent figures to Phillip and Mindy, respectively. They had better writing in '89-'90, but the show had already been building toward Ross/Holly/Roger, so what little tease we got never seemed serious. I vote Josh/Reva were toxic, and for the most part, always were. ALWAYS.

I don't know if the fact so many actors came back in those months means she had their respect, or if they had a loyalty to the show. I can't recall any ATWT actors throwing Goutman under the bus. Other than perhaps Martha Byrne.

Which EP threw up after sitting through a dinner with Kim and Pam Long? Joe Willmore? It doesn't sound like Kim was easy to deal with, period.

LOL...you know I love it when Vanessa locks in on someone, activates her regal bitch mode and coolly lets whoever know they have crossed a line and it won't be tolerated by her. I just watched her snap on Holly (after Holly torpedoed Ross' campaign with the pic of Ross and Blake). What on most shows would've been some catfight with raised voices is much more cutting between two equal women (who'd just formed a bond during Vanessa's rape trial) who aren't screaming the house down or chewing scenery. Another funny description of Vanessa--back in 1983, Beth is describing how nervous she was her first night of serving at the Country Club (where she waited on Mindy and Vanessa and spilled Vanessa's water). When Rick realizes it was Vanessa he says ..."she'd make the Queen of England nervous."

Or if she would be characterized as "weak" if she weren't a woman. She was playing the cards she was dealt. There's a lot of criticism of Goutman, who was dealing with the same issues. But I can't recall any suggestion (whether rumors in the press or by the actors) that he was somehow "less than" for working within mandates sent down from corporate. And I'd lay odds if Wheeler had barked back at Kim, then she'd have been cast as the bitch.

I'm not sure I'd go as far as calling Josh a prick, but definitely never the sharpest of the Lewis clan. And your point is more spot on than mine---Wheeler rarely carried through on her ideas. Re: Jon---you wouldn't get an argument from me. I disavow anything connected to that horrid mess.

I know I sound like a crank---but even I enjoyed Peter Simon's return. And I have to concede, they didn't have as much time as ATWT did to wrap things up. But too much of those last few weeks were wasted with unnecessary D plot stories. I didn't even feel killing Alan was necessary. Or even revamping an existing show (Loving/The City) If there was one decision that distills how wrong-headed she was, it's "rebooting" Josh as a reverend. I mean, Kim thinks she's got complaints? I'd have loved to be a fly on the wall when Robert Newman got that script.

Our disagreement about ATWT aside, ---a fair number of her returns I didn't give a flying fig about---DAM, Pelphrey, St Alban, PAS. I won't argue against the cameos, but I thought they could've been handled better. I actually would've tried harder to watch the entire episode if Parker had been on. I really can't get through five minutes of it before my eyes threaten to roll out of my head.