P.J.

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.

Do we trust Kim or not? She was surprised GL won best show and best writing Emmys in 2007, because she didn’t understand the kudos for their show. When 2008 came, Ellen had the idea of renaming the show “The New Guiding Light” and start the first episode as “Episode 1”, which Kim thought was distasteful and erasing their legacy. Apparently some of the GL execs hated when people mentioned how old GL was, and thankfully P&G said absolutely not to Ellen’s idea and the idea was nixed. But, Ellen still got her idea of a new opening approved and Kim refers to it as “…the one with a bunch of hairy-ass arms reaching and grabbing at other hairy-ass arms! With a series of voice-overs uttering the famous line ‘There is a destiny…’”. Can you imagine being an ABC exec and having Debbi bleepin' Morgan in your cast, and somehow having to throw your weight around to either a) keep pushing for an emmy bait story for Lucci or b) pulling whatever strings there were to keep Lucci getting nom'd for twenty straight years? I'm sorry---even if Lucci were Meryl Streep (or fill in with your favorite actress) no one gets nominated every year. Not even Slezak.

I'm glad Parker declined. I really kinda hope she told them to go [!@#$%^&*] themselves, but I'm sure she's too professional for that. The thing I find curious? That the EP who was floating the idea of renaming the damn show because someone hates that it's constantly referred to as the oldest show....then decides to highlight it's radio roots in a special episode.

The only one that comes close for me is Benjamin Hendrickson. He just doesn't look well the last year of his life.

I love Marj Dusay, but the Alex/Alan dynamic left the building with Beverlee.

I'll check it out, but I'm biased, as Liz is one of those actresses that never hit a false note. *sigh* Poor Emma, forced to use a commercially grown turkey.

You'd think in the past 20 years (since they did it on ATWT and GL) they'd have gotten better at it. I can still remember those awkward talks about Margo and her roots. RME.

I was shocked rewatching. In the scenes where he's found Vanessa in Switzerland, it is painfully obvious he's having trouble with his words.

Agree re: Lucci--god knows how many good actresses were robbed of nominations for her. (again, I apologize to AMC fans). I'm not sure Spencer wouldn't have been a sentimental favorite, having been around for so long. But Hubbard was a contender every bleepin' year. It's a crime she never won for playing Lucinda. Or blaming it on Wheeler's age. Wheeler's only about six years younger than Kim. Sometimes these out of the box choices work---aka Pam Long, beauty queen/actress/writer who arguably reinvigorated GL and invented characters and relationships that lasted until the end of the show. I think if you're a teen, the teen/young adult crowd will hook you, but it's always the older crowd that reels you in. It always seemed I was interested most in the characters in their 30's-'40's. They've lived a little, made their mistakes and are still trying to figure it out. And the actors portraying them know what they're doing. Nothing is worse than painfully green actors wondering around vacantly trying to make it work.

Personally, I've got a lot of doubt about how committed P&G is to BTG. If anything, daytime is a lot less profitable than it was in the late '00's. If it lasts even five years, I'd be shocked. I'm not sure what Kim thought they could write for Reva that would've improved things. They gave her another adult child. She was still getting love interests. (Even if I hated Bradley Cole) They gave her a cancer story. The only thing in the last years that I thought was completely out of character was her agreeing to help Jon fake his and Sarah's deaths and keeping it from Lizzie. I mean, she wasn't getting the Maureen Garrett treatment, being reduced to playing crazy or being her child's talk to. And about her not wanting to be a matriarch of the show---YEP. In fact I blanched when she played sweet Charita Bauer in the 70th anniversary episode. Admittedly, the entire show annoyed me anyway, but it just felt like they'd decided the "star" of the show was the only logical choice for that role.

Well, there were a lot. And even going back to the late '90's and the recasting of Josh and Reva's kids I don't think went well. And let's not even get into Nancy St. Alban.

In terms of sets, it's around '04-'06. I can't recall on GL, but on ATWT all of the sudden sets that actors had to run from one side to the other to answer the door bell, got shorter and shorter. Then stairs got cut down from two landings to one. Then they would disappear all together and in their place was an awkwardly placed doorway that now "lead upstairs". They started using cheap looking "mall type" sets. GL had a cheap motel that was barely big enough to put a cheap looking bed. Creatively, for me, it's probably '00 when we descended into San Cristobel. (or San CristoHELL.) The last truly highpoint for me is '93, but I understand (and agree) that it was still watchable in a lot of ways. Looking back, there's a definite shift in storytelling, where they suddenly seem more worried about angering viewers than telling good drama. (Make'm laugh, make'm cry, make'm wait seems to have gone out the door) The cast (at least to me) doesn't seem significantly smaller, but the vets are on significantly less (I swear, Blake went into comas to explain more than one absence) and the quality of the acting declines dramatically, due either to the talent recruited or the lack of rehearsal and writing or some combination of all three. Not to pick on her, but Michelle Ray Smith as Ava Peralta is the type of character that really could've shaken up the town if cast correctly. IMO, it wasn't, and we had to suffer for two years as the show tied her to Jeff and Olivia and tried desperately to make her relevant.

Well, because I have to check, the Katrina episode aired 2/14/07. There are things I don't like about Wheeler, but the same things were happening at ATWT. I mean, I get that Kim didn't think focusing on the new/younger crowd was smart, but it's like she's forgotten that she owed the role to a EP/HW switch herself. I wish Wheeler had done things differently, and reinvigorated the core of the show instead of bringing on a flock of ill-conceived characters, but again, that's not unusual for new EP's.

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.