P.J.

I didn't know that either. The funny thing is, I've never caught him in an episode of GL. Well, Josh certainly ups his down-home, whooops and square dancing game around that time. But I'll clarify---I never thought Josh was embarrassed by the fact Reva was the housekeeper's daughter, his ex-sister-in-law, or couldn't string together a sentence without putting some homespun, slightly trashy backhanded insult in it.

Even when she starts, there is a marked difference in how romances are written. The Mark/Amanda affair is scandalous, but I never really get their attraction. OTOH, I know exactly why Billy/Vanessa and Annabelle/Tony are attracted to each other. Josh and Hillary kissed, but I'm not sure if they slept together. I don't think Josh was embarrassed by Reva. I think he didn't trust her because she'd married Billy for the Lewis name and money. Then she came to scam Billy out of more money. Then she married HB.

You can always tell when a writer has no real connection to the soap they're writing about.

Constance Towers. And yes, Capitol. I think the difference here is that Constance had been in movies, but had done plenty of television through the years. Everyone and their mother knew who Elizabeth Taylor was. @Paul Raven I've been meaning to ask...does anyone remember Clay Tynan? Somewhere I read a whole (erroneous, it seems) history about how he'd been a friend of Vanessa's and somehow been around when she was dating Mark Evans. (I can guess where this was, but I can't seem to find it again...) Anyway, I've only been able to find Giancarlo Esposito credited in a 1983 episode, and his mother seems to pop up around the time Lillian does. There's something about her character being promoted and Lillian, Hillary and Lesley Ann being in consideration for lead nurse on the floor. I thought maybe they'd also been characters in The Cradle Will Fall, and like Ben Murphy, only made guest appearances. But that doesn't seem to be the case.

yep. Carrie #1 was the Carrie we knew, Carrie #2 was the murderous slut, and Carrie #3 was the original Carrie who cracked after the suicide of her husband (or lover) and giving up her child for adoption.

See...in my head the logical story conclusion for Carrie/Ross/Vanessa was Carrie's therapy failing to merge the personalities, and Ross gravitating back to Vanessa when he agrees to help her search for her half-brother. And while I would've adored a true Vanessa/Ross romance....Vanessa and Billy were lightening in a bottle. that's at least comforting to know.

Well...that's one way to interpret it. The other might be that Jane was volatile and not exactly the friendliest person from one day to the next. While I don't have a catalog of Jane's interviews over the years, she's never seemed overly chummy with former GL castmates. I believe she said something nice about Jerry after his passing though.

I don't know. The only tidbit I've ever even heard about Jane's time on GL was when JvD said something like "you never knew which Jane you were getting from day to day". I guess the fact no one really ever seems to bring up her time on GL speaks volumes. I do recall an interview Jane gave to SOD after getting fired where she insisted she was going to sign another contract. I tried looking up the '82 ratings in the '80's ratings thread. It does seem that Y&R reclaimed it's position as the number one CBS soap mid-year. Maybe that's what prompted Potter to axe Elliot.

Allen Potter fired Jane Elliot, in the middle of the Carrie story. My understanding was that Doug had created Carrie especially for Jane. Doug quit.

Hillary is always supposed to have some spunk to her, so much so that sometimes I really just roll my eyes at her spunk. She always seemed to lust after the guy who thought she was a "great friend". I do kind of side-eye how "close" the Bauers of that period are, but I just assume there's not enough out there to really judge.

While I love the Carrie story, it's hard envisioning the mercurial Jane Elliot sticking around GL for long. It's sad his leaving started a writing instability that lasted until GL's finale. Lainie, Evie and Katie are all sort of the same character. I honestly don't think Lainie ever did much on the show. Evie (who I remember liking) didn't do much after being stalked by Chet. In fact, I was surprised to realize she was still around as late as Nola and Quint's engagement ball. (she must leave sometime in the fall after Justin leaves.) Katie just seems to drift after the Andy Norris story. I mean, she never even gets to go to the parties. Hillary manages to, but Katie's the Cinderella who never goes to the ball.

It's unclear to me whether Marland meant "older" as in advanced in years, or simply characters that predated his tenure. Jackie Marler got killed off under Marland, when I'd assume Marland's instinct would've been to recast to play out the reveal of Phillip's parentage. Sara McIntyre's role certainly dwindled under Marland, where she's basically just a talk to to the sexually frustrated women of Springfield. Evie and Katie kind of fade into the background. Elizabeth Spaulding, Lainie Marler, Ben McFarren also leave town. Other than Barbara and Adam (and you could argue that Holly and Roger's exits make them expendable) and Stephen, I can't think of another "aged" actor that got let go. I'm not sure how big a presence Viola Stapleton ever was in town.

I'd always assumed that Lily's reluctance over Luke's sexuality was to facilitate another maternity leave....now maybe it was a little deeper than that. As for Byrne, I think she was a precocious child Broadway actor who fell into the trap of believing the praise she got, and that her acting never really grew after a point. Lily's basically the same spoiled princess she is in 1988 as she was in 2005, when she's ready to bring Carly down with her to save her precious Luke after Julia II was murdered. And I heartily disliked Rose, whose novelty wore off after Holden uttered those famous words "...that's your real voice?"

I guess I'm surprised he sees himself so much in the character of Kelly. I probably shouldn't be surprised he has such a fondness for the Morgan/Kelly/Nola story, but in my head, it's Doug's fondness for Nola that sticks. I just never think of Kelly or Morgan as layered or complex.

Ed had been cheated on before. Both Holly and Rita had affairs during their marriages to him. Holly slept with Roger (which is why Ed thought Chrissie was his daughter) and Rita slept with both Alan and another doctor (who I believe was named Greg, and who at some point dated her sister Eve). Rita had just received word that the child she was carrying was Ed's when Roger kidnapped her (after the chase through the hall of mirrors, hauntingly set to Donna Summer's Enough is Enough). She miscarried the child after a fire started in the cabin she was trapped in. 1993 would not have been the first time Billy called Vanessa "uppity" and/or a snob. They have a hilarious fight the night before their second wedding because he is suddenly acting like an ass over Nick's treatment of Mindy while Eve was crazy (and doesn't want Nick invited to the wedding or dating Mindy). Vanessa calls him out for being upset with Nick, but upset that Henry has called him out for his treatment of Vanessa in the past few years since jilting Vanessa at the altar after Reva's "death". While Vanessa never lost her uppercrust ways completely, in 1993 I can't think of anyone other than Nadine and Buzz she would've had issues with, and they deserved it and a lot more.

As Brandon's daughter, Spaulding was split three ways. Although honestly, I think originally, Amanda received a hunk of stock in Brandon's will.

I didn't realize until recently that Amanda flipped out because they were hiding Kathleen's pregnancy. Maybe Amanda is different under the Dobsons. But I always found the most interesting thing about her to be her mother Lucille.

LOL...Marah took up where Little Bill left off. He ran away three times in three years. Once he even took little Marah with him (or she tagged along anyway.) OMG...Charita pre-dates the MOVIE? I didn't have a clue! TY!!!

Sid came to town as Vanessa's lawyer in her custody fight with Bridget. Although I guess they didn't play that connection for long. Alan was always a user bastard who manipulated people like balloon animals, but Chris Bernau was a master at showing Alan's layers.

But there's where being Roger's daughter was a detriment. No one trusted her---or trusted her not to be used by Roger. And it cut Blake off from a lot of business stories. She could've moved over to WSPR or The Journal while Holly was involved with them, but even Holly barely trusts her.

I don't know if there was a way to do that at the time without it being called a direct rip off of the Reva/Lewises story. I guess Blake/Ross were popular for a reason, but they also became the direction because Alan, Alex and Phillip were all out of town. It might've been interesting to see Phillip be hell bent on keeping Blake out of Ross' life.

Thanks! I've only watched a few myself, in part because I'm never sure they're worth the time, and of Locher. I always mean to watch the one with Maeve, Ellen, Tina and Rachel, just because it would cover Maureen's death. I'm not surprised Maeve would've connected more with Wendy Moniz. They worked more together. While Maeve was on more than I remembered those last couple of years, she'd be gone for long stretches, and then show up at the end of Dinah's failed plots.

When you have Beth less well-adjusted than Blake, your writers got issues.

NO...lol. Personally, I don't either. I think they would've recasted, had the late '90's writers not decided to make Beth the unhinged spoiler for Phillip/Harley. And it just got progressively worse from there.

Mostly because TIIC refused to let those chickens come home to. I think one of the Marah's got to call Reva a slut, but that was quickly patched up. Reva would've been much better served by kids who realized Mom was an unreliable screw-up. More of the animosity between Van and Blake is with Sherry Stringfield, right around the time Vanessa returns home. Blake is pulling rank as Mrs. Spaulding, and Roger's daughter. At one point, Vanessa outright tells her she despises her because she slept her way to the top. Blake counters with something like "it's not my fault the only man you can keep interested is your daddy." It wasn't nearly as salty with LK in the role.