P.J.

LOL...Julie/Bridget could've been epic, had not there been a revolving door of Harts. JS was much more interesting as a tramp than the boring teen. That could be. At the point I picked it up (which seemed to be right after Nick and Mindy's wedding), Vanessa didn't even know Ross was Bridget's lawyer. I skipped around a bit, and Vanessa was hyper-focused on the case. After the hearing, she was so pissed at Ross that refused to go to his wedding to Blake. I don't mind that Vanessa and Dinah's relationship is so complicated. It lets Dinah avoid the trap that Reva's kids fell into (which is being "normal" after such a chaotic upbringing, ie terminally boring). And what's never quite expressed (at least from the spotty rewatching I've done) is that Vanessa sees the same self-destructiveness in Dinah that she herself had at that age. It's just that they almost acted like '86-88 with Dinah didn't happen. Granted, Vanessa left at the beginning of '88. But Dinah had a lot of time with Ross, and when Vanessa returns to town in '89, she and Ross are in touch with Dinah and everything's good. But then in '94 Ross is blaming Vanessa for having a "almost non-existent" relationship with his kid. I also don't know if Dinah ever did, but if she'd thrown it in Vanessa's face that she was a better mother to Mindy and Dylan than her, that I could've understood. I just don't think Mindy and Dinah were in town at the same time other than '87. LOL...yeah, Blake saw exactly what trouble Dinah was. It takes one to know one.. I don't know why Vanessa/Matt was more than a fling either. I don't see chemistry, but I know that's subjective. All I can think is that some of GL's pairings were low watt anyway (Ed/Eve, Nick/Mindy) and it was to move the plot along. I didn't realize it until recently---Billy doesn't have a serious love interest other than Vanessa for his entire run. I do not count Reva, although I will concede Nadine, depending on the definition of "serious". I know there was Selena, and they tried some kind of triangle with Holly & Buzz, which just seems inconceivable to me. Some of that is timing. But it seems like Reva got a new love interest every year over the same period.

*sigh* It seems to be (at the time) the go to move for "older" characters to hook up with someone almost inappropriately young (Ross/Blake, Ed/Eve) lovers. Maybe it was a hot topic in the mid-90's? (my apologies to Kurt McKinney fans, but this is less about him than the infuriating writing where Vanessa is only "liberated" by this horse's ass after years of running her own damn life...but I digress.) I'm split on Dinah---dramatically, I get it. But she is usually so f***ing horrible to Vanessa I want her to just go away. I'm annoyed that Vanessa is roasted over a spit for nearly 15 years (off and on) for putting her up for adoption, while other "long lost" children spend about six months being mad and get over it. I think Maeve gets overlooked for being understated. It's just so opposite of what most actresses would've been tempted to do. Maeve is never cartoon-ish, now matter how outrageous the material. Oh, and back to the hearing, just when I'm saying to myself "hey, where's Nadine, who's really responsible for this mess?"....Ross throws her up on the stand, and she apologizes to Bridget. If she ever managed to apologize to Vanessa, I hope Van threw it back in her face. And Morgan Englund impressed me. I'd forgotten how much he improved from his days in wife-beaters mooning over Sam.

The temp was just for one day, which is just odd. The scenes you're looking for are here at the end. Vanessa spends the 5/30 episode in Billy and Nadine's attic, reading Bridget's depostion about the last months of her pregnancy. Then Vanessa flashes back to after she gave birth to Dinah during Bridget's testimony on the stand. Honestly, Maeve was robbed of an emmy. I watched from about mid-April to mid-June, and it's devastatingly good. It made me mad all over again that they then end up throwing her at himbo Matt. It's rich and character driven. That's what happens when you put a good story in the hands of actors who've been in those role for 15+ years. 'Cause it's not only Ross, Vanessa and Ed, it's got a good dose of Roger, Holly and Josh (who is a hell of a lot more interesting away from Reva) and Henry, who ends up reaming Ross after Vanessa's turn on the stand. Vanessa confirms she had Dinah at 17, the summer before she went to college.

I had been avoiding the second half of '93, as it crushes my Billy/Vanessa heart, but I ventured into '94 to try and find the custody battle over Peter. HOLY SH#T. It gets intense between Ross and Vanessa, with both of them dragging Ed into the middle. (Or at the very least Vanessa, who goes there at one point and threatens to drag up Ed's affair with Lillian if Ross crucifies her on the stand) That's a little before this, which is Ross brutally questioning her at the hearing. Oddly, the episode before this has that fake Vanessa again stepping in for Maeve (in what I swear is the same suit she wore in '92, when she single-handedly kills the momentum of Bill's running away). I suppose it was all a set up for bringing Dinah back, but damn.

I remember that! It was a gruesome death for daytime at the time.

the May 84 episodes from Jim Muneco are Mindy's miscarriage (the 14th has cute Billy/Vanessa scenes! heaven!) and the 22nd is Nola's Wizard of Oz fantasy. I hope this means someone has Josh's accident. In English.

I had completely forgotten that cluster---where Jackie and Justin had each married Alan and Elizabeth ! I get Jackie's motivation, but Justin seems like to much of a red-blooded guy to be interested in the frigid Elizabeth. And I agree--former stepsiblings from a marriage from 20 yrs prior, having at it didn't bother me. And I don't ever recall adult Rick and Blake even acting like friends.

I'm startled every time I catch a bit player in multiple roles across the years. LOL. Eleni's grandma looks exactly the same a decade later on ATWT. I'm not sorry---Ross deserved better than some dayplayer giving his eulogy. Then again, he deserved better than that death, period. *rubs hands together* YAY!

The odd thing is, the GL I remember always seemed more invested in Phillip than Rick. While I'm sure there must have been a younger version of Rick, I have never caught a glimpse of him in any of the late 70's stuff online. (and I'm truly amazed there was a teen Rick before MOL. MOL doesn't show up until just before Rick, Beth and Phillip's graduation.) There's plenty of Jarrod Ross' Phillip, and Ed is preoccupied with Chrissie. But Rick could be playing in traffic for all Ed seems to care.

I haven't rewatched the stuff with Abby. Eh, tbh, I wasn't a fan of the character. I do vaguely recall some intensity with Cynthia Watros, but then they moved her on to Josh.

At least they tried with Ed before Michelle (between Chrissie and the child Rita miscarried). I'm unaware of any other child Mike even potentially fathered. It's probably a product of the times, when there wasn't as much time or story to fill. And, tbf, even having siblings doesn't guarantee anything---the Stewarts pretty much died out on ATWT because both Dan and Paul were killed off. I'd grudgingly admit that MOL always hit some kind of wall in "serious" scenes, the writing didn't often give him the ability to stretch either. He was always in GA's shadow.

I'll never understand why Mike and Ed weren't given more children. You can't keep a core family going with one kid.

Now that I'd believe. I wonder what all that was about. It's not like Long didn't keep Reva front and center from day one. Which, I assume, is exactly where Kimmy wanted to be.

I could excuse Long not remembering killing off Hillary (eh, she wasn't a favorite of mine) at the beginning of her tenure. How do you forget writing off (arguably) the face of your show? Who'd won two emmys at that point? I might not adore KZ, but lead actor/actress emmy winners don't grow on trees.

While Josh could be a self-righteous dick, they tended to ramp it up to make Reva the victim, which was annoying. The entire town just excused Reva's dumb ass because she "didn't mean" to hurt anyone, which is usually BS. She just hated getting called out on it. The crap she expected Billy to deal with over Dylan was the epitome of her selfish, "I only really care about Josh" self. I kind of wonder if they simply stopped writing "bad" Josh because it didn't exactly fit Newman. If I had five minutes with Marland's ghost, the two questions I'd ask (right now anyway, lol) are 1) why did you break my Kirk/Iva fan heart, and 2) what were you going to do with Vanessa? Speaking of recasts that are hard to accept, add Jennifer Cooke's Morgan to the list. Granted, Kristen Vigard looks 14 throughtout her time on the show, but Cooke just isn't Morgan.

I don't know why it won't let me edit that post. I get why they would've wanted to update Vanessa's 'do. It's also around this time they cut a foot off Hope's hair. There's a clearer picture of it here. I just don't find it very Vanessa-ish. But I don't think it lasts too long. I think it goes when Wired for Sound bites the dust.

It could have, but I think they only sets they created were Billy's office and then later the restaurant.

Yes, Roger built the Towers and at first planned on naming it after Blake. Once Phillip married Blake, Roger wormed his way into Spaulding and started buying up property around a warehouse down on 5th that Spaulding owned. He was even responsible for a fire that destroyed that area and killed Frank and Harley's Grandfather. Only Spaulding didn't own the property it was built on, they had a 99 year lease that expired in June of '90. Roger pulled a lot of crap to hold on to it. The upshot was that Billy ended up being the heir of the woman who owned it (her name was Ruth Price). When Ruth died, he stole the lease, but foolishly kept it. Billy and Vanessa knew it existed, but couldn't prove it. That is until Reva's post-partum depression had her winding up in Roger's apartment with him taking soft-core-ish pics of her. Roger hid them, but Reva saw where he did and wanted to take them with her. Only she took the lease and not the pictures. Roger thought Billy had them, and on the night of the Towers opening, blackmailed Billy into a swap, the pics for the lease. Billy and Vanessa ended up tricking Roger, swapping the pics for the lease and Roger (thinking he was burning the lease) burned the pics. Billy then claimed ownership of the Towers and outted Roger at the same party. It creates a major crack in Roger/Alex's marriage, it's the night Roger sleeps with Mindy, and it leads to Billy and Vanessa (briefly) reuniting (before Reva's death blows them up again). The Towers is an all purpose building. It has apartments, it leases store space and by the time of the blackout, it has a swanky restaurant at the top. Hamp and Fletcher's restaurant, the Blue Moon is also anchored at the adjoining pier. I'm not sure at what point Billy lost The Towers. I know after Billy goes to jail for shooting Roger, Vanessa is running Lewis Oil, but I'm not sure if that includes the Towers, as Billy owned that separately. Agreed. And the show never successfully replaced that role, imo. I know they tried with Meta, but that never jelled. I'm a little surprised they didn't try and bring back Audrey Peters's Sarah. She may have been a little crustier than they'd want, but at least she had a lot of connections on the show. Vanessa kinda/sorta steps into that role at times, but I don't think the show wanted her to embrace it (in the 90's the way Ross was allowed to once Ed left) since she had a "hot" young husband.

I love your broader frame of reference. I believe I've seen a few clips online of some Eds prior to Mart, but I don't know a lot about the earlier Bauer family dynamics. I guess my equivalent is knowing that Ross, Vanessa and Josh were all manipulators back in the day, and not the scions of propriety they before the end of the '80's. Although I'm still a little confused when Josh turned good. He's still a little scummy after sleeping with Reva and then begging her to run off with him even knowing the child she's carrying is HB's.

I think most people do this with recasts. It depends on who you "knew" first. For me it sounds like a Ellen Dolan/ Ellen Parker situation. Dolan probably fits into the Reardon family a bit better, but Parker embodies the warm matriarch everyone can turn to. LOL...I think P&G sent out a memo---these grandmas are supposed to be warm and fuzzy! in the late 70's- 80's. Nancy Hughes got a lot less peppery around the same time.

Mart is the first Ed I remember. In rewatching some late 70s' episodes, I'm blown away by the difference. I always knew in the back of my mind there was, but there's an intensity with Mart that is more of a natural fit fo the son of a bedrock family than Simon ever manages. And I know it's not really fair to throw Gentry under the bus (I caught a handful of episodes when Vanessa is giving birth to Maureen and had to wonder who the F this sad sack doctor attending to her is, until someone literally calls him Ed...*boggle*) but Van Vleet is a trainwreck. I DID NOT KNOW THIS! *WOW*

I could see him with Trish. I do not understand having Vanessa leer at and sexually harass Tony for basically a year. The only thing I can come up with was in the shuffle after Marland, the HW (which I think is Pat Falken Smith) doesn't want to commit to any new couples.

It's kind of hard to judge, since 1982 episodes are so spotty, so I'm really not even sure if he was a contract player. He never seems to have his own story, but I like him. They could've at least tried him with Katie (who is basically a day player for three years) instead of trying to sell Tony as the be-all end-all. I mean, I liked Greg Beecroft at the time, but not so much on the rewatch. honestly, at this point in '82, I think he's better looking than Robert Newman. An argument with Hillary starts about 3:30. (Please excuse the bad perm someone obviously talked Maeve into...) Sometimes I really do wonder why Peter Simon lasts so long. Then I stumble on some Richard Van Vleet or Robert Gentry in the role...oy vey.

Glad to hear Roger's working on new content. LOL...I loathe Nadine with the heat of a thousand suns, but Nadine/Billy/Vanessa is so soapy. And watching Vanessa clear Fletcher out of her life is my happy place.

Whatever happened to Derek Colby? In the early '80's, he's a lawyer dating Hillary (who's lusting after Tony), but by early '83, Hillary's dating Josh. He's a looker.