P.J.

Well, if anything could make an actor unhappy, the crappy "Nola pushes you into a cellar and has movie fantasies for like a month" might. As brilliant as Lisa was, that story was straight up awful. Not to mention at some point, chewing scenery with Kim Zimmer. oh, I recall the 17th century/past life story. YUCK.

SHUT. THE. FRONT. DOOR!! I'm just now learning Jessica's father on SOAP was Rev. Rutledge???

Memory fails on how long he was on GL, but his lack of nuance started way before Peapack. (Ironically, being "yelly" is the same criticism I have about Scott Holmes' last 15 years on ATWT)

I will say, having watched him on GL and rewatching (but not exactly remembering) some of his work on ATWT, he got very "yelly" in his acting. He was a young breath of fresh air in his ATWT scenes. I've seen the Tom of the late '70's, who seems almost as old as Bob. Deas is just vibrating with energy. Maybe he needed stronger direction on GL. Maybe his ego after SB made him somewhat "untouchable". But the last years on GL were not good.

Guiding Light-- Jennifer Gati/Paige Turco/Wendy Moniz as Dinah. Gati was tough and stubborn, Turco was soft to the point of squishiness, and Moniz seemed hard and selfish. Elizabeth Dennehy to Sherri Stringfield as Blake. GAWD, Dennehy was miscast in the role. Stringfield fit perfectly as Maureen Garrett's daughter. Blake went from being a cold fish to a scheming neurotic troublemaker. As the World Turns-- Brad K/John LoPrieno/Austin Peck as Brad. #1 had a laid back zen vibe, #2 was evil and suddenly insanely possessive of Carly, and Peck came back as a bum/airhead. Honestly, just about every recast of the Goutman era. They all changed personalities with little to no explanation. Craig, Dusty and Paul are the most egregious, but even Mike and Meg didn't carry over much of the established personality of their characters. Y&R Eileen Davidson/Brenda Epperson as Ashley. Sorry---Epperson's Ash was as dumb as a box of rocks.

LOL...thanks! I don't think I've ever seen any of the Nola/Roger-in-disguise story.

Rewatching Quint and Nola's romance, and while I love them (Lisa is so young...) Vanessa is a HOOT reacting to everything going on with a snobbish, cynical exhaustion at how happy they and everyone all around them are.

He could at least have played that with some conviction. There was a lot of backstage turmoil after Marland's death. Everything seemed to bottom out in 95-96. They hung on to horrible actors (ugh...that friend of Sarah Kasnoff), they let popular actors go, there was a writer carousel that seemed to go in different directions the minute they took over. Other than Ben and Carly, I don't think any new characters lasted.

Carl T Evans who played the first adult Alan Michael was. He was a good actor, but not the powerhouse that Hearst was. Michael Dietz--not so much. And the last one, whose name I can't remember, I'm not sure it's fair to judge him. The writers didn't really even know what to do with him. I can't recall a thing he did, other than workout to "Fortunate Son" on an Inside the Light.

That's so nice! Merry Christmas to everyone too!

I kind of doubt anyone other than the Eldridges were brought up. I wonder if they deliberately didn't make Scott evil because of Joe Breen's GL stint as crazy Will Jefferies.

Thanks! I am amazed how much late 70's-early 80's stuff is up, and how good the quality is. It does take some maddening jumps though.

Man, let me tell you. In the back of my head, I knew that Vanessa and Ross started out as schemers. But I missed a lot having to go to school. Vanessa is scheming for the likes of Ben McFarrin while Ross is setting his sights on Amanda is blowing my mind.

well, that's a brutal review.

Lately I've fallen down the rabbit hole, and catching a lot of early Vanessa. (OH. MY. GOD. I'd forgotten what a trouble maker she was.) There's a lot of early 80's up, but I can't find her arrival in Springfield. Is it up?

lol...you must be right. I thought it was closer than that.

When Tom Eplin got shifted over to ATWT, he quickly took the place of Tom Wiggin's Kirk as Lucinda's sounding board/go to executive. Kirk was probably already on borrowed time, but it still rankled.

I don't think all the Chris's were goofballs, but each recast went in wildly different directions. Korver was young and stupid, Chase was too old and horny for barely past teenage Alison, Bruce was mostly shirtless, Cosgrove didn't really have enough time to be much of anything. And in hindsight, I don't think Chris being an issue for Bob and Kim was out of left field. Kim had always had a kind of blind spot when it came to her kids. There was a parallel between how Bob and Kim fought over Andy's issues (alcoholism and his faking paralysis) and Chris' irresponsibility. It just wasn't as well set up. Undervalued legacy child: DANIEL HUGHES---while Parker was always a focal point in Carly's story, and by his teenage years was having sex and getting married, Daniel was rarely more than a sleeping lump on Emily's shoulder and got shipped off to boarding school, never to be heard from again. They even gave Em a surprise adult geek son and she was obsessed with giving Paul a child before or instead of Meg.

Eeeeeeh...yeah, I don't see it either. The only reason I was ok with Hal/Em was that Em was pretty much OOC for their time together. I normally found KMH brittle and neurotic, and nearly completely unsympathetic. Boy, Caso must not have been around for her Em, because her Em slept with anything that wasn't nailed down.

I'm not sure how big an age difference there was supposed to be between Nick and Steve. IIRC, part of the reason Nick was killed off was negative viewer reaction to his romance with Kim.

Nick and Steve had always been at odds. Nick had blamed Steve for his wife and daughter's deaths in a fire (the wife turned up alive later). Steve had had an affair with her. He had stolen a necklace so they could run away before she was presumed dead. Then Steve quickly got involved with Carol, but ended up in jail for smuggling drugs for James. After Steve got out, Nick refused to stake Steve in a trucking business. Steve and Betsy ended up growing close and she offered him her trust fund. Nick thought Steve was using Betsy. They couldn't stay away from each other, Nick followed them to a secret picnic. Nick confronted Steve, they had a terrible fight, and Nick had a heart attack. Nick then extracted the promise from Betsy to stay away from Steve before he died. Which is why Betsy got involved with Craig. *This seems like a lot of story for the two years that Nick was on screen. He had saved Melinda from a fire before she wound up dying in the lake. And between Carol and Betsy, Steve had an affair with Maggie. Which is weird, because I thought she was involved with Frank.

Nick (Kim's husband) and Steve were half-brothers. Frank was their cousin. Steve's father was Michael Christopher, who had been convicted of being a Russian spy (or something.) It's unclear from my brief persual of the book when Steve became aware that he had a different father, before or after Nick's death. I'm not really sure---but Bob was having feelings for Kim around the time she got involved with Nick Andropolous. He died in '82. I have this vague recollection of Kim and Bob being a couple that was always teased between other romances. (Sort of like Carly/Jack but a lot less dysfunctional...lol)

I hadn't really thought about it in those terms, because it wasn't that her family didn't believe Iva. Seth, Caleb and Holden were never really comfortable with Josh hanging around (from what I recall). I do think part of the reason Iva always compromised was her lingering problems with self-esteem. It was like part of her was frozen at thirteen, and stuck at looking to Emma for approval. Not only did the relationship with John cause problems, but her keeping the Aaron secret. It was the only secret she kept in the decade she was on the show, and you'd have thought she'd murdered someone from Emma and Lily's reactions. No, I'm sure Marland wasn't thinking in terms of Iva still enduring the abuse. He was very into characters getting therapy and being "whole" again. Hopefully, had he continued with the show, he could have given Iva a better sense of self than she ended up getting. BTW, it's around the second anniversary of Lisa Brown's passing.

Poor Iva, constantly being stuck making those around her comfortable with their lack of concern for her feelings. I'd forgotten she was Ellie's maid of honor. UGH. Is it just ATWT that had this obsession with exes proving there are no hurt feelings with weird proofs of "acceptance"? Attending weddings/naming of godparents/etc? It's twisted that Iva was forced to be in both her sister's weddings. And I keep thinking of Carly having to sit through Jack's wedding to Janet with this plastic smile on her face while Jack seemed to be more focused on her than his bride.

See also: Shawn Christian.