P.J.

Not to belabor the point, but it is CBS Sunday Morning, and not exactly catering to the young and hip demographic. I don't think it would be asking a lot to acknowledge the passing of stars that appeared on their network. They are airing the Daytime Emmys again this year (or at least were until the writer's strike, which I assume leaves it up in the air), so they might give half a crap about the soap audience.

While acknowledging her passing was nice, I sarcastically wonder if it would have happened had she passed away on Monday, as opposed to late Wednesday/Thursday.

Holden Snyder, circa 1992 and 2010. Around 1992, he went to NYC to confront Julie about Aaron being his son. He got into an accident and lost his memory. He was missing for months (and presumed dead by the NYPD). Lucinda's PIs discovered him, but she left him there, not telling anyone. Upon learning what her mother had done, Lily "divorced" her mother and nullified her adoption.

In 2010, Holden was carjacked on a trip by an escaped convict. Through Damian's shenanigans, Holden was declared dead so he could make the moves on Lily. Holden escaped and returned to Oakdale just as Lily was marrying Damian in his living room.

Jack Snyder, 2004. Violent criminal Stark attacked Molly in Jack and Carly's Milltown home. To calm a hysterical Molly, Jack took him to the PD in his own vehicle before backup arrived. Stark attacked him with a knife and the car hit a bridge abuttment. Stark was dangling from the car over the river below. Jack managed to pull him back into the car, only to wind up being pulled out and hanging on for his life. Stark tried to send him into the river, but the car ended up falling into the river. He was killed and Jack was presumed dead. He woke up in a small town Missouri hospital weeks later with no memory, latched on to a weepy nurse type and became "Jack Jackson". 

Mason Boccardo, OG Aaron Snyder

18 hours ago, Vee said:

I understood revamping Craig and why he was chosen to shake things up. He'd come on as a villain doing nasty things, I could buy a regression in the character and I thought using him was a smart choice.

And I understood it too---to a point. It was just too big a departure for me. Especially when Block couldn't really seem to connect emotionally with his children. And the continual dumbing down of every woman in his path to allow him to be the biggest stud/starmaker in town was grating. 

It was only when Lindstrom got the role that Craig showed the slightest inkling of humanity.

On 4/30/2023 at 9:07 PM, DRW50 said:

I still shudder at the memory of Block trying to cry. 

You and me both. And the only real reason I felt anything at Bryant's death was Carly and Emily's scene discussing the sudden unfairness of it all, which in the aftermath of 9*11 was even more poignant. Otherwise, that kid was a waste of airtime.

Well, we know Sheffer thought he was single-handedly reinventing the wheel, and we know Jean Passanante shot it out of her mouth as soon as she was hired. 

Personally, while it broke my heart that a legacy child I'd been so invested in at birth was killed off---I was not a fan of the writing for or casting of the character. IMO, his death was partly emmy-bait for Hunt Block, which I believe failed spectacularly. 

@DRW50 @Liberty City   ah...Chris and pornstar/cokehead Alison...that explains why I don't remember him.

On 3/27/2023 at 10:41 AM, Liberty City said:

Dylan Bruce was good in the role, but the story he came in with wasn't right.

I admit, I didn't appreciate Dylan Bruce as much as I should have. I can't recall anything his Chris did. The recast that sunk Chris was Bailey Chase. He looked forty and was dating a teenage Alison. 

Heartbreaking news. She was such a force on-screen, it seems unfathomable that she's gone. Lucinda was a full-on anti-heroine, who infuriated you one moment, and broke your heart the next. It was always clear Liz embraced the contradictions of her character fearlessly.  They don't make them like her anymore. 

17 minutes ago, Darn said:

What’s the timeline of Portia and Taggert’s marriage? Was he supposed to be married to her when on the show in the late 90s/early 2000s? An offscreen wife he never mentioned?

As Vee said, it has to be after, since what broke the marriage was his undercover work trying to get Cyrus.

The Maura West edition

Maura/Kin Shriner/Jon Lindstrom/Wally Kurth/Lynn Herring/Roger Howarth  ATWT/GH

Maura/Michell Stafford/Billy Miller Y&R/GH

I don't know if Maura and Genie Francis and Emme Rylan were all on Y&R at the same time

23 hours ago, ironlion said:

 Yes, Curtis should have did the conception math but Portia should've obtained a DNA test given her suspicions to avoid this 20 year blow up. Curits did have a right to get to know a child that was his (if it's his). Plus, did Portia know about Curtis' troubled background before messing around with him? If so, it was crazy not using potection (both of them are at fault for this) while cheating with someone caughtup with drugs/illegal actvities. 

 Curtis did the conception math, as soon as he realized Trina was Portia's daughter and the right age. Portia told him he wasn't the father.

GH timelines are so wonky, I don't know if Curtis' addiction was before, during or after their affair. 

13 hours ago, MarlandFan said:

While I feel Hunt Block was very sexy in his "Knots" days, I'm apparently in the minority in preferring Bryce over Hunt.  Bryce -- while not sexy/hot in the traditional sense -- had a confidence and swagger that was VERY sexy and far-outshined the wooden Block.  (lol ..."wooden" Block.)  Sex with Bryce/Craig was probably way more better.

maybe in the thread, but Block was a controversial recast. I never accepted him in the role. And I didn't find him appealing in any sense of the word. Or empathetic. Even in the scenes around Bryant's death, I felt nothing for him. 

It's probably the best example of the damage that can be done by the hiring/firing carousel. I think there were three different sets of writers helming that story, and none of them paid attention to what the other wrote. 

And for being a thrice-married woman (in about fourteen months) she was practically a nun. Her marriage to Hal collapsed in months, she didn't sleep with John (thank God...) and she slept with Brad TWICE.  

@NothinButAttitude KATIE! I still f'in hate her. LOL, even Kim wasn't spared---she could take in Molly, Alison and Katie. UGH.

@DRW50 I'm not sure Delores even got an exit. I think Brad skipped town after outing Parker's paternity and she just disappeared, never to contact her son Jack again.

41 minutes ago, soapfan770 said:

If I right Strike 1 was Fashions business failure in Hong Kong, strike 2 was the bizarre Lisa/John/Carly triangle complete with drunk Lisa trying to stop the wedding, and strike 3 was when Carly had to go work for Lisa as the ladies restroom cleaning attendant (!) following Parker’s paternity reveal.

 

Worse is they pointlessly temp cast Carmen Duncan as Lisa to bash Carly in those scenes with Sarah Brown’s Julia. I don’t think Lisa and Carly ever interacted again after that for the rest of the show’s run.

Carly lived with Lisa after she returned from Hong Kong and lost Lisa's money. I think Carly even paid her back once she got the $50 million. I'm sure it was mostly a plot point to keep Carly penniless and dependent on Craig for any success. But it was just so un-Lisa. Lisa put up with the stupidest slut of all time, Julie Wendell, but forgiving Carly was a bridge too far.

IIRC, it was Duncan's Lisa who told JuliaII about Carly's ONS with Mike. So Lisa was needed, but it was one of the nastiest things Lisa did in her last 20 years on the show. And no, they didn't interact much after that---Lisa was pretty much relegated to advising the teen scene thereafter.

36 minutes ago, NothinButAttitude said:

 

That unnerved me too. Lisa's hatred of Carly was just stupid. It would've made the most since for Lisa to be a kindred spirit to Carly as they were so much alike. Again, Lisa should've been one of the people in Carly's corner trying to steer her right as she had done stupid stuff in the past. 

Maybe Lisa thought she was going to lose the "most married woman in Oakdale" crown or something. But yeah, Lisa was never nice (that I recall) to Carly again. Even John, who loathed Carly, was nice to her for a while after the Spa kidnapping.

I don't even remember what lead to Lisa kicking Carly to the curb. (I think it had to do with John, of all people...) and it just kept on and on through Jack's amnesia, when Lisa was about the only person in Oakdale who didn't find it repulsive for Julia II to keep Jack from his wife and two small children. That tune quickly changed when Julia set her sights on Holden.

I think Maura can pull off any haircut. The baby bangs annoyed me, but short hair was a thing back in the late 90s. I think Maura's is the shortest I ever saw on anyone on a soap, but Lesli usually stuck to a short layered 'do. Specifically, that pic was from early '98, when Holden tricked Molly into thinking he was marrying her. And it's actually a tad longer than when she returned in Sept 97. 

KMH frankly looked better to me with shorter hair. Hers was baby fine and looked wispy if it was longer.

I don't know if the sudden lack of millionaires had to do with pushing the Snyders, or an overcorrection from the Marland era when millionaires moved to Oakdale with alarming regularity, or Sheffer setting Craig up as the epitome of alpha-maleness. 

I don't think Molly had any ambition--she was out for dick. But Carly had ambition, and I hated that a lot of her story for years boiled down to her trusting Craig, getting lied to and winding up with nothing. I can't name another character who had so many fortunes slip through her fingers.

"HR's Lily didn't make me roll my eyes unlike MB's Lily, who though I loved her, would make my eyeballs roll at a constant."

LOL...same. I know people love MB, but I thought her "emotion" moments were over the top. 

I think Lily was fine with being in business---just not the cutthroat way of Lucinda's "big business" world.

On 1/3/2023 at 7:31 PM, NothinButAttitude said:

^

This.

 

Carly (early on) struck me as someone who would've wanted a man with some status and money behind his name. I got her initially wanting Mike to do one on Rosanna, but after Carly bedded him, she should've easily moved onto her next conquest while dangling the affair over Mike's head until he spilled the beans himself. 

 

Carly and Molly, who came from poor backgrounds really strayed from the soap vixen role, which was typically to marry up. Instead, it seemed like they settled for the lower or middle class men just to p*ss off their heiress rivals. 

Looking back on it, ATWT fell into this trope where the young women weren't allowed to be successful. "Vixens" like Carly, Molly, and Emily weren't allowed to have careers for more than a story arc. They were usually scheming for money. Their men/babydaddys would always be able to threaten them into behaving by taking away their kids. And while Lily wasn't ever broke (or technically a vixen), she ceased being any kind of business woman, and after Rose's death kept teetering on the edge of mental instability.

ATWT had a dearth of businessmen after a while, and if a man had money, they were a creep (think the horrible BJ Green.) HB's Craig never really had his own money, and I can't even think of a nice "rich" guy that showed up in town past '95. 

On 1/3/2023 at 11:03 PM, Vee said:

... and scene after scene of Carly and Molly, usually together. They looked exactly the same with these severe lesbian haircuts except for their hair color. They behaved exactly the same. They were constantly 'you go girl!'ing each other or high-fiving and complaining about everyone else. They were a matching set. I was bored to tears by both of them and could not understand their purpose.

It took me years to take interest in either Maura or Lesli Kay after that.

t

LOL...I'm not sure what to do with this. Although it brings to mind a photo shoot Lesli and Maura did with slicked back hair and cigars. I don't recall Lesli's hair being ultra short like Maura's was circa '97-99, but I always wanted to believe Maura kept her hair short at first because she hated the Monroe-esque hair they gave her during her first run. 

21 hours ago, wonderwoman1951 said:

one thing that always bothered me about carley and jack was that they were never connected to the hughes.

so instead of a completely new character, here’s a thought: they could have  michael play lisa’s son, scott eldridge, who then connects with carly, who also connects with andy dixon, which would have connected carly with the hughes family and set up a triangle involving both lisa and kim. 

I don't think Michael would've been seen as old enough to play Scott either.  Admittedly, recasting with Doug Wert de-soarsed him a little, and Carly interacted with Scott before she left in '95. But I can't picture Michael (as Scott) looking old enough to have been Lucinda's ex-lover.

While I want to believe that Michael would've succeeded in any role he got,  I'm glad he got to flesh out his own character.  Sometimes recasts get bogged down with their previous history.

17 hours ago, Paul Raven said:

Llanview???

But even the Snyders were decimated. 

Seth, Ellie, Caleb etc were forgotten. Emma was cast aside.

Why  not have Michael Park be Seth?

They invented Jack and Brad -who when played by Austin Peck bore no relation to the original actor or character.

Michael was much too young when he was hired to have played Seth. The logical choice might have been Caleb, but then to have to deal with all of Caleb's backstory, without Julie? Eh..

14 hours ago, Franko said:

Geez, was it ATWT or was it summer stock for soap veterans?

Well, to be fair, if they're going back to Carl T Evens, that's nearly a decade of ticking off soap vets. He played Nick Scudder in like 2001-ish. I think ATWT really started hitting the cycle hard post AW in '99, when they tried luring AW viewers and then got stuck with Tom Eplin. The soaps all did this---B&B used to drive me crazy bringing in soap vets, hyping them, and cutting them loose in six months, mostly because they wouldn't be a part of the endless Brooke/Ridge/Taylor triangle from hell.  

4 hours ago, NothinButAttitude said:

Yes, I agree that it always bothered me that Carly never really had a stellar romance outside of Jack. She always ended up being the one getting the short end of the stick. This is why in the later years, if they weren't going to have her happy with Jack or provide her with a stable relationship, immerse Carly in stories about her opening a fashion house with Lisa and Barbara (which would've provided tons of drama given the three women's history with each other) or stories about her kids or Rosanna. But I stand firm that they flopped hard with Wally Kurth. The man had 2 successful runs on 2 popular soaps (GH and DAYS) in 2 popular pairings(Lois/Ned and Adrienne/Justin). If I were on staff and we were so adamant about stunt casting, it would've been stunt casting done right. 

When it comes to Stuart Damon, he seemed fine at that point. He didn't even need to be Don, just an older male lead that was going to stick around a bit longer. I would've had him in the orbits of Lucinda and Lisa--both women vying for his attention. 

Just all this talk about what could've been aggravates me b/c I feel out of all the soaps that were canceled in the last decade, I feel like ATWT had the components to be saved (along with P&G/Televest selling the show to CBS like they asked) if TIIC actually used the show's rich history.  I will never understand how these people make it so hard to compile a compelling story for a 50+ year old show. 

I agree---ATWT was in the best shape of the P&G shows at the time of cancellation. (I can't comment on the ABC or NBC ones)  GL just made me sad the last three or four years when I tried watching it.

Re Carly: it just seems short-sighted. I'm not sure how Exec's make decisions like that---imagine how different Kim's history would have been if they'd just jockeyed her back and forth from Bob to John, and there was no Dan. (I now Nick Andropolous was problematic and unpopular with fans, but still---he wasn't a total creep.)  Poor Carly---she couldn't pick a nice guy, (I guess I'm excluding Hal, or at least putting him in a special category. She was never a passionately in love with him ) OR get ahead in business. 

22 hours ago, NothinButAttitude said:

 

Can I just say that it ALWAYS bothered me that Wally Kurth was wasted as Sam the rapist? I always felt that they should've recast him as Seth or Caleb, as he had good chemistry with Maura. 

I always felt the show wasted Billy Warlock and Stuart Damon too. Yes, they were snatch and grabs, but they could've easily been cast and legacy characters instead of stupid characters no one cared about. Stuart could've easily been a Don recast. And Billy could've easily been Scott Eldridge or Duke Kramer. 

 

 

I found using Kurth that way curious too. I wonder if he was only interested in a three month arc (I don't think he was on longer than that, I think he first appears around Thanksgiving, and he's dead by Valentine's Day or so).  And God knows I would've much rather sat through that than either Carly/Holden or Carly/Craig round 20.  Even though I stan CarJack, it was never fair that Jack continually got serious (if doomed) romances while Carly fell for liars and cheats.  I was much more intrigued by that short-term guy Neal (who was interested in Carly before she fell for Holden's BS) who seemed like a really NICE guy.

I'm not sure why ATWT would've recast Don almost twenty years after being written off the show. Yes, I know---but even as I knew the history, I sometimes forgot Bob had a brother. I always remembered Penny, as she was brought up. Maybe if Lisa had been a bigger presence on the show, they could've brought back Scott or the same with Duke if LB hadn't left.

How was Damon's health at that point? I don't remember him being very active on the show.

4 hours ago, Kane said:

I might be thinking of someone else, but wasn't her character the wife or girlfriend of the guy who held Holden prisoner when he was presumed dead (during the period when Lily remarried Damian after about a week and a half of widowhood)?

That's correct.

1 hour ago, soapfan770 said:

No worries thanks for correcting me. I think I remember that now but I was so in and out with the show at the time I didn’t care for the show trying bring in stars only to waste them on villain of the month stories either. 

Carly and Jack are still my jam.