P.J.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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..

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. 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.

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. That's correct.

Carly and Jack are still my jam.

Not to nitpick, but Carly didn't sleep with "creepy ventriloquist guy". Sam (play by Wally Kurth), tried to rape Carly and Parker stopped him with a gunshot. Sam's lover Kit came and finished him off.

ATWT 60's Lisa 70s Kim 80s Betsy, Sierra, Lily 90's Lily 00s Carly, Katie, Gwen

I'll up that---Craig and Dani, ATWT.

ATWT-- Craig ---Scott Bryce's version in the 80's got the rare, full on emotional transformation from bastard to repentant transformed hero. I can' even argue with HB's bastardized version, even if I loathed him. I'd also add Steve Andropoulous in the early 80's, Holden in the late 80's and Jack Snyder. Certainly Bob Hughes and John Dixon in the 70s. GL Philip Spaulding. His was the only character who seemed to get as much focus as Reva in the mid/late 80's. Roger Ed (Mart Hulswit's version in the 70's) they certainly tried with that awful Richard Winslow/Jeffery O'Neill guy. Jonathan (Tom Pelphrey double ick) Gus Aitoro (ick...)

That's because we'd spent like two years invested in them before "cute little Ellie" slid under him and Marland blew them up. And as I remember it, there was no real angst---Kirk barely seemed to care who he was sleeping with. Yes...still salty.

The Lily reveal is what everyone brings up, but I thought her romance with Kirk was better. Their breakup broke my heart. "Damn you---damn you for making me want and hope for things I could never, ever have with a man like you..." I constantly complain about the writing for Iva in the ATWT thread, but never, ever about Lisa's performance. She never phoned her scenes in.

Sigh---when I saw "ATWT Alum Passes", I surely didn't expect it to be Lisa. Morgan/Kelly/Nola is the first triangle I really got involved in, and I remember when Bea stopped Nola dead in her tracks and confronted her about her lies. So sad.

Julie had shown up on Andy's doorstep pregnant, and he started paying her bills. Lucinda found out and tried to pay Julie to claim Holden was the father to stop Holden and Lily's wedding. I think Andy signed the birth certificate so Aaron could be put up for adoption. Per usual, half the town lied to keep poor Lily's feelings from being hurt.

After Lily found out Lucinda had known that Holden was alive in NYC with amnesia, but hadn't told anyone. Around 92-93.

Well, I assume that after Martin bought Lily, he and Lucinda still went through the legal system to adopt her. There's always some shady lawyer involved.

I didn't think it was a retcon. I thought Whit had blackmailed Martin with the knowledge of Lily's illegal adoption. Lucinda could hardly go around telling the truth about Martin's suicide. She was keeping Lily's adoption a secret.

Eduardo died the day they were married, if memory serves. But she did love him very much. Unlike Whit, when she stopped using McCall before his body was even cool. If the Earl Mitchell Center had still been being mentioned, maybe she would've returned to using that.

I think so. Especially since Damian popped in and out of town that last decade. Somewhere along the way they dropped McCloskey as Nancy's last name though.

I could understand Susan retaining Stewart---it was her professional name, and the era in which she divorced, women commonly kept their husband's surname. I know I wouldn't have known who "Susan Burke" was prior to her eighties return. And while it's a trifle odd that the show used Stewart for Alison, in essence, she was entitled to it, as Emily was her biological mother. Kim certainly never went back to Sullivan after her myriad of divorces and widowhoods.

I've never even heard of anyone who described Bob as "unfeeling male obstinacy" walking. Although, this was the 60/70s, and I know around the same time he didn't want his wife Jennifer to resume her career.

I won't disagree that Lily could've put more into her relationships with her own family---but other than Lucinda, her family wasn't stable. She found out about Sierra as a teen, and then she was off and married and spent long periods presumed dead. There was a while when Lucinda and John were married where they had Andy, Duke and Bianca in the house as well, but that dissolved with the marriage. I can't even recall her and Andy ever being very chummy, tbh. Lily was an attention vaccuum. She had the Snyders, Cal, Josh, whoever her boyfriend/lover was at the time, and eventually Rose. She was borderline narcissistic. But so was Lucinda.