Dan

Just dropping in to correct some timing. Holly was dropped first but it was announced mid February 2003 just as she was appearing in the Reva stalker story. I only know this cause that was the first hint that we were in for a terrible ride under Ellen Weston.

I know it's been so many years already, but I'm still heartbroken by the promise of the early months of the Conboy tenure with Taggart/Culliton. The writing was crisper, took some actual risk with more character driven scenes. The drab brightness and pastel colors were gone and Conboy had the show looking so much nicer already. If Taggart had been allowed to stay and do her thing, it may not have led to a glory period, but maybe a more longterm period of respectability was possible. Instead, Taggart was fired, Weston was hired, Holly immediately moved to recurring and the bottom fell out. I still wonder what could have been. Maybe this sounds picky, but I felt like I could have accepted more of the Peapack years and it's growing pains if only they would have never fired their music department and hired Gabrielle Solarino to basically provide elevator muzak for the show and ill-timed licensed music. Pointing to 2 examples off the top of my head. I remember really being engaged with Justin Deas' performance when Coop died. It was the first not phoned in performance I had seen from him in years and it was completely interrupted by "Downtown" coming on and pulling me out of the scene. It really called for a great somber cue, and they botched it. And last was the finale. I made it through almost the entire episode not shedding a tear. But when Josh and Reva's last music cue came on? That's what did it. Not the love can save the world crap. None of the Dawson's Creek-lite nonsense they had going on. An actual classic soap cue that pulled back the years on me and reminded me how long I had been invested in this show. (Not nearly as long as some of the posters here, but still). I really think I could have tolerated more if they had just fixed that one element.

I know there is alot to not forgive Kreizman for, but I can't believe he would dangle Holly and Alan doing a business deal with Blake and Sebastian (Meh on Seb) thinking about taking over Spaulding in one episode and just not follow up ever again. The greatest idea he ever had as a headwriter on GL and he backed away from it like it was made of plutonium.

Here is a fun scene from 1989. I think this is the first Maureen/Roger scene. I think the rest was just Maureen seeing the entire town against him and being removed from the worst part of Roger's reign of terror.

Funny you should mention Bridget cause I do remember hearing some scuttlebutt years ago that the Bridget Nadine baby stuff was some of JER's influence I do not know precisely how true that is, but it tracks.

To be honest, I don't really remember who that is. I'm surprised SOC lasted as long as it did. It was pretty much a cess pool even when I was active in the soap world way back when.

The technical term is rape by deception. Because Jon purposely deceived Tammy regarding his true identity and this information could change whether she consented or not, it can be considered as rape. To be fair to Hurst, she was never the sole headwriter of the show and wrote as a team with Gold, Dunn, and Kreizman. In fact, I'm inclined to credit her with the rare flashes of good material in the show's final year to her as compared to the material for the rest of those hacks.

So speaking for just myself, there are a couple of reasons. 1) I could never get past the rape. Jon concealed his identity and effectively raped Tammy and then we were all just supposed to forget about it. And let's not forget the cousin angle. 2) Honestly the acting and the almost zealous over praising of the coupling (that ignored point #1) . Between SG being kind of just there and TP chewing every piece of scenary he could, I could not get over it. And BTW yes Otalia was generally awful. I'm kind of glad Olivia/Holly never happened. I'm pretty certain the sexual tension and chemistry would have melted all of our TV sets.

Curious question, did GH stop crediting the writers and directors in the cold open or do the streaming feeds just cut them out? Was looking for the writing credits out of curiosity and didn't see them.

In celebration, I went ahead and found PM's first credited appearance on GL. Someone many pages back said you could tell a PM script from the get go and this one is truly no exception. Could tell from the first interaction with Nick and Eve. Hope this means good things for daytime. I'll be rooting from the sidelines.

Looks like the yahoo rec.arts.tv.soaps group is still archived for the most part but it's a bit of a pain to dig through. They do have some recap threads dating back to the early 90s.

This is probably going to be something of a hot take, considering the number of decades long GL fans here in the post. But after watching some episodes from the late 70s and early 80s and contrasting that to later in the decade and the early 90s, I have to say getting rid of cue cards might have been the best production change of the entire decade. Maybe it veered soap dialogue to less of a natural and more stylized conversation between characters, but it's more of a entertaining scene overall. And it really made the actors elevate their game and gave more creative energy to some of the great script writers that came out of the 80s. Also, I cannot get through a soap episode these days and that is part cause the dialogue in all 4 remaining shows is absolutely basic soap-speak and lacking any kind of originality.

And so many of them undeserved IMO.

I thought I remembered that being earlier in the month but you're right. In fairness, anything with Carmen and Danny/Michelle while St. Alban in the role could put anyone in a coma along with Carmen. 😂

Alot of the episodes from 2003 are missing the end credits but I did find one from April 2003 that shows Bailey credited as Sandy and another actor credited as the voice of the "Mole." As far as Billy Kay, I don't believe he was ever on contract and he also had a bunch of other projects in 2002, including Halloween Resurrection so that could have factored into the decision, but we all know he wasn't a Conboy-type actor so his days would probably have been numbered either way. I do remember Kay's last episode was probably the Christmas 2002 show.

Your timing is correct. And I absolutely agree on the point that the Taggert/Gold regime basically blundered into the fall. Yes there was some improvement but it really wasn't until Culliton got there when things really started to focus. But that's generally Carolyn Culliton's reputation of really giving a show some polish it wouldn't have otherwise. Hell, between her, Stephen Demorest, and Hal Corley would Hogan Sheffer's first year at ATWT be as memorable? Probably not based on the rest of Sheffer's career. One thing I really appreciated at the time was the show seemed to bring back those scenes between friends (or former friends) that didn't really move the plot but just seemed like organic story building. The kind that this show was absolutely the best at doing. I remember a wonderful sequence of scenes with Beth and Olivia at a skating rink just talking about the couple intrigue in their lives. It didn't move plot in the slightest, but it was an insightful conversation between 2 former friends. Don't get me wrong, even at that time, the show still had it's problems both in characters and plot, but it really felt that it could have been a springboard moment for the show if someone cared enough to see it through. It's the last time for me, being really too young to enjoy the Curlee tenure, that the show felt like the show I loved.

The story part of that was the culmination of the previous year's worth of work from the writing team. San Cristobel had been written out of the show in February, Richard was killed and the stronger elements of the story, Edmund and Olivia were mixed with the Spaulding story quite successfully. Carmen had finally been sent packing in November, bringing the mob story to an (albeit temporarily since Weston would bring it back) end. The Tory nonsense was over and Blake and Ross seemed well on the way toward a reunion. The show started to refocus toward the people we always cared about and brought about new couplings that seemed interesting. Relationships with Cassie and Bill brought new spark to Danny and Michelle that hadn't been seen since Joie Lenz left the role with the added satisfaction of royally pissing off 2 fan bases. The beginning of the Reva stalker story and Gus' parentage were interesting even if the resolution to both were botched by Weston. Phillip had softened a bit from having the stick up his ass from earlier in the year. Ed and Holly seemed to be heading towards a reunion. The Conboy came in and got rid of the Rauch pastels and bright lights and, at least initially, it was a breath of fresh air. The story was still top notch and the added production value seemed to really make something of the show. And then it all went to pieces.

Correct. Weston played Robin Lang briefly in the early 60s.

I think the last official episode they were credited was the 28th with the bomb going off during the call in show. I remember exactly where I was when I figured out that the Conboy era was going to go straight to hell. I was at a Safeway looking through a copy of SOD and saw that Maureen Garrett was being taken off contract. Rauch for all of the negative things about him always stood up for Holly and Blake/Ross being on contract. And with Holly finally getting more screen time in early 2003 and then that news, I know my enjoyment of the show was going to drop. I just don't think I correctly estimated by how much. The late 2002/early 2003 episodes were the best period of GL that I watched live and I wish like hell it could have continued. I really think the show might have been saved if it had and that's the tragedy. I have a hunch and I've never been able to prove it, but I think the Maryanne Carruthers story is probably a David Kreizman idea. Besides her brief role on the show as an actress in the 60s she didn't seem to have a real working knowledge of the history of the show. Considering how many past stories that arc ripped off, it would have had to come from someone with at least a working knowledge of the show. Kreizman had been with the show since 94 and showed in his own tenure that he did know the shows history even if his execution was just at the level of really bad fan fiction.

I found it posted under username Blake Marler, but it seems like a whole lot of the bandstandmike archive seems to be there. As far as the no last name, that's just a remnant I haven't changed from my days wayyyyyyyyyy back when I was on the SON staff as a mod/GL columnist. We all had our first name. It's been a long time. 😂 Appreciate you all! Wish life was a bit less hectic that I could get here more often!

I don't think there is any real juicy gossip about it. Donna just mentioned the Nursery Rhyme stalker mystery from 1998/1999 that completely trashed Holly's character but fit in with the archetype that Rauch/E&B/MADD followed that women could only be saints or one-note, conniving psychopaths.

That's @Soapsuds. I don't often get here since I have no interest whatsoever of the current soaps, but I always try to stop by when I can. I still love going into the archives and I'm thrilled that alot of the bandstandmike archive got reposted to YouTube to enjoy. I will still go down that rabbit hole at times

BTW since the Nursery Rhyme stalker mess got mentioned. Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't Jenna killed off because Fiona spoke out about the MZ firing or is that just scuttle butt that got speculated?

That scene with the obvious doll going over the ledge might have been one of the most unintentionally-funny scenes I've seen. I am not ashamed to admit I cackled. That was still Esensten and Brown in late 1998-early 1999.

I'm inclined to believe most of GL's awful writing post-2004 is squarely on Kreizman's shoulders but one thing I've never gotten is why the show relied so long on so many former failed headwriters in the top tiers of the writing staff, namely Lloyd Gold and Chris Dunn. Their work was not great but were never fired. Just demoted. Hell even Eleanor Labine lasted past her mom's tenure for multiple years. As far as JLH, I haven't seen enough to condemn or praise her, but if she was responsible for the brief bits of good in the show's final few weeks, then good on her.