Wendy

A.K.A. Dr. Liz Rodgers, Medical Examiner on Law & Order and Law & Order: Criminal Intent! Love her. Hendrix can deliver a quip like no other.

Julie is a tie to the show's first core family, the Hortons. The granddaughter of Tom and Alice Horton. Why the hell should she be written off?! Want to get rid of dead weight? Leo, Kristen, and EJ should be the first to go. The latter two should have been gone ages ago. Used to be villains caused trouble then vanished until the next scheme. Instead, the idiot hacks tried to legitimize these characters as functioning members of Salem society and...no. Just freakin' no.

I finished watching the first episode of The Pitt (excellent show, by the way!), and the credits had AW alum Joanna Going in the guest roles. Was surprised that she played the sick mother of a suspicious teen son. Time marches on, but I didn't even recognize her! She doesn't look bad, just very different/older than how I remembered her. Inevitable for all of us...

I am! And I agree, it's VERY realistic. Apparently, real doctors and nurses that watch sing its praises regarding said realism. Noah Wyle was on Colbert the other night, and based on audience reaction, they like the show, too. But it is definitely not "fluffy" like Grey's Anatomy. Still, if one like a good medical drama with great characterization with a healthy dose of gore? This is the show for them.

Florida remains Florida, but thank God Elon's cash didn't buy victory in Wisconsin! Congratulations to State Supreme Court Justice-Elect Susan Crawford! (The media seemed stunned at how quickly this was called. Indeed, it seemed like Crawford wiped the floor with Schimel.)

Unfortunately, Kim Delaney has been troubled for decades, what with her issues with alcohol and losing acting gigs. A shame. I loved her as Jenny Gardner as only an 11/12-year-old could.

Coster excelled at playing villains! One memorable role was on Law & Order: Criminal Intent as a Serbian guy named Simon Matic, that terrorized the family of a man that owed money by kidnapping his wife and two daughters, raping the oldest, in the episode, "Homo Homini Lupus", in the show's first season (although he was also on the Mothership and probably SVU; he seemed to be a franchise favorite!). I totally understand why daytime also used him to play menacing characters!

The Hollywood Graveyard channel on YouTube has uploaded another video today, and this one features the final resting place of Anne Heche (Vicky/Marley Love). If you want to see it, I marked the video to start at her segment. If you're inclined to watch the whole thing, other notable names in this one include Paul Sorvino, Marsha Hunt, Burt Reynolds, James Michael Tyler (Gunther in Friends), and Paul Reubens, a.k.a. PeeWee Herman.

Right about now, I wish I was Canadian! (Well, technically, I sort of am since I have some Canadian ancestry, but you get the idea!)

Some good news to report in a special Pennsylvania election for the 36th district. It has gone blue! And this was an area that Trump won by double digits - not to mention a seat held by Republicans for 46 years: https://www.wgal.com/article/pa-special-election-results-state-senate-36th/64272825

Cool, thanks!

Don't we all feel so safe and secure with this clusterfock at the helm?! Yeah...me, neither.

Indeed! I even posted a clip of that in Hauser's thread.

Oh, right. But the point stands.

Yeah, I think the Dobsons allowed their bitterness to overshadow the show. Like it or not, things moved on without them for years. And then for them to return and wanting to "reset" the characters did no one any favors. I recall - in one of the preview things for the soaps - they were prattling on about Mason being captivated by Katrina [Maria Ellingsen], the Capwell German houseguest (who seemed to be shoved into the younger blonde role that was once Kelly's but with Eileen Davidson cast, Kelly was shoved into the Eden slot!), saying that she would remind Mason of Mary. I know Mason and Mary were popular, but 1. Lane Davies' Mason was gone, 2. the spectre of Mary was given closure in 1989 when LD's Mason went to heaven, and 3. Maria Ellingsen looked waaaay too young next to Gordon Thomson. Oh, and with Cruz/Eden no more, dismantling Mason/Julia would have been catastrophic, IMO. Apparently, someone agreed, because despite that preview, Katrina was thrown at Dash Nichols (which wasn't a good look for her since she was ostensibly championing a rapist to the whole town! But better her than Augusta, I guess!) and Mason and Julia did end up making their way back to each other following the Alcatraz remote with Warren and Cassie. Again, had Carrington Garland been allowed to remain, with the actress basically a chemistry magnet, had Kelly remained with Robert (or Quinn) or, if that was not possible with Roscoe Born's war with the EP, Connor McCabe by way of Charles Grant still could have appeared and done the story, and I bet it would have worked with the audience - MINUS the Cruz/Kelly ickfest beforehand, thank you! The conflict could have worked just as well with Cruz still being family to Kelly, being his sister-in-law! - and could have helped the show keep familiar faces and soften the loss of Cruz and Eden (and A and Marcy). People liked CG as Kelly and rooted for her. That could have helped with whomever Kelly romanced. But by recasting Kelly and other dumb decisions, the show was basically doomed, a victim of way too many cooks in the kitchen with no clear vision. And I also agree that axing Justin Gocke's Brandon, and basically doing the insulting CC sperm crap with Gina giving birth to a replacement - and that's what that kid was - was a mess and sort of offensive, sending a message that, hey, an adopted kid is nice, but a "real" kid is better! No way. Especially not after the YEARS of everyone fighting over Brandon. (But that fight did lead to the nice interlude of Brandon moving in with Mason and Julia, since Mason knew what it was like to be pulled in different directions as a kid, and wanting Brandon to have a safe place to decide what he wanted!) And hey, don't forget de-Lockridge-ing Warren, so he could treat Lionel like crap. (Or was that Pam Long? Either way, more garbage.) The Dobsons just couldn't seem to work with what was, rather than what used to be and, worse, didn't seem to want to adapt.

Yeah, that was no small accomplishment! I realized most of the SB stuff was moved to the proper thread in the Cancelled Soaps folder. Apologies for the derailment. So, to try and keep on topic, hopefully, the chemistry will be there, too, for Karla Moseley and the new actor. As above, chemistry with recasts can be a crap shoot.

I thought I remembered reading that Garland once auditioned for another soap - maybe The Young & The Restless? But no one ever scooped her up. One of the soaps should have, IMO.

Maybe that's it!

No slight to Eileen Davidson, who did the best she could [and she was building a nice vibe with Charles Grant's Connor McCabe], but getting rid of Carrington Garland was one of the biggest mistakes the Dobsons made during their second tenure. Carrington Garland, I would argue, was almost as popular as her predecessor [not counting Kimberly McArthur here], Robin Wright. She had chemistry with everyone and sparked with whomever she was romantically paired with. I think, had Garland stayed - whether paired with Roscoe Born as Quinn/Robert or maybe Charles Grant then - the show could have weathered the loss of both Marcy Walker and A Martinez better. Yes, there was still the popular Mason/Julia pairing, but Cruz and Eden took up such a large chunk of that show that losing both was a death knell. On a side note, it was nice that both Marcy Walker and Carrington Garland both attended the 40th Anniversary celebration for Santa Barbara a few months back [with many other familiar faces!]...

Cool! But I'll agree with him that the stories he got (Sasha in a freezer!) did suck, so I get why he decided to leave.

Huh. So I wasn't too far off, date wise. And I think you are the very first person I have come across that preferred Terry's Mason to Gordon's in terms of the recasts! (Me? Terry was a GREAT actor, but I think he was miscast as Mason. Which is odd since, on paper, Jack Abbott and Mason Capwell seemed a lot alike, but there it is!)

I can think of two very different time lines in terms of recasting one role: Mason Capwell on the aforementioned Santa Barbara! The first recast, from Lane Davies to Terry Lester, did have a gap. If I recall. Davies left around July of '89, and Terry Lester appeared in...I think, October '89. But then Terry Lester had some loophole in his contract or someone forgot about renewing it (!) - I recall reading/hearing about both options - and he bolted in a hurry in 1990, so he wasn't around long, leading to the infamous two Masons in one episode. The first half hour with Terry Lester, then the second half with Gordon Thomson. (And even stranger, Europe had a scene where Dash Nichols hit Terry Lester at Julia's, and Gordon Thomson got up! LOL! In the US, Thomson's Mason was first shown outside drinking from a flask, if I recall, with the requisite "The role of Mason Capwell will now be played by..." bit.) However, if one watched E! before it turned to utter trash, it used to have an hourly soap update thingy - well before Pure Soap. Ken Taylor dropped news of that surprise recast a day or two before it happened, so I was sort of prepared. LOL! Speaking of Capwells, yeah, the show had a boatload of recasts, but the first recasting of CC - if I recall - was unavoidable. Paul Burke, the first actor, apparently had a heart attack, and that's how Peter Mark Richman got the role, or so I've read.

I was just coming to post this. He seemed to have quite the successful character-actor career. In terms of other work, here's a clip from his role as a bad-seed bounty hunter, Jimmy Jo Walker, in Hunter:

Damn. I adored Marty Davich's musical score on Days and loved it just as much when he worked on ER in prime time. As a matter of fact, I still have the ER soundtrack on CD (remember those?), and it's still - decades later - sublime. I only wish that Days could have had such a release with the music there. Ever since Marty Davich left there, the cues are, for a better word, uninspired. Practically hollow. Rest in peace, Marty. Thanks for the beautiful music, for both daytime and nighttime.

Sort of shocked that Dateline covered this since it involves porn, but hey...I guess film making is film making? Former Disney Actor Maitland Ward "More Respected As Porn Filmmaker"