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I saw the Robin Kennemer promo as well. I thought it was more stylized than I expected for the 1970s. Most of the promos I've seen have just been clips of episodes. This was more shots of various characters. In addition, there was a slightly longer version of the Jennifer through the glass promo starting off with Kathy talking to someone about loving Scott even though Jennifer was pregnant with his child. Like maybe 8-10 more seconds

There was also nice movement in the Matt / Ellen story. Matt had saved elitist Boardman's life which put him in the spotlight. Monica asked Matt to assist her in a surgery using the new chair lift he had fought for. The surgery sequence reminded me of Monica's return to the operating room in June, 1992, after the Langton trial was over. It wasn't a necessary beat, but powerful. The surgery goes well with Matt performing most of it, but at the end, there is a issue. A valve is bleeding and needs to be sutured. Monica asks if another doctor needs to step in, but Matt comes through with flying colors and precise sewing skills. I think it is a nice thing to help let the audience know that your doctor can be differently abled and still be a competent surgeon. Additionally, Ellen drops the wig and starts wearing her natural dreads. When Matt comments on the change in hair, Ellen said Matt has taught her that she needs to stop conforming to what people expect to be a doctor and simply be who she is. I thought it was a pretty powerful comment on the racism in the medical profession that I could never see flying today in the more conservative daytime landscape (unless you had a white character explaining it).

I picked up in November 1997 where I left off a while ago starting with November 10. I finished off the month making it to Thanksgiving, 1997. This would be the start of the second month of Lynn Marie Latham's run. I do think the show is getting a bit stronger in most areas, but I don't think there is a strong enough big story to keep an audience tuning in day in and day out. Port Charles is a quieter show in that sense, which seems odd to say about Latham's work. My favorite material involves the Devlin family. In the Loving / The City thread, we've discussed Harding Lemay's comment about The City not being compelling in it's early sequences because it was all set among one generation of characters. This comment would also apply to early Port Charles. I think it helps that they have started to explore multigenerational dynamics more. The Bennett / Nicole / Chris / Eve story has developed nicely in terms of story and characterization with some interesting structural decisions made in the process. The Ellen / Matt / Grace triangle is benefitting from the recognition of the non-traditional family dynamcis with Ellen's role of supervisor of the interns preventing Ellen to committing to a relationship with Matt. Joe and Karen's romance is more interesting because of the needling from all of their assorted family members about what their relationship status is. The Devlin family scenes are some of my favorites. Bennett and Nicole's marriage is toxic. Bennett is a philandeerer and Nicole seems to be having her own mid life crisis by throwing herself into an affair with Dr. Chris Ramsay, who Nicole describes in one scene as a mirror image of Bennett in his youth. Chris and Bennett as the same type makes not only the Nicole / Chris and Nicole / Bennett dynamic intersting, it sets in motion what should be a more solid foundation for Chris and Julie in the future. Nicole isn't really going to bed with Chris; she is trying to relive the love she experienced with Bennett. Barabara Stock does well with the little she gets, but I wish they'd dig deeper. After learning the Julie knew about Eve and Bennett's affair, Nicole berates her daughter only days after Julie has been rescued from Greg Cooper's clutches. Julie's role as Nicole's confidante and Nicole's need for Julie to parent her sets up an interesting role reversal that explains why Julie is such a neurotic mess. Bennett also uses Julie as mediator in his attempts to reconcile with Nicole. All of this culminates in a rather purposely bizarre sequence where Julie dreams of performing surgery with Greg Cooper on her mother while Greg morphs into Bennett during the course of the dream and Nicole into Eve. The sequence ends with Julie stabbing Eve in the stomach on the operating table. I have to wonder at what point Latham was considering going the serial killer route. There are other interesting structural choices made in these episodes. On the way to the Scanlons house to see Julie, Bennett and Nicole both offer up their own versions of how Bennett and Eve's affair began each including competing filmed versions of the stories that play out one after the other. It's an interesting gimmick I have rarely scene in daytime, but it allows the audience to draw their own conclusion. Once the Devlins arrive at the Scanlons, they are surprised by the arrival of Eve and Chris (pre-affair with Nicole) when Eve arrives to get some notes she left in the Scanlon basement from when she shared the space with Julie. Eve walks right between Nicole and Bennett, which is played lowkey but is a delicious visual representation of the role Eve plays in their marriage. Pinson is charismatic and has a nice comedic flair, but occassionally will fall flat in some of the more dramatic material. At one point, Bennett attempts to persuade Eve to tell Nicole that neither Bennett nor Eve loved each other and that was little more than a one-night stand. This lie devastates Eve as there was a time she expected Bennett to leave Nicole for her. Eve confronts Bennett over whether he ever truly loved her, and Bennett backtracks. It's increasingly clear that Bennett is someone who will do whatever it takes to get what he wants. Albert underplays a lot of Bennett's swarminess which is fairly effective, but I'm not convinced it's as nuanced as I would like. Anyway, when Eve does goes to Nicole, Eve reveals what Eve now beleives to be the truth; Eve's love for Benentt was one-sided. He only loved Nikki, but Eve. All of this culiminates in Nicole's proclamation that she will be staying in Port Charles and later informs Bennett and Julie of her plans to divorce Bennett. Julie's reaction to this is pretty prominent, and, if I remember correctly, it plays a role in how she will react to her relationship with Frank down the line. Frank and Julie are very comfortable in their relationship after Julie's kidnapping. Bennett offers Frank the reward money, which he initialyl refuses before telling Bennett to donate the money to the Dominque Baldwin Pediatrics AIDS Wing at General Hospital. Julie and Frank mostly appear in their own stories, which is fine. I like how Frank Scanlon maintains two different jobs. I don't think soaps always do this well. Frank's work as an EMT and a substitute teacher put him in the center of several stories and effectively crosses over nicely at the end of the month in a much larger story that doesn't focus on Frank. Slowly, throughout the month, Frank's next story starts with the arrival of Lark Madison, a student in his class who has an injured arm. Frank has taken Lark to GH in order to have her treated. Karen is the attending who sees Lark, who claims she is just clumsy. Later, Karen is unable to confirm Lark's address, while Lark also skips school to work at Mario's restaurant, which seems to be the new, more upscale, dining location. When Frank stops by Mario's to confront Lark, the teenager has alcohol on her breathe. It's an interesting beat in a mystery that is slowly spiraling out. Speaking of Mario's, Joe and Karen treat Mario, Jr., the owner, for heartburn that he assumes is a heart attack and Mario thanks them with a dinner at his restaurant. It's a comedy of errors as Karen and Joe both get ready for their non-date with Mary, Frank, Julie, and Rhonda all clucking over the date that isn't a date. This is also involves a well directed sequence where Joe and Karen pick up each other lines and the camera matches body movements with Karen going to sit down in her scenes with Rhonda while Joe stands up in his sequence with Frank and Julie. After the non-date, Joe asks Karen out for real. Joe and Karen as played by Dietz and Hammon have a nice rapport. It's not a love for the ages, but it's clear that we are in an era of shows like Chicago Hope and ER where we are firmly in a world where medical romances are popular. There's also a lot of gratuitious shirtless scenes with Karen trying on the dresses for Julie and Julie stripping down for work with Matt walking in on both women shirtless. Later, you have Eve down to her underwear to get Chris out of bed. Chris also walks around in a towel at one poitn. It's all very obvious at times and slightly cheapens the drama. There are some nice beats hit in the Karen / Joe material. Karen talks about how this will be the first time she has been out with anyone since she's been married and how nervous that makes her. When Joe and Karen do go out, it is Joe who wants to slow it down because he doesn't want to be Karen's rebound after Jagger. Joe wants to be there for the long haul. Karen also talks about how hard it is for her constantly wrap her mind around the idea from Joe going from being just her buddy to something more. When Danielle dies at the end of the month, it is Joe and Karen in the operating room. Karen speaks to Joe about how hard she is taking Danielle's death because she was just getting use to patients dying when she didn't know them and how she knew Danielle. I think this story is in a good place, but it was going to need a catalyst for drama that wasn't there. Danielle's death was well done for a character who has had little to no story for much of the last two months that I have seen. In her final days, a run in with Serena at the hospital leads to Danielle have a change of heart and decides she is going to confess to Scott the truth: she is Dominique's half-sister, but she is not Serena's mother. Danielle has planned to flee Port Charles because she has nothing left and to escape Rex's control. In addition, Rex told Danielle that Scott was a danger to Serena, which is why she went along with the scheme. While awaiting the FBI agent at the firehouse, Danielle gets a call from Rex, posing as Jake, saying that he has the FBI agent on his payroll and then alludes to Danielle's impending death. Danielle flees before telling the FBI agent what her role was but leaves a message on Scott's machine before disappearing. Danielle's accident occurs offscreen. Instead, the episode ends with a woman being brought into the ER after a car accident and everyone learning it is Danielle. The next episode only deals with Danielle's surgery and everyone waiting to find out the results. There are a lot of nice character beats. Matt wants to know what caused the accident for Jake's sake seemingly alluding to the nature of his own accident that left him paralyzed. Scott tells Jake he knows what he's going through alluding to Dominique. After we are told Danielle has died in surgery, Kevin goes as far as to speak about Grace's death (without naming her). There's a lot of assumption of GH lore in these scenes and I am starting to see why the show felt in the long run they wanted to cut ties from that. I still think its fairly well done. Rib Hillis, while a beautiful man, isn't the strongest dramatic actor. With that said, Pinson's scenes had me cringing more than Hillis, but Pinson's presence is more laid back overall than Hillis'. The Scott / Lucy / Kevin stuff involving Rex has been slightly more enjoyable than I remember it. Lucy and Kevin go to the Cayman Islands in a sequence that seems like a more subdued version of the Eve / Kevin stuff I saw in the summer of 1999. Andrew Lee was the director of an episode that had a very nice overhead shot of the Cayman Islands hotel room from the view of the ceiling fan. These kind of shots are not done often in daytime anymore so it stood out. Honestly, the production values in terms of how scenes are put together and some of the filming techniques are surprising. There was another sequence (a surgery) that was filmed using the hand held cameras which were shaky. It worked for the intensity of the situation, but it was carried over into some other scenes and it was less effective. I believe one of the medical shows had used a similar format. The bulk of the plot in the story is Scott and Rex each trying to gaslight the other. Scott manages to lure Rex's PI to his side and then claims he has Rex's chef on the payroll. Rex claims he has the FBI agent in his pocket. It's a lot of back and forth and often things are purposely ambigious, which I don't mind but I could see as bothering others. I've seen better Riche produced gaslighting tales. In an exposition dump to Danielle, we get more details about Rex's stint in a mental institution which Rex claim was instigated by his brother Avery Stanton (Domique and Danielle's father) and insinuated that he was very aware that he was surrounded by psychopaths. It leaves the source of Rex's mental health issues up in the air as well as giving motivation to why Rex is so determined to get the money. Lucy's sidequest to find information about Serena Ltd, which was a shell company I believe that Rex funneled money into to make it look like Scott was stealing the inheritance, has her doing her schtick with a Cayman Islands banker which is fine. Then, she comes up with the idea to kill off Scott so that they don't need Scott there. It plays out better than I can explain it. It's not my favorite stuff, but its solid plot movement in the story. Towards the end of the month, Lucy thinks the only way to get to Rex is to fake a break up with both Kevin and Scott in order to allign herself with Rex with Rex believing this will be the only way Lucy can get access to Serena. This arc makes sense to me and is messy as you have Lucy and Kevin still trying to have a baby and talking about their wedding at some point. The other noteworthy thing to mention is the brief custody hearing where Justus Ward defends Scotty and the Baldwins (Gail and Lee) securing temporary guardianship of Serena for Gail and Lee. Interesting enough, Dominic Hoffman appears as Byron Rollins, Rex's attorney. I believe this is the same character who defended Tiffany Donnelly in her suit against the Jones for Lucas back in 1993. I think Latham is making strides, but I feel like I don't remember there being much of an energy shift in the January 1998 episodes I watched within the last few years.

Having watched Palumbo's 1990 General Hospital in recent years has helped frame Rituals in a different context because there is a lot of repetition (as there is with so many headwriters given the output expectations of the genre). I still don't think the first six months is the most compelling narrative in the history of soap opera, but I think it would be interesting to see more of how the show developed over those initial months and all the stops and starts. I think there are some story twists that seem decent. For example, Patrick Chapin's death and the ensuing battle for heirs seems mildly intriguing. I believe the show was setting up Tom Gallagher as Sarah's son by Patrick Chapin early on before they went and revealed that Carter Robertson was Patrick's son. I think once they decided to kill off Eddie, and Patrick was already dead, the change in Tom's paternity wouldn't have had as much bite, though it probably was intended to play into the revelation that Mike was the father of Diandra's baby. I'm much more interested in Raymond Goldstone's work (March until about June, 1985) when Jorn Winter seems to take a deeper role in the creative end and we end up with young rich bitch in training Julia Field falling for African American cop, Lucky Washington, Sarah Gallagher on trial for murdering her abusive husband Eddie to protect her daughter, Noel, C.J. Field's arrival in Wingfield to takeover Chapin Industries, the kidnapping of Mark Field by the white supremacist group the American Crusaders, and the introduction of Christina's former madam sister Lisa Thompson. I also would be curious to see Stacey Anderson and Steve Burkow finishing off the show to see how to two relatively soap novices did at writing an off network show as they seemed to do a lot of social issue plots (or continued them) and plots that were just different for soap opera. I'd really be curious to see how they mingled the political drama involving C.J.'s campaign for governor with the ongoing business machinations involving the Chalon formula while also telling the romantic stories between Dakota / Mike while Lacey starts having an affair with Larry Burns, the father of her former foster daughter. While it's understandable why there is more available of Palumbo's I can't help but wish there was more later in the run material.

@Khan I think "Search for Tomorrow" is an apt comparison. Joanna Lee spoke about how the half-hours needed to compete with the hour shows by providing the same type of stories, but I think you are right. Those type of adventure plots are hard to achieve because of the necessary resources and story space. I think that the show was trying to figure out what to do with Kevin and Eve as a couple. At some point, Eve is tormented with the idea that the son she had by DV Bordisso was alive. I imagine the original endgame was to have that become the reality. From the weekly summaries from earlier in 1999, Eve was suffering from endiometriosis and there were questions about whether or not she would be able to become pregnant. Psychiatrist Kevin and his spy father Victor involved in a plot involving both their careers on paper sounds smart, but it's not super interesting. I imagine when you are telling a story about a serial killer being released from a mental hospital, a couple gaslighting a young sexual assault survivor that her boyfriend is a sex addict, and a love triangle involving a father and son where the father assaulted the female leg of the triangle by coercing her into sex during a stint with amnesia, you see the psychic spy stuff as lighter fare. With all that darkness, the show doesn't feel heavy 24/7 because there is a lot of emotional beats around family, friends, and romantic interests. I think you can effectively do some of the psychological adventure stories on the half-hours effectively. I think you could pare down the Ryan Chamberlain saga on GH from 1992-1993 into something smaller in scale. Rusty Sentell gaslighting his daughter-in-law Liza in order to end her marriage to his son Travis is effective in plotting, but not motivation (Rusty was looking to secure a grandchild to access the General's fortune). Vargas kidnapping Jo was also effective on the same series. I really enjoyed Amy Morris, the crazy babysitter, kidnapping Ryan Fenelli and Maeve Ryan thinking Ryan was the baby she aborted and Maeve was her former boyfriend's controlling mother. I think your larger point about these grand adventures is completely accurate, but I also think that the 1980s style big adventure stories could only be effectively done by a handful of writers, while most writers and their teams can make domestic stories semi-effective mostly until the early 2000s. The Livvie story a year later seems a more effective use of Eve and Kevin.

I did end up watching Kimberlin Brown's arrival. Rachel's introduction was intended as a Friday cliffhanger for Friday, July 23, 1999, but a preemption left it as the Monday, July 26, 1999, cliffhanger with her more in-depth scenes on Tuesday. Rachel is brash and a bit abrassive having been lured by Chris Ramsey to take over Julie Devlin's case from Kevin Collins. During Rachel's consultation with her, Julie is evasive leading Rachel to bluntly ask what it was like to walk in on her brother Buddy after he had blown his brains out. Maybe Rachel wasn't that crass, but it doesn't seem out of the realm of possibility. I had forgotten that little detail of the Devlin family history (Rachel finding Buddy). In the aftermath, Rachel tells Chris she'll take the case and Julie makes it clear that she doesn't trust Rachel (comparing her to the sharks she saw at the aquarium when she was younger). The Devlin family history was very twisted and I could imagine the Bennett / Buddy / Allison (Buddy's fiancee) situation playing out as a sorta darker take on the Alan / AJ / Nikki Langton story. Maybe its a superficial comparison, but it seems that the Devlins seemed to have the foundation to be "Port Charles'" answer to the Quartermaines. I think Chris and Nicole Devlin also had had an affair so the whole Julie - Chris dynamic was twisted as well. No wonder Julie was a mess. In the other main story of interest (to me at least) in these episodes was Frank's renovation of a bar (maybe the Recovery Room? Whatever it is it sounds like Mary owns it), which leads to a celebration and lots of accolades being made about Frank in front of Karen and Joe. Joe, who apparently has held on telling their mother about Frank's deception leading to Karen and Joe's breakup, finally lets the cat out of the bag and informs Mary of what her eldest son has done. Initially, Mary rejects Joe's claims, but as the conversation goes on, Mary starts to turn. Pat Crowley does a decent job in this sequence with her loyalty shifting from one son to another with an unnerved Courtney fluttering in the background (afraid Frank will be a turncoat and reveal her role in the breakup). The resulting spiral of confrontations with Frank is fascinating with Frank desperately trying to regain control of the situation before turning on Mary saying she has always sided with Joe (even though moments earlier she cannot believe what Joe said) and then leans into the Scanlons' own twisted family history reminding Joe how many beating Frank took from Pops Scanlon to protect Joe. It's all a well done mirror to the dsyfunctional family history on display in Julie's story. I think there were also some bits of the psychic spy crap with Victor, previously presumed dead, now alive and helping Eve in a mock up of Jasmine Island or something. It's all not very compelling to me, but, at times, I get what they are trying to do (a psychological adventure story with a more modern twist), but like a lot of the GH stories from the early 1990s, it's not my cup of tea.

This preview from the Brazilian airing (under the name "Rituais da Vida) shows a brief glimpse from either the same episode or an episode after: This clip features Jeff (Tim Maier) being arrested. A generic promo probably announcing the show with clips from the first episodes: And another promo from one of the episodes we've already seen a clip of earlier this fall:

@robbwolff It is an easy mistake. I think Maeir's Jeff Robertson was Noel's chief romantic interest early on. She wanted Brady, got him in the sack in the first week or so, and then schemed to break up Dakota and Brady while dating her cousin's stepson, Jeff. I wonder if it was ever established how long Christina and Carter had been married. I find it odd how the show was completely cool with Jeff and Noel being a couple when there seems to be an implication they were raised as family. Christina was only Sarah's niece, but it wasn't like they weren't involved in each other's lives. Noel never seems to get a romantic interest that I think she deserves.She and Jeff were together on and off, but she mostly wanted Brady I think. Brady might give her a bit of the time of day towards the end when Dakota is being weaved into the Mike / Lacey story. There was a relationship between Noel and her psychiatrist, but even that seems to just be in a stalling pattern (but there may have been a switch from Ray Goldstone to Stacey Anderson and Steve Burkow as headwriters). I would like to see what would have happened if they tried her and Clay Travis or even someone older maybe like a professor at Haddon Hall.

@DRW50 Thanks! I love that these snippets keep popping up. I'm pretty sure this is from October, 1984. In the Eddie Gallagher scene, he is on the phone with Carter Robinson discussing the murd/er of Sammy Loakes, who Eddie dumped into the lake at the Willows. I also believe, but we need to look at it again, but @robbwolff I think that is Marc Poppel's Brady (not TIm Maier's Jeff) softly letting Noel down so that he can go to the Cannon Ball with Dakota (Claire Yarlett, who was out in late November). Unless Maier pops up at the end and I missed it. Karen Kelly is impressive in that sequence, and I have often found a lot of her (brief) performances in the role online very flat. She is very effective in this material as genuinely hurt by Brady's decision to not to pursue a romantic relationshipafter she emotionally manipulated him into sex shortly after his mother's death. That scene between Eddie and Noel is a little more insidious when we realize Noel later murdered Eddie because of his abusive relationship with her. I really liked this initial Gallagher's bar set that was later replaced with something more upscale. In story, I think the revamp was used to bring in "the college crowd," but as the story continued, I feel like the class conflict was deemphasized in some ways. My favorite bar in college was the local dive bar, but maybe I'm the odd man out on that one. There is a certain seediness in this original set that I really like. This version of Gallaghers' is probably derived from the original premise where Jenny Barnes (Stephanie Braxton) ran a truck stop. This gives off that vibe. The later set feels more generic to me, but it is a lovely set. @MissPalmer would also enjoy this.

I do think part of the issue with Bordisso is the timing of his arrival. He is introduced late February, 1999, and Latham is out the door in very early May, 1999. There was a little over two months of set up before Hamner, who was already on the team, took over. I think Latham may have left due to illness, or maybe that was just an excuse to politely fire her. Anyway, I get the general idea of DV being Scott's father, but it just seems to be lacking the oomph. Having watched a bit of Scotty's early 1990s episodes, the relationship between Scotty and Lee was so layered and complicated. This complication didn't really add anything to that so I guess I am just wondering where they expected this to go in the long run. Bordisso is out early December. Hannan Carrouthers comes in late December, but may not be credited until January. I know she is credited for bringing on Erin Gray as Nicole Devlin who appears in December. Hamner is out in late January. There is no writer in February and Harris arrives in early March. It feels like Bordisso was part of a housecleaning between TPTB. Van Drusen also immediately returned to "The Young and the Restless" as Keith Dennison so it might have been the actor's decision to cut and run. I don't think van Drusen was under contract. The show definitely lacked clear villains early on. I think that's why I like the messier Frank and Courtney and the slightly unhinged Julie. Julie's reaction to Lee surviving the embolism is diabolically campy, yet slightly enjoyable. Rachel was only a few weeks from arriving in the place I stopped (July 9th, she's there two weeks later). I like what I've seen of Rachel, but she definitely feels like a smaller scale (yet more effective) villain that what was originally intended. I think her involvement with Julie and later the larger feud with Kevin over Grace was smart. I'm curious if Kimberlin Brown would have stayed another year or more had Harris and Bloom stayed as headwriters. Or if she left, would they have recasted given how integral she was becoming to the canvas by that point. It's a shame Scott leaves after Christina's kidnapping because I think the Baldwin unit was so well developed removing him undermined a lot of that. During the DV era, I believe they also, for a hot minute, tried to make Victor Greg Cooper's father, which I think would make sense if anyone in the audience thought Greg Cooper had a lifespan outside of a sweeps month. In another one of my "Port Charles" jaunts this weekend, I was looking for the sequence from 2000 where Claire Wright dies. In that search, I found some very solid scenes with Alan Quartermaine coming to see Karen about her pill problem during the Nurses' Strike. The history between Karen and Alan was very integrated given Alan's connection to Rhonda, the bond Karen once shared with Jason, and Alan's own history of addiction. It's a shame more wasn't done with Monica's ties to the Baldwin clan through Gail, but I thought it was all very good. A lot of the bigger story on "Port Charles" may be tough, but so much of the domestic conflicts are fairly well done.

@DRW50 The Lee stuff is fairly well done and feels intricate to the story and not necessarily just filler. Lee's role as Julie's legal guardian given hercompetency is significant and Julie and Chris' challenge of Lee's role is what leads to the dramatic moment where it looks like Lee is having a heart attack. Chris actually accompanies Lee back to Port Charles saying that he helped save his life, which is undermined in a very low key way by revealing Lee's problem was an embolism and not a heart attack as the meds Chris administered for the heart attack had no impact. It's a sequence which spirals in several ways. It brings the Baldwin clan together, who feels tighter and more developed than I felt in a lot of earlier sequences with Karen's monologue on her dream grandparents and Gail's confession that Lee still hopes that one day Lee and Scott will work together again. Most beautiful though are the moments alone between Scott and Lee where Lee has resigned to his fate (Monica has, off screen, confirmed that there is a low likelihood Lee will survive) and Scott has to be the one to uplift his father and convince him to fight. There are clearly other threads building. With Lee incapacitated, he won't be able to fight Chris and Julie when they want to install Darren Leopold as Julie's new guardian. This also will enhance the animosity between Chris / Julie and Scott / Lucy as Scott and Lucy are fostering baby Christina. While this health crisis certainly drives the plot, it is also a moment to explore the dynamics of the Baldwin clan. This episode might be worth a peak. It features Lee / Scott's conversation about DV / Lucy framed in the experience Scott had with Laura / Luke. It also includes Gail / Lucy discussing the incident with Lucy / DV and Gail, as a psychiatrist, framing it as something damaging that was done to Lucy. It's very nice to see Lee and Gail in support of Lucy. Lee also goes to confront Chris and Julie after Chris' news broadcast where he alludes to Lee keeping Julie locked up to manage her estate. It ends with Lee's health crisis and Gail calling Scotty to come to the hospital. This episode features the more emotional Baldwin family moments. Gail pleading with Lee is heartbreaking. Marie Wilson has been in the role of Karen under 2 weeks and does a decent job selling the connection to the Baldwin clan. This features the Lee / Scott scenes starts at 15:22 with the rest of the family scattering leaving to some very wonderful work from Shriner and Hansen. In an era for the genre where this kind of character work was fading, this is a standout sequence. @Vee The psychic spy stuff is definitely ingrained in the fabric of the GH universe from the Ice Princess through Casey the Alien and beyond. Riche's early adventure sequences were more grounded (even the Paloma / San Sebasitan stuff which I believe may have been cooked up by consultant Anne Howard Bailey seemed more down to earth) and I know she's about six months from turning over PC to Julie Hannan Carrouthers. I get what they are trying to do but it is such a tonally clash with the rest of the show, as you stated. There's also some stuff I skimmed over about Victor's electronic role playing game and some of the spy gear stuff that I think is suppose to evoke a level of modern day suspense paired with pop culture camp with references to "Austin Powers" and the inclusion of Peter Zorin. None of it really works for me, but I know there is some later stuff involving Eve where she has been convinced her child is alive that I will eventually have to get to that seems like it might be a better balance of the absurd and the emotional. The Noel Clinton stuff occurs on the cusp of Lynn Latham departing and Scott Hamner assuming the reigns. I want to say it is set up in episodes still attributed to Latham, but he appears under Hamner. This is all the first week of May, which I believe also focuses on Lucy (as an amnesiac believing she is Eve White) and DV sleeping together. I want to say all of the Noel Clinton sequences are in a single episode. I haven't seen enough of DV to make a firm opinion. Most of the stuff I've seen isn't great, but Riche typically allowed villains to have more layers than I've seen yet with DV. It's just very intriguing that so much story space is spent establishing the rewrite of Scotty's paternity in the very real timeline. The one thing I don't think completely works is that Lee and Scott's bond is so strong and it was long established that Scott was Lloyd Bentley's son. Changing this doesn't change the relationship between Scott and Lee. I think they could have gone one of two routes to make this dynamic more interesting. Either establishing that Meg and DV had a child that DV raised that was a half-sibling to Scott (I'd go with a sister to pair with Kevin and shift Eve back to the younger set) or establish that DV's late wife and Lee had been involved with DV having raised Lee's biological child. DV as Scott's father is the more traditional route, but I think they could have extracted more by going a slightly different path. I almost wonder if Rachel Locke as Lee's daughter and DV's surrogate would have worked.

Same to you @DRW50 regarding the holidays. Julie Pinson has charisma and grows as an actress over time, but the show rarely uses her effectively. I just watched the first 7 episode of July, 1999. Eve and Kevin are off to Rome to locate a missing Victor Collins. The writing is trying too hard to make Kevin and Eve this off beat romantic comedy duo who get caught up in hijinks. Michael J. Anderson has been introduced as Peter Zorin who seems tied to the spy stuff (he claims to work for the American embassy in Rome but this appears to be a cover). None of it really gels, but I get what they are trying to do. It just doesn't work. By the time Eve and Kevin discuss the mile high club, I am ready to fast forward. The rest of July, 1999, that I've watched was fun. There was a guest appearance from 98 Degrees, who were performing on "General Hospital." Frank and Karen took Neil, Serena and nuLark to the sound check. It was a nice little diversion from he other stuff going on. There was a lot of turnover cast wise. On July 1, Michael Dietz makes his last appearance as Joe reading Neil's essay on the future (he's still undergoing chemo) and on July 2, David Gail is around to punch out Frank after learning that Frank set I'm up as a sex addict. Marie Wilson also first appeared on June 30, but I didn't watch that episode. I know Scott Hamner took over the first week of May, so he probably is settling in now. Two climates happen in the same episode, or an episode or two apart, with Karen learning that Frank has been spying on her from an apartment across from hers and that this is how he set up Joe for the sex phone calls and the hooker Janell. It's like they are resetting the characters, which I don't necessarily blame them. I don't hate the sex addict stuff (but I haven't seen the build), but it definitely feels like something Bill Levinson would have tried on Riche's GH. I think Gail is meant to be a "tougher" Joe, which I think Gail does effectively present even if Dietz is the stronger dramatic actor. Wilson is suitable, but fits in better in some of the family stuff later. Courtney and Frank are thick as thieves and Frank briefly hints that he is going on to turn on Courtney since he's already going down. This dynamic is fun. I think centering them in the story going forward with a new Joe and Karen would be a smart move. There is some interesting psychological stuff going on with Karen and her fear of trusting men. It's never directly stated, but Karen lacking trust makes sense. She was molested by Ray Conway and Jagger has cheated on her at the tailend of their marriage. Throw in her stripper past and I could see how this all would leave Karen very unsettled. There is a lot of interesting things to explore here, but I'm not sure they will be. The other big climax is the reveal that Lucy and DV slept together when Lucy had amnesia when DV sent Scott a video of Lucy and DV making out. This is a pretty decent set of scenes for Lucy and Scott despite the hideousness of the act itself. I was pleasantly surprised to see the show go there, even in 1999, and have Gail say it was a violation as well Scott saying Lee he's afraid he is repeating what happened with Scott and Laura. Scott's source of anger isn't the act itself, but the ensuing lie, while Lucy maintains she didn't want to hurt Scott. By the end, Scott is furious with DV as he should be. In the other major story, Julie and Chris have announced their plans to marry and Julie wants Lee removed as her guardian, hoping to install Chris' shady lawyer Darren Leopold instead. There is a lot of fun little beats with Julie calling Lucy looking for Lee but hearing Christina crying in the background. Chris goes on the news and blames Lee for some of Julie's issues as she hasn't even been tried for the 5th murder she was accused of comitting. There is a genuine sense of dread about the possibility of having Julie released from Ferncliff.This leads to a standoff between Lee, Chris and Julie leading to Lee having an attack that is later revealed to be a pulmonary embolism. It doesn't look good for Lee and there are a lot of family scenes. There is a "final goodbye" between Scott and Lee that is very poignant with Scott refusing to say its a goodbye. The Baldwin family is such a tight unit in this sequence with a very nice delivery of a monologue from Marie Wilson's Karen about how she imagined what her grandparents would be like growing up and how Lee and Gail are better than she could have imagined. Playing this with all of the DV material in the background, not mentioned, gives this a little more oomph. I know Scott Hamner gets raked over the coals for the psychic spy stuff, and rightfully so, but this material isn't bad. It's not Karen Harris' "Port Charles" but more appealing than a lot of Latham's material that I've seen. A lot of the domestic stories are well done and I find the overall presence of characters like Gail and Lee charming. There's something very appealing about this.

I dipped into the first week of June, 1998. The show has more energy than the opening months, but I cannot say I love everything going on. The big umbrella story, the General Homicide murders, gives the show energy which it didn't have in the previous year and there are a lot of nice ripple effects. Lucy's character in General Homicide dies at the Nurses' Ball so there is tension and concern about Lucy hosting. Eve is suspected of killing Devlin, after having been revealed to be Devlin's former lover, which has led to tension in the Scanlon household resulting in Eve being booted and taking shelter with Chris Ramsey. Bennett is dead. Grace is dead. And Greg Cooper is sending notes. The dramatic tension is there, but I am not always super into serial killer storylines. One of the nice little threads of the story is complications being caused in the Kevin / Lucy / Scott / Eve quad. I don't really have a horse in the race (I like Scott and Lucy, but they never seem to work together as much as they do apart). I don't hate Kevin and Lucy, but there is only so many patronizing speeches Kevin can deliver. With that said, there are some very well done conversations. Eve and Scott don't work completely for me either. I like all the characters separately, but I don't really care who ends up with who. Lucy's latest stunt has been to uncover Eve's past as an escort through information from Tammy Hansen (a GH crossover). The revelation causes more issues internally for Eve, and between Lucy and Kevin, than it does between Eve and Scott. Concurrently on "General Hospital," Katherine Bell has recently been murdered by Stefan Cassadine which leads to Kevin and Lucy preparing to go to the wake. It is an interesting moment because Kevin does manage to tie the Katherine / Scotty romance back to the present day Scotty / Eve romance stating in both cases the women weren't perfect, but they did care for Scott. Kevin alludes that Lucy likes to keep Scott by himself in case things don't work out for her. Its an interesting hypothesis, and plays into Kevin's suggested fears that Lucy doesn't want to marry him. There's a lot of historical references. Scott blows off the Eve/hooker reveal stating that he was once involved with another former prostitute at GH (Bobbie) without naming her. Kevin talks with Eve and connects with her on the accusations because of his own past, I believe alluding to the Felicia stalking on "GH." Eve goes off on how Dominique was a saint. I think the history lessons are great, but it often leaves me feeling like this isn't a story playing out in the world of "Port Charles," but rather in "General Hospital." I find Eve, overall, more interesting in her other material. Shacking up platonically with Chris Ramsey. Going at it with Julie, who she goes as far as saying has an Electra complex and also states she pities Bennett for having a daughter like Julie. There is a very interesting nugget mentioned by Eve that she had a sister Shelly, who was badly burned at work, which resulted in Eve dropping out of school to take jobs to support the family leading to her turning tricks. The sister's burns supposedly have been treated and she lives in Austin with their mother. I wonder if Latham would have brought the sister in at some point. In a B/C story, Ellen Morgan and Matt Harmon are reconnecting and the big conflict is Ellen is considering resuming her role as the head of the interns (Dr. May was doing this briefly and wants to return to pediatrics). Matt is quick to say he expects to snag the Quartermaine Fellowship soon and will no longer be under her supervision if they can just keep things quiet for a few weeks. Matt and Ellen have nice chemistry and this is a decent conflict, but there wasn't much play for it. Courtney Kanelos has recently arrived in town and there are a lot of allusions to how much trouble she was in the past. I don't get the sense of the personal history between Courtney and Frank at this point other than Frank didn't like what Courtney did to his brother. There is some decent tension, but overall it's not really going anywhere yet. I didn't realize they were playing Neil and Serena's friendship this early as Serena goes to visit Neil at the hospital. The show seems better than the Cullitons, but I'm not really drawn into anything yet. I'll probably just jump around again between episodes of "Another Life" and possibly binge 1997-2000 once I finish "Another Life."

Kathy had appeared sporadically during the 1983-1984 period with Suzi’s trust, her renewed romance with Tom Bergman, and Sunny’s rape. I think Kathy was mentioned in 1985 during the Warren murder material but wasn’t seen. It wouldn’t have been hard to weave Kathy back in for a stint

I believe Jennifer was pregnant with Scott's child during the time of the accident. They had scuffled over how Scott was still in love with Kathy. When she went through the glass, she not only became disfigured, she also lost the baby. I believe Scott ended up marrying Jennifer out of guilt, or stayed married to her longer than he had intended. I would have brought Morgan Fairchild and Jennifer back in March, 1985, when Suzi was losing her mind after killing Warren Carter. Fairchild may have been busy filming "North and South" or still under contract to ABC for "Paper Dolls." Suzi would meet Jennifer in the psych ward and befriended the mysterious woman who wants to mother Suzi. You could have Jennifer return to Henderson and leave it unclear whether or not she has improved. She could reconnect with Stephanie, hide out from Jo, and start to connect with Jonah which could put her at odds with Wendy, who doesn't completely remember her mother's old friend. You could deal with the ramifications of the fate of the men in Jennifer's lives. John's death after marrying her best friend Stephanie and Scott in prison for vehicular manslaughter after his alcoholism became a problem again. I think I would have also done a thread with Jennifer becoming involved with Lloyd in order to set up some sorta long-term conflict for her to return. Maybe having her briefly marry Lloyd in a triangle with Stephanie and Jennifer wins in order to stick it to Stephanie only to slip again, maybe attacking Jo, leading to Jennifer's return to a psych ward. Later, I would reveal that Jennifer was pregnant and Stephanie and Lloyd would raise the child instead of going Lloyd / Liza / Hogan.

According to the newspaper columnists at the time of Mark Dante's return, Gerald Gordon had been a favorite of Fred Silverman, who left ABC for NBC and took Gordon with him. Silverman supposedly put him on a contract with NBC. Gordon return to "General Hospital" occurred after Silverman left NBC so Gordon may have been in need of work and he may have left Monty on good terms. His pairing seems very C-story at best based on synopses but maybe there was more to it.

The show definitely is ignoring some of the complexities involved in the situation. I am also curious to see how Kate Phillips is presented because I get the sense we are suppose to hate her for being "civic minded" and encouraged a clinic that provided abortion services. I know there is a bigger story coming up about abortion with someone in that circle so I'll be curious to see how it plays out. Slightly off topic, on the British soap "Eldorado" they handled abortion with more engagement in the complexities of the issue while still taking a heavy religious punishment angle; Rosario aborts her mid-life pregnancy only for her only son to die several weeks later. I have to wonder if we will get a speech about how Dave Phillips feels that his son Kevin was taken from him because of his sinful abortionist past. I almost wonder if Vinley wasn't subtly trying to undermine the issue of abortion with the deeper intersection into a character like Blue Noble and his childhood, but I suspect that subversive reading may not be accurate. As I think I may have already suggested, I would have kept Russ in Lori's orbit especially after the mental health crisis. I also would have extended the Russ as Lester Lewis' assistant storyline. I think Lori and Russ finding each other again after Lori's attack in a friendly way that concerned all the supporting parties (Marianne, Ben, Terry, and even Vince) would have centered Russ in a way that would have played into Chris Rolland's strengths. Russ going into the mob was an inevitability from September, 1981. I just don't know if that's where I would have centered him. I do wish we had gotten visits from Louise and Tony Cardello. I think they would have allowed us to explore some interesting dynamics given Louise's ties to the mob and Tony's sexuality. I also would have made Carrie Weaver a more permanent fixture in Kingsley. Preferably as a member of the church board for the house of worship that eventually hired Jeff Cummings.

Episodes 411-413: I very strong set of episodes. The key standout to me was the one-off return of Dennis Fraser, the drunk driver who had caused Nora and Scott's death a year earlier. Dennis arrives on New Year's Eve to update Terry what he has been doing since their last encounter. He and his family have not only embraced God, which Terry had stated to the Davidsons back in the spring, but also that he is working with an organization to prevent drunk driving and has convinced others to see the light. I think its a nice way to revist a story that was so critical to the family history of the Davidson clan as well as a way to resolve some of the issues I had with how Fraser's original story was resolved. The fact that Fraser was taking action steps, and not just preaching, felt like an important story shift. Fraser's return set off some nice ripple effects. Peter takes his old standard highly emotional, suggested of low level violence approach, which emphasizes how impulsive he still is, whihc makes sense. He's only 18 I think. Lori's response was also very representative of the person she has become. She has an emotional moment because she unable to comfort her mother because of her own mental health issues. I appreciate how Lori's story is playing out. There was another minor moment where Peter was recounting how the "crazy neighbor" was caught stealing from the store and Lori lambasts Peter stating that the woman deserved respect, clearly connecting after her own experience. It was a very strong moment. There was some nice light hearted comedy mixed in with Nancy. She goes to visit Gil at the office to make a play for him to be interrupted by Amber only for Gil to literally use the same routine on Amber that Nancy used on him to equal success. Then, out for New Years' Eve at the Castaway, Nancy is again hit on by Fred Winthrop, an older gentleman who recently came into money. In addiition, there were some nice cracks made by Alex Greeley about Lester Lewis in his conversations with Dave, who is trying to get back on staff at Kingsley General. I'm finding myself a bit bored with the Marianne / Russ stuff. I really liked the Vince / Becky dynamic and Marianne seeing Vince as the problem is a bit much for me. Vince is definitely problematic; a gangster who was cheating on his wife and had a child by his mistress who he continued to emotionally support. Marianne's own father Jason was so problematic to me with his holier than thou routine while also bedding down with Sharon Landers and romancing Terry Davidson. I don't think Marianne has asked to give back her commission for the paintings that Vince bought for the Hollister Mall. It just feels very insincere. I don't hate Marianne, but I can see why this dynamic didn't last long. Marianne's desire to show Russ the joy of faith when Lori couldn't is a bit repetitive, but at least that's addressed onscreen by Terry. I know Doug Hughes, the younger attorney of the people, returns later, but I would have had him as the other man in Marianne's life. The Miriam kidnapping stuff is well done with lighting and Miriam's dynamics wiht both Blue and Lance being so different. I thought the Blue / Miriam friendship was a nice touch that I don't think is often playe dbecause Blue is being used by Lance and Ronnie who are now setting him up as the fall guy in the kidnapping by having him pick up the ransom. Blue's downfall cannot be too far off with Dave and Ben talking about the newspaper article Gene's writing which would feature Blue's picture. I also feel there is a deep disconnect in the philosophy on this show in the sense of theory verse reality. At the clinic, Ben and Dave have another discussion about abortion leading to the discussion of government funding vs. private funding. The key to the plot is the need to fundraise, which I imagine is how we will see Kate Phillips, Dave's ex-wife, reenter his life. In a sense, I think the fundamental idea of Dave and Ben wanting to run the clinic their way without bureaucratic hand tying is appealing, but I don't personally accept their point of view. I am also starting to see a bit of a deep disconnect in the abortion debate from the show's foundational level. Dave states he saw two young women that morning seeking an abortion, with the allusion a third might be in the reception. In his recounting of the morning patients, Dave states how he encouraged both women to give the baby up for adoption. Yet, we also have a fundamental view that adoption / surrending a child has had negative outcomes. While not written by Vinley, Becky's adoption left her seeking approval and love in ways that were deeply complicated. Simutaneously, some of Nancy's issues seem to stem from the fact that she also wasn't raised by her biological mother, though I suspect the show sees Nancy as evil by birth rather than by the uneasy environment she was raised in. Though, most recently, there was a rather intensely emotional scene where Blue Noble goes on an eloquent (for Blue) exposition dump about how he was raised and dehumanized in foster care. It's hard to accept one preaching for life while simutaneously making all the villains have issues stemming from parental abandonment. I have finally made it into 1983 and looking forward to some of the stories from that year.

The Santa Claus drag king act is worth it. Its also just a very nicely done sequence outdoors. While I'm not 100% thrilled it was played for laughs, having Harold and Santa kissing on a Christian soap in 1982 is mind blowing. Babs and Harold are the show's super couple. I just adore them. There is the added bonus of Harold deducing that Vince Cardello was the Prince, which is a lowkey way of resolving the earlier conflict between Harold and Babs where Harold thought Babs was hooking again and Vince was her john. Christmas 1983 is a little splashier I believe with a lot of musical numbers. There is a song or two, but it is much more calm and quiet evening. There is always so many what ifs with "Another Life." I'm curious what would have happened have Vinley launched the show if it would have had such a rocky beginning, or if that was inevitable due to the nature of the production launch with CBN. Winsor was a fairly decent writer and what I watched in his waning days was not quality. I also wouldn't let go of that brief headwriterless period where Nancy is launched because it is so powerful and so different from the period before and after. I have to wonder if Metromedia's decision to launch "Rituals" had any impact on clearnance for the show in its final year. I can't remember if anyone was even syndicating "Antoher Life" at that point, but I believe the Metromedia stations initially had to air "Rituals." I'm curious how Vinley would have done on a network soap. Maybe "Loving" in the post-Marland period or even "Captiol" in the post Henry Sleasar run. I watched a couple more episodes (through 410): I believe the highlight remains on Edye Byrd's Ione who had two fairly strong sequences in two very different stories. First, Ione goes to visit Charles Carpenter to offer her positive thougths and prayers for Miriam's safe return and Charles lambasts Ione blaming her for the kidnapping and saying there is no way that Miriam will return to Ione's when she is returned. Ione holds her own without stooping to Charles' level. In the other, Ione visits the clinic that has just opened and offers to be a receptionist for the day to Ben and Dave. Ione is a natural fit with her connection to the community, her general positive energy, and her giving spirit. I fear what this means for the boarding house, but I love having Ione so firmly entrenched into so many parts of the canvas. She's such a presence on the show. One thing that I noticed, especially with the presence of Ione, is how lily white Chesterfield has become in reference to the clinic. I hope there is a conversation about the black community's concern about the clinic due to historical medical racism, but I am not sure that will be addressed. Though, this is literally the only soap that I think might address it. Ione has specifically stated her connection to the community and I'm hoping we will see a bit more diversity in who comes through the clinic given how they have described Chesterfield in the months leading up to this. Continue on the Ione Redlon love rant, she addressed a very subtle issue with Ben, how many of the patients are unable to read and right. Blue also is unable to read and write well. I have to wonder if there wasn't a plan at some point to have Lori back in Chesterfield having adult literacy classes. Or if it is just a red herring by Jason Vinley on how the canvas will learn that Blue, not Monk and Fernandiz, was the one to attack Lori. Gene's role is also beefing up a bit. He wants to do a story on the clinic and its first patient, Blue, which I imagine will lead to Blue's identity being revealed to the important players. I also feel that the show has painted Blue in a much more complicated light, which I don't necessarily hate. It's compelling. Back to Gene, Gene has also spoken to Carla about supporting Monk because he sees a lot of himself in him. This is a great way to touch upon some of Gene's identity issues in a way that is uplifting. There was also some nice beats between Carla and Gene about the baby and Jimmy's possible resentment. I don't remember Jimmy's exact reaction, but I loved that this was touched upon. There are so many soap opera super couples in the modern era with age gap children (especially on "Days of our Lives") that this would be an interesting issue to explore. The only one I can think of is Sami and Belle, but that was obviously much more complicated than just the age difference. I'm surprised by how much Vinley is able to pack into each episode. There was some Amber / Gil banter which was nice, but not super memorable. I do wonder why Peter Davidson doesn't make the connection that Amber might be Dave's daughter, but Vinley seems to hint that people think it could be a professional name. Almost into 1983.

I watched 401 - 407 (Christmas 1982). It is nice to revisit my friends in Kingsley. I forgot how good the show is, and the Christmas 1982 episode is a real highlight. Leading up to Christmas, we have some very well done moments. Jason Vinley continues to deliver a strong set of stories, characters, and interactions. Among the most noteable in the set was Blue Nobles visit to the clinic where Dave Phillips is treating the scar received months ago when he was attacked by Lori when he was attempting to rape her. Dave inquires about the nickname Blue and Blue goes into a maudlin tale about growing up in foster care and no one knowing his name. There were multiple kids in the home and they were all designated a color. Blue was his. It is a tragic backstory for a piece of work character that suggests that things are less about sin and more about circumstances. Blue was created, not born that way. Chandler Hill Harben does a spectacular job. Debbie McLeod is impressing more as Lori in this set. She has the heavy task of dealing with Lori's return to Kingsley. I think some of her realizations about things range from mildly poignant (her realization she doesn't have Christmas presents to give) to borderline devastating (getting upset with Terry because she wants to be able to comfort her mother on the verge of the anniversary of her father's death). I just wish some time was spent revisiting Lori and Russ because a broken Lori might find some sympathy from an equally complicated Russ. Maybe in later episodes. The kidnapping story is incredibly story with various threads tying together. You have Charles reading the letter from his grandson Eric, who has commented on how much his mother has changed and wants to reconnect with her. The letter is poignant and breaks the usually very stoic Charles, who has already had a beautiful and deep conversation about faith when Charles retreats on his interest in God after recovering. There is Blue agreeing to photograph Miriam for the ransom after Lance discovers Blue's shrine to his "girlfriend" Lori. By the time that Charles receives the phone call, everyone has said repeatedly it can't be a kidnapping because they have waited too long. I appreciate that beat being played. Then, you have Vince visiting Ron Washington to inquire about what Ron knows about Miriam's kidnapping and Ron playing the fool. I'm not completely aware of the trajectory of Ron's story, but I think that he is setting himself up with the double dealing. It's very intriguing. On the lesser intriguing, I'm not big on the Peter / Vicki angle. It's functional given the role Prescott Development plays on the show, but it's not as compelling as I think it could be. I did appreciate a very subtle nod to the Vicki / Peter story when Lori returns home and Peter apologizes not directly saying he failed to pick her up because he was out with Vicki . That was a crucial beat that would be lost on today's soaps. I'm glad we are shifting Gil towards Amber Phillips, who owns the modeling agency. There is some fun lighter domestic moments with Carla and Ione preparing for Chirstmas and Terry preparing dinner while Marianne Prescott stops by for the millionth time to complain about her relationship with Russ. The dinner prep is peppered with a bit of family backstory involving a family recipe that the late Scott Davidson wasn't very fond of. It all is much richer than the material from the first half of the year. Though, the best material of all has got to be Christmas, which opens with some beautiful exterior and outdoor shots set in Hollister Mall while Harold Webster walks through the shopping center while a familiar mall Santa collects for the less fortunate. As we hear Santa speak more and more, it is clear that Santa is the on-the-run Babs Farley. Babs' drag king Santa act is delightful culminating in the reunion of Babs and Harold in a very queer moment where Babs and Harold share their first kiss while Babs is still in her Santa garb. To make the beautiful reunion a truly "Another Life" moment Gil Prescott comes across Webster and Santa kissing completely bemused by the entire scenario. Harold and Babs' reunion is a true joy for the most unusual of couples. Harold telling Babs to leave again to stay safe is devastating. Harold going to the Redlons to share the news of Babs' visit was also poignant. I cannot wait for these two to be together again permanently. Also, another only on "Another Life" moment occurs when Dave Phillips joins the Davidson family for Christmas and tells Ben about a young woman seeking an abortion at the clinic. In what could have been a heavy handed moment, in turn it becomes a bit more embedded in Dave's personal history how his past involvement in government funded clinics required him to provide abortion services. The conversation ends with Ben and Dave discussing the need to maintain private donorship so that they aren't required to provide this service. While I completely disagree with the politics, I thought it was well done for the charactesr involved. Also, given the story of the young mother Mary at Christmas, I felt this was a well done moment. As a contrast, we also get the revelation of Carla's big secret: she's pregnant, which seems very much in the spriit of Christmas. In addition, it secures the end of marital hostilities between Gene and Carla as this is proof that they have resumed marital relations. "Another Life" continues to be a surprise. I'm not sure if it is just good TV or good because there is so much time away from it and the lack of connection to what was available in 1982. Either way, I'd recommend Christmas 1982.

They started a Olivia / Buzz / Frank love triangle at one point (February 2006). I thought it was a terrible idea and stopped watching again. Others may have loved it

I bought Chances a few years ago and made it fairly far (maybe into the early 110s) but didn't finish it. I found the final arc was less fun than the show was at it peak insanity (85ish-100). The show starts off very slow. I'd say the first couple episodes are fairly unmemorable other than the lotto and the ending to the first episode. The show picks up potential a bit with some interesting additions (George Mallaby's gangster character) that doesn't really go anywhere. I think by 18-20 I found the show was finally finding its place. Jeremy Sims is very good as the young male lead, Alex Taylor. As the show slims down its cast and centers on him, Sims continues to maintain the energy and momentum from those earlier episodes. Sims is a good sport and ends up being the focus of a lot of the nudity (backside only) though there was a fair bit of female nudity as well. I thought the pre-reboot episodes were my favorite (18-60 I think) with some clunkers in there, but mostly an enjoyable story involving a murder and a secret from the past that blended into a couple other stories. Connie Reynolds, the nurse sister, was one of my favorite characters. She was the very working class put upon sister more reserved than her hot headed brothers, Dan and Jack. Her ex-husband Eddie Reynolds pops up fairly early on and adds a lot of drama. Their oldest son, Chris Reynolds, is involved in a sexual exploration story with a gay character that leads to a gay bashing and Chris' later affair with another character. It's probably a daring story for the time, but it wasn't amazing by today's standards. Another Taylor son, Ben, is a hairdresser so everyone assumes he is gay. The best queer content is from later when Alex and his business partner Angela and jack of all trades Cal end up in a situation that suggests Alex and Cal may have gone to bed together. It's never confirmed completely, but the insinuation is heavy. Annie Jones pops up with a very different look than I was used to. Briohey Behets pops up for a couple episodes as a doctors between seasons of filming Families. On occassion, I consider revisiting it because I never did finish (same with Eldorado) and I want to see if I would still enjoy that earlier part of the show as much as I did the first time. Often, the show had really interesting potential that it never capitalized on during both its traditional and its Aussie take on Twin Peaks meets Soap. That level of insanity was really hard to maintain and its last lap about a vampire with a lisp didn't really work as well for me.

Monty's attempt at EastEnders boiled down to everyone naming their ethnicity. The Eckerts were German. Angela and Joey were Italian. The Spencers were Irish. Everyone's favorite Connor Olivera (Michael Lynch) was Mexican-Scottish. If the characters had been richer in characterization, it would have worked. She really did see what had been coming down the pike with a more grounded reality needed for soaps as the 1990s came around, though I also have an unhealthy curiousity about how she would have produced a show in the post- JER/possession era. Monty went through so many co-writers with her sister. You had Norma Monty, Gene Palumbo, John Whepley, then you had Monty and Whepley, then you had Monty and Arthur Bernard Lewis, and then you finally had Monty and Linda Grover. Robert and Anna's departure reduced the cop shop element. Riche didn't keep Guy Lewis around or Remi, the female cop who basically replaced Sam Welles. I'm not sure if you could have had all those cops on the canvas without increasing the criminal element a little bit. I could see Anna / Robert fitting better into Labine's world than in Levinson's. Though in watching some May, 1992, episodes I see Anne Howard Bailey listed as a consultant (and John Porterfield and Linda Schreyer listed as storyline consultants) so maybe Howard Bailey could have made that work, but probably not well. I think others have suggested that Robert could have worked as Luke's voice of reason or an antagonist in the relationship between Luke and Sonny. I do think there was something to explore there, and a part of me would want to know if Anna and Robert could have survived as a couple Stone and Robin's HIV diagnoses. I think viewers would have stayed if any of the stories had been maintained prior to the boating accident. You cannot drop every single story at the same time and keep the audience. The Eckerts were more than likely developed for the soap that Monty was shopping to ABC in 1990 set in Portland. She was trying to develop a film studio in Oregon in order to produce the show as well as some of her other projects. Maybe she was hoping she could land Geary to star in that. I found early Monty 2.0 fairly dull after the initial disaster story, which wasn't even something I was that enthralled with. There was some fun comedy bits with Mac and his community service work, but so much just faded into the woodwork for me. Monty just takes such a wide swing from that to telling the story with Cartel and them getting people sick that it's very much about whiplash. By the tailend of Monty 2.0, the show is better, but nothing to write home about. Even Riche's early plotless months are more engaging to me, though I'm not sure that was the view of the public at large based on the ratings.

I believe Jenny had a miscarriage. There was a congressional hearing about the whole incident and Jack Kensington tried to paint Jenny as some sort of Lolita-type who had been seducing him in order to extort money. I believe part of the ruse was that Jenny had aborted the baby, but Jenny's truth was that it had been a natural miscarriage. The abortion may have been the final straw in Ned and Jenny's marriage. Jenny also doesn't know why she lied about being a virgin. To save you the burden of watching a fairly long Jenny scene (over 5 minutes), Jenny says that she said it so that they wouldn't have sex before marriage because she didn't want to ever be in that position again. Ned makes the point that he could just said she didn't want to have sex. Jenny admits what she says sounds dumb even as it comes out of her mouth. The episode also includes the first time that Bobbie is reunited with Lucas after Cheryl's passing. Nothing is more telling to me about Monty's view of the Eckerts than the staging of Dawn and Decker's engagement in the Eckert bakery where you basically get the POV of Fred and Angela watching the engagement occur rather than focusing on the actual engagement. In all my years of hearing how shows have been invaded by new families, I've never seen new characters completely eclipse the established characters in the established characters own story climax. I half expected Angela to give a eulogy at Dawn's funeral. Also, after the initial flop of the Eckerts, the proposed Eckerts are basically abandoned. Even as Jenny recounts the pregnancy saga, it was just Angela and Jenny who knew even though there was at least a younger sister, Ava, who should have been around for the drama. And brother Mario also wasn't mentioned again. With all that said, I do like the more thinned down Eckerts (Bill, Jenny, with pop ins from Angela) because they were part of the fabric of the community and not the entire dress. I think the angle that connected Kensington and Jenny was Jenny's friendship with his daughter Betsy. They could have linked the multiple backstories by making the connetion related to Jenny's environmental activism. Jenny ends up being gone within a year or so. I guess it really didn't matter in the end.

I think Sean and Tiffany had talked of having a baby in late September a week or two before Cheryl's car accident and they are caring for Lucas. Lucas' custody puts a halt to the baby plans and when Sean refuses to go along with Tiffany in the custody case, which torpedoed Tiffany's chances in court their marriage was in such a tough spot. I think Jessica's child would have been the next step in that process after the miscarriage and Sean not wanting to have 2 under 2 with his and Jessica's baby. I also assumed this may have caused Tiffany to pull away from Sean, but under Riche, it may have made them stronger. Tracy's abortion stance. I'm not sure if we have ever pinpointed when this occurred in the story. We always assume it was Tracy's views of Jenny's teenage pregnancy during the Jack Kensington story as I think everyone was led to believe Jenny aborted the baby rather than had a miscarriage because Kensington had the hospital records expunged. Tracy / Paul / Jenny / Ned is very late stage Monty 2.0. Tracy learns she is pregnant at the very end of January and Riche starts the first week of February. Ned and Jenny marry in February. This story plays out for most of 1992 with Levinson and Thoma adding the Julia / Ned angle in June / July and Levinson (solo) leading the charge with the Jack Kensington scandal where it was revealed a teenaged Jenny had gotten pregnant by family friend Jack Kensington, a senator, and later miscarried the baby. This story basically ends Ned and Jenny's marriage which united Paul and Jenny leaving Tracy in the wind while playing Tracy against a lovelorn Marco Dane. By May, 1993, Ned and Tracy are seeking revenge on Paul and Jenny and set up Paul on theft charges and then Tracy runs over Jenny in the parking garage. Levinson's work is seedy. I think what differentiates his misogyny from later General Hospital misogyny and Levinson's victimatization of women is meant to elicit sympathy for the female characters whereas JFP and Guza's was more about showing the strenght of men. I never get the sense that when A.J. and Jason Quartermaine are slut shaming Karen because of her relationship with Jagger, and her eventually stint as a stripper, was intended to make the Q boys look good, but rather make us feel for Karen. And during the custody battle, Bobbie and Tiffany bringing up each other's sordid sex worker pasts shows how far the women are willing to go, and highlights how far from the original goal they have gotten. Wyatt plays Tiffany's pain so well. In particular, the scene in the hospital where Tiffany is rejecting Sean's attempt at reconciliation is so emotional from everything that Sharon Wyatt emotes in her body language to the classic melacholy GH music cue to the emotionally heavy dialogue. I think the script writers really embed some beautiful subtext with Tiffany questioning why Jessica would lie (Tiffany's a reporter and would pick up on the "lack" of motivation) emphasizing how Tiffany is still unaware of Jessica and Sean's dalliance even though Stevie wonder can see Jessica fawning over Sean in front of his wife. In some ways, Tiffany's redemption starts to happen in waves with the pregnancy, and then she relapses when she learns of the affair and the miscarriage occurs. Doesn't Sean try to help clear Tiffany of Jessica's murder start the new reconcilliation? I agree with those who say they didn't go far enough to rebuild Tiffany. Palumbo's Tracy was fun, but not as well layered from what I recall. Her relationship with Scotty was more light hearted than some of the nastier elements Tracy had embodied before and after, but I don't remember her having as much humanity as she did in later incarnations. I haven't seen a lot of Monty 2.0 (all scattered), but I definitely thought Tracy was a more complicated character by the end of Monty's run where she briefly attempts to make a society girl out of Jenny so that her marriage to Ned will work out and it keeps her away from Paul. In the final month of Monty with Linda Grover as a headwriter with Norma, there was a brief set up for a rivalry between Tracy and the newly fabulous Angela Eckert, who had returned from her sabbatical in Italy as a buyer for a famous fashion company owned by her cousin. Carol Lawrence vs. Jane Elliot would have been fun, but maybe not sustainable. I can't see Tracy ever really letting "the baker's wife" have the upper hand. I find Tracy's position as head of special projects in spring 1993 more heartbreaking than comical, as I think it was intended. Like you said, Edward always underestimates the business accumen of Tracy. Caroline and Bobby Chandler were created by the Hollands, I believe, and were basically cribbed from their radio soap, To Have and To Hold, which premiered around the time that they started at General Hospital. On their radio show, Robert Carter, a lawyer, was married to a wealthy widow, Caroline, his second wife, who had a daughter from her previous marriage, Ann. Robert's son, Jason, was a doctor at the local hospital who's wife, Emily, had started experiencing unexplained headaches and aural hallucinations that suggested a brain tumor. I think the Hollands tweaked a lot of this for General Hospital.