dc11786

Caldwell House comes into play in summer of 1985 under Avila Mayer and Braxton. It was again a historic home, and it was a bed and breakfast. I believe it was intended to give Jo a set as she hadn't had a business since the Riverboat exploded in June, 1984. She was then taking college classes, hosted the murder mystery party, and attended town council meetings but I don't think she had a permanent job per se. So that would have been over 3 years after they torched the inn. Caldwell House isn't open long because of the flood. Probably six months. I thought the kitchen set was nice. Prior to this, they had Jo in that small little attic looking apartment so this was a step up. I really liked the kitchen set. I don't think bringing Patti back was a bad idea. I don't think Jacqui Schultz was the right actress, but I don't think they were going to cast someone age appropriate. I do think Jo having a daughter on canvas outweighed the obvious issues, but I don't like Patti and Hogan personally. The bigger issue is that there were just no real strong males on the canvas in her age range. I think they should have brought back Len, even if it was for a short run, to play out the paternity reveal involving Chris. Too bad Ryder's background was so well established as I think I would have liked Adam Storke as Chris Whiting.

Dorothy Peterson was Mary Shaw C.M. Gampe was Dr. Taylor.

As someone who didn't like the concept of Martin and Jo, I felt there was something about them in the late 1983 episodes I've seen where Martin is in the hospital after being shot by Vargas (I think) where I see a bit of a spark between Aniston and Stuart. I do think Maree Cheatham and Aniston were gold. A Martin / Stephanie / Lloyd triangle would have been quite fun. Revisiting the 1981 weekly summaries, I think ending it in 1982 would have been bleak, not that ending in 1986 was less bleak. Personally, I like the stretches I've watched of Tomlin's first run and most of the 1985 episodes that I'm happy the show lasted.

When the shows first aired, I followed them. The production looked decent compared to daytime, but I know a lot of people have knocked the look. I thought action novelas were a bit better than the campier ones though I do wish all of them were available for viewing as I would like to watch Wicked Wicked Games again even though I preferred Watch Over Me at the time. The early novelas (Fashion House and Desire) featured too many flashbacks and character episodes to bring people in. I liked the wedding event they promoted for Fashion House, but overall I thought Fashion House fell flat. I enjoyed Desire a bit more, but there were so many stories featured that it probably wasn't the easiest thing to follow for a casual viewer. I watched Saints and Sinners in its entirety this summer as I had never seen the ending episodes because the show was cut off. I enjoyed it in a cheesy, plot heavy way. I thought the main romance between Roman and Julie was silly, but I really liked the secondary romance between psuedo priest Father Marcus and the devout Catholic Pilar. I thought the hotel stuff was interesting enough with Sylvia and Diandra. I thought a lot of the scheming worked. A lot of overacting (Robin Givens, Maria Conchita Alonso) and a lot of underacting (Tyler Cain and Scott Bailey). I tried to start rewatching Watch Over Me as I thought it was fun at the time, but I didn´t get past the first few episodes. I might revisit it later in the year if it remains up. There were a lot of actors who popped up there that I thought were good and got some more work later on (Robert Buckley, Natalie Martinez, Jaime Alexander) and others who popped up later on daytime (Jon Prescott, Scott Elrod) and others who I thought deserved more recognition (Jessie Ward, Kelly Albanese).

@Paul Raven I don't know if we have ever determined a definitive departure for Dana Andrews. I tried looking again today and only came across an article from late December, 1970, stating that Mark Miller was replacing Dana Andrews on "Bright Promise." I'm pretty sure they meant that Miller's Howard Jones was the new adult male lead assuming the role from Dana Andrews' Tom Boswell. In the episode synopses I posted, Tom is around through at least July 7, 1970. They are already playing Howard Jones and Ann Boyd later in the month. I remember Eric James (ex-Jim Boswell) said that neither Andrews nor himself were happy with the show and that they had been promised something more topical than they got. The episode synopses for the April 1970 sequence on IMDb sound a bit provocative for the time, but maybe James and Andrews wanted more. Jim's drug use and suicide attempt would have been considered pretty extreme for the time. Those April summaries are intriguing as it suggests that the shift was at the six months mark with Sandy's divorced parents Isabel and Howard Jones arrive in April as well as Bill quitting the university and Sandy dropping out of school. Earlier, the question of the writers came up. Soap World lists Frank & Doris Hursley, Rick Edelstein, and Robert J. Shaw as the headwriters. Given the work depboy did on the writers of General Hospital, I do wonder if there wasn't a rotation of weekly writers that guided the show. The Hurlseys script collections has character sequences listed through episode 309, which looks like it would be late November / early December, 1970.

@Khan Oh don't worry! Don Chastain had the NASA footage he planned to use for his proposed storyline in the closet of his apartment. Also, the explosion at Hartford House is late January/early February, 1982. So this wasn't Chastain, it was Ralph Ellis and Eugenie Hunt.

I think I only watched a bit of season 1 of Jackson's Wharf, which wasn't terrible but wasn't my cup of tea at the time. As I recall, the second season was more of a traditional cop show while the first one was more soap opera. As you get on, I believe a lot of the racier material becomes the subject of a bit of meta commentary as it usually is set in the ad agency and there is talk about what is appropriate and all the ad campaigns seems to involve T&A. Not that this is better than the early parts, but it at least seems to flow slightly better. The first season revamp is odd with Annie Jones character. I do feel the surreal elements of the second season do work for a bit before they don't. Also this and Number 96 will be airing on Foxtel starting tomorrow https://tvtonight.com.au/2026/02/soap-classics-number-96-chances-to-replay-on-foxtel.html

I have about ten scripts for it (#4, 9-14, 16-20). In addition, I have the drafts of episode #12-13 written by the original writers before Lakin took over. Rita Lakin reused a little bit of those episodes, but heavily rewrote them. In both versions, episode #12 is called Identity Crisis, but episode #13 was called The Naked Towers of Ilium or something of that nature. Wikipedia lists it as episode #20, but that is inaccurate. The last episode I have, #20, is called Uncoupled and deals the rift in Don and Helen Walling's marriage after the scandal of David Valerio's death and the episode ends with the couple agreeing to stay together for appearances. I've never really deep dived into them because they tended to be a bit dry, but that was many years ago. I also have a character bible for the show from the first set of writers. I don't think much of the show visually has popped up but may be a promo years ago. I do think someone who posted here years ago and use to post a lot on YouTube had it. The Friday night slot was very short lived. While Lakin's team rewrote episodes #12-13, episode #14 was announced as the launch of the new soapier Executive Suite which was suppose to focus more on the interpersonal, romantic, and family relationships and less on the inner workings of the Cardway Corporation. Only a handful of episodes aired in the slot before it was cancelled at the end of January with episode #20 most likely in production already (I have the call sheets for the episodes as well). The show wasn't given time, but it was also ranking in the bottom two spots for the week for most of the Friday episodes. When it was launched, the network said that Executive Suite was in response to the massive success of Rich Man, Poor Man the previous year. There were several other book related series that season which also didn't score well.The original production team was touting that they were airing up to 9 different stories in a single episode, which was probably too many. Also, the cast seems quite large. Lakin trimmed it down, extended the David Valerio story which was originally only 4 episodes (he appeared in 8), and then introduced Kim Hamilton as one of the board members wives. I believe that Executive Suite's original slot was Mondays at 10, but that All in the Family and Maude were loved to a different slot

Don Chastain was working off of Harding Lemay's outlines the entire time he was with the show. He said he made some choices here and there, with some nuance, but that he was fired when his first set out longstory was submitted. He planned on having Travis Sentell join NASA and go into outer space. I suspect this may have been the original plan for Operation Sunburst before it became whatever it was suppose to be. Chastain is briefly replaced by two writers who are assumed to be Millee Taggart and Courtney Sherman, who are credited in the newspaper as being the Ellises later script writers. Taggart and Sherman didn't do much, but I remember reading that they were being credited with writing the tale end of the Hong Kong sequence because the sequence overlapped with the Ellises material and it had been pre-taped. I think the switch to the Ellises was to beef up the hype for the move to CBS as it was announced in the same press releases as NBC acquiring the show. There were definitely flourishes that were uniquely his. Supposedly, the Halloween, 1981, episode included a drunk Stu Bergman encountering a lifesized rabbit (presumably someone in a Halloween costume). This was the same month (October, 1981) that Stu learned that Ellie had run off with the chef. Some other misfires by Chastain included murdering Mignon Sentell after recently bringing her back. Some of Chastain's work definitely sounds like Lemay as Mignon returned and was immediately obsessed with making Roger Lee Sentell her new Travis. Lemay claimed he and Bunim argued over a rape plot that ended up appearing after he left when Garth Taper's maid, Vicky Curtis, was sexually attacked by I believe the creepy character Peter Burnell played, but maybe I'm confusing the years. I'm not even sure Don Chastain wrote Max's exit as it would have been very close to the time he departed the show (November 1981). @VelekaCarruthers Chastain had a returning Brian Emerson involved in a boxing story, which was pretty well received in the press. I think there was always a sorta homoerotic undercurrent to the Brian / Spence dynamic, but I am not sure if that carried over onscreen to the boxing story. Larry Joshua probably started as Brian before Gene Pietragallo wrapped it up as I seem to recall Gene is promo pictures in the boxing ring. @Tisy-Lish I have not seen Mary Stuart as Kate, but I think they missed an opportunity in 1983 not making Vargas' Kate's son. It would have given even more depth to the kidnapping tale if Vargas' mother had ties to Martin just as Martin was dealing withthe revelation that Steve Kendall was his biological son.

I think I read either in some fan recount or some newspaper article that Secrets of Midland Heights had been developed for daytime, which is why some of the early episodes were so slow. Though, I may be confusing it with Behind the Scenes which had initially been conceived to be stripped nightly (hence the half hour slot) but a change in presidency at the network ended those plans. I have a script somewhere for Secrets of where Melora Hardin's character is revealed to be the product of her father's affair with an African American dancer. I don't think the character learned of her maternity, but someone did, maybe her brother who I think was played by Lorenzo Lamas. I think this was one of the show's unaired episodes.

I was pretty faithful to the show from November 2008 until the opening of the Horton Square when MarDar started and then slowly fell off. The transition was definitely noticeable, but it was also surprisingly a solid period because they trimmed the stories down to only a few orbits (the baby switch, Daniel and Chloe's affair, the Phillip / Melanie / Stephanie triangle, a Kiriakis / Dimera feud, and the marital troubles of Bo and Hope). A lot of the side stuff would be teased, but was never completely explored. Ariana #1 worked as a waitress at the Brady Pub for Max in one of those low key introductions that the show was commonly doing during this period. There was an immediate connection between Ariana and Rafe, but it was initially kept vague. At the time, the show was still claiming that Rafe had been sent to live with the nuns because he had been in trouble when he was younger. I belief Pat Brown Crawford appeared once or twice as the nun who had looked after him. I don't think it was ever mentioned again after 2009 that Rafe was raised by nuns, but I may be wrong. Anyway, the show wasn't doing anything with Chelsea or Max at the time, and the Ariana / Max stuff felt significant because they immediately paired Ariana and Brady when Max left and Brady became Melanie's defacto big brother. Maybe they were considering recasting Max because I could see Max being involved with Ariana, who was involved as an undercover drug operative working fairly well given Max's family ties. Owen, as I recall, also had a similar low key introduction working in the Kiriakis garden, which was featured fairly often that year. I want to say someone even got married there, but I might be wrong on that. Anyway, Owen was a pawn in the Dimera / Kiriakis war which included Stefano assuming a Greek barista had poisoned him at Java Cafe because he got sick afterwards only to learn he had diabetes. I thought the show was a hoot, but it was definitely not everyone's cup of tea.

Never mind, you were referring to the Inn sequences. The Corringtons did the town council story. They brought on Ted Adamson, who was Jo's opponent in the race. Adamson was looking to develop some property and thought being on town council would make the process go smoother. This is why Jo keepsreferencing not wanting Henderson to change. Also, Sunny Adamson, Travis Sentell, Bobby Stuart, and Marc D'Antoni were all Corrington cast additons. It was jarring to see Marcia McCabe hanging all over Christopher Goutman as I don't know if they wereinvolved offscreen yet. Goutman was a decent enough actor. He is laid back here and very frantic in the little bit I've seen of him as George St. John in the final year of Texas. Jo remains on the council through at least 1984 or maybe into 1985. It was one of the reasons she was involved in the intiial TR story as it intersected with some of the Brian's work in the police department and she had tries to the council. I remember at least once in the late fall of either 1984 or 1985 Jo was "off at a council meeting." I do think it would have been interesting to have made that an important part of the flood story with Jo handling the government end. Maybe she did and I forget.

The early episodes of Chances, from what I recall, were very narrow in their focus with all the threads coming out of the lotto story. I don't think there was really enough meat to that story to carry it the way they wanted to. I liked a lot of the potential slightly later on in the first ten episodes when they introduced George Mallaby as a villain who I felt could have carried the show's plots forward and added much needed story and energy to the series, but I may not completely understand the appeal of the Aussie soaps. I had forgoten about the ending of the original telefilm. It did feel vvery cheesy though I did appreciate the circular reference you mentioned to the bedroom window which I thought was nicely shot. I thought Kimberly Davenport was a hard sell as the female lead in the main triangle because the writing was so harsh and Davenport seemed to play into the character's brusque nature rather than finding ways to soften her. Maybe that's more fault of the writing. Rhys Muldoon was attracted and made a nice loveable loser, but I'm not sure if he could carry the show dramatically against Jeremy Sims. I think the setup of Alex - Charlie - Ben by the time the stories really start to gel is great. I think it foolish to quickly dump Olivia Hamnett's Rhonda Scott who was a much needed level of social snobbery given that so much of the show was hinging on the fish out of water element of the Taylors moving to the affluent neighborhood. I don't remember much of what happens at the ad agency but I remmber recognizing Sydney Jackson (the ad agency head) from his work on New Zealand soap Jackson's Wharf. I also had recognized Gary Day and Yvonne Lawley from Gloss. Patsy Stephen was fine as Angela and I seem to recall her life in those early episodes is slightly different than her later life. In the original run, she has a kid, that seems forgotten once they revamp. I also remember thinking a lot of the setup was decent (Jack as the wealthier brother having to deal with his younger brother now having an excessive amount of money, the setup of the Geoff / Phillipa police stuff in connection with Jack running a private security company with Chris, and con man Eddie returning now that the family had money). None of it ever really popped though. A lot of the second generation Taylors were bland overall or didn't have strong enough stories. As much as I thought the younger trashy sister Sharon was fun, I can't recall any of her story.

He did appear in a couple episodes. I think there may have been a longer story planned for Wes Ramsey. As I recall, Owen had a twin brother who wasn't seen onscreen except for in a picture (I believe being held by Gordon Thompson's character) which I felt was the next part of the story (Stephanie and the twin falling in love). During this time, the show was trying (several times) to tell a romance where the male romantic lead's family member had a complicated past with his female love interest. The original plan was for a slightly older nuWill (when we got Dylan Patton) who would have been paired with Melanie who would have had issues do to Melanie and Nick's past. Once they dumped Ramsey, the story played out with Melanie and Nathan (again with Nick's past). Had the Owen's twin stayed, I could see the father (Walter?) returning. When Owen was introduced, they also introduced Felisha Terrell as Ariana, who initially worked for Max and seemed set for a romance with him. Stephanie had also made it clear that, despite being interested in Phillip, that she was still not over Max. They also could have gone a Philip / Stephanie / Max / Ariana quad The show would try out a lot of things in this period and some stuck and some were abandoned. There was definitely multiple directions for Stephanie before they committed to the Stephanie / Nathan / Melanie / Phillip quad.

Thanks @DRW50 . It's nice to get a glimpse of this, though I agree with @te. I expect that if it ever did turn up it would be disappointing. There seems to be a lot of press regarding Beacon Hill in the papers with mixed reviews and lots of ongoing discussion of what wasn't working and more post-mortem analysis of why things didn't work out. In a very little sense, the show was cancelled the weekend of October 25th after two weeks of disastrous ratings against the World Series. The October 14th episode The Million Dollar Gate had a rating of 9.77 and a 17 share; this landed it the position of the lowest rated nighttime show for the entire week. The October 21st episode, The Suitors, received a 8.2 rating 13 share. It rebounds pretty quickly the next week with The Test where 10.8 / 20 share but remains among the lowest five shows for the week. There are lots of complaints given about the show. Some people liked the pilot episode, while others thought there was too much focus on sex. The episodes did not air in order, which Jackie Babbin complained about as the second aired episode The Colonel and the Fawn, the episode featured in the promo, was a later episode and Babbin felt it gave the show's audience a false sense of what the show was about as it was another sex heavy episode. Then, they switched episodes at last minute an week three showed The Marblehead Club instead of The Poor Little Thing. The consensus seemed to be that most people thought the show improvied around episode 5, which introduced the speakeasy run by the chaffeur Harry Emmet, an oblivious physically disabled Rob Lassiter, and Grant Piper, the son of the black chef. In addition, there seemed to be some interest around the political storyline as Benjamin Lassiter groomed his son-in-law, Trevor Bullock, for the poltiical world and they backed Peabody Carbury for a political posiiton. The general audience and reviewers felt that Benjamin Lassiter was a clearly a thinly veiled Joseph Kennedy, which everyone involved in production claims was false. They did, however, say that the Lassiter sisters were based on the Cushing sisters. There was lot of coverage about the production. Costumes had to be made, not rented, because there was supposedly nothing around from that era, which sounds suspect. There were live plants and freshly baked food in scenes. The production team would scour junkyards looking for authentic pieces to polish and restore in order to create authenticity and accuracy. A butler was hired as a consultant to explain how the staff should act. There seemed to be some consultants who were brought over from England by the executive producer, Beryl Vertue, including Jean Marsh and John Harkesworth. Vertue stated that Harkesworth worked on the last produced episode, the unaired The Visit about Charlotte Hacker arriving from England to critique how the Americans ran their household. It sounds a little bit meta by that point. After the cancellation, there were lots of complaints about the writing by actors who seemed to think things fell off after pilot and that the scripts were so bad that Jackie Babbin had to tell the cast to stop laughing when writers were on set. Some felt things got better towards the end. There were structural complaints as well. Some that have already been stated and restarted over the years about how it was unlikely that nouveau riche Irish would be living on Beacon Hill in 1920s. Some point out that there wasn't enough of a distinction between the social classes from the clothes theywrote to the amount of intermixing between the two groups. Others pointed out that the Irish staff serving in an Irish household really ignored the complexities and interconnection of race, ethnicity, religion, and class in American. It was suggested that even a wealthy Jewish family with Irish servants would have allowed more of that to come to the surface. At least one early episode hints at some of those possibilities. In The Marblehead Club, Benjamin Lassiter is put up for membership at an exclusive club by his snobby neighbor, Cleveridge, This occurs while Fr. Tom Lassiter, Benjamin's brother, is visiting after 20 years in India with Fr. John Dilip Singh. Tom comments about how men of color are treated and tries to get him out of town. Accustomed to his new homeland, Tom and John walk arm in arm in public causing a stir. The setup is rich in issues of social class, race, societal custom, sexuality and gender roles, and religion but I'm not sure how this was all handled by the scriptwriter David Wiltse. Sidney Caroll, who wrote the pilot, outlined the next 12 episodes, but stated that his outlines were heavily edited and disavowed most of the work after the pilot. There also was ongoing issues with censorship according to Jackie Babbin. In addition, there was quite a bit of back and forth about the general direction of the show. Carroll and Vertue seemed to want a quieter series, while the network wanted somethign bolder. While Vertue loved the final script about the visiting sister, the network didn't like it. Ultimately, Vertue went on to say you couldn't make a show like Upstairs, Downstairs in the States because of the structure of the television industry. The reviews were mixed, but I suspect some of the issues were that the reviewers were mostly male. One even complained that the products advertised in the commercials were female oriented, There is probably a bit of sexism in these. One post-mortem review was hypercritical of Kathryn Walker's acting but devolved into a critique of her looks, which is clearly unnecessary. Paul Rudd seemed to be the stand out new star of the group. George Rose , Beatrie Striaght, and Stephen Elliott were typically cited as among the stronger actors. David Dukes got mixed reviews in the beginning, but was praised later in the run fairly consistently. Another reason I suspect it didn't catch on was the cast was too large. Despite there being 18 or so lead cast members, there were usually at least one additional featured guest star every week to drive the story. I think you could have easily reduced the show to 10-11 cast members by cutting several of the Lassiters (Trevor, Maud, and Rosamond) as well as several of the servants (Terrence, Maureen, and Marilyn). I know Brian and Rosamond were emerging as a major couple, but I would have combined Rosamond and Betsy's roles. Fawn's love Giorgio may also have been expendable in the long run. @Franko Neighbors' score was composed by Bill Conti, a far cry from his Dynasty theme.

@DRW50 A significant amount of From These Roots exist in script form. I believe the University of California Santa Barbara now houses the Provo and Pickard collection which covers the first 580 episodes. Cornell houses the final thirteen weeks written by John M. Young. The only writer who doesn't have an archive, that I know of, is Leonard Stadd. However, 176 of his episodes covering January - Septemebr, 1961, are available in the NBC Archives at the Wisconsin Historical Society. So the only significant gap in scripts is September 26 - December 30, 1961 which would cover the first 14 weeks of Stadd's run. Came across this: @slick jones you might appreciate this.

In May, 1959, the show had wrapped up a story involving Liz Fraser standing trial for the murder of Enid Allen Chambers. Enid was Liz Fraser's romantic rival for the affection of Bruce Crawford, Liz's cosmopolitan finance who had been looking to launch a national news magazine with the help of Enid's money. The Allen family was very well off and were supporting a local medical research facility. During the course of the trial, the lawyers built a strong circumstantial case against Liz before it was revealed that Bruce Crawford was the actual murderer. Bruce's motive was connected to a previous murder he had committed years earlier involving his college roommate, which Bruce believed Enid had uncovered. After the truth came out, Bruce was locked away in a sanitarium. A NBC representative stated this was so they could release Bruce to complicate the story later if they saw fit. With Bruce institutionalized, Liz's romantic story with Buck Weaver was now complicated by the interest of David Allen, the late Enid's twin brother who had initially been introduced into the show as Enid's confidant.

I've only caught a few episodes since my last post so I'll just play catch up on the Phillips family story. In this last set of episodes both Lee Carrouthers and Sebastian Knight have been introduced, which means now each member of the Phillips family has their own separate story as well as the ongoing dramatic tension based on the turmoil over the death of the only son, Kevin Phillips. I feel like Dave is such a solid person which really is a nice way to address the salvation / redemption angle that CBN would want the show to address. Dave's work at the clinic is noble and the introduction of Lucille Figgins, the new nurse, adds a level of comic relief and I hope a sort of low key foil for Ione Redlon. I think Dave's reconciliation with Stacey has been very sweet and tender. It's a nice contrast to the hostile encounter between Dave and Amber weeks earlier. Karen Chapman is a warm presence and a nice addition to the show. Stacey's ambitions at the newspaper are still a simmering story with Stacey complaining about covering very basic stories and then offering to help with the coverage of Lee Carrouthers potential political campaign, but the curmudgeon boss McGovern only wants Gene on the job. I like the camaraderie between Gene and Stacey and Gene definitely gives off a mentor vibe, which works given the larger context of Gene's story with Monk. The ties between the Redlon and Phillips family work well for me. I sorta wish we got something between Amber and Carla because that would be an interesting mash up. Stacey's more calculated side emerges when she starts to put a bug in her mother Kate's ear about he possibility of reconciling with Dave. I don't get the Sami Brady vibes of Stacey wanting her family back together, but more righting the injustice of Kate and Dave's divorce. I believe the divorce rate is high among couples who lost a child. Dorothy Stinettte's Kate is more softer than I expected, but I imagine there could be more brittle bitterness later in the story as I had imagined. Those qualities seem reserved for Amber. Amber is pushing her own agenda wanting Kate with Lee Carrouthers, mostly to keep her mother and father apart. Amber's motive seems to be vengeance for her brother's death, but Kevin is such a shadow rather than an actual figure. His death is the defining moment of his life that overshadows almost anythign else. There is no sense of who he is outside of the dead son and brother, which I think is a missed opportunity. Fleshing out Kevin and his relationship with the other family members would help to not only make the pain over losing Kevin more palpable, but it would enhance the characters through their relationships with him. Amber and Kate would benefit the most from this. Amber emerges as Nancy's successor as one of the cruelest, most heartless people in Kingsley. As the Stacey / Kate / Amber triangle over who Kate shouldend up with builds, Amber undermines her father in a brutal move by mentioning that she was driving to the country club and could only think about how this was the route that Dave took the night he killed Kevin. Amber is such a complicated figure for me. I appreciate that the show seems to give her a more liberated female viewpoint, but it's clearly meant to make her the villainess. She fight with Gil when she pays for breakfast for them. Amber is rarely presented in any other light than as a smooth operator who's obsession over her brother's death doesn't make her as sympathetic as it may be intended. I wish Amber was presented more as Becky was in late 1981 as conflicted young woman with baggage, but also desperately hoping that she could find her happiness. I don't need Amber turned into a simp, but a moment of gentleness outside her sexual relationship with Gil would be nice. A friendship would do her wonders, and that's where I would probably pair Carla and Amber. Also, given the trajectory of Amber's future story, having Amber's thoughts on pregnancy during Carla's story would be fun. Amber's story makes me wonder what would have happened had the Barnes introduced Tony Cardello before they had left. I imagine Vinley would have dumped Vince's gay son pretty quickly, but I also think that Amber, in some ways, might hint at what was to come. Tony would be seen as a threat to the social and moral core of the community and while his point of view might be presented with surprising candor, it would most likely lack depth and complexity. Honestly, Tony as Amber's gay best friend might also have worked especially if they explored a Russ / Amber pairing. Falling further down the hole of speculative soap opera, I think a Amber / Tony friendship would have been an interesting threat for Gil / Amber as I could see Tony as confusing Gil in a number of ways. As Russ' half-brother, there would be built in animosity based on Gil and Russ' history. In addition, if Tony helped Amber with her later situation, I could see Gil being heated over Tony's role in the situation. Also, I don't think Gil would like Amber having a male best friend, even if he was gay. I also think the sexual power dynamics between Amber, Gil and Tony could have been intriguing with Amber always wondering if Tony just hasn't found the right woman, Tony potentially being sexually attracted to Gil, and Gil both despising and loving the attention Tony could provide to him Even if none of this actually developed, I could see the accusations of any of this be lingering in the air as a threat to the dynamics in play. Ultimately though, I would have biggest fight be when a rejected Tony finds God through a friendship with Dave Phillips. Without Vince in his life, I could see Tony looking for a father figure in Dave espceically if Tony had an alcohol problem. Dave would help Tony find religion like Jeff helped Dave. This would make Amber furious. And if a muckracker wanted to distort the relationship between Tony and Dave in order to ruin Lee's political career through the association of Dave's ex-wife, Kate, by showing what type of people she associates with. Though we would probably just get a horrifying AIDS story instead. The political angle is developing as we meet Lee. I don't complete buy the timeline of Lee and Kate's previous romance "last fall" during Lee's campaign, but I do think it would have worked in fall 1981. Kate was away from Kingsley for most of 1982 even if she was never on camera. Lee's campaign will take up a bunch of story space and revisits the political arena that Vinley quickly abandoned the previous year. I do have to wonder if there wasn't a plan, or at least consideration, of writing this story for Jason Prescott instead of Lee. With Jason in the role, you would have had more connections with Terry, Peter, Gil, Gene, Marianne, and a variety of others through his children. I think a past public relationship between Jason and Kate would have had to been addressed earlier, but I think there are ways that this would have enhanced the story. The Jason / Amber / Gil dynamic would fascinate me as I could see Amber seing Jason as a father figure more than Dave. Jason turning over the reigns of Prescott Development in a grander sense with Jason deeper into the political landscape to Gil but still meddling with Amber and Marianne forced to mediate. Terry and Jason having romantic tension while also arguing about Terry's involvement in Marianne and Russ' relationship. Dave and Alex's friendship fueling Dave /Jason tension. I would have loved for Jason to be reimagined as a character who was only publicly devoted to his faith, but continued to do things behind peple's back much like they hinted at but never addressed completely under the Barnes. I think Paul Gleason is solid in the role. I did find it wild that in the first scene between Lee and Sebastian Knight, Lee comments that one day Sebastian will go too far in pursuit of power. I wonder if his role in Kate's fate had already been decided.

There was a lot of story built around Victoria coming back from the dead. Her return in May, 1993, is well staged as it's set in a gothic monastery with incredibly moody lightning. I don't think Victoria really fit into Port Charles and I don't know how they could have kept the Victoria / Bill / Holly stuff going long without being too long. Victoria was definitely treated like a big deal, but I guess that is because she was being paired with Tony Geary. Randolph Mantooth's Richard Halifax and Frank Runyeon's Simon Romero also fall into this category of being tied up in the Holly / Bill romance that sort of quickly faded from into the background. Nikki's initial run is under a year (late January 1992 - late October/early November 1992) before she returns for a week in May 1993. I thought Monica's decision to take in Nikki was driven by Monica's guilt over not telling David about Dawn before David died and the fact that little orphan Nikki had lost her mother and her father several years apart. Nikki felt like an important character under the Riche led headwriterless period, but was quickly dumped by a solo Bill Levinson. The Monty 2.0 era is full of characters that fizzled including Sheila's original love interest Joey Moscini, who was ditched with his uncle and aunt Fred and Angela Eckert. There was also some hype in the press about Brandon Hooper's Dr. Eric Simpson, Sheila's boyfriend, who was A.J.'s rival. He lasted a little more than a year as well.

From the Characters that Fizzled Thread: Yeah, Bree was never a 'real character' or brought on with any fanfare. She was needed for a plot function, but I figured they must have liked Marie Wilson so much that they either created Summer for her or kept her in mind until a role came up. Summer was truly a cursed character, and I'm still unclear what was even the point of bringing her on. They didn't seem to have a clear vision for whether she was supposed to be a rootable character or a villain, and that whole convoluted thing with having known Daniel previously and then falling for Brady, who had Daniel's heart... it was a complete mess. @Michael As you may or may not recall, Bree and Summer were introduced by different regimes. Bree was in the tailend of Tomlin / Whitsell and then Summer appeared a year later in that awkward period of February, 2016, right after Chase Jennings raped Ciara Brady on the Horton couch and Dena Higley took a "sabbatical" until the fall. I think Summer arrived in the mix of the turnover as I recall. I imagine the thought was to introduce another female character of a certain age who was related to the canvas, but not necessarily related to everyone on the canvas. I didn't love Summer, but I didn't like much of the Griffin led months (late February - August, 2016). I think Summer as a con artist and Maggie truly believing that her child was stillborn could have worked, but it would have been a stretch. I also suspect they may have wanted to go the route of having Maggie redeem another schemer, which was effective with Melanie. Summer was dumped very quickly though (around August 2016) as I think she was the one who had kidnapped Tate Kiriakis because Kate had paid her to do it as an act of revenge on Victor, if I recall correctly. That 2015-16 "season" with Griffith & Higley was overrun with confusing, short-run character. They hyped up the casting of Dr. Fynn, played by hot Australian Alexander Bruszt, but they clearly had no vision for the character at all besides "hot" -- they introduced him as an old pal of Daniel's, had him hit on Daniel's fiancée Nicole, sent him on a date with Ava Vitali, and then semi-paired him with Kayla for a hot minute before writing him out. Very weird. And that was the same time period in which they brought on the Hernandez parents -- A. Martinez as Eduardo and Alma Delfina as Adriana -- both of whom flamed out quickly, even though Eduardo made a few weird returns. There was also that lady Blanca, some Hernandez family friend whom Adriana wanted to pair up with Rafe to get him away from Hope. They toyed with her and Jordi Vilasuso's Dario (another one for this thread!) for a minute, then unceremoniously wrote her out and shuffled Dario over to Abigail for a terrible immigration story. Fynn was the result of some contest in Australian meant to hype either the show's return to Australia or some sort of tie in. I don't think there was much thought there other than we have an actor and the hospital crew had been decimated over the last few years. Originally, Fynn was going to be revealed as the drug dealer in some storyline that was going on at the time, but they dumped the filmed scenes and brought back Rory, J.J.'s pal, instead to be the drug dealer. I thought Eduardo as Paige's father was a neat twist and propelled the Gabi / J.J. pairing. Someone briefly set up the Hernandezes with Eduardo and Dario as the low level criminal family in town and I didn' hate it (I think the show tried something similar a year earlier with Clyde and Ben Weston). Adriana never really made sense other than to give the show a complete family unit. I think both she and Blanca were nurses, if I recall correctly. I didn't hate Blanca, but I also didn't lose any sleep when she stopped appearing. There were also a lot of short term characters attached to the younger set stories that I seem to recall from that era. Real Andrews appeared as Jade's father. Zak Henri appeared as Henry, a friend of the younger set who briefly flirted with a much older Paul Narita after Henry had come out to his (offscreen) minister father.

Madison died as a result of the explosion. Ian stuck around for a few more episodes to be revealed as the person behind Stefano's death. He had kidnapped Stefano and claimed that he was Santos Dimera's bastard son via the family maid, Sophia, but I believe E.J. and/or Stefano dismissed Ian's claim. The scripts with the Santos' reveal were Tomlin and Whitsell, but I wondered if that wasn't the intention of MarDar all along. In retrospect, I have to wonder at what point Joe Mascolo's Alzheimer's was diagnosed. I feel like Stefano was used pretty consistently until his murder in 2012, but afterwards, there were so many gaps. Stefano was revealed alive in August and then disappeared again for some time. In 2012, "Days" did a tour of different cities to promote the show and I caught the even at one of the Connecticut casinos. I remember Drake Hogestyn basically walking arm in arm with Mascolo because of Joe's health. Now, I have to wonder if things weren't starting then. I won't rehash too much on MarDar as my feelings are fairly well known. If I recall though, part of the issue was the business infrastructure wasn't there for Madison to work. The typical business stories of the previous few years were always grounded in the relationships, however underdeveloped they may have been. From what I remember, the business stuff was constantly shifting under MarDar without much impact. Sami worked for Madison, her childhood friend, and then went to work for Kate, I think. And Kate had been a hooker who slept with Ian during his marriage to Madison. Even on days that was a wonky timeline. Almost as funky as Chad's mother being a prostitute with Kate when Chad was conceived under Higley a year or so earlier. It's always possible that is why Sarah J. Brown was dropped, but I don't think financially there was space on the show for her where the story was heading with Kristen's return and her seduction of Brady. The elephant story was stupid. I also thought that adding Xander as the third wheel and making him a Kiriakis was just a little too tight. In a post-Sami Salem, having a medical reporter arrive in town with a past connection to Melanie and to Eric opened some interesting possibiliies. It also should have provided Nicole, then also a journalist, a much needed rival. Everything seemed to go south very quick, which is a shame, because I remember thinking this could be a nice pivot. Nathan was only on for about a year and a half introduced in April, 2012, when the show was gearing up to have Lexi die of cancer. Yancey was out in the fall and then Owens did a one year run (November 2012-November 2013). Yancey had previously appeared as a bartender at the Brady Pub probably around 2010. Owens came in for the Cameron / Abigail / Chad triangle with his big plot being that he was in debt and had secretly been stripping to pay the bills leading to the strip show sequence. When Casey Jon Deidrich left as Chad, Cameron really wasn't going to be able to carry the story, as you said. Bree Tjaden was a bit part (maybe 3 months) and served her purpose, to propel the mystery of Aiden Jennings' wife. I really like all those bitchy moms that appeared briefly (Bree's sister-in-law was Hope's friend). Paige Searcy had such a unique look. I thought her Jade could have made life miserable for Kayla for years, but I don't think people really liked the idea of Kayla as this aging helicopter mom. I didn't hate it. I also liked how both Ciara and Claire snubbed her once Jade got knocked up by Joey. Haugh wasn't good, but I thought the show could have recast and gone with a Joey / Jade / Tripp story and there would have been some interesting moments to explore. None of the Taylors lasted long. I think Taylor was introduced in late January 2011 because someone's contract was up for negotiation (Allison Sweeney's maybe?) and the show was setting up a potential next step. At the same time, there was a casting call for a male that many assumed was going to be Eric, but I don't think that part ever materialized. Sebastian's story was stunted when Wheeler didn't recast Ed Bauer for the Santa Domingo story when Peter Simon refused to return. The shift to Sebastian and Beth was pointless though I did enjoy where they were going in Sebastian's final days with Blake, Sebastian, and Josh plotting a takeover of Spaulding with Sebastian and Josh developing a close friendship and Blake crashing out when she learned Alan and Holly were in a business deal that would have exchanged ownership of the Journal and shares of Spaulding Enterprises. . I wonder if Michelle Ray Smith's Ava was originally suppose to be Lena's daughter. I do remember the set up and wondering if they were going to introduce Lena's daughter, but I also thought that maybe it was just backstory to give Lena a reason to look after Harley in prison.

I managed to watch 10 more episodes this weekend so I am at 460. I'll start off with Another Life's answer to Bobbie and Lucy. The rivalry between Babs Farley and Nancy Lawson is just fun. Babs arrived on the scene as Nancy's prison cellmate and, from the beginning, Nancy has always thought of herself as better than reformed hooker Babs even though Nancy is never against using her body to get what she wants. For all my praise for Jason Vinley, I will say Nancy is one of the few characters not better served by this writing, yet. Babs, on the other hand, has emerged as a comical secondary heroine who will make you laugh and break your heart in the same scene. I do feel these episodes moved the dial slightly towards improving Nancy's position on the canvas. Nancy and Babs' separate stories collided when both women were visiting Harold Webster and a cat fight ensued. Babs' got the upper hand and left Nancy with a nasty bruise on her face, which led Nancy to file charges against Babs. Nancy's pursuit of "justice" later ends up saving Babs' life when another hit is arranged for her in Fairmount involving Lance and Marty, an informant for the organization. Before we even get this far, there is a very great episode that highlights the hypocrisy of Nancy. When Russ comes to collect the money that Nancy owes, Nancy alludes to the fact that she is willing to sleep with Russ in order to work off her debt. For all the grief that Nancy puts Babs through, Nancy is the one who offer her body still to pay off man. In the same episode, Gene visits Babs at Walter's Restaurant where Babs is employed with money from Harold. Babs vows she will pay the money back. It's a very deliberate contrast to Nancy who thinks she doesn't have to pay. Nancy's big story has been dragging for weeks with her refusal to leave Nora's house, which she cannot afford, and her desire to keep the Redlons from owning it due to Nancy's blatant racism. Nancy's money problems have been brewing for awhile and we finally learn that, yes, she has borrowed money from a loan shark from Vince and Nick's organization. It's a delightful turn which I figured was coming, but I hadn't expected. When Russ comes to collect, now Nancy is privy to knowledge that should move forward Russ' story. It's only a matter of time now before Nancy lets the Davidsons know Russ is working for the mob. I can't wait for Lori to react. Nancy is back to a lot of lower level scheming with characters like Vicki and Carla. With Vicki, Nancy manages to not only get 500 dollars from her, but also a place to crash once Nancy is evicted. With Carla, Nancy goes the extortion route and offers to vacate the house without issue and sell to the Redlons if Carla will give her 1000 dollars. Carla later considers it as she despertely wants the house with the baby on the way. There is little movement in the Monk story with Carla and Gene arguing over whether or not Monk can move in, and Harold making it clear that securing Monk's release is dependent on Gene agreeing to become Monk's guardian. It's a story I wish got a little more play because I do think there is threads to play given that Monk was Lori's student. I think Lori's pregnancy is a complicated story. I do think Lori isn't completely healed and I do think it's a stretch for her to think the baby is Blueś, but I don't hate it. I just wish they would lean into others acknowledging that Lori isn't as mentally well as they would like her to be. For me, the biggest issue is that we are suppose to believe that Lori got pregnant around the time of the attack in September so Lori is supposedly fairly far along and this wasn´t caught at all when Lori was in the hospital. The movement in the mob story is nice. I cannot beleive how much I am enjoying this story, but because Vinley has grounded it in relationships, I am fascinated. Ron has decided to make Russ his second in command which aggravates the current second in command, Lance. The tension between Lance and Russ is continuing to build. I am not really sure where they are taking it, but I enjoy it. Russ' loan collections has put him in contact with Nancy, which threatens to cause problems in his world. There also seems to be a bit of a suggestion that Ron might be elevating Russ just to stick it to Vince for insisting that Russ be in the organization. While I do think Ron admires Russ to an extent, I do think part of this is making things more chaotic for Vince so that he doesn´t look too deep into the record keeping. I also wonder if Lance and Ron will set up Russ as the fall guy for the side hustles. I hope Nancy becomes more involved in this world. I do think Nancy would be the perfet mob wife for either Ron or Vince or married to Vince and sleeping with Ron on the side. I am ready for the kidnapping to end. It's gone on for a long time and I feel like it has stalled the Carpenters as characters. There was a lot of good stuff in the Phillips' story, but I'll save that for a later post.

Thanks for filling in some gaps for me. I didn't realize that Marty had appeared as early as the Isis storyline. I think this has to be one of the earliest recurring roles for a Native American character in soaps. I don't remember liking Del in much of the bits and pieces I've seen over the years. He seems too sleazy compared to Gerringer's more larger than life, slick Striker Bellman. I can see why people wouldn't like him. I imagine they were going for an opposites attract situation with a society matron and slightly reformed con man ala Phoebe and Langley on All My Children.

Labine and Mayer left in May, 1975, in anticipation of the premier of Ryan's Hope. At this point, the bigamy hadn't been revealed yet. Paul and Margaret Schneider are writing in June, 1976, when Christopher Reeves' Ben is sent to prison. Gabrielle Upton is writing when Ben returns in October, 1976, when Chandler Hill Harben premiered in the role with the prison rape occuring in November during sweeps. Love of Life tried several stories that seemed much more successful on One Life to Live several years later such as the prison rape story (I believe Brad Vernon was raped in prison) and the prostitution tale (Karen's story was much better remembered than Arlene's stint as a hooker).

Reading through the "lost" episode summaries, it's interesting seeing how the faux infidelity story was plotted out with the first arc being the divorce case and custody suite where Charles paid off Creasy and Norm to lie about the infidelity including the tie clip. This seems to be such a silly plot point to secure a divorce on. The second arc seems to be the countersuit with the Davidsons going after the Carpenters because of the perjury and the bribes. It's also worth mentioning, I believe Norm Elliott is also Lori's former boyfriend. I don't think this made the summaries, but was mentioned in a summary of the premier episode. The review was rather vague so I didn't include it in this. It would seem that the show replaced this story with drug trafficking plot involving Scott's investigation and Capital Distributors. I'm actually surprised that CBN didn't reset the show in 1984 back to episodes 56-60. That seems to be a rather engaging week with the introduction of the Capital Distributors plot, Jeff's DUI, and Russ' attack on Norm. It would seem that the Lori / Paul / Miriam story was wrapped up in the week or two prior. I have to wonder if those episodes weren't somehow legally bound up because they had been syndicated with The 700 Club. The original distribution deal had the first 13 weeks sold as a part of a package deal with CBN's more established series. It was also nice to fill in some holes. Becky had spent time with Francis in order to get intel on Norm. Mitch was brought in for the initial divorce trial representing Lori. I don't think I knew the intricacies of Norm's connection. Peter drinking is a sequence I would like to see. As is the material surrounding Jimmy's overdose. The secondary plot in these opening episodes involving Jeff's fall from grace is less clear to me based on what is happening. I think it picks up a bit with Mandy Bolen. It is a surprise to see that Nick Trench was only there a few weeks before episode 70. Mandy still seems intriguing and less problematic with Jeff's deception regarding his marital status. I can't say I find any of this super appealing in the broader sense, but it was nice to have a bit more of an idea of what was going on.