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I think at the start of the storyline, Gina mentioned that there had been medical advances made which is why she was thinking of having a child. Though, it was definitely a minor detail that was never explored or developed further. I know this is unpopular, but I've enjoyed the bulk of what I've seen of the Dobsons 1991 run, but more scenes than storylines. As someone who doesn't live, eat, and breath Cruz and Eden, I find the final Eden storyline captivating in terms of the Eden is Channing, Jr. personality. Those scenes are just wonderful. Louise Sorel is also given some wonderful drunken monologues as she stumbles into a hospital room and laments on her life. I think the trial for Dr. Jameson running down Santana plays on the show's history nicely. I think the shooting of Mason leads to some nice courtroom drama as well. I don't hate Mason / Cassandra / Warren the way others do, but they do take up so much of the storyline. There are also way too many storylines that introduce international characters strictly to appear in criminal storylines or act as pure agitators. That said, to get through these scenes, you often have to put up with waste of space scenes with characters like Katrina and Dash or Eileen Davidson's Kelly. I also am not a huge fan of the Michael Brainard in those early scenes.

Would Rosemary Forsyth's departure and Judith McConnell's arrival line up with Mary-Ellis Bunim's arrival on the show? Ava Lazar mentioned that Bunim (the new producer) wanted to work with actors she had worked with in New York. I believe McConnell would fall into that category.

Ruby Ashford was on for a few weeks between June and July 1983. She first arrived during some big fundraiser party and left a little while later after selling Lloyd Kendall the newspaper.

@JosephNatalie Schafer's Eleanor Carlyle was mentally ill. I believe she was released from a mental hospital and arrived on the scene after they killed of Baylor. If I remember reading correctly, Eleanor was Duncan's mother and Tracey's stepmother. Somewhere, I have the original proposal for "The Survivors" which was very different. I believe Duncan was originally suppose to be the focus and the storyline for the first year was very action oriented. There were a lot of production problems and I believe several episodes were filmed quite early on that were thrown out. Actually, they ended up being repackaged as a telefilm called "The Last of the Power Seekers" and it aired internationally. In regards to Krystle/Alexis angle, one of the only other forgotten 1980s soaps that went that angle, and has been seemingly forgotten, was the late night "Behind the Screen." The patriarch character, Gerry Holmby, headwriter for the soap opera "Generations," had a second wife, his writing partner Dory, and his ambitious first wife, Angela Aries. I wish "Behind the Screen" would pop up the way other 1980s primetime soaps have.

I don't think the show really appreciated what they had in Clay and Gwyn. I know bickering divorced couples who love each other in a different way are a staple of soap opera, but it would have been nice to have a least a few weeks of them happy together before they would tear the band aid off. Parlato and Heinle shouldn't have worked as well together as they did. Parlato kept Clay from being completely creepy despite the fact that the age of his girlfriends seem to consistently decrease. Trisha and Jack were both dead to Trucker and Stacey. The guilt about betraying the loves of their lives is about the only energy the story would have had. I'm not personally advocating for a grand romance, but I do think that Stacey and Trucker heading a mixed match brood of kids in a working class surburban household would have made a semblance of sense. It just would have reduced the characters to tentpoles rather than active agents in the story. I have complained about Tess for many years. Catherine Hickland is talented, but Tess was such a cluster of a character. Hickland managed to salavage the character when the writing wasn't there. I would argue the only time Tess worked was when Nixon was writing and she was mostly just manipulative and self destructive. Taggart and Guza's grifter was unlikeable. I don't remember much of Tess' story under Walsh/McCarthy, but Tess just seemed present. The final version of Tess under Brown and Essensten was terribly harsh and crass. It was really a turn off. With that said, she had great chemistry with everyone. I thought Tess and Cooper worked together in a twisted way. That was probably my favorite pairing for Hickland on "Loving." Though I think they could have done a nice marriage made in hell between Tess and Clay if Deborah hadn't shown up. It was great seeing Woodall. I wish he had tried another show. He still has the same energy and vibe that he did when he was on "Loving" 30 years ago. It was a nice treat. I still think they should have tried to bring Matt back when they wrote out Casey.

To me, Trucker and Trisha were simply a Trisha / Steve redux. If you were going to go that road, why not make Trucker a Sowolosky or a Rescott and call it a day. In the final days (March 1993) of Trisha and Trucker, they were simple a young married couple hanging out with their friends and living a happy life. Without all the constant melodrama, I understood why the couple was appealing, but they were just a lot to take as the show's central couple. I certainly agree that Stacey and Trucker would have been a thing had the show just continued. I just felt they got along too well and had nothing unique to keep them together as a couple. If the show was okay with Stacey and Trucker setting up house in the Donovan place and offering advice to the miserable people of Corinth that would have been fine. I just can't see them driving major story as a couple as either did in other pairings. There are times I wish they had cast Larkin Malloy as an Alden cousin. I don't think the writing was necessarily bad, but it wasn't right for Clay. I didn't appreciate how Addie Walsh found it necessary to write Dinahlee as a victim in order to keep her relationship with Clay going. Parlato's Clay cohabitating at the Alden mansion with Tudor Newman's Gwyn lusting after Collins' Dinahlee while Marcantel's Curtis slowly unraveled was a missed opportunity. If Buck wasn't brought on for that specific reason, I do think the idea occurred along the way. Buck was an invention of Guza and Taggart who arrived shortly before Noelle Beck departed. The whole Persian Gulf backstory with Buck, Tess, and Curtis wasn't my favorite. I think Taggart and Guza would have commited to Tess / Trucker as end game which I think would have been very unfortunate. Stacey / Buck / Gwyn was an unlikely storyline that really worked. Brown had nice chemistry with both actresses. I didn't like the pregnancy storyline, but I do think it was a mistake to move Gwyn out of Stacey and Buck's orbit so quickly only to turn around and blow up a Clay / Gwyn revisit all in the name of accomodating the albatross that was Jeremy Hunter. @DRW50, you are spot on. I'd say there are a few more I enjoy. After Ally gets pregnant, I can take pretty much any configuration of the youth quad: Ally / Casey, Casey / Steffi, Cooper / Steffi, and Cooper / Ally. To be honest, Casey / Steffi was my favorite. I liked Clay and Gwyn with Parlato and Tudor Newman. Under Taggart / Guza, I did like Shana / Leo. After the initial reunion in the fall of 1993, I felt the Ava / Alex story could be trying at times. I enjoy things like Egypt's murder, but it is a story that required Egypt to go to the extremes in order to facilitate it. Ava taking over AE had huge potential, but that story was quickly nixed. I don't know if they ever properly dealt with the fallout of Alex shooting Gilbert, but I think that also had some legs. Ultimately, I don't hate that Alex and Ava didn't end together, but rather that Alex moved on with Jocelyn. Nixon is credited in September 1993. Debbi Morgan arrived in August 1993. It's entirely possible this was all in place and due to contracts. Taggart had previewed some big surprise returns for the show's tenth anniversary but none of that came to be. I'm not sure if she was talking about Alex Masters and Angie (return to daytime). Angie is introduced as the doctor helping Shana with her pregnancy. We also see her dealing with a very rebellious Frankie, who Trucker offers to take under his wing. Through Frankie, Trucker and Angie meet and Trucker asks Angie out, but Angie rejects this. The show had just moved Tess out of Trucker's orbit and into Curtis / Clay's worlds. Peluso definitely could deliver a solid performance even when the writing wasn't up to par. Jeremy and Ava had potential, but there stories didn't work. I actually liked Gilbert and Ava a little bit, but only in the sense of a tragic couple who would never be able to make it work. Ava and Alex in the mid 1990s always seemed to be in a story bubble and it would have been nice to seen them a bit more integrated.

I do believe they made Rick a bit crazy. Originally, it appeared that Rick was brought on to replace Curtis on the canvas as the Alden troublemaker, but in a different way. By that point in the story, Curtis was involved with Lotty and they were already making him more of a traditional romantic lead. Rick seemed like he could be trouble. Rick was involved in the Lily story, which would have made more sense with Curtis in the role given Curtis' history with everyone. I wasn't one who was impressed with Taggart's 2002-2003 stint the way others were. To be fair, she was still contending with Paul Raunch for most of it. I thought the Marah / Tony rape me scene was very off putting as was Cassie stripping for Danny. The end worked much better for me with the stalker storyline and the mystery about Gus. I have come to appreciate her work a lot more in recent years when it comes to "Loving," but also still hold to the belief that significant periods of her run with the show were mediocre at best. The 1991 material from Taggart (and Tom King) can be a bit heavy. The birth and death of Trisha and Trucker's son is pretty rough. Killing both Jim and Jimmy in a plane crash was a bit much. I thought the Abril baby story was a nice unifying thread that united many parts of the canvas. I also liked the love triangle with Carly / Ava / Paul even if it wasn't anything terribly original.

@Broderick I believe you are talking about the summer of 1979. Your comment about the looseness of the canvas would make sense. John and Joyce Corrington were the headwriters at the time. They can write some very enjoyable soap opera, but they were not always great about keeping connected characters interacting. On their own show "Texas," they often kept members of the Marshall family in segmented parts of the canvas. Also, the Dekkers also had a tendency not interact enough as a family. I'm curious if this was a "Search for Tomorrow" isuse or a writer's issue. With that said, "Search for Tomorrow" also had a tendency to keep characters even after their connections faded. I'm always surprised how long David Sutton stays on for example.

From the limited episdoes I've seen of that period, Robin Mattson's Gina doesn't really gel under the Dobsons until they introduced Lily Light. Gibboney and Mattson played them so differently. Anne Howard Bailey taking over the writing really benefitted Mattson. Mattson's Gina worked well with Justin Deas' Keith, and it was under Bailey that they really succeeded as a couple. I didn't hate the stuff with Michael Conrad and Gina, but I'm not sure they could have gone much farther than they did with that couple. I wish the Lily stuff had gone on longer.

This is a quote from Todd McDurmott explaining his departure from "Loving." Joe Hardy was EP at the time and Millee Taggart and Tom King were headwriting. Honestly, I think McDurmott made the right choice. That proposed storyline sounds pretty terrible. Also, King and Taggart definitely had a history of taking third wheel characters to the extreme (Dan Hollister and Jeff Hartman spring to mind). To be quite honest, I don't think King and Taggart's work was very good until Jacqueline Babbin came in and Babbin inferred that she had to lean heavy into the writers to adjust the writing. Taggart's 1993 run is much stronger and set up Nixon very well for her return even though she used very little of the foundations.

I agree @Forever8 about Peluso. Her Ava goes through several character shifts and Peluso just seems to maintain a consistent throughline even when it doesn't seem logically possible. I think the Ava / Leo / Shana trianle was fun when it wasn't being absurd with some of the fantasy sequences. Peluso and LeClerc had nice chemistry, but I didn't care for Jeremy and Ava as a couple. I wish they had allowed the sequence where Ava learned that the Aldens had cheated the Sowolskys and Cabot turned over significant portion of AE to Kate and Ava. I felt like that had the potential to be the best Ava story, but instead they went with the Gilbert tale which seemed an early taste of the campy style plots that would overrun soaps in the next decade. I spent a little time last summer thinking about what could have been with "Loving" had it survived. I think the murders secured James Harmon Brown and Barbara Essensten their lengthy stay at the show (nearly 2 years which hadn't happened since Tom King and Millee Taggert in 1988-1991). Without the ratings bump from the murders, I figure they probably would have been out by late 1995 or early 1996. Personally, I would have liked to see if Millee Taggart and Mary Ryan Munisteri could have worked together. I also wouldn't have hated to see someone like Richard and Carolyn Culliton have taken over the show. Though I've read the monkey's paw, so if the show had lived, we would have been subjected to Megan McTavish's "Loving," which would have been nothing short of brutal.

I'm particular to Dennis Parlato, but I haven't seen all that much of James Horan's work consistently. To be fair, I have a hard time distinguishing some of the writing from how I feel about the character. Those 1990-1991 episodes that have showed up have shown Clay as a bit cowardly and weak. I feel like Clay just sort of lets Trucker take the blame for the plane crash rather than actively playing a role in the set up, but maybe I'm remembering it wrong. Clay only becoming interested in Abril's baby because of the will was interesting. I would like to have seen a longer tale with James Horan's Clay married to Colleen Quinn's Carly while raising baby Tommy. I think the tension between the couple and Trucker and Trisha and the couple and Abril would have been very interesting. Larkin Malloy's Clay was written by Walsh who briefly played Clay as this lovelorn romantic lead which didn't suit the character. By the time Clay becomes menancing again, I just couldn't rectify this with the overly sappy Clay who was helping Dinahlee to pretend to be Trucker for Hannah's sake several months earlier. If Malloy had stayed, maybe my mind would have changed. Parlato plays Clay for the bulk of the gaslighting story and just embraces the darkness that Clay has within him beautifully. Then, Taggert and Guza humanize him a bit by making it clear he does care for Dinahlee despite all the terrible things he did. I think the potential of Clay and Curtis as rivals both romantic (for Dinahlee and maybe Tess) and business rivals (Curtis rejoined AE in July 1993 when Michael Lord took over) had potential. I wish the Clay - Cooper relationship had been developed more as I felt that was a dynamic that had serious potential to develop story. I also think Parlato did a good job selling the Clay / Steffi story which could have just felt creepy. Had the show not been cancelled in 1995 and hobbled along a few more years, I wonder what they would have done when Parlato left in 1995. I think it might have been good to rest Clay for a little bit and to bring back Anne Alden back into the story. Similarly, with Wesley Addy passing in January 1996, I wonder what the show would have done with the Alden family all together.

Interesting thoughts. I think the issue for me remains the combination of writing and casting or rather rewriting due to casting. To start with your Blair Waldorf reference, I believe Eden was originally suppose to be the spoiled little rich girl in that mold, but they tamed her much more quickly when they decided she was going to be with Cruz. I do think Cruz / Eden's early relationship has some very fascinating elements and scenes. There is also no denying the chemistry between Walker and Martinez. It's just a shame that this was a typical NBC soap that felt the need to sacrifice everyone at their altar. I think its easier to see the difference in the characters of Gina and Santana in 1991 when you have removed Eden from the equation. Santana is a woman who lives in the past. In 1984, it motivated her to seek revenge and I think her disappoint, loss, and desire to recreate the hope she had in her youth when she was young and in love with Channing, Jr. and planning a life motivated her. It helped that Santana had a career. She was more independent. By 1991, Gina seems very clingy in her relationship with Craig Hunt. There was definitely a return to a more neurotic, desperate version of the character. I could see this version of Robin Mattson's Gina being involved with a Hank Judson type. Santana seems more calculated in what I've seen, while Gina seems a bit more impulsive. With that said, in other time periods, the characters functions definitely overlapped or became interchangable. I don't think Jade was underdeveloped, but rather poorly cast. Melissa Reeves is talented, but she couldn't nail the aspiring actress who had weaponized sex to achieve her goals. So they softened the character to play along with the actress rather than recasting. Julie Ronnie is very stiff and cold as Laken. Maybe this was a deliberate choice, but I can't think of a single scene where Ronnie stood out. The guys on the otherhand were equally underwritten but the actors had some more charisma. On paper, Ted was a thinly written character; Todd McKee was charming so Ted was charming. Similarly, Rupert Ravens had nice friendship chemistry with McKee which kept Danny more relateable for me at least. The biggest problems in the younger set for me are 1) the central couple (Laken and Ted) have few character traits, no goals or aspirations, and basically no story outside their romance and 2) the decision to isolate their story from the rest of the canvas. Jade wanted to be an actress. Danny wanted to do stunts. I don't remember what Ted or Laken hoped to do. I also don't remember anyone being deeply effected by the Channing murder. Jade's brother was in jail for killing Ted's brother, who was involved with Danny's sister. Even if it didn't bother the kids, it should have made the parents more upset. With that said, I would be curious what would have happened had they introduced Gabriella Andrade. The one time she was mentioned, it was suggested she was a teenager (she's always on the phone). I'm curious how that would have changed some of the character dynamics.

@Forever8 Thanks for tagging me. I find 1992 to be a very mediocre year. I don't negate the importance of the college crew, but the original 1992 stories are so poorly done. It doesn't help that you have so much turnover. I watched what I could of these episodes, but they don't really appeal to me. I'm not the biggest Trisha/Trucker fan. I think both actors are very good, but I don't think they needed to dominate the story the way they did. I didn't really care for the pairing of Stacey / Trucker, but I was even more disappointed that they spent a year building it up only to not go there. This reaffirms that Staige was basically the precursor to Stephanie. I had forgotten the family financial issues, which would also plague Steffi leading to Staige and Ally rooming at 35 Maple Street. Eden Atwood was out by early November when they sent her character back home to whatever state she came from. I really don't like Larkin Malloy as Clay. I believe he is gone by the end of October. I think Clay and Dinahlee had potential to be interesting if they had left Dinahlee as this girl who was rough around the edges. Addie Walsh really did a number on the character. She gets a bit of her grit back under Millee Taggert, but Nixon treats Dinahlee as a central heroine archtype, which produces some good story, but doesn't showcase the best of Jessica Collins' skills. I've been watching some of the June 1993 episodes that were posted a few months back. Those were much more enjoyable. Taggert and Guza really revitalized the show in short order after a very dull year.

I think the Joe / Augusta fling was suppose to be part of a bigger story. Something that stood out to me watching the 1984 episodes last year was a scene between John and Marissa Perkins. It was very well written, but, unfortunately, the acting did not match the writing. In the Perkins dining room, Marissa is going on and on about Joe and her concerns that Kelly Capwell was going to ruin him. During this rant, John Perkins tried to convince Marissa to go to bed with him, but Marissa rebuffed her husband's advances. John Perkins went to talk about his needs and how Marissa wasn't fulfilling them. I definitely read the scenes as Marissa's near Oedipal relationship with Joe was driving her husband away from her and that this set up several story threads: (1) John eventually cheating on Marissa and (2) Marissa's role as a spoiler in the Joe and Kelly romance. The decision to kill of Joe Perkins wasn't in the original plans so there had to be a much larger story in place for Kelly and Joe that would have kept them front and center. I would speculate that the original long term plan had John Perkins having an affair with Augusta Lockridge. John and Augusta's affair would have given Marissa enough ammunition to finally kick John to the curb and file for divorce. A now alone Marissa would have been more dependent on Joe for both help around the house, but also for love and affection. I can see Marissa convincing Joe to stay for dinner, and accidentally standing up Kelly. Kelly and Joe's relationship would have started to crumble under the pressure of Marissa's neediness. After Kelly's prodding, Joe would have gone to see Augusta to convince her to end the affair with his father (John would have been more committed than Augusta) only for John to learn that Joe had also slept with Augusta. In the meantime, Lionel would make jokes about Augusta having bed both the father and the son and make crude jokes about only Augusta knowing who was the better lover in a way only the Dobsons would. The final clincher though would be when Kelly and (Marissa) would have learned that Joe and Augusta had slept together. Kelly would be upset that Joe had slept with Augusta when he supposedly loved her and they would end their relationship (temporarily). I imagine Peter wouldn't have gone off the deep end and that Peter and Kelly's relationship would simply have collapsed when she learned that Peter had also been sleeping with Augusta. Again, Kelly would have shared a man to Augusta. Of course, Kelly and Augusta would have a scene where Augusta would get the upper hand over her much younger rival (and the daughter of her former rival). This would have also allowed Kelly to reunite with non-serial killer Peter until she and Joe were again thrown together. I think the more compelling scene would have been the confrontation between Augusta and Marissa where Augusta would question whether or not Marissa was more upset that Augusta bedded Marissa's husband or whether Augusta was jealous because she (Augusta) had done the one thing Marissa could never do: sleep with Joe? To top it all off, once the whole Joe/John conflict settled, Jade would have managed to find her way into Warren Lockridge's bed in order to keep the Perkins and the Lockridges interacting and playing off all the complicated family dynamics that had been built up over the course of the storyline. This also would have played nicely with the Brick and Amy story. There are several other reasons I think this is a possibility. One, Augusta ended up having an affair in year two with the mattress guy, a very working class man from what I recall. It would stand to reason that might have originally intended to be with John. Also, I don't recall Kelly ever learning about Augusta and Joe's affair when it originally happened. Maybe she did, but I feel like that reveal was kept in the writers' back pocket so they could drop that bomb at the appropriate time. Ultimately, most of the Perkins were miscast. There is no way I could see Robert Alan Browne convincing Louise Sorel to go bed. Also, Valorie Armstrong was a calm, quiet presence, but the writing suggested a much more emotionally manipulative mother who's interest in her son's love life bordered on obsessive. Similarly, Jade, who initially was a vixen, was miscast with Melissa Brennan (Reeves) who was too sweet to play a seductive social climber that Jade was originally positioned to be. I think the Dobsons just cut their losses and went in a different direction. This just remains speculation though.

I believe they are mid-November 1989. Jason Craig’s murder was a sweeps story. I have episodes later in the month where they are doing the sickle cell test. The car accident probably was a Friday episode. This is a BET rerun. I believe newspapers.com had some summaries for the BET reruns. If someone has those it would be easier to establish a timeline. By early December, Rob Donnelly has been accused of murder and sells the Whitmore estate to Ruth Marshall to afford the legal costs.

Flynn left twice. In the story, he left town in February. Several weeks later, Carly moved to NYC. She and Flynn reconnected abd became engaged. Shortly after, Carly abd Flynn had a fight about Paul and he was hit by a car and died. Carly and Paul left for New York with Michael in May 1992. Carly returned in July for a single episode to announce she and Paul married. When Ava was in a coma in spring of 1994, Carly came to visit.

Giff was sacrificed by Addie Walsh. She didn't get the character at all. When Walsh arrives in January 1992, Giff and Gwyn break up over something pretty minor in the scheme of things. Giff then proceeded to be put in a short arc with Ally where she faked a pregnancy, which was beyond stupid. Giff then remains support for Trisha before he suddenly goes psycho. I do appreciate what Walsh did with Casey when she returned in 1994 with cocaine and mental health issues. I felt that was a good way of taking advantage of very poor storyline from her first run (which I suspect might have been a Haidee Granger issue). Richard Cox was dumped in favor of Jean LeClerc, but truthfully, the show had the same issue with LeClerc that they did with Cox. Giff at least had ties to Casey. Jeremy just floundered. The class element was definitely there with Jacqueline Babbin and Millee Taggart/Tom King. The use of Kate's as an actual boarding house helped. Mary Ryan Munisteri shifted the dynamic a bit making it a college town and playing up the line between those attached to the university and townies. The bowling alley and Checkers both really made that dynamic clear in comparison to things like the Alden mansion and the Tides. Haidee Granger didn't seem to get that and just took away a lot of the sets that added character. Carly's story was very narrow, which didn't help. By the time of these episodes, she doesn't have a job, her relationship with Flynn was superficial, and she had no life outside the Rescott clan. At least under Taggart and King, there was the marriage to Clay, her friendship with Abril, and the obvious complications in the Abril-Clay-Tommy situation. When Clay and Abril leave, Carly's world is so small. The show tried to build a Shana-Carly friendship under Mary Ryan Munisteri, but Shana had absolutely no life so it didn't help. Given where the canvas was at the time of Munisteri, I think I would have tied Carly to the university somehow. Maybe had her take her alimony and take classes at Alden University to play against all the younger characters. I don't know. I do like Michael. He was a fun pain in the beginning. The heart problems story was underwritten though and once Walsh took over all the personality was drained from Michael. I was really interested when it was being suggested that Michael was more street smart than book smart and that he would probably take after Ava. I liked the potential of that. There was potential for Paul and Carly to be a couple, but Walsh didn't play it. I don't think Paul ever learned that Ava had kept Carly's secret. Carly agreed to remain mum about the fact Ava had purposely hid knowledge about Michael and had known about Michael's existence and remained mum for a significant length of time. Pair that with Ava keeping mum about Paul's sterility and you had the potential to drive Paul and Ava apart and draw Paul back to Carly. I feel like Mary Ryan Munisteri left projections for Paul, Ava, and Carly and Walsh just used all the plot points without any of the rich characterization that was there for Ava and Paul and lesser so Carly and Flynn. And if the show needed to get Paul off the show quick, they should have had him leave town to start a new life with Flynn.

@j swift Hank Judson was Gina's boyfriend prior to Gina's marriage to Stockman. He was the boyfriend who had raped her sister Summer. Your points regarding Gina and Santana are interesting. The characterizations of both seem to fluctuate depending on who was playing which role and how the characters were functioning at that point in the story. Initially, Ava Lazar's Santana was suppose to be a very complex character who was driven by the pain in her past (her lover's death and losing her child) to achieve her goals no matter what scruples she had to abandon along the way. She was a strong woman who didn't need a man, but knew that men liked to take care of women and played on that. She was smart and wasn't against using sex as a weapon. As an interior designer, Santana had her own source of income and was not dependent on anyone. Gina, on the other hand, seemed the opposite. She was completely reliant on a man. While Santana was meticulous and calculated, Gina often acted on impulse and out of desperation. Even when she was thinking things out, like trying to convince Mason to get her pregnant, it was predicated on a series of lies she had already built. Those were two very different character types. Along the way, things definitely got lost. When Robin Matson assumed the role and Anne Howard Bailey became headwriter, the character of Gina became more low rent. There was a sleaziness to her that wasn't anywhere in Linda Gibboney's performance. I cannot see Keith and Gina being a popular couple with Linda Gibboney in the role. Gina became more calculated and more manipulative while Santana fell into addiction. I like Gina Gallego as an actress, but I'm not that big a fan of the writing for her as Gina. It just comes off as very one-note and plot driven. If Linda Gibboney had stayed, I think they should have shifted her into the Lockridge orbit to keep her in the loop. The show didn't seem to know what to do with Warren, and, while an affair between Warren and Gina might not have had much traction, playing on the connection between Gina and Warren regarding Summer and possibly poisitioning Warren as a potential love interest for Hayley might have given Gina some more breathing room. I think Gibboney would have been fine with Michael Durrell's Alex Nikolas. The show wasn't really that good at keeping any character, but the older ones seemed to turn over so often. It would have been good to keep someone like Alex Nikolas around. Regarding Santana / C.C., I like the pairing, but I think the criticism is valid. I think there is a level of disconnect in the writing and the production of the story. A lot of the scripting makes it sound like this is supposed to be an unhealthy relationship. Rosa flat out accuses Santana of being so obsessed with her love for the late Channing Jr. that she is trying to recreate that relationship with C.C. Kelly thinks that the whole thing is insanity, which it is. I really just like the potential of Santana finally coming into the money and power she wanted from day one. Do I think there were other ways to achieve that? Absolutely. I just think the Dobsons seemed to have bigger intentions for the story that never got to reach fruition, but I could be wrong. To me, the ideal plot would have been to have Santana to encourage C.C. to go for custody of Gina's baby with her intention of using C.C. to eliminate Gina. I would have Santana and C.C. marry and be given custody of the baby with Gina having visitation. Santana would then convince Gina that they should conspire together to convince the Capwells that C.C. has lost his mind because no one would believe they would work together. Of course, in the long run, Santana would be planning on setting up Gina to take the fall for everything after having C.C. institutionalized in the same facility where she had been locked up. I also would have had Santana take over ownership of the Oasis. In the end, I would have liked to see Santana with Brick Wallace (either Richard Eden or a recast).

The 1991 episode is from November, 1991. I think this was online before in a partial form. I really liked Giff and Gwyn as a couple. I think Cox and Tudor Newman had nice chemistry. This episode also includes the reference to all of Giff's marriages and children, which is something that often got ignored. I believe later Casey mentioned Giff's multiple marriages, but I don't think his siblings were ever mentioned again. Ryan Munisteri set up Revel's arrival in her final episodes in December 1991 or January 1992. Revel was a musician and suppose to show up shortly into the new year. I assume this was delayed because Mary Ryan Munisteri left. Early Dinahlee is so much fun when she was scrappy and more complex. Dinahlee was sleeping in her car before she crashed in the art studio at Alden University. Her affair with Trucker was very interesting, but I can see why Trucker and Trisha fans would rebel. Neither character came off well during that storyline, but they were more human than in most other sequences I've seen. Mary Ryan Munisteri seemed to be okay with showing different sides to characters. I believe at one point, Ava actually told Kate that she hoped that Carly never found Michael. Matt's overdose was also rather hard to sit through in that Eric Woodall just played ever angle of it (the physical pain and the realization of what he did). I know Munisteri has a rather bleak history as headwriters, but I would have liked to see version continue. The 1992 episode is January or early February 1992. Addie Walsh has been there for about a month or less. Michael having heart issues was never really played to its full potential. Walsh almost immediately dumps the Carly / Ava / Paul / Flynn quad. It goes from A-story to C-story in a very short time. 1992 is a bizarre year transitioning from Fran Sears and the college reset to Haidee Granger's super generic melodrama which included the ghost storyline, Giff's descent into madness, and the "All My Children" Carter Jones crossover. I'm glad more episodes are showing up. I would love to see more of the missing gaps of 1991 in particular.

Marcantel was brought back in either late May or early June 1995. Gwyn and Clay went to visit Curtis at Dunellyn where Curtis tried to convince them to bring him home because he was better. Clay didn't believe him and left him there. Later, Gwyn had him signed out which brought him back to Corinth proper in mid-June 1995. This was setting the stage for the serial killer story.

Timeline wise, Millee Taggert and Robert Guza took over from Addie Walsh in January 1993. Under Walsh, Dinahlee was floundering. She gone from calculated vixen running her own business into an insecure department store model. Taggert and Guza pulled Dinahlee back into Clay's orbit, but played up the toxic element of their relationship. When Taggert and Guza wrote the show, Clay was truly no good for Dinahlee. As part of that growing story, they reintroduced Curtis Alden to the canvas most likely with the hopes of positioning Curtis as the dramatic lead of the Alden family as Noelle Beck had elected not to renew her contract and was leaving the show. Patrick Johnson wasn't right for the part. Not that he was a bad actor, but he simply didn't seem like the Alden scion. I bought that Johnson's Curtis had been a soldier, but not the torment that he was suppose to embody. Not only was Curtis' tortured over his experience in Kuwait, but he was still mourning his late wife Lotty. I suspect they recasted for that reason. Michael Lord is definitely green, but I actually prefer him to Johnson. Eventually, he mellows out and seems to gel (at least for me). I do think Johnson was more charismatic, but Lord to seem to have more potential to carry dramatic material. There is a change in the course of the story for Curtis around July 1993. They start to downplay all the Kuwait stuff, which was a bit over the top and focused on grounding the story more in the corporate aspect (Tess took a job as Clay's secretary at AE building the potential for a Tess / Clay / Dinahlee / Curits situation). Ultimately, I think the show wanted Tess with Clay, but Guza and Taggert were let go in September 1993 when Agnes Nixon returned. Michael Lord departs Corinth in September aroudn the time of the transition. Taggert and Guza seemed to be setting up a situation where Dinahlee was going to become pregnant by Curtis just as he left town, but this seemed to be scrapped by Nixon as she did with several stories. When Chris Marcantel returns in November 1993, Nixon is writing and Jozie Emmerich has taken over as EP from Haidee Granger in October. Nixon seemed to blend her early characterization for Curtis but by adding some elements of Mike Donovan with the PTSD storyline. Marcantel's Curtis was no longer the romantic lead that Johnson and Lord were played as. Now, Curtis was a spoiler to the relationship between Dinahlee and Trucker with Nixon completely downplaying most of the connection between Dinahlee and Clay. Nixon basically keeps Curtis as a spoiler for the entire time she is there and doesn't go much beyond that limited viewpoint until her final weeks where she suggested a possible romance between Curtis and Stacey. Even that, I would imagine would have been undone by the inevitable return of Jack Forbes. When Addie Walsh and Laurie McCarthy takeover in August 1994, they quickly write Curtis into a corner by having him tamper with Buck's plane which resulted in the death of Janie Sinclaire and Dinahlee's miscarriage. Marcantel's contract wasn't renewed in late 1994 when it came up. Curtis ends up in an institution being tormented by Gilbert Hunter and then later is released to shoot Gwyn. By the time Curtis was written out, Jessica Collins had already left and Robert Tyler would follow in February 1995. Since Curtis was seen through such a limited lens, his character was expendable. So in that two year period, you have 3 Curtises, 2 executive producers, and 3 writing regimes among several other critical recasts in that general story orbit.

I think several factors probably played into the early demise of the Andrade and the Perkins clans. For the Perkins, casting failed to deliver actors to bring to life those characters. John, Marissa, and Jade had the potential to be dynamic characters, but the actors failed to hone in on the really interesting aspects of those characters. With Jade, the Dobsons seemed to play to Melissa Brennan's strengths and softened the character who initially was suppose to be a young social climbing vixen. Valorie Armstrong failed to recognize the potential of Marissa as the overbearing middle class helicopter mother who meddled in her son's relationship. Robert Alan Browne may have had the boisterous rough neck down, but the lack of raw sexuality defanged a lot of the elements of the Marissa - John - Joe dynamic. Kerry Sherman seems to be the one stand out who seems to work in her role. It's a shame that the show didn't try to recenter the family's story around Amy. Once the Dobsons grew bored with the Joe-Kelly dynamic the family was pretty much doomed. With both families, the Dobsons have alluded to the fact that NBC wanted to the show to be youthful so I think the elimination of the first generation of those families was related to that matter. With the Andrades, it seemed mostly a lack of interest in the family as a whole. In 1984, they were introduced without even having a central set, correct? Santana had her apartment, but I don't think we saw the Andrade home. That says something about where the value is. Besides Santana, the characters were underdeveloped in the story. I don't know if I've ever seen any significant scene with Ruben in it. The initial arc where Rosa learns that Santana had Channing's child played out too quickly and the conflict between the Andrades and the Capwells over Brandon were never really capitalized on to what I can see. Cordova is very strong and is given some meaty scenes in the Dobsons 1991 return. There is a great set of scenes where Santana has been decorating C.C.'s bedroom. Rosa is displeased by the budding romantic liasion between Santana and C.C. and states quite deftly that Santana's place is downstairs. This leads to Santana throwing Ruben's abandonment of Rosa in her face, which is just powerful. Santana herself is such a missed opportunity. The decision to dump Ava Lazar is mind boggling. She is green in those early episodes, but she is charismatic and develops quickly into a force to be recogned with. In what I've seen of Margaret Michaels, she doesn't have the spark that Santana needed. Gina Gallego seems to fall into some bad writing, but I think she was a strong enough actress. I actually like Wanda DeJesus. There is definitely an edge to her Santana, and she plays the embittered element of Santana well. I just wish that the Dobsons had managed to marry off Santana and C.C. in order for Santana to get custody of Channing Capwell III. That would have been great. I know there were two other Andrade girls referenced in the early weeks. One, Gabriella seemed rather youn as she was always on the phone. I wonder if they would have brought her into the teen group eventually. The other, Olivia, was a doctor. I wonder if Renee Jones' Toni Carlin was originally suppose to be Olivia Andrade and they ended up tweaking the role. Toni seemed like a significant recurring player for a hot minute before she seemed to disappear.

I believe it was August 1958. David was introduced so that his villainous sister Enid had someone to share her schemes against Liz with.

I believe Sunburst was an alternate fuel project. That storyline went on for nearly a year I believe, but I don't think it was every truly resolved. I know Travis stood to make a great deal of money off the development of the alternate fuel and that Rusty was after the money. I think the story started under Don Chastain, and, from the sounds of it, got him fired. Ellis and Hunt continued it, but I think it was scrapped by David Cherrill. I think it was Tourneur Instruments, which was an avaition company. The Kendall family had also been involved in manufacturing of aircraft I believe. Lloyd's father Harrison (I believe that was his name) had committed suicide because of faulty airplane parts.