teplin

Yes, that character was badly conceived, badly written and badly played by John Considine. He might as well have been twirling his mustache every time he was on screen, he was so over-the-top eeeevil. That made it hard to sympathize with Mary and her choices, even though Denise Alexander had audiences in her pocket from day one in her previous soap roles. I think Alexander made the best of what she was given, but the show really failed to capitalize on her appeal.

Only if there had been a recast -- David Bailey's Russ was stultifyingly dull. Your theater department would have really gone nuts over Harding Lemay's 70s-era AW.

I'd argue that the 1979 reveal that Iris was adopted by Mac was a development that furthered story and character, eventually propelling Iris to stories -- and a series -- apart from Mac. I do think the 1988 "fix" was entirely unnecessary.

ABC was firing on all cylinders at the time and AW was as dull as Ada's dishwater. It really was a slog to get through most days.Really, all I cared about was Vicky Wyndham and even she was saddled with dreck. It's no wonder the show sank in the ratings. AW would get appreciably better by the mid 80s, but it was too little too late for lapsed viewers.

Chris McKenna (ex-Joey, OLTL) is in the midst of a story arc on Major Crimes.

Chris McKenna (Joey - OLTL, Mark - YR) guest starred on the 10/16 episode of FOX's Lucifer. https://auscaps.files.wordpress.com/2017/10/lucifer-303-13.png

Diego Serrano (ex-Tomas Rivera, AW) was on HBO's Insecure last night, playing a suitor of lead character Issa.

I bought Kathleen Layman as a cop from the get-go but I always felt like Sally Spencer was playing dress-up. It wasn't just the way Spencer played MJ, the writers also had a hand in weakening the character. As with Carmen Duncan's Iris, I pretty much pretended the actress and her predecessor were playing completely different roles.

I use a five-year-old iMac with Chrome or a two-year-old iPad with Safari to access this site and have no problem at all with either one. (And I love the videos, please keep them coming.) I just tried it with my four-year-old iPhone, and yes, the heavy video threads are a disaster -- but I wouldn't expect any different.

IMO, 1980, 81 82 and much of 83 are better left forgotten in the annals of Another World, with the exception of a handful of performances and stories.

Yeah, I think 54-year-old James Hyde looks pretty amazing, so does Dana Sparks at 55.

I don't think either woman played the game of attending industry events, schmoozing with stars and execs from other shows and networks, and granting endless interviews to the soap press. They did their work and they went home. That's often misinterpreted as "putting on airs" and could very well have been held against them. It broke my heart that she didn't return to AW, but I think she made the right choice in the end -- the writing on GL during her reign was, for the most part, leagues better than AW's. I tuned in to GL as much as I could to see her, but that unfortunately wasn't very often. I thought she was spectacular as Alex, though, just as she had been as Iris.

NBC was reportedly unhappy that Rachel and Carl drew more fan mail than any other couple on the show, interpreting it as a sign that AW's viewers were old, mostly holdovers from the AW glory days, and that there was little to no potential to grow the audience as long as that was the case. They got rid of Charles Keating in an attempt to reposition the show, and I'm sure they would have loved to dump Vicky Wyndham as well, but they didn't think the little audience they had left would stand for it.

Molly Burnett (Melanie, DAYS) has a recurring role on Queen of the South this season.

Jennifer Landon (Gwen-ATWT, Hillary-DAYS) showed up on Animal Kingdom this week, in what looks like a recurring role.

Stephen Schnetzer was also in the most recent episode of Showtime's Billions. Glad he's still working a lot.

I like the scene between Rachel and Jake, too -- I always enjoyed Wyndham and Eplin together.

Speaking of May/December romances -- or perhaps August/December -- I've seen it claimed that Lemay's story projections for his 1988 return included bringing Pat Randolph back ... and pairing her with John Hudson. How anybody would know that, I have no idea, but I would have loved to see Beverly Penberthy on a regular basis again.

Except, of course, for the completely out-of-character Gwen Frame. It was as if Swajeski was writing Opal Gardner rather than the sophisticated architect Gwen had been in her initial Bay City run. Courtney and Wyndham also had a brief but very nice scene at Mac's funeral. There was so much history between them that every interaction was charged. But I guess that escaped new viewers, and that's who really mattered to TPTB.

This has always been a mystery to me -- arguably the biggest star in the show's history returns to virtually no promotion and barely any storyline. I really wonder what was going on behind the scenes.

Did this ever play out on screen? I don't recall it -- though I think there was some spy-type nonsense with Michael Hudson at one point.

The story was ridiculous and I didn't buy for a second that the John, Felicia and Sharlene I knew would behave the way they were being written. The only saving grace was that Holbrook and Dano got some meaty material to play -- out of character, for sure, but I was happy the actresses got to strut their stuff. The transformation from earth mother to scorned woman irrevocably damaged the Sharlene character, though. I liked the opening when it debuted, still do actually, but it didn't match the spirit of the show, no matter how much JFP tried to morph it into something else. And yes, it was terribly impractical.

Anna Holbrook was so good. I know she won an Emmy, but I still think she was underrated. Though that's true of a lot of AW actors and actresses ... always the red-headed stepchildren of the soap world.

Good Heavens!