Paul Raven

Fletcher managed to hang around way longer than any other character introduced in the early 80's. I guess having no real family connections, and an actor willing to stay gave him longevity.

Great post. This board should be about differing takes, opinions and interests. I enjoy BTG but not going to pretend it is w/o fault. The fact that we get to 100 or so pages each month is testament to the overall interest in the show.

That's because it's NOIR!!!

GUIDING LIGHT Len the ice cream shoppe owner ?????? Kurt Knudsen Jan 4-? 2000

I agree that 16 yr old shouldn't be in sexual relationships. My reservations with the story so far is the attitude of her parents whose response and attitudes seem certain to drive her further into that behaviour. We've seen in the past that they have a good enough relationship to be able sit down with her, hear her out and provide support rather than condemnation and punishment.

Nothing has changed today. So many guys are swooned over just because they have a 'good bod'.

Janice Lynde's NBC sitcom pilot 'Roxy Page' finally aired Mon Sept 6 1976. Up against a Rhoda rpt on CBS and Viva Valdez on ABC a short run comedy that was played over Summer. With Janice Lynde, Leslie Ackerman, Jeff Corey. Comedy pilot about an aspiring Broadway star who, in addition to auditions and rehearsals, must cope with a volatile Armenian family which has other plans for her life.

Another report from the Jan 89 affiliate meeting where NBC addresses it's daytime woes and plans to remedy the situation. New daytime drama, talk and magazine shows on NBC's horizon In a meeting with representatives of affiliated stations, NBC executives pushed the network's upcoming Generations serial drama and spoke extensively about other programming in 1989. Among the announcements were that the network plans a March test of a daytime talk show starring Rona Barrett, and that it is developing, for a summer debut, a magazine show to be supervised by the news division that would probably include "dramatic re-creations." Additionally, NBC -TV Network President Pier Mapes reviewed the network's continued strong ratings performance, but he balanced his positive appraisal against inroads made by broadcast and cable competitors into the three major networks' share. Mapes also announced what he said would be a first step in improved communications between the network and its affiliates, the videocassette distribution of a speech made by NBC President Bob Wright. Generations, the half hour daytime drama debuting March 27, was the major subject of programming at the meeting. Mapes, who started the meeting with a warning that competitors to the three major networks "are nibbling away at us," told the affiliates: "We have to have clearances on Generations." Vice president, daytime programs, Brian Frons presented the show, which features black and white "core" families, as a way for the network to gain a bigger black audience in daytime, which he said represents a disproportionately large segment of that daypart's audience. If NBC had "parity" with the other networks in black audience, he said, NBC would win the daytime daypart. If Generations performs well, Frons said, it is possible the show will be expanded from its half hour length (double fed at noon and 12:30 pm) to one hour. However, he said, NBC has no "foreseeable" plans to recapture the half hour in daytime that affiliates are scheduled to gain when the program premieres. To help launch the show, Frons said, NBC has budgeted $1 million for print promotion. To promote the show at NATPE, the show's creator, Sally Sussman, made an appearance, along with four of the show's stars. Another daytime show appearing in March will be a test run of a half -hour strip featuring Rona Barrett chatting with three guests a day over a morning meal at her home. Scheduled to preempt Sale of the Century for the weeks of March 6 and March 13, the show will be brought back in the third quarter of 1989. if successful, Frons said. In another move to improve NBC's daytime performance, Frons said the company is adding $1 million to the annual casting budget of Santa Barbara.

There had been so many BTS dramas with Moonlighting that lead to a lack of new episodes and consequently falling ratings that ABC jettisoned it to Sunday to wither away.

I think 'starring' might be a stretch! Is this the first gig he's done since joining Y&R ? Wonder how it came about? Must be a nice change of pace to be working in a big budget streaming series. Good for him.

Billy Flynn and now Roger Howarth. The chance to provide some fresh characters to interact with the vets and Josh saddles them with a recast and back from the dead.

Bringing in Hearst would have at least allowed for flashbacks. Every time Josh has used 'history' as the basis for a story it's been trash. But it's fertile ground. For 2026 Rick Daros returns to terrorise Nikki Shawn Garrett kidnaps Lauren Mari Jo Mason plots revenge on Jack And the dude with the treehouse who kidnapped Victoria-they could refashion the maze set.

I'm buying that Nick would have held onto the tube as it all happened so fast and he would have been in shock. However, it would have been more effective if just as the policeman returned Nick became aware of the tube and dropped it, with the policeman witnessing that. As for another back from the dead, that tired trope has gone to another level. In the past it was used when a body was never found and we could possibly believe the character survived. Now we see deaths onscreen and are expected to believe that the character is still alive. Y&R has done this with Phillip, Diane, baby Eve and now Matt. Am I missing anyone? Along with twins for Cassie and Hilary. And yet they still kill off characters for short term shock, or in the case of Damien, Chance and Cole-no reason at all.

That green trim at Uptown has to go.

Another bone headed move from Josh. BFTD again? Is he that desperate? Roger could be Sharon's half brother for starters. He's already made a boo boo with wasting Billy Flynn as Cane. Anyway I believe it's a short term gig.

Why?

So in addition to Mona and Laura, Nicole also has Wanda? Meanwhile no Rowena or any sign of help for Dani. I'm thinking maybe Mona was supposed to be on and the actress wasn't available at the last minute so they did a quick rewrite? That can happen with recurring players. Does anyone else find Martin and especially Smitty way too noble and worthy? Their dealings with Samantha (who's underage!) showed little compassion IMO. They would have been better off with a softer approach. And an example of the dialogue that tries too hard. Martin said something along the lines of 'I'm like a nuclear explosion and you're the cooling system' Just go with- 'Yea I go over the top and you're the calm one' or something to that effect. Sounds way more like how someone might actually speak. I did like Nicole putting out Carlton's fire. He took it well and can always be around as one of those backup characters that are useful in soaps to provide a little lovin' b/w big romances. As for Ted,I really don't know where they can go to next. Nothing about the character is appealing at the moment.

LA Noir....seriously Josh has no clue. Maybe he's going to rip off Double Indemnity.

Mmmm...'real executive leadership'?? Is that a dig at Days?

We don't see Vanessa the businesswoman, only Vanessa the floozy. Obviously her unseen staff of 20 are beavering away at her unseen office keeping the business afloat.

Lots of unnecessary exposition that was unnatural. That final scene with Smitty announcing 'Samantha Richardson Smith!' Really?

TV GUIDE 4/29/1995 Old soap stars never die—they just buy a word processor. Nearly two dozen former daytime performers are now writing for soaps, and eight of them—including ex Young and the Restless stars Meg Bennett and James Houghton—are currently nominated for a Daytime Emmy. Chalk it up to the cutthroat realities of show biz. “It was my terror of auditioning that turned me to writing," says Bennett, who began scripting Y&R in the mid- 80s, even before her Julia Newman role ended. "But I've never quite given up the idea that I do both. I tested for an ABC pilot two months ago, and it came down to me and another actress. She got it. But now when that happens, I still have a job to go to." A member of Y&Rs original cast, Houghton (who played Greg Foster) has written for the soap since 1990. “You could no more get me back into the turmoil of auditioning," he says, "than you could get a Vietnam vet to go back to Khe Sanh again." And if Y&R offered him his old role back? Laughs Houghton: “Гd snap it up in a second.” Не already has one Emmy for writing Y&R. A win this year for Bennett (who's nominated for General Hospital) would be particularly sweet: In 1986, in one of Emmy's blackest footnotes, she and her fellow Y&R scripters proudly walked to the podium to accept the Outstanding Writing trophy. Days later, academy officials confessed to a screwup and gave the award to Guiding Light.

SFT didn't need another ill conceived adventure plot with location filming. It couldn't hurt but more attention paid to the structure and history of the show was what was needed. Turning it into the Travis and Liza show was a mistake.

That Loving logo was just as bland and generic as the real thing. Can you work on Secret Storm, Love of Life, Lovers and Friends, The Doctors etc? Thanks

Portia Faces Life CBS: Oct 7, 1940 to April 25,1941. (29 Weeks) NBC: April 28 1941 to March 31, 1944. (153 Weeks) CBS: April 3, 1944 to September 29, 1944. (22 Weeks) NBC: October 2, 1944 to June 29, 1951. (352 Weeks) HERE ARE THE PLOT AND CHARACTERS, UP TO DATE, FOR THOSE WHO CAME IN LATE 1943 A soap opera that outdoes its sisters, in the realm of feminine drama, is achieving something of a record. "Portia Faces Life" might be said to do that, in presenting an heroine who has to meet not only the private heartaches (as reported by fiction writers) of a mother and a woman in love-but also the public problems of a criminal lawyer by profession. In general, Portia Blake's name and character are patterned after Shakespeare's lawyer -heroine in "The Merchant of Venice." Like her, the 20th Century Portia wants to temper justice with mercy, but radio listeners are probably more enthralled by her struggles to keep both her sweetheart and her child than by her tense courtroom battles to save people from injustice. Unlike her Shakespearean counterpart, author Mona Kent's Portia now has a war to contend with, and her current trials are bound up with Nazi spies and saboteurs. Prior to this, however, she has had many personal problems which latecomers to her audience should know about, to understand the characters who play a prominent part in her story. First of all, there was the unhappy marriage of Walter Manning, her fiance. Society girl Arline Harrison had forced him to marry her, through his belief that this was the only way to save her life, but she had soon realized that he was ill in love with Portia. She attempted to "frame" the woman lawyer, was saved from the consequences of her plot only by Portia's own legal skill, and finally divorced the husband who didn't love her. Meanwhile, Walter had gone to Europe as a foreign correspondent, and Portia threw herself into slum clearance work in Parkerstown. There she found a loyal friend in Miss Daisy, whom she took into her own home as nurse for Dickie Blake, her son by a former marriage. Unluckily, she also crossed the path of the town's corrupt "leading citizen," John Parker, who tried to pin a murder on the fighting young lawyer, in order to get rid of her. Although Portia managed to prove her innocence, the trial gave Mrs. Amelia Blake, her mother-in-law, a new excuse for trying to take Dickie away from her. In Europe, Walter was imprisoned in the dreaded concentration camp at Dachau while his Nazi double, Nicholas Veit, came to America to impersonate him. Veit tried to marry Portia, so no one would suspect his true missionsabotage-but she stumbled upon the real truth and began collecting evidence to prove his subversive activities. That is the situation leading up to the more recent episodes... PORTIA BLAKE (played by Lucille Wall), the lawyer heroine of 'Portia Faces Life," is defending her fiance, Walter Manning, against a charge of treason. She alone knows that he is being tried for the crimes of a Nazi agent who had impersonated him. Walter had killed the impostor, in order to save Portia'i life-but, in the absence of the body as evidence, Portia has been unable to prove, even to his friends, that any double ever existed. WALTER MANNING (Bartlett Robinson)-a newspaper man and foreign correspondent-returned from Europe to discover that his place hadbeen taken by a German spy who looked exactly like him. Portia alone believes that "Walter Manning" has really beentwo different people-and he is now being tried for treason onthe very evidence she herself had collected against his double. ARLINE HARRISON (Nancy Douglas), vivacious but spoiled society belle, uses tank tactics to get what she wants. She wanted Walter, and once snared him-only to lose him. Determined that Portia shall not have him, no matter what else happens, she gave perjured testimony at his trial which might have convicted him of treason, but for Portia'r brilliant cross-examination. MISS DAISY (Doris Rich) is devoted to Portia and hasstood by her through trial and mistrial.She lives with her, taking care of Dirkie. and acting as combined companion, nurse and housekeeper. She has been a bufferfor them both, through one disaster after another, and is oneof the few people on whose help the busy lawyer can rely. AMELIA BLAKE (Ethel lntropidi), mother of the widowed Portia's former husband, has long had a hidden but grim determination to take Portia's son, Dickie, away from her. Using both her frail health and her immense wealth as weapons in the unequal struggle, she has tried to win the youngster's affection away from his busy mother, while Portia was practicing law to support him. BILL BAKER (Les Damon), ex -newspaper man now a captain in Army Intelligence, was once Walter's closest friend but is now his bitter enemy. Believing that Walter is guilty and that Nazi threats had been able to persuade him to shed his democratic principles rather than his skin. Bill is helping the District Attorney with the prosecution. He wants to save Portia, whom he loves devotedly, from a miserable life with a cowardly "traitor. ELBERT GALLO (Karl Swenson), long respected as a well-to-do publisher, was really the ringleader of a crew of Nazi saboteurs, exposed by Portia's investigation. Although Gallo knows that the false Walter is dead, he has resolved to drag the real Walter down into disgrace and a traitor's death with him, as a final revenge. KATHY MARSH (Selena Boyle) is a real friend of Portia', but, as a busy dietitian, plays rather a minor role in the lawyer's professional life. Her wholesome common sense has often been a personal comfort to Portia-and Portia is going to have need of all her friends in the next developments which she faces in the story of her dramatic life, according to present plans