Paul Raven

Great articles @kalbir Thanks for posting' A number of factors at play-the natural aging of any series plus the fact that the soaps are tied to certain characters and it gets harder to find new stories to tell. Viewers had a different expectation to watching a soap than say Magnum PI. The stories themselves like Moldavia and the Emerald mine were just not that good. They probably would have done better with more 'realistic' stories but they started to chase publicity and sensation. Exactly the same issues daytime faced when they turned to plot orientated stories and continually focused on the same characters. Falcon Crest should have been tried a different night and Dallas moved back to 10pm. ABC did that with Dynasty and it did OK. The Colbys should never been scheduled for 9pm Thursday and Dynasty was sent there to fail.

Yes that kidnap story was mega weird. Like being kidnapped by gang members and forced to take drugs is something that could happen to anyone, even Max, the kindest best son who ever walked the Earth.

With Y&R the first thing that needs to happen is to move away from the business stories and focus again on relationships. Given the dire budget, scaling down the scope of the stories would make sense. They need to drop a few characters eg Phyllis who have outlived their usefulness and concentrate on newer characters with more potential. eg Nick and Sharon married and parents to Faith/Noah etc with the younger characters as the focus. When Y&R began there were only a few characters above 40 yr old. Now most are in their 50's and beyond. It's great to have vet performers but they need to move to a more supporting capacity, stepping into the spotlight when appropriate, instead of coming up with dumb stories to keep them at the forefront.

I read that Don disliked a possible pairing with Trish because she looked too young for him. I guess this is another case where stories get told, rumours become facts etc. Are there any articles/interviews out there that we can reference to get a clearer picture?

Interesting discussions. I guess one thing that points to Marland not being a fan of Elizabeth is he derailed the Mike/Elizabeth romance and tried to push Mike towards Jennifer. But that story fizzled also. Was there no chemistry b/w Don Stewart and Geraldine Court? I think Doug was a friend/fan of GC but must have observed/listened to feedback that Mike/Jennifer wasn't working. Not finding a solid new romance for Mike in a way contributed to his dismissal years later.

Mona is supposed to forgive a woman who lied to her , attempted to kill her friend and has generally created chaos? Leslie seems pretty intent on joining that 1% herself.

He Knows You're Alone 1980 Starring: Don Scardino, Caitlin O'Heaney, Elizabeth Kemp, Tom Rolfing, Lewis Arlt, Patsy Pease, James Rebhorn, Tom Hanks, Dana Barron, Joseph Leon, Paul Gleason, James Carroll, Brian Byers, Curt Hostetter, Robin Lamont

I never heard about Marland's dislike of Elizabeth/Lezlie before. I just assumed she left when her contract was up and they didn't want to recast so Elizabeth had to be written off. As for Cindy she got time off in 79 to star in the moovie Night Games directed by Roger Vadim. I recall SOD and Afternoon Tv did stories about it, But it flopped. How was Jackie written out while Cindy filmed the movie? GL accommodated her taking time off and there didn't seem to be any rancour on either side. When did Cindy actually leave? That June 1980 appearance seems to show she was happy to pop back in to serve the storyline. And I remember seeing Jackie with the cropped blonde hair and how unusual that was for soaps at the time.

That decision to quickly marry Sara off to Dean Blackford was an odd one. Poor Sara was now on her 3rd marriage and it was destined to be shortlived and a dead end story wise. That was sort of the end for Millette, who had been a popular heroine for 10 years. It seemed like the Dobsons weren't that interested in the character and she floundered around for the rest of their tenure. Doug Marland aged up her son and married her again to Roger's dad which seemed like one of those convenient match up of vet actors to give them something to do. And Sara continued to be diminished until she was gone. Did Millette choose to leave or was she dropped? Was Sara given a farewell or just stop being seen? Millette was in her late 40's at the point but presented older to me. Her hairstyle aged her. Compared to that 1974 episode where she still looked youthful and attractive and leading lady material.

Kobe/Long injected a lot of energy into the show and there was an initial mix of old and new interacting. But slowly the culling began with Mike, Justin, Hope, Lesley Ann, Kelly, Hilary, Amanda. Then Bert dying, Ed recast and other departures like Quint/Nola, Tony/Annabelle. By 85 Pam long seem to be out of ideas and there were more newbies than ever. The Bauer and Reardon families were shells of their former selves. The next team should have looked at re-establishing those families but instead continued on the path of focusing on new characters.

re supercouples Roman and Marlena were the first but set apart as Marlena had a marital history and was an older established character. So some obstacles (the wife BFTD, the villianous enemy) but not all elements were in place. BO/Hope firmly established the template. Heroine from a core family, initial clash with leading man, larger than life action/spy plot, female interloper, marriage to the wrong person,lavish wedding. That was used successfully for Patch/Kayla and Shane /Kimberley. They also added a disability-blindness/deafness. Marlena/John diverged from that because of circumstance. Other couples like Pete/Melissa and Justin/Adrienne didn't follow the template and thus were not as iconic. Jack/Jennifer were different because of Jack's past with Kayla-he was not the hero in the Bo/Shane/Patch mold. That took care of the 80's. Days never used that template again so there were never supercouples of that stature in the years that followed.

I wonder what Jess Walton thinks about returning and finding there's a new Cane with an awful new backstory and then arriving on set and seeing a train carriage. She's probably WTAF?? Hopefully she has a healthy attitude and can just focus on trying to make the most of her scenes.

Gail Kobe and Pam Long come onto GL and pretty much began dismantling a lot of what the Dobsons and Doug Marland had put into place. That is of course their perogative and they did it with the approval of P&G and CBS. Their job was to bring up the ratings and demos. And it worked. The problem was that a lot of it was short term and soaps don't work that way. GL had been going for decades and at that point there was no reason to believe it would not continue for decades more. Soaps are habit forming and the TPTB had to keep an eye on retaining viewers as well as bringing new ones. The Dobsons brought on Hilary to bolster the Bauers and Marland created the Reardons as a counterpoint who could provide another family structure to complement the Bauers But Kobe and Long were pretty much focused on the here and now, which of course is vital, but didn't seem to think beyond that. Perhaps thinking 'we'll be long gone and it's somebody else's problem.' But it did damage GL . And subsequent writers and producers only made things worse.

Once Search was cancelled Mary Stuart should have been brought over to GL immediately as Meta in 87/ With a publicity push- 'For 35 years you shared her triumphs and tragedies as Jo,(montage of photos) and now Mary Stuart returns to daytime. Mary addresses the camera. "I found my tomorrow-see you in Springfield" Make it an event. Meta could announce that Hope and Alan Micheal have been staying with her-thus paving the way for their return. The only relative that Meta might have is a grandchild from her stepson Joey Roberts. It would be a tenuous link but could work. James Goodwin could play that role.

Not denying the clickbait aspect-those old soap magazines thrived on those type of headlines eg Valerie Starrett finds true love at last! And then you read the article and she's talking about her cat or some such. Not to be a bore about this contract thing, but yes I guess actors can choose to leave at any time, but they are breaking a contract and surely there must be a penalty or consequence. Otherwise you would have people leaving anytime which would be chaotic for the show. Thinking of Robin Wright when she got Princess Bride-she couldn't up and leave-she had to add extra months onto the end of her contract. Or when Melissa Reeves up and left there was a lawsuit involved. In the examples you mentioned, isn't it a case of producers agreeing (for whatever reason) to allow the actor to leave? I think it is at producers discretion.

Is this a sell out a la Meghan Markle where she apparently had low supplies so if like 12 jams were purchased they could announce a sell out to build some hype?

Does anyone recall Dalton as Lydia? What was the story there? Was there another Lydia at some point? What about Phyllis' dad? If they wanted to keep Phyllis front and center maybe they needed to do more with her family.

What was the point of giving Sharon a company? It's not like it went anywhere and it seems to run itself.

I don't think soap actors can just quit at any time. They are locked into a contract and only the producers can terminate. I took it to mean he let them know he wouldn't be staying once the contract came to an end. So they chose to diminish Chris' importance in the story.

Thank the Lord that Jess Walton has returned. I wonder how/why she is finally back onscreen? But for how long? The story sucks but Jess elevates the material.

If he was being used 2 times a week when his guarantee was 3 then I think he would still be paid for the guarantee. That's why we saw actors being shoved into scenes/episodes when they really didn't need to be, so they wouldn't be paid for not working. In Josh's case maybe he was paid anyway but thought he was owed money b/c he wasn't on an average of 3 times a week? It's confusing.

Alex A was painful in the scenes at the CC with Kat and Eva. His robotic delivery undermines a triangle that is already suspect in motivations. Why would these two be interested in a cardboard cut out?