Michael

Thanks for such a detailed response.

I understand what you mean about Taylor. From what I've seen of his 80s run on Days and his primetime stuff, I get that he was pretty charismatic once upon a time. It's just hard for me to picture him as ever playing the Quint character that I'm watching on the GL DVDs right now (which I guess he didn't really do, haha). If it was a temp recast, the reasoning at least makes a bit more sense.

So Nola and Quint just reunited offscreen after Brown was let go, too? What a mess.

I figured. Was it a pretty short-term thing just to wrap up Nola and Quint's disastrous return?

How long was Michael Tylo around as Quint during all that? Why did the recast happen?

(Sorry to pummel you with questions, but there's so much knowledge floating around this board and the DVDs have spurred a lot of curiosity in me!)

Uhhh... I just read that Josh Taylor (Roman on Days) played a recast Quint in 1997?! What the hell was that like?

Holy crap! Thank you for sharing, Matt!

Michael,

Holly having a down syndrome baby was created by Mctavish.. and at the time, the plan was to showcase parents raising a down syndrome children.. ... I think the regime changes put a kibosh on that...and I think Holly becoming the nursery rhyme stalker was a result of her being a horrible mother to Blake and Meg. And they did mention Meg a few times in early 2000's.... and I hear there were suppose to be scenes between Fletcher/Holly in 2009. but they didn't happen for some reason

Thanks! It actually had never occurred to me that both Fletcher and Holly reappeared at the end but never interacted.

Yeah, it doesn't seem to have been well thought-out as far as what would come after Meg was born. Dramatizing the struggles of a family with a Down's child is basically the antithesis of what these shows have been trying to do for the past 15-20 years. I just haaaate dangling threads like that. It bugs the crap out of me that Holly that this daughter with special needs (and Blake a little sister) and she was never even referenced for the last decade of the show.

Wow, that's... not entirely surprising, but awful. Having a child with Down's Syndrome should have defined so much of Holly's drive through the late 90s and 2000s.

When was the last time Meg was mentioned onscreen? Where was she supposed to be when Holly was on the show in the early 2000s -- off with Fletcher?

I'm surprised that Donna/Tracey Bregman was dropped in the 'bloodbath'.Here was a young character who could have provided story for Don and Marlena and was the kind of character that could be good/bad ,thus providing a lot of conflict. And as Bregman showed on Y&R,she had staying power.

I think she was probably, as written, not a particularly well-defined character. I think the most 'interesting' thing she did was be implicated in a porn scandal that turned out to have been faked. Doesn't seem like they bothered to involve her with the rest of the canvas too much, so I can see why it seemed like it was best to cut their losses and create someone more interesting. But yes, the connection could have helped Don quite a bit!

Lorraine was Donna's biological mother. She'd had an affair with Don, producing Donna. I don't remember too clearly, but I feel like she was written out kind of quickly.

Thanks. That really annoys me! It was such an integral part of Sabrina's intro.

Were Frannie and Sabrina magically no longer lookalikes after Julianne Moore left the show?

Just wanted to echo the thanks to saynotoyoursoap for taking the time to review that story in such depth! What a great read and an even better resource.

After Gwen heard Alistair raping Theresa and TURNED UP THE RADIO so Ethan wouldn't hear, I pretty much stopped expecting them to treat rape like anything resembling a serious subject.

Remember that endless night where The Blackmailer (I guess it was Vincent) kept breaking into Fancy's room and raping her, and then she would go downstairs and cry for a while, and then they would just put her back to bed and it would happen again?!

When is that pic from?

Thanks for sharing your perspectives.

I can definitely see how it played differently onscreen than it does in written summary, which is a shame. It sounds like there was a real, Tina-appropriate story in there somewhere -- it's a shame it was so centered on the idiotic younger characters. I really do hope we get to see her again before the end, at least to reunite her and Viki and just let us know that Tina gets some sort of happy ending.

While you guys are on the subject of Tina...

I only half-pay attention to OLTL, but I just went over to Wikipedia and read a recap of Tina's 2008 return. The story actually sounds like it was pretty fun, tying in Mendorra, her trip over the waterfall, her histories with Cain and Cord, her relationship with Sarah, etc. I've mostly seen that whole return panned around here. Is the general consensus that it was a flop? Is that because she wasn't really in story with Viki, or because the actual material was crap, or what? It really reads pretty well, in isolation, but I know that's often very different from the viewing experience.

That thread's gonna make me so sad now

I started watching in June 2011 when I was eleven years old, and even though that was the heart of Passanante's reign, and even though the vast majority of my AMC viewing experience has been of episodes from the last ten years, I take pride in the fact that this show, written by Passanante and Culliton and Rayfield and Cascio and McTavish, was a special, special thing for a kid who, at the time, needed another world to escape to for an hour every day. Perhaps that's why I'm never as hard on some writers as they probably deserve, because no matter how nonsensical one could say their stories were or how horrible one could say their writing was, there was always something, especially in that little 2002-2005 time span, that kept me entertained, kept me watching, and kept me sane. And then as I got more acquainted with the first 30 years, learning those characters and those storylines and as much as I possibly could about what AMC really is, at its core, the attachment I have for this show was born and will never, ever go away. AMC will always have a special place in my heart because of that, and yes, it sounds strange because it's "just a TV show," but I think we soap fans know something and have experienced something that people who haven't committed to watching a soap nearly every day for years upon years can never really understand.

Be glad we live in the time of the internet. In the 80s and 90s, after a long-running soap was canceled, that was it. Maybe you had video tapes, or magazine cut-outs. Maybe you were lucky and your soap got picked up for reruns. But in most cases? The show aired its last episode and that was it. I'm eternally grateful that Pine Valley will never more than a few keystrokes away.

I know this was pages ago and plenty of others have responded, but I had to quote this and give you a big +1. Days has always been "my show," but I feel exactly the same way about it as you do with AMC. So well articulated!

Perhaps, Mallet and Marina were going for a "police lineup" theme?

I feel like I'm just running all over the board 'LOL'ing at you, but... LOL.

The whole show felt oddly claustrophobic in its last years (well, except for all the scenes set in the middle of random empty fields...). I think it was Marina and Mallet's wedding where I had to turn off the TV because I was so uncomfortable -- they were seriously getting married up against a wall, with the four guests standing behind them in a line. It was just horrible staging.

That Cedars re-design was sooooo strange. Like, just use some white walls! It's a hospital. The place looked like a damn Hawaiian cabana.

It was Liz Keifer, yeah! I noticed the same thing, and I remember researching it right after getting home from the theatre.

Those brief returns of Nikki and Dani in the 2000s were so weird. Nikki just felt like a totally different character, and they tried that little quad with her, Mike, Jen, and Henry for two seconds... and Dani popping back up and SLEEPING WITH CRAIG was horrible.

Oh yeah, I do remember the little mention during the special Lisa episode!

Thanks!