te.

Who?! Now I'm curious.

Richard Channing was in the original Vintage Years pilot and played by Michael Swan. I guess they felt having Lance was enough at the time and decided to make him a step-son (until they rewrote that). I think you need to remember that a lot of people watched this when they were kids/tweens/teens and from that perspective it's probably more exciting if you have that sort of rose-coloured glasses on. Lord knows I have more affection for Beverly Hills, 90210 and Melrose Place because I watched both when growing up and probably have a lot of more oversight for the pure nonsense that went on at those shows.

Eh, so occasionally gets the Salem brain every few weeks or so when they have to make progress in a plot point.

So that they can explain why Abby has a new head when she rushes in at Chad and Stephanie's wedding?

Heather Tom directed the episode aired April 15th (5x08) and this weeks episode airing May 6th (5x10).

Thought the same thing. How soon until she gets with Chad?

I don't think it was normal mostly because it was costly to edit them in. I think most shows back then were still "live" as in being played out/filmed like live theatre even though they didn't air live. I think it wasn't until the 70s when video tape became the norm that flashbacks became more common.

Late in the season - 1x20, but still. The episodes between that one got a 13.2 and 11.1 in the regular Monday timeslot. It just shows that just because something aired after Dallas didn't mean it would've gotten big ratings. Dallas and Falcon Crest just flowed very well, which is why I assume CBS kept it (plus I assume Lorimar pushed the combo too). Emerald Point NAS was also sampled in the Monday time slot - the first episode earning 19.2/29 share. I think the biggest issue for EP was that it was boring. You can sort of watch how it gradually fell apart through the season: http://tvtango.com/series/emerald_point_nas/episodes

Emerald Point NAS did get a special airing behind DALLAS... it rated 9.2/14 out of 25.7/41. It actually did worse than it did in its Monday time slot and was its lowest rated episode!

Mississippi did ok post-Dallas, but clearly didn't retain as well as Falcon Crest. If anything, it showed that the flow wouldn't be great just because of what they put there, so they probably figured it was best to leave Falcon Crest where it was. Why mess up a good thing?

Of course Dallas helped them, but it's worth noting that the week you're referring to one episode of The Colbys aired after Dynasty, the regular episode on Thursdays got a 13.6. Also, the lead-in to Falcon Crest, Kenny Rogers special, got a 14.5 rating, so Falcon Crest grew out of it at 10PM on a Friday night and won the time slot against Stingray (14.7) and US Marshals: Waco & Rhinehart (13). So clearly, Falcon Crest had it's own audience on par with Knots Landing (which got a 16.1 rating that week out of a 14.6 lead-in from Simon & Simon).

Falcon Crest was a hit in parts of Europe, while Dynasty and Knots floundered. Just saying that it clearly had its own appeal.

I thought he was ok until he got possessed by Satan. Clearly someone who should stick to being the hot guy in a love triangle rather than dramatic material. See also: Peck, Austin.

There were an episode or two of post-David marriage available where she showed a bit of a more nasty/bitter streak that I thought was interesting, but I think she's probably one of those characters that's hard to get with random episodes taken out of context.

Always interesting to see more of Susan Martin, one of those early characters that have always intrigued me.

The issue is that people will think mistakes are done even on a well-written shows. There will always be argument why a certain character shouldn't have been killed off. As I pointed out, you could make an argument for Addie returning in the 80s to stir up drama and give Julie/Doug a storyline and provide drama fodder for Hope. You could make an arguments that Isabella returning would be a serious obstacle for Marlena and John to tackle and of course Brady. Why would you stop at bringing back Bill, Laura and David Banning if a new writer decides to kill off Hope? You can just fix such a mistake by having the DiMera's do another convulted plot... No, writers just need to learn to live with the mistakes past writers have made and make it work for them. Good writers don't need cheap back-from-the-dead stories to drive a show forward.

They could've gone two ways with Ben - either have all his crimes blamed on him being hypnotised into believing he did them or something by Jordan and having him absolved from being a serial killer OR they could've still done the murder mystery post-time jump with Ciara frantically trying to clear his name only for to find out that he did do it and he hasn't changed. Ben's executed and heartbroken, but defiant, Ciara leaves Salem until they can find a decent recast or Konefal is able to commit to the part full time.

At one point you just need to decide that you're not going to undo anymore deaths no matter how tempting it is. They can't change past decisions, but they can control future ones. I mean, they could've brought back Addie in the 80s to create a storyline for Doug/Julie and wouldn't Hope have been thrilled to see her mother back? But thank God they didn't.

Not every mistake should - or needs to be - fixed. Soaps need to start moving forwards, not backwards.

Bo's death should be permanent, just like deaths that aren't consciously ambigious need to be. Sorry "Bope" fans, but soaps need to make deaths matter.

And a few hours after I said this, in comes the Peacock announcement along lol.

I agree that technically all characters can be recast (hell, they recast Mikey Horton), but also that sometimes shouldn't really be attempted if the audience identifies an actor too closely to the role and a new character could fill the role effectively. "Iconic" characters with long-term portrayers should only be recasted if there's a need for them on the canvas that can't be explained with an off screen absence (which is why I'd accept a Hope Williams Brady recast at this point as it's just odd having the character off canvas as they have to make up more and more forced reasons why she isn't there - well, it's either that or kill her off).

It's mostly down to it bouncing around the schedule - it started out on Saturday 10PM (2x01-2x07), then to Sunday 10PM (2x08-2x15), then to Friday 10PM (2x16-2x24).

The season premiere of the 84-85 season was on October 4th, so it wasn't on in week one of the season.

I think bringing on Anne full time was fine. I did like that instead of trying to create another Abby they just sort of spread out facets of her personality into other characters. The writing obviously could've been better in the last few seasons (Latham's were running on fumes with the Waleska story, which was just Thrillin' Jill Pt 2 except not thrilling; trying to go gritty with new writers in season 13 was a mistake etc), but that's another issue.