DeliaIrisFan

I'm still loving this show, although I have been bad about keeping up with the episodes, let alone this board. This week I'm actually up to date on the show, and there's only 12(!) pages of this thread, so I figured I'd jump in before I fall behind. I feel like maybe they're starting to overcome some of the pacing problems. Or maybe it's just that enough of the show has been compelling for me lately and I'm just hoping they'll continue to keep those threads going. I do agree with what many have said about the dialogue, which has been my biggest disappointment. I don't watch B&B so my expectations were based entirely on MVJ's work on GH, where she wrote truly some of the best scripts in soap history. To be fair, I'm not sure how many from that team are still in the industry (Mulcahey seems to be really done?), and I don't want MVJ herself to be bogged down in editing every line, when the stories and characters need to capture an audience. All to say I get that she has to make do with who's left in the industry and/or train newcomers. I can deal with it, especially in weeks like last week when the stories really do work. Apart from the pacing, they've clearly started to reset some things, now that I presume we're seeing scripts and story projections informed by how the original vision has translated from page to screen. Much of that is probably for the best, even if a bit jarring, like Chelsea/Madison. I just hope they slow down with some of the soap cliches that I was happy to start a new soap fresh without: I hate the fake/temporary paralysis trope, which is not doing Ashley/Derek any favors, but also Eva having not one but too long-lost relatives in the Duprees' sphere is starting to catch up with the soaps that have been rewriting characters' family trees for decades now. I'm actually not entirely sure where they're going to land with the tone. Case in point: I could easily see Naomi's pregnancy ending in either a baby switch story with Hayley or Naomi having an abortion and that being that. I truly hope it's not the former, but in any case I actually am unable to predict what's going to happen next right now. Relatedly, it seems like the scripts seem to be de-emphasizing the political element, at least the day to day of DC in 2025, which is probably for the best (or should I say the least worst they can do) under the circumstances. Something like The Good Fight would not be sustainable on a daily basis, especially given the pace of the news cycle now even compared to the first Trump administration, not that there is any way CBS/Paramount's current owners would air that today. BtG is progressive in so many ways, not to mention a beautiful artistic creation for any time, and I want it to stay on the air.

What a week. I got behind later in the week, after taking off work for the premiere, but I'm all caught up and eager for Week 2. I don't know about the Dani shooting at the wedding, mainly because it makes me think of how AW wrote out Iris, but I very much doubt that is happening with this character so I am happy to see how it plays out. The gothic/thriller story they're setting up with Leslie/Eva could be really good - after the past 2-3 decades of soap rewrites by committee, I just hope it gets to play out as planned over what I presume would be many months. I'm starting to be afraid this is true, but it's still early. I'd like to think the actor will settle into the role. Wow... I love this. I can understands she's biased because she's hurt by what her friend and father did. I appreciated that what she said could apply to Bill and Dani. +100

I too am hoping this is intentional and there will be LGBT intimacy. I'm also not sure of their chemistry after this first episode, but maybe that too is deliberate. It is a little jarring given the "racy" intros some of the straight couples got, but as I mentioned in an earlier post, whatever Bill has on Martin gives me hope that the gays aren't going to be sanitized and boring. I did assume they were newer parents if the source of conflict is meant to be that the one is weary of being a stay-at-home parent unless there is some recent event that is giving him second thoughts: maybe even what Martin's Aunt(?) Dani just went through after giving up her career for Bill, and not wanting to end up in a similar position.

The discussion about the ages of the kids made me think of when it was Nurse Ashley's(?) turn for back story today, and she went on about how rough her mom must have had it as a "young mother." My first thought was how Dani and Nicole both look at least as young as the actress playing this character's mother, but maybe that's just me. On that note, they're also really going out of their way to let us know Anita and Vernon aren't THAT old. Today he made a point to say that MLK and John Lewis "came before" him, which while unnecessary was innocuous, but it reminded me of a line yesterday that I had meant to mention. Did anyone else hear Anita say the two of them met at THE (I swear, I heard "the") March on Washington, and then went on to clarify that this was "in the '70s"? Of course, there were marches on Washington in the '70s, and every decade since, but I feel like that phrase—without any additional context—implies the 1963 March, no? Those quibbles aside, I enjoyed the show again today. I agree that Bill's unapologetic selfishness is fun and the actor has that charisma. I'm not sure how I feel about Dani at this point, but I like the fact that I'm grappling with what are clearly deliberate choices to depict someone who can be "too much" (as opposed to the way many characters on the other remaining soaps have literally done too much on my TV screen at this point for me to indulge any of their current drama). Haley had no business bringing those cookies or most any of the other things she's done in the last two episodes to try to ingratiate herself, but I feel somewhat badly for her even if I don't for the life of me understand the whole gated community/country club aspiration. Nicole continues to be the soap heroine we've been lacking for decades, and I too like her rapport with her husband. And I'm intrigued by Martin and his husband after this episode, even with the trope of the gay couple being the ones who adopted a bunch of kids, in no small part because I was completely floored to learn that HE is the source of whatever dirt Bill has on Vernon.

It is amazing. Also, seeing the number of variations on "good morning," I think that's right about a nod to ATWT.

I thought we were supposed to think he was naked under the apron at first too, but he was just wearing jeans with no shirt. Other than that, their scenes really were completely boring. I certainly didn't care that it was her first day as a nurse, or even about this hospital where nobody else central to the main stories seems to work. I'm going to hold off for now on saying it was bad acting; maybe I just wanted to get back to the Duprees, which I very much did and that's a good thing. They should have just had the

The one substantive thing about the core characters that I will even bother noting based on the pilot alone is the fact that Nicole got the first scene. Based on what I've seen in the ads of the surrounding footage, I just assumed that was going to be Tamara Tunie driving through the gates - which I wouldn't have minded/questioned at all. But I think it's cool that, to the extent there is one point of view in an ensemble show like this, they are giving us the most relatable (at least of the core family) female character's POV: the type of character that has become an increasingly thankless role on soaps. Someone said upthread that TT already seems like she's been developing Anita for decades, which is true, but I would say DD also gives every impression that she's been playing a complicated but true blue soap heroine for the last 15 years (picking up seamlessly where she left off when OLTL stupidly threw her over).

I really appreciate that they added that in, even if it was very obviously added in, after the fact. We know they started filming just before Election Day. I'm glad we're not pretending we don't know these characters' political leanings. I look forward to seeing how that is handled when we get further in - to scripts that were written more recently.

Thank you for this. The exposition was a lot, but I know MVJ of all writers can pen beautiful dialogue. If she's choosing to prioritize certain things for the premiere, I can live with that. Pilots are rough, even in other genres that are introducing a fraction of this many characters, and unless I'm blanking this still makes for only a handful of pilots episodes of hourlong daytime soaps (along with Texas, the SBs, and Passions). None of those shows lasted a decade, so I guess you could say there is no successful template. I care about the characters, the core actors are doing good work, and I want to see what happens next. That's a success in my book.

My better half and I subscribed for a few years to watch The Good Fight and Evil. We were always years behind on the former—and ultimately gave up on the latter—because we spent more time trying to get it to play on our TV than we did watching. Comcast and/or Apple always seemed to be sabotaging it. We tried the app that came preloaded on the cable box, Apple TV, and even projecting from the computer display; there was always some glitch. He won't be watching BTG, so I'll just stream it on my phone/laptop. The one lasting improvement I found when I watched GH last year for the first time in decades was the ability to stream it with no ads via Hulu. Where was my iPhone 30 years ago?

Hear, hear! BTG was one of the only things I was looking forward to in 2025, and it's already been a long year for me, personally and otherwise. But I am still so excited for this. MVJ is one of the only soap writers still with us whom I would be excited to see get an opportunity like this. Despite my fears about what's left of the industry and the broader climate, everything I've seen from Val Jean and the other creatives so far gives me hope. I have spent some down time this weekend catching up on this entire thread. I took tomorrow off from work, and will be watching the premiere in real time. And I will likely be subscribing to Paramount Plus afterward.

She really is. Something to look forward to in 2025: a new daytime soap opera, no less. Who would have thought? It's so nice checking in on the latest developments. I have virtually no faith left in this industry, or some of the parties involved, but I can't help but hope that somehow she'll be able to do her thing and it will work out.

The soap hits keep coming. My heart breaks for Lynn Herring, in parts for reasons that are unique to soaps and admittedly weird - she's practically broken my heart just by playing grief on screen, so the thought of her going through this for real just seems horrific.

Helen...what a lousy year this has been. That's all I've got.

Oh yeah, I just figured the changes in both the first and last names were all part of the family trees MVJ is building out in her bible - not directly related, insofar as Dupree was presumably not Anita's birth name, but an indication that she's thinking about such things.

What incredible news about TT. Am I the only one who liked the name "Betty" for the character, though? Admittedly, I was probably stuck in a bit of a time loop, forgetting that would have been a more popular nickname a couple of generations before hers. And don't get me wrong: I like Anita as well, and the implication that MVJ is thinking about the family tree and adjusting names accordingly, as @DramatistDreamer noted. It makes me think of how the Ryan's Hope bible was rumored to go back generations to Ireland at the turn of the (previous) century. I also wouldn't have minded the presumably jettisoned "Rosalind" (and possible homage to Cash). I also thought DD did good work and was a delightful presence on OLTL, even with often (and ultimately) thankless material, so that news makes me really happy as well. I was admittedly picturing Morgan as "Betty" (at least, once I remembered time - see above), but I think you're right. Specifically, it might have been difficult for some viewers to accept her playing a main character who's not as nice (I hope) as Angie. I suspect part of what made it possible for Beverlee McKinsey (aside from being BM, and I'd put Morgan in the same very top tier of daytime actresses) to create a second iconic P&G soap character was that she had played the character who was objectively less sympathetic first. No AW/GL viewers could have been credibly outraged at Alex doing something that would have been beneath Iris. (At least, not until MD's Alex was revealed as a drug kingpin or whatever, but by then AW had long since moved the Overton window by leaving Iris to rot in prison as a violent felon.) I'd still like to see DM in a recurring role or short arc - or even as the matriarch of another core family (is there another?). Maybe she could play the gay son's mother-in-law, who has a complicated history with Anita? Yes, I hope the show devotes significant attention to the characters on the other side of the Gates as well.

💗 Thank you for sharing that. It's weird how detached from Sonny/MB I've felt during my brief return to watching GH, when the show somehow still centers around him. From a story standpoint, I concede Sonny should have been written as the villain he naturally evolved into and/or had a memorable final act decades ago, but at this point I don't see that happening. I liked the idea of what PM seemed to be doing, with characters like Anna and Laura questioning their past loyalty to him even though I knew the tampered meds would eventually become an excuse to go back to status quo and I would have been disappointed even if it hadn't been so slapdash. As for MB, it makes me sad to hear what he's going through, in the way that only a veteran soap cast member (which he now is) can affect a complete stranger. I had what I cannot deny was a tween crush on him. At the same time, I still believe he did really strong work as Sonny for some years there. And as far as I know, he's still a relatively benign BTS figure (I hope I'm not wrong about that, and admittedly the bar is low compared to what some of his colleagues have gone viral for). I don't know what more to say, except I hope he's okay and wish him all the best, whatever that looks like for him.

Last night I watched parts of Friday's episode on Hulu out of curiosity for Lucky, and then I read the comments in the GH thread. And I realized I'm even more non representative of someone who's going to watch a daytime soap on a daily basis now than I thought when I last posted in this thread last week. If the ratings had actually dropped dramatically enough that GH was in (more) danger—and if these changes buy them more time—then I genuinely wish them luck (although at this point the industry is kind of the boy who cried wolf). Clearly Mulcahey was never going to be compatible, although why they didn't stick with what was "working"(?) is mind-boggling. That said, it's not for me, and I don't get the plaudits at all. The dialogue has deteriorated even more than it had by the time PM's name was still in the credits but he clearly wasn't around to edit scripts, which I don't get - wasn't Korte the script editor in the Labine era? There may be more drama, but none of it is compelling to me because a) we've seen it all before and b) like on most of the remaining soaps, we've established that no GH plot development—no matter how decisive or what viewers saw with their own eyes—is lasting. I'm not sure how or if I could ever invest in an entire story from start to finish again at this point - but maybe some scenes at least, like I did this spring. The stuff at the graveyard was dreadful all around in my book. I will acknowledge that the direction of Kristina's pregnancy story when Mulcahey was around seemed regressive, and for all I know, maybe that was entirely his vision. As much as I love a lot of material he wrote, he wrote some of the key scenes of some of soaps' most notorious pre-millennial pregnancy stories (although wasn't he at least gone by the time Sonny shot Carly while she was in labor?). This story just seems like all of the ugliest parts of the previous six months dialed up a notch—Kristina loudly declaring "my baby" in front of anyone who'll listen without a second thought, TJ and Molly both policing her pregnancy decisions and the story outcome essentially justifying that judgment—now in the key of gruesome and morbid. As for Lucky, I realized I didn't even care what this cliffhanger would lead to today...been there, done that (for all I know, his captor is working for Faison, who's somehow in league with Pikeman or whoever). I was actually hoping Lucky would have scenes with characters he knows, which again could have been interesting to me than how he got into/will get out of this latest jam. Anyway, it was a surreal blast from the past for me to watch GH regularly again, after all this time, in this year when I definitely needed some escape. Over and out.

Sorry, I don't think I'd seen that info, and/or perhaps hadn't been paying too much attention to those details until I read of the setting and some of the character descriptions. I still think the timeline is unfortunate for what I hope will be a smart political drama, in that these characters won't know who the president is when we meet them. At the risk of asking another dumb question, and I swear I Googled it but couldn't find an answer, do we even know the exact premiere date yet? Presumably it will be a Monday, and looking at the calendar for next year, both Inauguration Day and January 6th fall on Mondays... Anyway, hopefully the show will kick off with something apolitically dramatic enough to justify that none of these characters are talking about that, and in a few weeks, at least, the script writers can start to sprinkle in references to current-ish events. It would have been awesome to have "Betty's" first scene be the fitting for her dress to the Inaugural Ball, and maybe there's a way to script such a scene without knowing if/why she would be attending???

I finally finished watching Mulcahey's credited episodes (since the news that he was out, I've been struggling to keep up on a rolling basis before they expired on Hulu). I agree with most of this, although I can't say for sure about his capacity for plotting/spectacle because I don't believe he he ever got a chance. That could very well be, but the stories that were being set up disappeared for weeks on end, and clearly did not end as planned. I'm not sure how any writer could maintain a compelling pace with a cast this large, presumably with competing guarantees. I'll concede that none of the stories that were taking shape in the past six months were very groundbreaking. Was that on Mulcahey? I don't know. At this point, I'm going to give him the benefit of the doubt for that, not least because all of the remaining soaps have had such dated approaches for ages. I also know once upon a time, Mulcahey used what limited power he had as a script writer to push the envelope in positive ways, including with throwaway dialogue and short-term characters that validated my existence at a time when I was very young and that was virtually nonexistent on TV. Anyway, I guess I'm weird because I definitely wasn't watching for the plots. I was curious to see what he'd do/be allowed to do, and I still have an attachment to some of the characters and Port Charles as a community. The show did seem to be getting back to that community feel, like you said, and it was nice to listen in on some meaningful conversations among old friends. I'll miss that. I did have a glimmer of hope that at this point GH wouldn't have rocked the boat if they weren't committed to letting Mulcahey do something more than that. I thought after years and years of stable (if staid) regimes at the remaining soaps, maybe TPTB had at least finally learned what I could have told them 25 years ago: that disrupting story momentum on a daily soap just for the sake of change will probably do more harm than good. Clearly not.

The characters/dynamics all sound really interesting; and as has been said, much more befitting the 21st century than ≥ 99% of what other soaps have done in the entire 21st century to date. I do wonder about a few things, though... Is it unusual for new soaps to have so many young(er), frontburner couples already together when we meet them, at least since the dawn of the "supercouple" era? Of course, every tentpole soap couple from Chris and Nancy Hughes up until Maeve and Johnny Ryan at least were already married with grown children, and it stands to reason that Betty and Patrick would be similarly established. I'm just thinking about how various new soaps in the past few decades have introduced the couples whose romantic drama was actually meant to drive story. Then again, maybe most if not all of the young(er) characters have yet to meet their actual long-term love interests? It's hard to say for sure from the character descriptions. For all I know, by next summer, Luis will have come out as bi, and both Elizabeth and one of the gay dads will be hitting the gym to take their minds off their crumbling marriages and spending more and more time with their trainer. I don't know, I'm just speculating - I don't mean to second-guess MVJ, least of all before the show premieres. I also hope the show is not written/filmed too far in advance: for a lot of reasons, including because of the timing of launching a show with this subject matter. I have many hopes and fears IRL about the election that this isn't the place to go into, and I know which outcome I want to see as the backdrop for a new DC-based show with the characters as described. I also just don't want the political aspect to be so superficial that we're supposed to be ignorant of what these characters' party affiliations are, the way other soaps have so often watered down stories in that vein. Do we think there will at least be time to edit the first scripts with some references to semi-current events? No comment on the BTS hires.

Oh yeah, that was the other part that I wonder if Nancy Curlee wanted to forget when she got back: the fact that there had been a Kristen DiMera prototype running around town in such an outlandish story. Not only is there very little Nadine/Bridget interaction for the rest of 1993 that I've seen, but there is also very exposition about how it is that almost nobody in town knows that Bridget had a baby when he and the father live in town. Oh, I know she was in college, but I could swear there was some reference to Bridget still being 17 when the story started (I mean, the teens were still in high school when she slept with Hart and got pregnant). Then she was stuck in that dark attic with no human contact except Nadine herself, who was constantly trying to shoo her back up there anytime she wandered downstairs. And Nadine manipulated Bridget's exposure to news of the outside world to keep her compliant, including most egregiously the news of Maureen's death as you mentioned. I know it was not kidnapping in a legal sense, but it was exploiting a very young person, who I still believe was a minor to begin with. Actually, in hindsight both Jenna and Nadine were "punished" in that exact same way, in the same year (still not sure what exactly Jenna was being punished for, though). It did make Nadine more sympathetic, but upon recent viewing it seemed more about making them each dependent on Buzz than any kind of character development. It also didn't make any sense. Beyond the sheer odds that they would each go from being that wealthy to completely broke back-to-back, they both seemed to accept their fates way too easily. Nadine had no reason to agree to a quick divorce from Billy without a settlement when she knowing how eager he was to remarry Vanessa and keep things quiet about Peter; she could have just held out for something and/or threatened to make trouble. And I can't believe one of Spauldings' competitors wouldn't have offered Jenna some kind of consulting gig, if only to pick her brain after she'd run the company for the better part of a year and it was still in business. Given all that's been written about FOJs, it's hard not to think in hindsight that there was a mandate to have multiple established female characters become beholden to Buzz. God bless Curlee and the others who were still writing and made most of the related stories coherent and often compelling, but both characters should have had more promising options than the Coopers' largess at that point in their lives.

I think Nadine keeping Bridget locked in her attic (wasn't Bridget still a minor at that time?) so that she could be Nadine's handmaid was pretty evil. I feel like the show (or, more specifically, Nancy Curlee when she returned from maternity leave) realized that as well and tried to memory hole Nadine's role in Peter's origin story, even while his parentage and custody continued to be an umbrella story for another year. For a long time, Bridget and Nadine had no scenes together, and even once or twice when they were in crowds together, I could swear there was deliberate staging/editing to avoid any interaction. I also don't agree that Jenna was written as the "favorite" for Buzz. I remember Lucy and Nadine and even some under-fivers who were playing random Fifth Street neighbors constantly degrading Jenna. I just think Buzz was sexist/ageist, and perhaps more importantly someone behind the scenes (clears throat) had internalized some of those same attitudes. So it was just a given that a much younger woman would find the new patriarch irresistible, and not one character questioned why she would look twice at him. I preferred Buzz and Jenna in the '90s to Buzz/Nadine, but I think that was partly because I misremembered Buzz/Jenna as something that started as an odd-couple friendship subplot and became something more organically. I rewatched much of 1993 on YouTube a few years ago and they still have chemistry, but the way they were presented was jarring, and made me like them together much less.

I am finally caught up on the past week-plus, after falling a bit behind on account of the demoralizing BTS news and holiday weekend. I agree with those who've said that killing off Gregory at this point, the day after his biggest health concern was that he wouldn't be able to finish officiating a wedding, was a copout. If Gregory was not a beloved enough character to headline a long-term ALS story, then someone should have thought of that before they started. (I find it hard to believe the previous regime and/or FV wanted to go all-in and Mulcahey took the easy way out, but if that's actually happened then that's not okay either.) Unless they were going to do an equally realistic and dramatic euthanasia story. Whether a story about a 100% terminal illness with a known trajectory makes sense dramatically on a daily soap opera is another question. I would argue that it does, or at least it could. The suspense wouldn't have been about what was going to happen to Gregory physically - instead, his worsening symptoms and knowing he's going to die soon ish could have raised the stakes for any and all other drama. The story wouldn't even have had to center around Michael Easton, if they are or were writing him out - Finn could have gone off to rehab and Gregory could have moved in with the Quartermaines, along with Brook Lynn and Chase now that he's a Q-in-law. Caring for a parent with disabilities could have been an added stressor for whatever newlywed drama the show has planned for them. And we could have seen an actual relationship with Tracy play out, and what that might look like as his physical condition deteriorated. Meanwhile, the Lane Davies stuff did not work for me at all (never watched SB). I am not a lawyer but I can't believe that was how a bar association hearing would play out? In fact, I just caught a Golden Girls rerun in which LD played a lawyer in a courtroom scene that was supposed to be a farce (this was a later-season episode) and the tone seemed pretty similar, except the directing and jokes on GG were way better, and there were comic geniuses on hand to play off his ridiculous character. Was "Fergus" supposed to be there as a family member of the "victim"? He was seated at what looked like the prosecution/plaintiff table and they kept referring to him as "opposing counsel." At times, Alexis seemed to be acting as though his family connection was a bombshell revelation, but if that would have made for an improper conflict of interest, why was he allowed to stay? I also had assumed the dead brother whose hearing Alexis perjured herself at was the character LD previously played (they kept saying she was disbarred in 2020 and I was trying to figure out how LD had lasted so long) and they were supposed to be twins. I now realize that wasn't the case, so why not make him an unrelated character who could spar with Alexis in a more realistic way, like one of the judges? That whole interlude—more than anything to do with the awkward pacing, poor editing, and unwieldy number of characters nobody knows what to do—is the one thing I've seen on GH that makes me seriously question whether PM was ever best suited to be a head writer. He's presumably the only one involved who would have cared to do any of this, so it's easy to say this reflects his unadulterated vision. But you know what, Mulcahey has proven he has enough writing talent that I would have rather he'd been given the time and the breathing room to prove himself one way or the other. Because otherwise, I've still been enjoying the material. I don't care about Sonny at this point, let alone Jason, but the reactions of the characters in their orbit work for me by and large. (Most of) Sonny's adult kids are genuinely interesting. The wedding was fun, even if I'm not invested in the couple. Ned and Lois were awesome (I wish it had been Ned to tell Tracy about Gregory, like they had foreshadowed). Watros and West are getting powerful material, and even Mathison is charming and engaging. Was any of that leading anywhere? We'll never know, but now for sure it won't lead anywhere. You'd think after decades of micromanaging and/or playing musical chairs with writers, someone with power in this industry would finally remember that the promise of payoff used to be what kept audiences tuning in, and any backstage disruption is going to set a show back months if not more.

I don't think it's fair to equate Pat Falken-Smith and Claire Labine's respective tenures at RH. Labine created the show and was at least equally responsible for its best material. I get why Mulgrew's peers—especially Hicks, who was amazing as Faith—didn't like their characters being in Mary's shadow, and Mary got on my nerves many times, but she was central to the creator(s)' vision for the show and KM was never boring. And her Mary with Michael Levin's Jack was lightning in a bottle. The less said about the recasts, the better, but that just proves to me Labine's instincts were right: to kill off Mary when KM left. ETA: That's not to make excuses for what Ana Alicia and other BIPOC actors who were stuck in supporting roles described in the book. In my mind, that's a separate issue/whole nother level, but I had momentarily forgotten Alicia and Hicks spoke of being friends/allies backstage. I was really disappointed in the shows' creators when I first read that section of the book. As for the early '80s, Labine admitted she was burnt out by then and would have taken a breather had she not feared what ABC would do to the show without her. And her fears weren't off-base. She tried to incorporate what (she thought) ABC wanted with Prince Albert and the Egyptian tomb, etc. into the show RH had been, in ways that interested her. It didn't work and that was that, but IMO those stories were not even close to the show's low point. I don't know why Falken-Smith took the gig or what she was trying to accomplish or if she even had any creative control. When I first read about that era (and tried to watch some of the YouTube material), she was an easy scapegoat, and from the book she clearly wasn't beloved backstage. By all accounts, though, she had talent and knew how to make soaps successful, so it's really just bizarre. I remember calling Jill "Shrill" on the SoapNet board in the early '00s, and I've regretted that since 2016, at least... The historical significance of Jill's character is really something, perhaps even more so all these decades later. FWIW I always knew Nancy Addison was a great actress and, like Mulgrew's Mary, Jill was never boring. As far as how RH would have fared in the '90s, I think recasting the younger generation when the first round of contracts came up, particularly Ryan, could have opened up new dramatic possibilities. Depending on the recast, of course. A new actress could have played a more grown-up, independent Ryan who acted like a daughter of Mary and Jack. It might have helped turn the page from the Ryan/Rick era: kind of like when Kimberley Simms took over the role of Mindy on GL around the same time, and brought more nuance to the role. Alas, with ABC owning the show, a part of me fears RH would have eventually met the same fate as Loving, perhaps around the same time: 12:30 was a better timeslot but not ratings kryptonite by any means, especially post-OJ. Maybe ABC would have even used RH as the launching pad for The City. If there was any possibility of Maeve becoming a serial killer and dispatching with most/all of the Ryans—so the surviving, younger characters could be free to move downtown—I can't say I'm sorry we missed that.