DeliaIrisFan

Speaking of the Locher Room, that was a lovely tribute to John Gabriel as well. I was finally able to finish it on a rainy Sunday afternoon. Several of the guests commented on having had few scenes with him, but of course once I thought about it, I remembered Nancy Addison and Diana van der Vlis have both been gone 20 years or so. Seneca's story with Jill did overlap with both Delia and Rae's relationships with Frank. To Ilene Kristen's point about Seneca being too smart to get involved with Delia, he was too smart even to work with Delia or Rae to keep Frank and Jill apart, whatever he may have worked solo to do. There were some interesting Rae/Seneca scenes post-Kimberly that made it onto YouTube, fighting over Seneca and Kim's baby. I recall one really good one even made it into the St. Patrick's Day marathon that SoapNet would air every year. That was a nice story about JG reaching out to LS after she was let go. For some reason, I thought Rae and Seneca were both written out around the same time—right after Labine and Mayer's departure—but I guess Seneca stayed on for a while as the generic doctor? I can't imagine him interacting with any of the new characters from the mid-'80s.

I mean, Muenker appeared on a ton of soaps, including on several as different characters in different eras. I'm sure she has a ton of stories to tell if she wants to go there. Wasn't it her Marianne on AW who had the abortion story (that was somehow tied to Harding Lemay's plan to have the character's brother come out, which the network vetoed)? As far as RH, Muenker was there for the waning Kirkland era, right: after Catsy, Hollis, et al had been written out, while Leigh was being introduced? I'm not sure she ever shared a scene with Haskell or Jones. I doubt she'll have much to say about a relatively brief role, almost 40 years later. I would be curious to hear (what if anything she knows/remembers about) why they recast the role, only to write the character out altogether a few months later. Was that always the plan? Did Mary Page Keller want to leave (I don't believe she started on AW until a little later) or were they "taking the character in a new direction"? And, if so, was that intended direction how Muenker ended up being used: as someone for Leigh to talk to for a few months when she didn't know any other characters, and a short-term spoiler for Pat and Faith? At least, that's all I remember of her from what's available on YT.

I think Labine probably enjoyed writing for the adult versions of the children of the characters who were front and center in the show's early years. She probably would have never aged them so drastically herself, but once it was done she seemed to have fun with it and got to incorporate some of the characteristics/hangups she presumably always assumed they'd have because of who their parents were. Semi related to the issues with Rae/Kim and Michael and their lack of connection to the rest of the canvas, I think the introduction of a character like Dakota was both too late and a wasted opportunity to connect the Ryans to the types of characters the network wanted on all their soaps in the '80s. (It was also dreadfully written from what I've seen and I can't for the life of me understand why they had to tack on the amnesia cliche too, but that's neither here nor there.) Playing the long-lost younger Ryan son card a few years earlier and having him been raised by a wealthy family like the Kirklands would have instantly grafted them onto the show, and they could have mixed it up with characters like Kim/Rae.

Thanks for the tag - looking forward to reading it.

Wow, 25 years...I feel old. PC occupies a weird place in my heart. I was rooting for the Labine GH spinoff, but GH was still watchable when the decision was made and I was totally on board for a Lucy-centered spinoff. Unfortunately, there were clearly not enough closeted, unpopular teens with nothing better to do in their free time that summer than watch an extra half hour of GH. Even I'd stopped watching GH by the time PC actually premiered, it had gotten so bad...and I gave PC a few weeks at most. The late '90s on ABC soaps was such a fascinating moment in hindsight (at the time it was mostly frustrating), and PC was case in point. So many resources available: for primetime episodes, relatively high-quality marketing, casting. And the existing vet cast who could be strategically utilized after not getting much airtime for a while were nothing to sneeze at either. But even when those budget windfalls got allocated for good things, nobody who knew what they were doing was ever empowered long enough for all that money to pay off. PC had a good cast and some talented people behind the scenes. My teenage self would never have admitted the latter, but the Cullitons and Riche probably had good ideas and clearly were trying their best. In hindsight, they were clearly too overworked churning out 1.5 hours of TV a day to come up with a long-term vision, let alone fight for it. And hey, PC was the last half-hour soap to premiere, and the last soap to premiere, period, that wasn't Passions (of course, you couldn't make up the fact that PC ultimately went off the air plagiarizing Passions if you were trying to come up with a really esoteric parody of soaps at the turn of the millennium).

I've often wondered what the deal was with RH and the Emmys as the '80s wore on. I know the show was in a bad way for quite a bit of the decade, but still. Did RH not have affiliate clearance in area(s) where a critical mass of people in the industry lived after the timeslot change? A part of me wonders if the last few acting nods were not entirely based on work on the show and/or during the eligibility period. Helen Gallagher and Bernie Barrow likely had accumulated some goodwill, and I would think there may have been buzz that they were getting material again and making the most of it - deservedly. It's nice that Helen won the show's last Emmy, anyway. And I wonder if Tichina Arnold and/or Grant Show were more well-known for their other work by the time awards season came around. I'm not saying the show deserved to continue its '70s Emmy streak, but there were quality periods/performances, and even Claire Labine's return later in the decade with really solid material didn't make a difference. I suppose by then Santa Barbara had displaced RH in the hearts of writing Emmy voters as the "little soap that could," but was there no room even for a nostalgic nomination one year or another? Especially after Labine/Mayer's back-to-back wins for their briefer return earlier in the decade. On a related note, I wonder what would have happened if the awards ceremony had aired in 1984, when Pat Falken Smith was head writer but Labine/Mayer had been at the helm for most(?) of the eligibility period. Would they all have attempted to take the stage (speaking of SB)?

Wow...I had been away, and my news feed was inundated with other things, and the algorithms probably don't even know at this point that I have/had an interest in soaps. I've felt sad about the other daytime vets we've lost in recent months, some of whom I only came to fully appreciate more recently thanks to that immortalizing YouTube. But I actually do have decades' worth of history with Jerry ver Dorn as a soap patriarch, so this is more personal. He was a great actor, for sure, and he and that cohort he worked with at GL most consistently for all those years really elevated the genre; Maeve K's quote, which I could hear her reading in my head, really reminded me of that. I had watched OLTL on and off by the time JvD came on, and in hindsight I don't understand the approach they took with the Clint recast. Especially since it seemed like all Clint had to do was overcome his homophobia (although of course TPTB would have had to overcome their own) and be back on track to being the kind of compassionate, wise tentpole character that Jerry had played for 25 years or so, which I'd assumed was what they hired him for. Maybe there was a payoff to Clint's turn to the dark side that I missed during one of my off periods. In any event, as always JvD did everything he could with the material, and at least he got to be a part of one long-running soap's finale. On a more personal note, there was a time in the '90s when my closeted adolescent self thought Ross as well as Roger and Ed were all so handsome—and I sort of envied Blake, at least as far as having them all in her life in different, bizarre ways. (Plus Alan-Michael on the side, and a mother as fabulous as Holly to fight/conspire with.) A big part of me still does. I know that is weird to say right now, but going by some of the bawdy anecdotes, I can only hope Jerry wouldn't take offense.

Well, that was terribly produced and scripted, but I do miss when soaps mattered enough for anyone to bother with such promotional vehicles.

Speaking of McTavish, I finally finished watching all that's available online from Natalie in the well to the resolution of Will's murder for the first time. Given everything McTavish subsequently did in her career, it's fascinating to watch what I believe were the first characters she officially created: Angelique, Galen, Gloria, and Stephen Hamill. I have to imagine at least three of them did not work out at all as planned. I actually wonder if Gloria, the only one who ended up lasting, was even intended to: I kind of got the vibe early on that she was originally going to be the victim of a less far-reaching whodunit, maybe limited to the Cortlandts, and they changed it to Will when the actor left. In any event, I was surprised by how much I liked Gloria. The actress/character were wasted in later years in such unfortunate stories, from what I saw—somehow I still remember even her scenes from the ads for that Maria/Erica baby switch story, when I wasn't watching the show, were like nails on a chalkboard—but she was about the most riveting part of the show for a good month or two after everyone discovered Natalie was alive. And I'll be damned if I didn't feel for Gloria in the rape story, manipulative and problematic as it clearly was. With Angelique I was actually expecting the worst, given the general concept and how short-lived I knew she would be, but surprisingly I thought she had her moments. (Sometimes perhaps unintentionally hilariously, like when Angelique still couldn't speak and was just watching all the teeth-gnashing at WildWind after she was wheeled into the party, but I'm not sure what more any performer could have done with that.) I assume Angelique was meant to last longer and they cut their losses, but I also suspect the triangle they were setting up with Dimitri and Erica when the uploads cut off was originally intended for Dimitri and Natalie. Am I wrong, or did Angelique just vanish for weeks after her intro, while Natalie dropped Dimitri with barely a second glance, and Dimitri showed no inclination of wanting to reconcile with Angelique at that point? Did Kate Collins announce she was leaving right then? As for Galen and Stephen, I am guessing they were meant to be long-term romantic leads? They weren't terrible, and I'm not 100% sure if Stephen/Dixie was cut short more to make way for Tad's return than for any other reason, but it foreshadowed McTavish's challenges making "good" characters compelling/dynamic. I had heard of Galen but had no idea she was actually recast in such a brief time period, so I was as surprised as most viewers would have been 30 years ago, but the character still didn't take. To be fair, I picked these four characters even though I know McTavish must have had a major hand in creating Dimitri, and I actually think Lucas Barnes—Terrence's father—pre-dated Angelique by a day or so. But Broderick and Washam were still credited above McTavish in Dimitri's first episodes, and I really doubt Lucas was intended to stay on the show longer than he did, or move beyond a supporting role. (Although if the actor were interested, they absolutely should have kept him around and given him more to do!)

Yeah, honestly, it wouldn't surprise me that much if they were floating some of the same names as potential Iris and Vicky recasts.

Ah, so ~ 1 week before CD's last episode aired. I love how the question/possible responses were phrased as though the writers/casting director still had months to plan next steps. But, that would have been my next question—which other actresses were they teasing? Even if write-ins were an/the only option, Kate Collins at least looked/comported herself someone like Iris as portrayed by CD; and she had been on a popular soap just a few years before. KC may have just won a plurality among the sliver of respondents who chose that (younger recast) option, which could have been due to name recognition more than anything else. I'm not sure the majority of her fans at that time would have even read a soap mag poll about AW all the way through.

Wow...what was the date on that issue? I'm stunned that SOM had enough lead time to run this poll via whatever technology was available at the time—presumably a 900 number—while her on-screen exit was seemingly so slapped together. I always assumed negotiations fell apart midway through that storyline in which Iris shot Carl halfway across the country from where her ~ 2-day trial+sentencing ended up taking place. My recollection is that SOM was not in the top tier of soap rags when it came to cutting-edge journalism, which wouldn't have said much to begin with, so a part of me wonders if these three options were basically dictated by someone in PR at NBC/P&G. If so, the phrasing of the third option makes me think they were already seriously contemplating leaving Iris in jail indefinitely, and maybe provides a window into how TPTB thought the ending was an appropriate swan song for the character. Although I can't imagine P&G at the time would have actively encouraged speculation about BM's return, post-GL, even if they might have secretly been open to the idea... Regardless of who came up with the wording, how gross that hiring a younger actress, specifically, was one of the other prescribed options—and without even an alternative for an age-appropriate recast if BM wasn't interested. Still, how awesome that only 10% voted for that, especially when you consider how few things poll at 90% these days.

I agree that each year from 1993-1995 brought major developments, many of them mentioned above, that changed the genre as a whole for the worse. But here's another potentially unpopular, related opinion: I would argue the brief period right before that—and, for a handful of shows, well into those three years—was actually setting the stage for the '90s to be one of the best decades in soap history. Looking back, a number of the soaps in the early '90s were taking significant steps toward the 21st century. At least, they got a lot closer than just about anything that I've seen on soaps since, more than 20 years into the millennium. And they actually had long-range stories with momentum. I think it's significant that Y&R, AMC, and ATWT of that era were, respectively, the three top-rated soaps for a few years there, after the over-the-top '80s came to an abrupt end. Admittedly, I wasn't watching any of those three at the time. But I can't help but wonder if those shows, which were (at the time) relatively grounded and diverse, sparked a trend that at least indirectly made some of my favorite soap eras possible: Nancy Curlee, et al's work at GL and Claire Labine's tenure at GH. Not to mention the Malone-Gottlieb era at OLTL, which I know is just as beloved by many other fans. Of course, then DOOL's ratings went up—during the OJ Simpson trial and the demonic possession story, as discussed above—and the pendulum swung back in the opposite direction, and off a cliff...

I love the discussion of the Alex/Mindy dynamic. FWIW, I will say that, before Nick came to town, especially, Alex seemed to me to have a sense of perspective with Roger and Mindy both. When Alex blackmailed Mindy into coming to her showdown at the country club, for example, it seemed primarily to help further unnerve Roger as she moved in for the kill. I thought it was very clear that taking down Roger was Alex's job but making Mindy's life hell was more of a hobby. For me, the (first) point of no return was when Alex actually recruited Roger to break up Nick and Mindy. It led to some memorable scenes/stories but, from then on, Alex clearly had it in for Mindy more than she cared about keeping her family safe from Roger. In hindsight, that damaged the character and strained credibility, for sure. Perhaps not coincidentally, I remember from rewatching all those 1991-92 episodes on YouTube a few years ago (RIP) that plot twist happened right after Nancy Curlee's name had just disappeared from the credits, when she went on maternity leave. I recalled that McKinsey had drawn a line in the sand at Curlee's departure in her exit interview, and I actually thought of that again when Curlee was describing her process for pitching stories in her recent YouTube interview: how she would say, "You'll never guess what happens next," and someone would try to guess, and she would respond, "No, because..." and then Curlee would reveal her actual idea. I can't help but wonder if that would have been a "No Because" moment had she been in the building.

I have no doubt a baby for Mary and Jack named Ryan was in the original RH bible, but to be fair the show was on the air almost two years before Ryan was actually born. I hear you, killing off Ryan would have added to the depressing factor, for sure, although I have no doubt at the end of the story arc there would have been a new baby named after Ryan. Probably Jill's, instead of naming her second child with Frank after Mary—even if she was married to Frank at the time, she could have kept her name and insisted that naming the baby Ryan Coleridge would honor both their families. Alternatively, it would have been fun/twisted if Delia had another baby while not married to someone in the family and decided to name them Ryan, over everyone's objection. Perhaps down the line Maeve and/or Mary would have felt an irresistible urge to become a surrogate parent to the poor child and provide a good influence. Yeah, and my recollection is within a month or so after the explosion, most of NAA's material was more about Jill's opioid addiction anyway, which could have been accomplished without Edmond actually dying. Jill could have successfully rescued Edmond but still hurt her back in the process, and the Ryans could have had all sorts of foreshadowy scenes about how devastating it would be if they lost one of their grandchildren. And if (other characters actually noticed that) Jill neglected Edmond (only because of the pills, of course!) and then Frank and/or Seneca challenged her for custody.... I feel like someone at the network, probably, got cold feet after Edmond died—I'm sure the ratings were not doing well with all the cast changes around that time—and sent a memo decreeing that nobody could mourn him on-camera anymore. Which again might have worked out better if Ryan had been killed off to facilitate a respite from the Kate Mulgrew recasts: Jack would have likely hidden his sense of loss behind renewed rage and an attempt to go back to his pre-Ryan/Ryans life. And like I suggested, Mary could have left town to grieve off-canvas, but leaving the door open for a KM return someday to bring closure.

I'm glad they never fully went there with Jack and Siobhan, even with Sarah Felder. It would have made sense for Jack and Mary's differences to continue to drive a wedge between them, even after Jack took responsibility for Ryan and they reconciled. There were surely all sorts of other Ryan family heirlooms that would trigger Jack in new ways. To j swift's point, there is a way they could have justified Mary leaving NY and upped the stakes of the mob story even more than they did by killing her off: if baby Ryan had been accidentally(?) killed in an Uncle Tiso–ordered explosion or something. Instead of killing off Edmond, which never packed as much of a punch because Frank was clearly too self-absorbed to really care about his children, but none of the other characters seemingly noticed. Whereas Jack and everyone else besides Mary and Maeve swore up and down he'd never be a good father, but we actually saw him grow to love Ryan. Claire Labine would have written the hell out of it, of course. Maybe Kate Mulgrew could have been persuaded to return longer-term at some point in the '80s, between gigs, and Jack and Mary could have tried to deal with their mutual grief and make it work again, but ultimately... When/how did they go from romantic location shoots for Maggie and Dave to Maggie being the spoiler for Dave and the cheerleader from Romy and Michelle's High School Reunion (I know she was supposed to be playing one of Kathleen's daughters, but from what little I saw of her run, I suspect she had a way better role in Romy and Michelle)? Didn't I read that the mid-'80s writers recycle one or more of Delia's desperate antics to hang onto Frank/Pat with Maggie/Dave, or am I making that up? Never mind that this promo was mere months after she was conspiring—among other things—with Roger to ingratiate herself as Jill's long-lost sister. I like what I've seen of CT's intro and Maggie doing battle with Delia toward the show's end, but I have a hard time believing there was a plausible throughline for Maggie's character in the intervening years.

I do remember the dementia story - didn't it go beyond a rejected pitch, with Audrey actually being shown forgetting things airing, or is that soap opera urban legend? My recollection of that time period (and/or what my brain filled in in the years afterward) was that Bobbie and Tony were onscreen a fair amount, albeit less than Robin/Stone for sure, and again in that short-term story with Alan. I assumed for the next decade or two, until that interview, that the Labines were just not committing to long-term stories for Bobbie/Tony or virtually anyone else at that point because they were only staying on to finish the AIDS story. Bobbie and Tony weren't quite back together, so another triangle/quadrangle made for a short-term detour without throwing anything else at them that was too high-stakes. Of course, it's possible Labine thought of a long-lost child for Bobbie at literally the eleventh hour, after the reconciliation with Tony. Otherwise, though, I'm just surprised they didn't introduce that sooner, as a slow-boil teaser thing. I see no reason why it couldn't have overlapped with the Stone story, or even been connected: Bobbie could have been visiting him in the AIDS ward, met another patient who had been a sex worker, and made some offhanded comment about how back when she was in the life the most she had to worry about was getting pregnant. Her memories could have been the obstacle that delayed Bobbie and Tony's reconciliation, as she pushed him away because she didn't trust him enough to confide in him after all they'd done to each other. Again, unless the network was skittish and refusing to greenlight any other longer-term stories.

For sure. In hindsight, it's like the Great Recession came to soaps 10 years early. GH—like most if not every other soap—was getting ratings that would be unheard of today and the economy as a whole was booming, but soap budgets were starting to shrink in the most ridiculous ways. Even as they obviously had money for the most pointless things: Culliton's anecdote about the PC premiere becoming a Sunday night movie at the eleventh hour reminded me that GH/PC got not one but two primetime specials during Richard Culliton's brief, rocky tenure.

I guess I can see how Claire Labine would have come up with the general idea for Carly. In hindsight, Bobbie was even living in the brownstone set in which RH's Jill Coleridge's long-lost sister Maggie Shelby weaseled her way and ended up seducing Jill's husband. But that RH story (and the Kim/Rae story before it) seemed like attempts to satisfy the network's insistence on introducing younger characters, while connecting them to the existing cast, rather than something Labine's heart was really in. Whereas GH in the mid-'90s didn't necessarily have a lack of younger characters. So it really was surprising to me when she said that. I recall it was reported at the time that Labine extended her GH contract six months to finish the Robin/Stone story and never intended to stay longer, and the timing jives, but it was surprising that she was still invested in the rest of the canvas enough to come up with long-range stories at the last minute. It seemed like Bobbie and Alan almost having an affair was a short-term story to keep those characters busy during that interim period, whereas the summer of 1995 would have been a logical time—before Bobbie and Tony reconciled—to introduce Bobbie's long-lost daughter. Maybe that was her original plan, and the network (with Disney now in the mix) got skittish about the ratings, probably blamed the AIDS story, and hit the brakes on other longer-range stories?

It was an interesting interview. My teenage self would never in a million years have believed I would be typing this, but I'm glad they remained in daytime all these years. They both have clearly contributed a lot to the genre and, in hindsight, Richard got raked over the coals—including by me—for things at GH that clearly were beyond his control. (See also Riche, Wendy.) It probably didn't even register for me at the time how creating a new daily show while head writing another one must have been impossible to do well. (I didn't appreciate that going to work in an office was actually...work.) I wonder who at ABC was so adamant about the Cullitons helming the spinoff, and how anyone would think that such an arrangement would turn out well for either show. I was rooting for Claire Labine's spinoff and, by the time PC premiered, would have been happy to see A Daytime to Remember become a permanent fixture. If anything, though, the network should have recruited Carolyn for PC to ensure the head writers of both shows would get along, and paired her with someone who had been on the GH team and had a history writing the crossover characters, like Michele val Jean or Karen Harris.

I interpreted what Curlee said about the decision(s) to kill Maureen as partly declining to point fingers, for sure, but I'll buy that she was the one who committed to going all-in for realism. That seemed to be her calling card. I'm actually not sure JFP would have cared so much about making the death irreversible. I agree the off-the-cuff story idea Curlee threw out about Roger wouldn't have worked for reasons discussed above, and I doubt Maureen being alive off-camera would have minimized the backlash anyway. And I'm not sure anyone would have given their all to that story if it were just a typical soap opera "death" - including Curlee herself, based on what she said about the writing being influenced by her mother having died a few years before, which I had not heard her say before. I do wish Curlee had spoken more about her thoughts on McKinsey's reasons for leaving while she was away, but I can see why she declined with her husband and co–head writer sitting there. What would she have pushed back on as far as the Alex/Mindy dynamic, and/or how might she have blunted the impact on Alex's character? The GH tidbit is fascinating. Not only would their hiring have presumably meant a radically different direction for GH itself than the one in which it ended up going as 1996 wore on, but that year also seems like such a turning point for soaps as a whole in hindsight. Essentially all the soaps, or at least the non–creator owned ones, were in creative turmoil by year-end, and at the time that could realistically be blamed on the head writer turnover that was also happening across the board. I can't help but wonder what would have happened if there had been a few more seasoned head writers in charge by midyear who were willing to go to the mat for their vision, back in those early days of Disney owning ABC (and the new guard at P&G, for that matter) when everyone was still figuring out how to work together.

Yes, Seneca was a controlling husband; and yes, John Gabriel was charming and sexy as hell in the role. I completely bought both Nell and Jill getting involved with him against their better judgment. I draw the line at his involvement with Kim—her judgment or lack thereof notwithstanding, that pairing made no sense—although I appreciate KM's heartfelt, self-effacing post. Agreed that Nell and Seneca were a high point in the show's first year, likely at least in part because their story were the least affected by the change in plans vis-a-vis Frank dying - but also because they were both so talented and worked well together. They were supposed to last longer (DvD left for medical reasons) and I could have seen them being a tempestuous but tentpole couple on the hospital side of the show, a la Alan and Monica Quartermaine. But the euthanasia story was a stellar ending. Anyway, RIP to a terrific actor.

My inner child will always love that "You Take Me Away to Another World" opening, although I cannot deny the lyrics are completely insipid. It is remarkable that it lasted so long—the visuals at least were probably half-dated by the time it premiered in 1987—but I wonder why Laibson or somebody pre-JFP never tried to revamp it. I feel like with new orchestrations, the song could have fit in with the late '80s/early '90s soft-rock trend, and a new font and non-stylized photos of the cast would have been a relatively quick fix (and easier to update). I'm also not sure how you could have come up with much better lyrics for a song named after the show, because every explanation I've heard put forward for what the show's title was supposed to mean—dare I say, even Lemay and Phillips'—sounds cliched and/or pretentious. I suspect that's because the name was really coined by ad execs who decided they wanted "Another (As the) World (Turns)." In hindsight, that probably made it the worst choice of all the soaps to have theme songs with lyrics that included the title of the show—along with Loving, which oddly enough I believe had the only other lyrical soap theme by the mid-'90s.

I'm still trying to get through 1991-92, but skipped ahead and watched some of that September 1994 episode. I've also caught bits and pieces of what there is on YouTube from that "sequel" a few years later with Mattson's Janet pretending to be someone else in order to once again marry Trevor. I say sequel intentionally, because it really has the vibe of one of the sequels to summer blockbusters from that era that were paint-by-numbers retreads of originals, which—love them or hate them—had real talent involved and were genuinely beloved by many, e.g., Home Alone 2, Addams Family Values, the many Jurassic Park sequels, etc. Especially with that actress who played Janet and Natalie's mother, whom I feel like I saw in so many things in the '90s. And I know Harold the Dog had an even more far-fetched arc, which I kind of wish I could find on YouTube. And like those movie sequels, that story seemingly hinged on nobody having learned anything the first time. Did they even try to explain why someone who had committed Janet's particular crimes would have ever been chosen for such an experiment, or why nobody knew Janet was out of jail and had a new face?

In general I would say Nancy Curlee's team wrote the hell out of so many of JFP's questionable casting choices. The writing was mostly intelligent and—in stark contrast to JFP's later work—they tried to fit new characters/characterizations into the canvas in logical ways, at least until the wheels came off with Tangie. As far as Alex's reintroduction scene, specifically, I think it made sense pre-internet that Alex wouldn't have necessarily gleaned from the headlines during a layover that her company had been taken over in her absence. If none of the articles happened to say "Roger Thorpe and Jenna Bradshaw, who earlier this year won control of Spaulding Enterprises in a lawsuit..." Alex might have just seen that the stock prices were down or whatever and resigned herself to deal with that once she got home, because she was unable to go down a clickhole. And I don't think Marj Dusay was inherently a bad recast Alex. By that point, in hindsight, the cast overall had just been so gutted and she was yet another new face with a familiar name who couldn't replicate what came before. (Alongside potentially familiar faces playing new characters, of course.) I enjoyed some of Dusay's work on GL I saw over the years, and especially much of that early material, but of course she couldn't have replaced McKinsey. I really doubt any of the other actresses mentioned could have either. As far as persuading McKinsey to come back just long enough for the battle for Spaulding, I actually wonder if that story ever would have happened if she were still on the show. It was implied that the reason Jenna and Roger were able to get away with it was because of Alex's absence and Alan-Michael's screwups (one of the best scenes from that time, after truth be told it had been a little hard to swallow 20-something A-M a serious contender for the presidency, was when he acknowledged to Vanessa that he was never qualified to challenge her for the position and essentially apologized for being an entitled brat to her). I feel like the writers scrambled with Alex abruptly gone from the canvas, and ended up giving the Spauldings some of the same materials/beats they had planned for the Bauers after Maureen's death. Of course, going by Ellen Parker's telling of how she learned the news that she was fired (on opening night of the play she was doing, which the NY Times said was in November of 1992), it wouldn't have been too late to reverse course on killing off Maureen once McKinsey quit, or at least postpone it. Whatever else I may think of the decision to write Maureen off, failing to reevaluate in the wake of what would otherwise have been the show's most shocking departure in a decade or more really sealed the deal.