Mitch

LOL..I love Marj but really, who thought this was nothing but over the top??? I love when she starts shaking her fist at ole Rog! Imagine what Bev would have done.

Who would have been a good recast at that time? I am trying to think of someone similar to Marx..but can't. He brought something to Tom and just a "good guy" soap leading man which is really hard...he played a nice guy who loved his wife who wasn't boring and he still had a bit of an edge to him without being an [!@#$%^&*], and he was sexy without treating women like dirt. I thought later on that David Andrew McDonald believe or not would be a good Tom..when Eddie briefly and out of character became a nice "boyfriend" guy, DAM played it great...of course Dolan would have had to been recast too but...

I never knew why they didn't have a murder mystery tee'd up and that would be the CBS cliffhanger...Search had tried to make Travis and Liza into Luke and Laura and the spies thing going on with those scientists at the time was stupid and boring.

Such a good era..the best of Marland before we got mired in Synderville and depression. I love the dialogue of little things that make it seem real..Annie and Dee coming in for Easter and staying for the party, etc. Poor McClaughlin was really frail and I love how Hays is so gentle with him as she takes him off stage...P & G actaully cared then as opposed to what they would do later with Zaz, etc. I love the Lisa/Babs issues and how the hell could Marland think that Holmes would make a good Tom after seeing Marx play him?

Gautman and Sheffer missed the boat on this one. Even before Marland Lisa was taking in the strays of Oakdale...(Mary in particular living in the mansion, even after accusing Bob of sexually harrasing her..) and of course, Marland used her to introduce characters to other characters, and the audience. I wish they had kept Lisa's step kids around..Fulton was great with them.

Yea..I think Deas is an industry darling but that's about it. I also think he just wanted a steady check so Colin could do what she wanted and he was around for the kids, etc, so he and Dicipolous probably just took the pay cuts and decided to shut his big mouth (off screen.) But okay, you want to get rid of Fiona..just write em both off..(but Rauch and MADD loved to take it out on the characters when they had a thing for the actors...killing Hart and having Dinah do it was a f*ck you to them...same as killing Jenna.)

Nola was supposed to be the spoiler in Jenna and Buzz..Jeffery was gone by then, but Jenna was cooking his baby by that time unknown to Buzz and somehow Nola found out, which was a good twist as that was Nola's iconic trick. I think I could tolerate Nola and Buzz if they started things slow, with them being buddies and having a beer..which would have been different then he and Jenna..maybe she is just friends with both of them and then she finds out Jennas secret and instead of woman against woman, she advices Jenna that it will blow up in her face..Jenna lies, Buzz finds out, then he and Nola get together for a bit. I just did not want Nola to be the sad third party who will be dumped or the bad third scheming either. Rauch/MADD and EB thought every triangle had to have a bad third which was lazy. But then Deas would have to keep his screaming arms flailing to a min. Actually, I would much rather Buzz and Jenna just got written out happy after Jeffery. There was no more story for them or Buzz..why kill her off?

I think Lisa would be so easy to write for..though (and Fulton wouldn't have liked this) I would nix the swoony dreaming romantic (so maybe she isnt so easy to write for..) cause that was just getting pathetic as she got older, but she had connections to everyone (except the Snyders which I liked) she was great on recapping as she traveled around chatting up everyone, she had humor (if done right) took all the young people under her wing, especially if they were a bad girl with a good heart, and as DramatistDreamer said..she liked a good fight. I never understood why Sheffer couldn't write for her. I thought the best writing for Lisa was with Taggert and company pre Marland right after Fulton's return..she had a step family she was all over (I wish Ulrich didn't leave at that time...she was prime Lisa project material) she was running her businesses, she was getting kidnapped...acting like Joan Crawford at her husband''s murder trial..Marland made her kind of bland. I can only imagine how Lisa would deal with Reva...and Fulton and Zimmer with each other!

CBS and P & G and Long had parted company and no one involved was interested in going back. ATWT did indeed beat GL but I always thought that was because it kept its stable core..thanks to Marland..where GL didn't..thanks in part to Long. They both have their good points and weaknesses.

They didn't fire her..they offered her a contract she didn't like..one day a week, so she left...a week before the 25th anniversary...(which the show ignored and just had a Kim/Nick wedding, which just makes me think they were trying to replace Nancy and Chris with them...) Up to that point after Christmas of that year she was rarely seen..was it the Dobsons..or the producer or both. At least they didn't kill her off. I think a Nola/Ed pairing had potential..did Brown and Simon have chemistry? She could light a fire under dour Ed and Ed would ground her. Actually..Nola as new kooky matriarch made a weird kind of sense...McTavish had good ideas but then she would screw them up. When Brown first came on she was on recurring so there was no story...which is fine..Nola was a character who could have been the Lisa on this show, getting in everyone's biz and connecting everything together. And no, she and Deas had no chemistry and please don't throw poor Nola under the Buzz buss! Ugh

That's exactly it! Long had that heat and made her characters, even BIG ones like Reva and Roger seem real, but plots would drop for days on end, etc. Marland had the structure and kept the momentum going but his characters seemed more idealized and cold (it would piss me off so much how "polite" Oakdale was..no "good" characters ever said about thing about another "good" character, etc.) and you could tell someone was "writing" them. Tho as much as Pam and Marland looked like they respected each other I think they would have killed each other while working together!

Totally agree and you can see that the two really like each other and admire each others work. As I have said before, Doug had the structure, the discipline and the history down, while Pam had heart, sexiness, family and both of them wrote great community stories...(whatever happened to the Lewises in some way effected the rest of the families.) Also, I knew Pam was beautiful but wow!!!

Sorry, no it was Kim Hughes I meant. I have no problem for characters reusing clothes like real people but ALL you saw her in was that damn pink suit...lunch at the hotel, dinner at the hotel, all the time. Poor Kimmer, Rauch NEVER knew how to dress her she just was getting bigger (as we all do) and he insisted on those damn pastel biz suits on every charcter...kind of off topic I know..but on topic was when the budget cuts let Zimmer use her own t-shirts etc and it looked totally wrong for aging clothes horse Reva.

ATWT was no where NEAR Wheeler town but then again, that was not her fault...Rauch had been overspending for years and Conboy took it into overdrive. However, if I had to see Kim wear that same damn pink suit again...(I can't believe the shows couldn 't have made a deal with a clothing store or manufacturer to feature their clothes and then run an ad line at the end...sure "Peapack Dress Barn" sound as good as "Lillie Rubin Salon South-Soutwest" but you gotta do what you gotta do.

Kobe gave a bullshit statement that they wanted to keep Bert alive as long as GL was on the air...so Rick could pick up the phone and say, "Grandma, I have a problem." So yea, it was b.s. and then the funeral they gave poor Bert...(and yes, Jesse and Simon had to be on those episodes too to make it even worse!)

I heard that Don wanted to always have a younger actress as his romance and thought Bev was too old. Too bad his ego got in the way and it makes sense that Kobe would recast Mike but didn't as she had to recast Ed. Too bad as I always thought Alex/Mike would have been very interesting and have no clue why they didn't recast him later leading up to Berneau coming back. They could have brought both a recast Mike and Hope back for Bert's funeral and had months to set them up with Mike/Alex and Hope/Ross for Alan to return. Instead we got Jesse/Simon, with Alex obsessing over those bores, Calla with Ross, and endless Kyle and boring Maeve!

Dumb move to fire Stewart when Simon left...I know Kobe didn't know Charita would pass away but it wasn't fair to Charita to hang it all on her.

Very cool!! I can't wait! I heard Fiona got shown the door partly for her vocal support of Zaz.

HAHAHAAHA...I can't see Rauch thinking butch Clark was right for ANY role...except maybe a Bo recast!

Ha..love Bev's face as she manipulates Hawk..(I could have sworn she said..."Can you get Mr. Shayne...a STEAK"!) But why the hell would Alex care about the Sampson girl contest...(on else in the world did!)

Patti was trying to play the fan game that Zimmer and Newman were so adept at. She started her own website and she got the Suzz fans (as they called themselves and believe it or not there were people into the those two..probably not many but Patti was trying her best to create a Jeva...) going nuts, even sending her kids gifts..it was incredibly inappropriate. Anyway, on a message board people were complaining about Jeva's airtime and the dumb strorylines..(remember, these were the days where Kim and Robert were off for two days in a row they complained about being back burnered..) Patti, trying to cur favor or just thinking she was helping jumped in and started to argue with the posters...(as if Kimmer ever needed ANYONE to fight her battles... and she always knew people bitching were people talking) eventually telling someone to "BITE me,'' which apparently helped to lead to her firing or at least she was out of the good graces of Rauch and Madd and no one stopped Labine from writing her out.

You think she will discuss...the infamous..."Bite me!" incident???

Loved the Boardinghouse kitchen set..that came from JFP who I must say, knew how to do sets. Too bad they got rid of it and then the Coopers infested the place. Funny you mention Reva's house, the message boards were going nuts complaining about it. I think its a cool set that I would want to live in, but do agree, it was not Reva-ish. I don't know why they didn't just have someone else move in there..like Holly did with Reva Bend.

Yea, like Rick says to Phillips "Oh you thought it was your brother" (which is weird as AM is Rick's cousin and in real life would just use his name..) and Phillip is like, "Oh, yea, that is what Dad wanted me to believe but it was him all along..so what's for dinner?" after months and months of searching for A Spaudling and blaming everyone. Blake would have been great, especially with her BIG secret..but as you said, this was the start of message boards and people figured it out and TPTB freaked like it was some big twist out of nowhere and the fans ruined it. It would have been good as Amanda (hey they totally redid her character so lean into it) hated Blake and could have blackmailed her and then Phillip finds out and causes this big explosion. But it went out with a whimper and then we got..."Amanda is Brandon's daughter" nonsense. And your right, that summer of GL sucked..Reva in LURVE and screwing that troll Buzz, Roger and Lonatrat...Dinah as the poor put upon heroine..actually outsmarting Roger..Alan wanting to "Destroy 5th Street..bwhahahaha" all because of Reva, the recast AM fading into the woodwork and you could see him struggling with his line, Alex just kind of wringing her hands about Alan and essentially saying "Now boys, don't fight" Ed left, Vanessa having a soap disease and planning her own fake death..(cause that would be much, much more kind to her family) and Chele in love with wooden Zachary, believe it or not an angel. No wonder McLaiby was kicked to the curb.

I think this was tail end of McTavish..if she wasn't there it was her outlines. The "A Spaulding" thing pettered out...McTavish was pissed that the audience figured out it was going to be Blake, which actually had consequences, what with at this time Blake carrying both Ross and Rick's kid and holding that secret...TPTB had to get over springing suprises on us and just write out a good show. Loved the return of Meta, too bad that Stuart got sick not long after this and had a sporadic run but its to GL's credit that they kept her involved and luckily, avoided what Marland did to Nancy Hughes and just turned her into a sweet grandma without opinions. Loved her bossing the guys around. And yes, Abby and Rick had good potential to be the nice normal couple in town. Loved Buzz being a third wheel in Rome hated that they had to kill Sarah off to bring in the dreaded Cassie...(Sarah could have recovered..) Annie in Mom jeans is hilarious and yes, Eleni is a non entity..( Jill Hurst says she was upset when the decision was made to have Frank and Eleni split up but what else were they going to do...) A lot of potential to fix things here and Rauch and the writers did but they lost their way...too bad.