Mitch

Actually, there was Lyla dating Bob at the time that Kim was dating Nick..Miranda came after. They must have been thinking Nick and Lisa as there is a scene where you can tell they were chemistry testing. I think putting a delay in Kim and Bob was good but yes they should have been end game. A bit of jealousy on Nick's part of Kim always going to her "pal" for advice and that they just plain have fun together(Nick is the kind of guy you could see would not have ever thought of a woman as a friend) especially if buttinsky John dropped their past history on him! Nick and Lisa would have been fun for a few months...they are fighting, all the time and Nick is drawn naturally toward Kim and her stability...but Kim is still grieving, finally Nick and Lisa break off and Lisa, showing her wordliness is not jealous.."Kim, date him...it was a great time but we don't work out..it was fun , it was fine, we are freinds now and that s it...oh, and the sex is great!"

I was in high school at the time and loved Mr. Big..though I knew it was stupid. The drug storyline was started before the Dobsons came back and the writers were referring to a Mr. Big so they decided to make it funny. I thought it would have been more interesting to make Karen a guy..(it is revealed later that Karen has a gay brother who is a teacher and James tried to blackmail Karen with revealing that to make him loose his job..ahead of its time and an interesting plot point.) who looks up to David as a father figure and David looks at him as a son to fill the space of the two sons he already lost. The character would still be "grey" and that would have caused tension in the Stewart family as David could not cut him out of his life. It would have been interesting if they developed that more. At this point I would have recast Don and, after Mary dies, he comes back to Oakdale with the kid and gets involved with Ellen again..instead they threw some boring new doctor at her. The end game would be David and Ellen remarrying of course but it would be nice to see it dragged out and to explore their characters on their own right. I missed the days of John being the outsider..I loved that he would always turn up like a bad penny at just the wrong time and every character would open the door with a "Oh..hello John" and annoyed look on their face. Fulton was looking her best at this time..they just had the Lisa "look" down. I hated when she went a bit nuts and tried to get attention by dying her hair that hideous shade of red with that bad Nancy Reagan do. Loved their chemistry and their friendship one of the most underated in soaps..and its also the most real one. They are both "edgy" women who love each other and both annoy each other at times but always have each other's back. One of the high points of Nancy Hughes death episode is Barbara going looking for Lisa at Fashions (did Babs still own Fashions with Lisa?) and Lisa hiding from her. Babs calls her on her cell and at the end throws in a "I love you," that you could tell Zenk added as it seemed so natural. And even more natural would be if they were arguing the next episode...it woudlnt have seemed weird. I hated that damn cottage. During that summer they were in that set every damn day. It just was weird that Tom would live in the house her married lover gave to her and that Margo who had changed so much, would still be there. Margo was a weird character at that time and its really only due to Collin's talent and her chemistry with Deas that the character became so invaluable. Speaking of, was their ever a big reveal of James and Margos realtionship.? I don't remember that. it seems they were sneaking around and poof everyone knew what was going on. Did Babs and her ever have one of those great..."You BITCH!" scenes??

It was a good idea...but by that time, sad to say, Rick needed to be recast..not necessarily a boring soap hunk but someone who had some charm and warmth..by this time O'Leary had relied on schtick and if it was a dramatic scene he YELLED. They should have transitioned O'leary into production as that seems to be what he likes, and recast Rick. Of course, I would have made Mel a lawyer to begin with, a lawyer dedicated to representing underserved populations who would have been a contrast to the Bauers and their affluent friends and enemies.

Oh my...boring Sophia...(why are Nick and Kim taking care of her..she is his wife who he hated daughter right???) It looks like they were going in an interesting direction where she was hating on Kim..they could have had her be a bad influence on Betsy..so that could have been good, but the Dobs, who created her, got rid of her when they came back. Too bad. Boring Hayley and Eric...shows when good actors are stuck in bad roles. This was the start of the drug syndicate storyline that the Dobs turned into Mr. Big. Poor Bruder..they were trying hard to turn her into Nancy Hughes (Wager left during this time and the Hughes were totally obscured..) when she wasnt in the same generation. Dee's slight Jersey accent is annoying for someone who grew up in Illinois!

Cricket was an nonentity during most of her time on the show. She started out as an Erica wannabe who was competing with boring SD's Betsy for boring Eric and once that ended...I think Bunim kept her on just because she was young and pretty. Considering that and Loring's less then dynamic acting and her background...(wasnt her husband in bi porn too, which would have been CRAZY for CBS at that time...) it is no mystery why Cricket never appeared again.

Lisa wasn't just daffy at this time, she acts like she is on something with her forgetfulness and her jittery hyperactivity, while Betsy acts stoned. (does Betsy..go to school at all, have a job, just sits around and sighs all day.) It was actually Fulton's decision to play Lisa this way...(this was a few episodes before she left the show..) She said they weren't writing for her...(which they were) so she had to go dead down inside, to find something to play..."so I came up with a ditz..." which Lisa never was. She is obviously trying to get attention in those scenes and her red hair!!! Loring is cuter and better then I remember her. I love when she tells that guy..."I trust you!" Uh, cause he is FLAMING!" (Note: I forgot all about Ernie, who now is a pretty successful interior designer in NY...so yea, Cricket..you are safe with Ernie.) The dark haired girl was Bilan who was cute...but what was the point...the Dobs were wasting time and insistent on bringing in young people, (Cricket, Ernie, Bilan) who don't do anything. I forgot Colin's Margo was so harsh and annoying and I can't believe Deas is not chewing the scenery. Agreed on loving Ariel and her eye roll at the dullards. She was fun and she should have been kept on just to sit in Fashions and roll her eyes at everyone.

Agreed, and it was a good idea to have Jeffie be her partner in crime..but then they dropped that and it was nasty Dinah and heroic Jeffie. I wish they had used that as starting point to get rid of Cole for good, to expose what an ass and nut Jeffie was...I would have had it Dinah was blackmailing him to get her money, etc...and when she came to town she would taunt him all the while letting him go after Cassie to give the Big C what she deserved. Dinah has a change of heart and exposes him (including his rape of O which was dropped) and he goes nuts and kidnapps him and they kill him in good old fashioned Soap Dish way..."His head was chopped off, he can't come back cause he doenst have a head!" Who the hell was Cole's protector on this show?

I would think he was complaining about the Dobson's era where they brought on Lyla and Cricket and then there were Montogomery's falling out of trees, (Margo, then Maggie, who oddly enough started sleeping with Tom when they were in Switzerland where unbeknowest to her, her sister Lyla was dating Tom's dad back in the midwest..) and then Craig. I don't think it was the amount of Montgomerys but just that every storyline was told from their point of view..even the Tom/Margo thing...( and we never got Lisa pissed off that Johnny Dixon's daughter was after Tom..I would have loved a Fulton/Colin bitch scene...)

Bruder looks great and totally with it. She is much more effervesent then poor dull Ellen, they should have let her have a bit of her real spark on the show.

I think some writers are just "made" for certain shows. I think the most distinct writers like Marland and Long, just suffer from this the most...which is why the generic writers are kept shuffled around. I have no idea why GL did not bring Long back after McTrash almost got the show cancelled.

Very true and that's all that matters in a soap, not social "relevance" (shut up Agnes...) or shocking twists, its what keeps you coming back each day. Kind of off topic but really not since prime time shows have taken over for the soaps, but I watch Walking Dead like I watched the soaps, I bitch about it but I keep tuning in to see what happens next. This year its got a new show runner and it better then it has been in years and on Sunday they had their most soap like episode ever....the psycho villain disguises herself and attends the community fair, where she eavesdrops on the characters to find out where to strike and what their stories are..no one is of course the wiser and well, it doesnt end well. During the episode there were reunions and speeches about community and heroism and coming together despite the bad and I said to my partner..."Its like zombies invaded Oakdale or Springfield." Of course, he looks at me like Im nuts...

Agreed..Moniz has it going and of course, Zaz can do anything..Zimmer, I was suprised that she would have agreed to do it without her makeup, but maybe they pulled her out of happy hour and she said, "What the hell!!!Let's do this quick so I can get on with my day!" Frankie...I know this is not nice, but God only knows who he was putting out with to keep his job...(I kid, I kid..I really think he ended up paying them to keep him on...)

It almost seems they used anyone who was in the studio that day..I mean, Frankie D is going to get people in NY to tune in at 10 a.m. (Of course, Frankie probably made a special trip in to film that as he woulda cleaned the toilets to stay on that show...) Also, Kimmer looks like she has no make up on!!!

Getting ready to perve on those sisters..you dog!!!

Especially when there was a perfectly good Cooper to kill instead!!!!

True, they could have done it like Marland did on ATWT..and Doug Cumming (or was it Marsha) attacking Heather and putting her in a coma...so the whole thing was...will Heather wake up in time to warn Kim, etc. I felt that Nadine's story was over..and I was sick of her pining over that troll Buzz, so I liked it when they put her together with that Trucker who liked her...but he disappeared when McTavish started writing..I would rather Deeney be written out wiht a happy ending. Of course, I wanted Buzz to be the one to get murdered..I can imagine how long his death scene would be..."GAAK....you STABBED me...spit, spit, AAGGGH I'm dying...windmill arms..." and the soap "press" raving about Deas acting in his exit scene....

Very true, but the storyline was ahead of its time for actually talking about some of the things we are talking about today...white professional affluent males can escape justice...(well okay, every regular character can escape justice if the plot calls for it and he says he is sorry. I hated that GL, after Alex is revealed to be involved with the drug ring (I wont even go into the stupidity of that...) didnt use the storyline to have the feds investigate Spaulding, and unseat ALL of them from the business and disbar Gus. Interesting storylines..) I also think the transphobia thing doesnt hold...Brent was not trans, he was evil using a disguise...and the HIV thing I thought was a good twist on the old baby switch storyline, and it did use it to talk about HIV/AIDS at that time. The rest of McTavish stuff was crap!

Hilary was good with Jim and with Fletcher...and I never thought Fletch had chemistry with anyone. Wonder why they didn't go there. Of course I heard the spy thing on Datalounge so take it for what its worth..I wont even go into the claim of what JWS, the Holden actor and Marland's penchant for feet...

Bull dyke Marsha Clark and gay JWS had zero chemistry. Clark was Marland's spy with the actors reporting back to him what people were saying. I actually thought that Blake should have had the more somber bearing..the kid thought Ed was her dad for her formative years (which was never mentioned by Long much) then found out family enemy Roger was her father, was kidnapped, he died, she was carted off to "europe" and place in a boarding school by a mother who had neurotic problems of her own..Stringfields spoiled princess didnt make a lot of sense.

I actually liked her but Pam Long HATED her...they hired her during the writers strike. I don't think she had any chemistry GA or MOL..both of whom have chemistry with everyone (different kinds tho they may be...) I never liked Stringfield who everyone loves..she was just too damn campy and I like LK but she was just too "nice" to be Blake...

Roger was rather one dimensional at this time. I think the Dobsons wrote James Stenbeck the same way...not that AH as hot as he was, was an actor of the same caliber of Zaz, but I always wish they had written him withe more conflict then just EVIL.. Is anyone else having problems on this page with Google ads blocking posts?

That was cheesy for the 80s..it was even worse when Conboy brought that back for a Fashion in what 2002? Oh, old queens who don't move with the times. That promo for the clone reminded me of why I hated it so much, not so much the sci-fi but I could never stand Josh after that and I don't think Reva would have ever forgiven him...he came off like a lecherous psycho. It also shows how JL was wasted as both teen clone and Michele, she would have been great as a tough as nails Stacy Chamberlin or some other bad girl. On the GL Facebook page Jill Hurst sometimes post and she brought up the "great work that Robert and Kim did" when everyone was dissing the storyline...to her credit she did say she didn't like sc--fi stuff and engaged with class. Its just interesting to see what bts people think of the stuff that goes on the air compared to the viewers. Sometimes they are too close to the cast etc...(as in, who cares what kind of work they did, the storyline sucked...)

The Santos as written were ridiculous, and annoying and ate up the show...and its too bad, some of the actors were good but typical MADD/Rauch...the writing was crap and they werent integrated with the show. As I said before..having the Santos being a murky family with ties to organized crime, which Carmen was desperate to rid herself of and be seen as "legitimate" (while still being underhanded) would have been interesting. Carmen using Michelle and the Bauers (even while hating them) and using Pilar with Bill Lewis...running head to head with Vanessa on one hand, and trying to seduce Alan on the other, while running head to head with Alex..would have been good. I think the Pilar actress would have been good as a mini Carmen wanting to climb her way into legit society..and using poor Bill Lewis as her pawn. "I have been going back and watching 1979 GL and he and Lezlie Dalton (Elizabeth) were great together." When Joan Collins came on it should have been as Eilzabeth not Alex..and I would have loved her to be married to Mike Bauer...(for a long term storyline I would have not cast Joan in the role but...)

That's funny, in an interview at the time Marland said that Charita was the Sada Thompson of daytime. I think she had more zest and humor then anything I have seen Thompson do but.. I think bringing back Meta was one of the best ideas on GL since the 90s and it was oddly enough McTavish who initiated it. I think that all of the younger actors seemed to really work much better with MS..(who I heard could be a pill) even the horrible Jesse actor. They should have used her more..she was a great combo of loving Bert with a bit more of a hard ass in there.

God..Bert's passing was terrible and yes, GL was a [!@#$%^&*] show at that time. After the huge ratings drop when the show got away from the core...they should have used her death to bring Bauers back to SF.. Mike, Hope and Aunt Meta...Mike for Alex, Hope for Ross and Aunt Meta taking up dutie in the Bauer kitchen. But Kobe probably thought this was the chance to finally get away from the past. I remember when they asked her why she waited a year she tried to hem and haw that it was painful to the cast and that she wanted Bert to always stay alive so Rick could get on the phone and say, "Grandma...I have a problem!" What an idiot.