Mitch

That could have been interesting if she came and moved in with Aunt Holly...maybe she had a few issues like her father and Holly has a belated spurt of maternal care (like she did with Chele) and Blake becomes a bit jealous....or instead of that stupid Tory thing it was this girl who fell for Ross in a twisted father figure way like Blake did... But whatever, there were tons of offspring/lost relatives to drive story from Stacie and a recast "J" , to Roxie, and I know it would drive longtime fan nuts. but I would maybe have had Hope marry offscreen and have kids, or Mike...(since we heard nothing from him since he left...) Maybe Mike and his wife come to town to take the place of Ed and Mo and they have college age kids...

YES..I loved Marland's first two years..he really made the Hughes family front and center and started honoring history. But there still was energy and camp and fun...as dumb as the Castle was I loved the monks and James first return...Shannon was fun and not the drip she became..Lisa and Lucinda were camping it up all over town and sniping at each other..Doug Cummings and the murders...it hadnt quite got to be a Lily fest and not everyone in town was mouthing off about "honesty" being the most important part in a relationship..Tom and Margo were fun and sexy and made marriage look fun and sexy...Babs was going bad in a fun way and teen sexpot Emily was oozing bad girl charisma...and then....it all became a drab morose mess of earnest dullness.

LOL..I actually remember watching this episode in college...but now I can't remember where my keys are... Lisa DID mention..."Oh she is taking it out on the world, I used to be just like that..." and I did like how she just laughed at her.. but yes, she should have ahd a bitchy comment on "Well from the looks of things, it wont be your last" to her or something. Just when I think Lucinda is going to save the day with a "Oh Lisa..." (which you know is usually the start of some good catty fun.) its to report that Craig called... and then Lisa doesnt even give Lu any heat about besmirching Whit....I would have loved a firey Lisa saying that if Lily and Iva get hurt...."It collatoral damage...and its all your fault.." but no..lets !@#$%^&*] foot around... I always loved GL at this time as people got to be catty and snarky and insult each other..even when they were "good"...

Sadly, annoying, Eddie "Man" was sexier then boring, priggish SH' Tom. I thought the story was that Eddie had a crush on Margo and Margo just felt like a big sister to him...there wasnt a romance was there?

I don't even remember this woman!!! Sean WAS hot...he played Gaston on Broadway...but he was totally not Frannie's type...or Marland's type..i.e. he didn't prisspot around about "feelings," and "honesty" I forgot he was annoying Courtney's bro and I HATED this Frannie with her helmet hair..she just didn' t seem to be a Hughes...(I would think Nancy would think that "flashy" hair is good for Emily but NOT a Hughes...)

Zimmer IS Reva..sometimes she annoys the f*ck out of you and other times you love the hell out of her...here I love the hell out of her! I lover her Charita comments and I think she did a great job of channeling Charita for the anniversary show, she had the zest, and the outgoing warmth of Charita down pat. Again, would love to sit down with Kimmer with a bottle of wine and let her rip!!! The thing is, Peapack would have been the perfect time to get back to the show being about family....the format cried out to the return of that as there was nothing else the budget could stand. But Wheeler kept throwing in jewel thieves and secret agent Jeffie chasing after Eddie who had a double...it would all have been dumb in the old format but it looked even more ridiculous in a real town setting.

Sad to watch...now I of course, can notice Zaz speech and the the onset of that horrible disease...if only they had written this a Roger's "temp" exit...Alex and Alan have the goods on him for faking Amanda's paternity test and the will (dumb, but the whole thing was dumb) and Rog skips town and says goodbye to Holly and for her to look out for Blake and Amanda on the war path...but with a "Ill be back." eventually they could have made it a big mystery why Roger, who got his way out of bigger things, has disappeared off the face of the earth. Other things, this is before E & B took over I think...its too bad GL threw off some good stuff to be the Josh/Reva hour..Rick and Abby are one of the few couples to be cute as hell without being annoying, its nice to see Nola..(lol at Brown doing some business with the pasta...I can't believe they didn have a closeup of Nola blatantly eavesdropping on the conversation.) and I think she could have worked in the capacity Lisa did on ATWT, former bad girl who helps the bad youth, while nosing into everyone's business...MG is being sexy as hell in this episode..she and Zas HAD it...and I actually always liked Poser's Amanda..yes, she was too young and too vampy then Cullen's dull as dishwater version but she was fun and Poser had a great start quailty to her. Nice to see Rusty not looking as douchey as he usually did and I forgot all about Annie and her crying...how long before the pregnancy and the baby thing , I thought it was in the Sping but this says April.

Sometimes????HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

I was thinking the storyline should have taken place when the ladies were in their 40s. However, it would not be a "romance" storyline..I would have a very magnetic guy to play plastic surgery Shea..and both women would be..as they say "drawn" to him. He would give both what they wanted to see....Elle a nice doctor/family man like David (he would concoct a fake family that died..)and who was working to help the poor. For Lisa it would be this big, larger then life guy who would feed her attention and ego...and he would take Chuck (still under another name) under his wing and Lisa would see this great father figure (from Hell) and kind of come to closure over Chuckies death and what might have been..(all in her head.) Lisa would not be jealous but not quite sure why she feels interested in him and the boy and why of course, he would be interested in"Poor old Ellen!" Ellen would have more screen time with Undercover Shea and Lisa would have more screen time with undercover Chuckie..both filling a new not really romantic. Best Tom and Margo..yes, HBS and Marx. Marx acted like a Hughes and HBS was strong and driven without the sharpness of Collins Margo. The T & M recasts were glum and flat to me.

I remember, as a little baby gay..having a "crush" on the big brother in the Doris Day show...and years later found our he grew up to be that hot guy in soaps and commercials..see Phillip, we were meant to be for a lifetime, but ya missed ya chance!!!! : )

Regarding the Scott storyline..Marland originally proposed it as a Chuck returns storyline, but Fulton shot it down with..."No, Nancy Hughes buried him, and whoever she buries stays dead!" I think it would have been much better to make Scott, Chuck..(I loved Breen on GL, but he was too old too play Scott...and be a wuss for his "Grandmother" and the characters was too muted...he should have been like Lisa in her prime, a combo of good and bad..but he just came off as boring.) But it would have been cool if they did it earlier around the Dobson's time, with Chuck come back with Dr. Shea still being alive..when David goes missing after the John Dixon rape trial a lonely Ellen finds solace (friends only as this is boring Elle) with a new Doctor in town, maybe someone who runs a medical clinic for the poor (so he can stay off the charts more..) and she volunteers there, with Shea charming her (to hopefully finally get that Lowell money and for revenge. Lisa is oddly put out by Ellen's new friend and can't figure it out..however, she is busy with an "orphan" teenage boy she found sleeping in the alley behind Fashions..Tom is suspicious as he thinks the kid is a scammer and Lisa is soft because he is right around how old Chucky would be had he lived...meanwhile, the kid under orders of his dad, make a play on Betsy Stewart to get some more revenge on the Stewarts and to get to her trust fund. The kid falls for her of course and then they can do the Betsy/Steve story without the flaring nostrils and yelling of FR, which would make years of story..with Kim/Nick butting heads with Lisa, and Lisa butting heads with the rest of the town protecting her wayward kid.

Interesting...I actually though the writing was better and made mores sense then anything you see today..though the long pauses...Claire is a dimbulb. "There are very few questions which can be answered yes or no.." I wanted her to scream..."Okay, here is one, did you or did you not screw that blonde ho-bag Lisa!" "Well, Nancy Hughes introduced us.." Damn, dragging Nancy into your sleazy affair, you ARE a villain Dr. Shea. Wow, weekends in New York, her apartment building , hotels in various cities..damn Lisa, you WERE a slut! And I can see why housewives across America both hated and admired you!!! "Wow, an affair in a hotel in New York sure beats making meatloaf!"

The best description of poor JER.

Wow..I never found ATWT "warm" by any means...but I still loved it. I think ATWT and GL were really led by their matriarchs...Nancy, cold, controlling would brook no compromise, never raised her voice but was disapproving (Marland changed that a bit with Nancy being more Grandma typical but she was never one to go to for a hug..) and Bert, former "desperate housewife" matured into a loving, warm, hugging woman who could lay your ass out when it was needed. All family fun and love on ATWT was polite, ordered and not too "huggy" and GL was more "Bauer BBQ" loud and yes, sloppy sometimes. That is why I think Marland's style perfectly matched ATWT and Long's style matched GL. I do wish Marland would have kept Nancy's dominate ways...she could have been the Dowager Countess of ATWT, a strict woman with a good heart underneath it all.

Pence looks great and I forgot what a knockout she was in the 80s. I can't believe they didnt use her more as a second tier supporting character... What a weird year 85 was it was the start of a bad change for GL...Katie, Nola, Quint Bea, Tony Annabelle Josh all written out (some actors left by choice, others didnt) .recasts for Ed and Phillip and eventually Mo..Charita's death..too much change too fast...bad time.

The show increased it viewers by miilions during the Masked Ball, leading up the No. 1 in the summer, GL was on fire at this time.

God.. I HATED Duncan...you would think he would be a breathe of fresh campy air in Marland's sea of earnest characters but he just didn't work..he has the money to transport a castle, brick by brick to Oakdale...(and why would he bother) and a ghost comes along with it? I love gothic and though the secret passages and monks ("Hello BARBARA!) were fun but just say Duncan bought an old house in Oakdale and leave it at that... But then Marland tried to saddle him with a " relevant" storyline with boring Jess, and the stupid castle became the "Earl Mitchell Home for Easily Bringing some Ethnic Characters to the Show Without Committing to It" and it just didnt work. The bright spot was indeed Lilith, but she would have worked better on GL which knew how to incorporate camp, I just love me a woman lounging on a chaise and cackling about her evil deads...I love that she shipped corpses home in boxes...(Oakdale UPS must have reeked) I just wish they gave her a Tiger for a pet or something. If they had kept Shannon fun and had her and Duncan go on adventures and bring the light romantic comedy to Marland's morose Oakdale it would have worked better.

PAS did make the worst mobster..which is odd, as he started out being the "normal" Santos in medical school who resisted the world of his family and then suddenly he is this big tough mobster which was laughable..even for a soap. I think if they kept him as the "outsider" in his family who saw Chele as his lifeline and she saw him for being a "sensitive soul" it would not have caused so many people to hate the silly mob..but MADD had to copy GH. Anyway, I would say that I am embarrassed to admit that I sometimes found PAS sexy in the role, totally not my type, but there you have it. And now seeing his house and yard I would have to say I would find him even more so now..though he has a taste for artsy younger guys who dress...."artsy" so it would be no go...wonder if he would be interested in a slightly older slob???? Trolling his Instagram feed..there is a picture of him and a woman and some woman posts..."Why her and not your wife..Nancy who play Michele Bauer Santos?" Its nice to know the Manny's are still alive and well and insane..and I am sure PAS is very glad to be away from them... Isnt the guy who was the second AM on GL gay?

The attempted child murderer was Edmund, and while I like DAM, that act alone makes him a short term character. I agree about Marj, and I hate to say it as I love her...but as I said before, I would have her come on as H.B.'s wife, or better yet, Henrys (he did have a showgirl girlfriend) and just be a pain in the lives of the Spauldings and Lewises. That would let her do comedy and her pitbull going after someone thing.

Yea, Springfield was not a place for an attempted child killer. I would have much rather had Annie vs. Alex as she tried to be the Spaulding Queen. While Alan and Alex always had a quasi..incestuous vibe going (as there was not other match for them but each other..) Marj Alex always looked like a shrill shrew overly obsessed with her brother's love life and RR's Alan just acted like an annoyed husband with a mistress. ..but I like Marj's scenes with fakeAnnie in the attic and it would have been fun if they wrote it that Alex was protecting her family and company from a psycho worming into their lives. And a Reva/Alex uneasy alliance would be fun with an Amanda/Annie uneasy alliance against Alex. But MADD was so addicted to formula if it worked once she would beat the dead horse until no one cared anymore.

As someone upthread posted...San Cristobel and GL at the time seemed so tacky and outdated...it was like a really bad parody of an ABC soap during the 80s..I can't believe that anyone thought that this was going to really appeal to a new generation of viewers. I would have much rather Reva washed up on a fictional Florida Key with secluded Gothic family ..Reva would have part of her memories but not really not understand them and think she was fleeing something bad so Richard is hiding her, ( they would have had to see the news that a big, loud, blond woman went nuts and drove her care off a bridge...) As for Eddie, DAM played him as such a queen sometimes....(and I have to admit, a sexy one at that...) I can't believe they didn't make him bi. I remember a scene of Carmen breaking into his condo to get the goods on Eddie, and opening up a cabinet of videos as she says, "Well, Edmund, lets just see what you like to watch," (even Carmen thought he was a queen) and I thought it was the start of the revelation that Eddie would do just about anything..but alas no.

God no!!! She is so over the top she would make Marj look understated. Plus, Alex should look more waspy. I personally love Marj and I think with the correct writing and a LOT of direction she could have done it. She would have never been Bev...but she was capable as grittier Alex, and as I mentioned, one of my fave Alex scenes is her face off with FauxAnnie in the attic...." Ya got a BARK on ya, don't ya honey, but I have dealt with far WORSE then YOU!" WIth more material like that Marj would have been great. BevAlex was drawing room and MarjAlex was more of an eccentric rich lady out with her dogs and horses. I wish they had just let Alex go and have Marj be a new character but just as tough. I think it was TPTB vision of Alex that sucked..she became an ineffectual shrieking harpy. Again, Marj would have been great as a major stockholder in Spaulding who was rich as hell and racing horses drinking bourbon and breeding dogs and giving Alan hell ever step of the way. Didn't Henry date a showgirl for a while. (I know, suspension of belief that it was a show..girl..) He could have married her and left all his stock..fighting Alan, embarassing Vanessa, hanging out with Nola and Reva..

LOL..I love EF..and I do think that she was in on the joke... or she really WAS Lisa...."Well next thing you know...they hit her with a TRUCK!"Just the way she said that makes me laugh. About killing Lisa..I think sometimes Eileen likes to make a good story...but who knows, maybe she was right..but it was always boring Whit who looked like he was going to get killed, I can't believe that they would have killed Lisa even with BVF wanting to leave, I could see them killing Whit and then sending a grieving Lisa off until EF came back..or maybe they did tell her that to get her back on the show. The suspects were lined up months in advance with Lucinda, Steve, Jay, etc. There would have been no suspects if they killed Lisa off. I would love to get Fulton, Zimmer, Hubbard, and some other vets from the PG soaps together and just pour the wine to hear the stories.

Yea, I am thinking dark haired, exotic young latin looking guy...someone some acting chops and who could challenge Zimmer, but not in the loud way TP did, but more subtle. I did like TP at first, he was one of the first "bad boys" on soaps who looked both physically threatening and sexual. (sorry Jessie, you were a fail) But we all know he jumped into over the top land and the critical acclaim must have kept the GL directors from reigning him in. I think outside of Zimmer's orbit he would have been great, and I think maybe as Peter...(imagine Van dealing with TP/Peter..."I should have never let NOLA get her hands on him all these years!" ) I think Alex would have been a good character to point out that Reva put the zest in quasi incest...Marj was a fail as Alex but she never let Zimmer step over her lines and gave as good as she got in scenes like this.

I would have watched the hell out of that and Zimmer would have eaten that up with a spoon (a younger man in bed with Reva..) What a savy head writer you would make..doing a good storyline AND feeding Kimmer's ego!! I don't know if I would want Sonni after Jarsh again..too Annie Dutton..I think a fully inegrated Sonni, not good or bad, but savy and smart coming in to try to stop her kid late in the game...(would YOU want Reva for a daughter in law...) Have Cassie be the typical selfrighteous prig about it, saying Reva is breaking the family apart, leading to a natural gulf between them,,maybe then do the Cassie-Josh thing....