I did think the story where Simone was sleeping with Roger Smythe was excellent. That made her human and interesting to me, as she really had no purpose when she was brought on as the slinky vixen with no point. The character can be fun but they've mostly used her as this B or C-level player, and I don't blame them, but I don't see a point for her to be around anymore.

I also thought they totally wasted Sam Page/Trey. That was a great character and Frons dumped him like he was 40.

Yes I also hated Simone at first but once they put her with Roger and made her Greenlee's best friend, she became one of my faves. I remember one scene when the 2 were trying on wedding dresses and I thought Simone looked better than Greenlee, the bride to be....lol. I really started to like her and she was less icy and cold. She started to come into her own as a character then. The Fusion stuff ruined her by making her a ditzy, one dimensional horny twit. I wish she'd go back to investigative reporting and become a part time P.I. with Tad and Aidan

The coming writing regime change could have something to do with why the plots make no sense... but then again alot of McT's plots in the past have made zero sense. I am just gonna ride out the storm until we start seeing Burton's material. I can get through it.

Proteus at the start was a magnificent story but it went on for far to long but hey Culiton's writing beats McTavish's writing anyday.

Frons is such an idiot, but that goes without saying... he is the reason vets are not being written for on ALL ABC shows, not just AMC. McTavish would write for Opal, Plamer, Brooke, Myrtle. She always has in the past so its obvious network interference. I am so sick of the shows being filled with newbies and shuffling out the vets. The vets are synonomous with these shows and once you remove them the shows become unrecognizable. And they wonder why people are tuning out in masses.

Yup. Richard and/or Agnes had a big story planned for Vanessa/Erica. The seeds were dropped: a casting call went out for 'Eric Kane', Erica got flowers from her dad on her birthday, but Frons put an end to that. Now we can see why. A story with a bunch of older people and using the show's history is not his cup of tea.

Do you happen to know what that story was? I thought Culliton was leading up to the revelation that Eric Kane was Leo's father.

Do you happen to know what that story was? I thought Culliton was leading up to the revelation that Eric Kane was Leo's father.

I'm not sure but since I think Eric would have come on just before Josh left the show I think that's a good bet. As it stands we never found out who Leo's dad was and since Leo will likely never come back and they knew that I'm sure Culliton wanted to give us an answer.

Remember Count DuPres? He was adorable. I wish they'd made him Leo's dad and brought him on full-time.

Seems to me the natural story to tell would be for Eric to be Leo's father. Man that would have been such a great story and would have given emmy worth material to SOOOOO many actors. Damn you Frons. I still am so bitter Culiton was fired.

I feel really sorry for AMC fans. And I'm an NBC fan so you know it must be really bad. Sub-par is par for me. This is just REALLY, REALLY bad.

LOL - well damn, let's not let it happen again!

The best part of the Proteus thing though was Mateo in that room full of TV's - even though I could only understand about 50% of what the 'voice' was saying....and then the Vanessa reveal at the end in the limo during the Crystal Ball.

But that story confused the HELL outta me.

There were a few good scenes--ok more than a few, and I love Vanessa but that story still made no sense ot me and went on, in some form or another for nearly two years. I've ranted on about it enough in other threads but truly one fo the worse umbrella stories...

i actually like the way mctavish writes Simone--she never really made a lot of sense to me under culliton, although once she was with roger she made *more* sense anyway. Then under rayfield tey dropped her fighting with her mean shrink father, the issues with her brother ina coma etc and she became pure comic entertainment-whicht he actress did well but, aside from a few great scenes drinking spiked lemonade with Myrtle it was pointless. McT managed to basically tone down her one dimensionality while keeping her comic timing which Culliton largely missed. The main prob with McT's writing for simone is... we've gotten no major story at all (the tad thing doesn't count)

Seems to me the natural story to tell would be for Eric to be Leo's father. Man that would have been such a great story and would have given emmy worth material to SOOOOO many actors. Damn you Frons. I still am so bitter Culiton was fired.

Culiton wouldn't have worked much better than Mct under the new regime if you ask me. HE did someGREAT character work but even before frons was there--when he was under the thumb of "shop the soaps" angela Shapiro, We had the mess of Proteus, dropped characters like tim dhillon's return (which lasted all of 3 eps from what i remember), Arlene, Frank, Simone being so inconsistant, the dropped story of Leo's dad, etc etc...

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Everyone has different sides to their personality, but we need to see more of her (not just at Fusion) to get a clearer picture of who she really is. I remember her father (the overbearing doctor) and her brother (the kid who overdosed on heroin). These were two things that really went nowhere. How about we revisit them? I think a great story would be that Simone is very sad, lonely, and doesn’t really know who she is so she uses the dimwitted/horny act as front to hide the pain. They should explore her demons.

Exactlky--there's so much potential. Her brother is still in a hospital in a coma--it was frankie Hubbard who filmed him oding as part of an art project (and was dating Simone). In theory her father is still working as an overbearing shrink at PVH. All dropped--to McT's credit when she first came back she gave us exit scenes for even minor characters like Henry although latley she's not been as good (as much as I hate a character--like CArlos I almsot hate it more when a writer doesn't respect the audience sticking thru a crappy character enough to have them at least have an explanation for leaving--not just disappearing liek they'd been forgotten)

What was the stuff planned by Culliton for Eric KAne? it's interesting just that Megan sorta brought it back later on with his death (leading to the summer of showgirl Erica--which in hindsight was actuallya way better Summer than we have now..)

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Frons is such an idiot, but that goes without saying... he is the reason vets are not being written for on ALL ABC shows, not just AMC. McTavish would write for Opal, Plamer, Brooke, Myrtle. She always has in the past so its obvious network interference. I am so sick of the shows being filled with newbies and shuffling out the vets.

Exactly--you can't fault McT for everything. I think the age barier is Frons--in fact there have been hints a few times that we'd get major older stories only to have the focus drop to the younger characters all too quickly

See that's what I heard...

And I LOVED the drug stuff with the teens and then Stamp finding out that Enchantment was the place they were going through - and that led to Erica/Chris Stamp.

You did? It made little timmy dhillons' hysterically lame lsd hallucinations(i remember a lampost singing to him around xmas--i swear I'm not making that up) look like grritty realism. WE had all these new insta teens who didn't even have ANY connection to any core families giggling like loons as they did e in the woods--i've been around drug users and been to raves and not any of it rang true, positive or negative. Then Marcus got in a drug induced coma and I think we never heard from him -- big loss... That was the worse summer of AMC in hsitory I think--Passanante took off quickly among rumours of her being fired and the poor writers were stuck with ghost Gillian, (though I enjoyed seeing Jessie Hubbard back even as a ghost) dog boy (anna's nephew? i don't even remmember) etc etc

I had totally forgotten little Tommy Michaels tripping on LSD. What I wouldn't give for a clip of that. I might add that Jesse McCartney's attempts to play JR on Ecstacy were awful. He said he'd researched it or something, but I don't remember JR making out with the banister of the boathouse or anything like that. JR just seemed like he smoked a little weed.

The ridiculous story with Anna, Alex, Gabriel and the Devanes was even more complicated than Proteus. The only other stuff that comes close to being that confusing in recent memory is the Summer Halloway story with Luke, Lucky, Nikolas and the Cassadine coins on GH a few years ago. But I am pretty sure the mess with Charlotte and Gabriel was written by Passanante, not Culliton. He dumped Gabriel. I remember some rumor that before that, TPTB wanted to turn Bianca bi and pair her with Gabriel.

WEHT Juan Pablo? And did Arlene die? Oh, I don't remember. Remember when Hayley had DID and thought she was Arlene for two minutes? Who did that? What happened?

Ya tim turned to LSD I think because he was so upset about his mom dieing--or maybe it was earlier and it was his mom being blinded and replaced by an actress nobody liked in Melody.

HAHA man many of these awful stories are fuzzy in my mind. Gabriel (man I felt bad calling him Dog boy for so long--thanks for his name) was indeed Passanante, but pretty late--I think the bulk of it may have been when passanante fled and the writers were left on autopilot for a while. to be honest I can't even remember all the details about Anna and Alex and Alex and Dimitri number 2's exit.

the excstacy story didn't feel researched by anyone involved--pills on candy necklaces (?) giggling frolics in the woods by the boathouse and Mindy and the other mean girls and Marcus. *shakes head*

Juan Pablo didn't really get an exit from Mctavish--i think she knew to just cut her loses though Tad did have a line about him helping out to hide Liza in Argentina. As much of a total waste Juan Pablo was I give Mct (I know, I know I shouldn't0 some credit for him, he wasn't Carlos awful and I think she was trying to salvage a bad situation with the whole Carlos character (who remember under Rayfield and Cascio changed like 3 times--they gave him ties to Mary Smythe and never used them, had that whole stupid plot where he was working at Fusion and secretly sending Greenlee love notes online that she tracked back to some random girls house, etc etc. Juan was an attempt to solidify hsi story and bearings I think.... Still a waste)

Arlene was last on under Culliton right? I was in Europe much of that Summer and found the story confusing as well so don't have a clear remembrance but... Lorenzo had some liver or kidney prob right? tim Dhillon came back to Pine Valley and I think was in the hospital for some mysterious reason and sorta mentioned cryptic things about his mom and seemed like he could help with Lorenzo's problem but then completely disappeared (and hasn't even been mentioned by Amanda from what I can tell--shouldn't he hear about his dad's death?)

ANyway I think Arlene came back around the same time and was seen as another saviour for lorenzo (which means I must have the details wrong as I don't her liver would be any good...) I believe she came and went in under a few weeks too but don't remember much of why (her last appearance came shortley after that and was under Passanante during trhe infamous Libidizone plot--it was during that plot that she tried to sleep with Hayley's husband and Hayley thought that under th einfluence she knocked her in the water--just like psycho Laura pushed Greenlee and blamed it on Bianca--then Hayley started going into states where she was Arlene--)

Oh wait... ugh it's late. what a mess though.... the libidizone story actually happened while Agnes Nixon was still listed as coheadwriter and all the great scenes of Binks coming out were going on--so the soap was a VERY schizo mess but still had a few great moments, like the budding Leo/greens stuff too--shortly after Agnes left and all Hell broke loose though i admit i find it hard to think she had any part of libidizone

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Haha - I might be in the minority - but oh how I LOVED the Libidizone stuff...and all the yacht stuff. I loved that set and wish they would use it more nowadays.

but oh how I LOVED the Libidizone stuff...and all the yacht stuff.

Be not alone. I loved the libidizone stuff, too. I just thought it was silly soapy fun.

Passnante did the drug story starting Laura and then JR and the teens but there was never any mention of Proteus at that point. I don't think Passnante intended for her story to go past the summer. It was to all wrap up probably with Marcus Sweeny's father being the bad guy.

Culliton came on and thought the show was too disjointed, none of stories linked up so he came up with Proteus as a way to make the show a cohesive entity.

Chris Stamp, under Passanante's originial plan, was to have been involved with a rival cosmetics company, spying on Enchantment. Culliton made him a federal agent instead.

Damn, I might as well bold every single word! LOL!

Arlene was last on under Culliton right?

Culliton's first week had Arlene visiting Hayley and the baby. Then Mateo and Adam put Arlene on a jet, and she flew off... with an abnormally LARGE lock of the newborn baby's hair, calling him "Charlie."

Anyway, that was it for Arlene, because shortly after that, the Proteus story kicked in with Mateo and then about six months later, Kelly and Mark left AMC.

No need for Arlene now that Hayley is in California.

Remember Count DuPres? He was adorable. I wish they'd made him Leo's dad and brought him on full-time.

that wasnt Leo's father? I always thought it was