ALL: Dropped or Rewritten Stories

[dawn9476]

OLTL: Dropped the Hugh/Kelly/Kevin triangle and fired all three actors when Michael Easton resigned.

[MichaelGL]

John Conboy was Executive Producer, Ellen Weston was the Head Writer under him.

[JackPeyton]

ben and marina were such an amazing couple.

Days-

whos Greta's daddy?

[EricMontreal22]

Originally the gay teen storyline on One Life to Live (Billy Douglas played by Ryan Phillipe) was going to be one of Vicki's kids, I believe Joey. The execs were too nervous for this so agreed to the story only if it would be a character unconnected to any of the core families (which is why when finally Agnes Nixon, who had helped push for the OLTL story in the early 90s on behalf of OLTL's writers, finally wrote the Bianca gay story on AMC it was so groundbreaking)

[EricMontreal22]

There were so many dropped stories during Richard Culliton's period--Leo's Father being a biggie though. I think the Proteus story was originall meant to go in a very different direction. We had Tim Dhillon come back with some mysterious news about his mom and literally disappear, etc.

[EricMontreal22]

I was just finally wondring where Sydney was--the thing is, whiel a pointless character i much prefered the actress to Colby's. I do hate when soaps give no excplanation for a character leaving (did we get one for Jamal?) Even when it's a character peopel don't like I'd hope the writers respect the audience enough to write SOME sort of explanation--as I said it was especially bad with disappearing characters when Culliton wrote and when Rayfield and Sascio briefly wrote later (Lysistrata the shrink, etc)

[alwaysAMC]

Agreed.

And as for Jamal...he left in the middle of the Annie vs. Dixie custody over Emma storyline - and Erin made 1 little line about him having to go to Arizona to help a couple out that was in major need for him. haha - lame.

[Pine Charles]

There was the storyline of Janet taking over Brooke's life. Janet was going to drop Brooke down the well and get plastic surgery to look like her. We saw Janet buying strawberry blonde hair dye and mimicking Brooke's voice (hilarious voice dub of Julia's Barr's actual voice coming from Robin Mattson). But the story was quickly changed. Trevor found out about Janet's scheme before she could do anything.

I heard they changed it because Robin Mattson's fans protested on her screen time being greatly reduced - you would only see her as 'Mirror Janet' if the story went on as planned.

[EricMontreal22]

Ooh I woulda loved see Julia get to play a dual campyr ole though. WHat year was that?

I remember them droppign Janet placing a bomb story--well rewriting it because of the unibomber but don't remember the details... I believe some of McTavish's 1999 stories were rewitten too (that ghost woman on Adam's estate etc)

AlwaysAMC ugh I thought maybe I missed one brief line... booo

[Pine Charles]

1996.

Janet was going to explode the church during Trevor and Laurel’s wedding.

They rewrote it because of the bombing in Oklahoma City.

[soapfan770]

Y&R-There was a plan for a Neil and Victoria story, however after several southern CBS stations said they would drop the show in outrage to a interracial pairing, so they were forced to drop it. This happened back in the late 90s.

ATWT-I suspect the Diego murder story was changed around. Also, remember when Paul and Lucy got close together back in early 2004? They dropped that and had Lucy go for Dusty instead.

B&B: Lots of them. One specific example that stands out the most in my mind is from 2005, when Gabby, Thomas' wife, was supposed to be presumed dead in a plane crash following being deported by Taylor. Then, a deranged and disfigured Gabby would come back and stalk Taylor. Bell dropped it in favor of a different Taylor story(where Ridge finally found out about her affair with James)

Days: Most recent example I can think of is how JER planned for Jan Spears to be the glove.

[Actor87]

Soapfan, it intrigues me why you think the Diego murder was re-written.

Ron, I am pretty sure that TPTB followed through with the Dusty/Lily/Holden/Molly (for the most part)....until an inadequate recast by the name of Ms. Chambers came along and forced them to find Molly an exit route...quick!

I hate how quickly they dropped Lucinda's breast cancer storyline. I also hate how John Dixon and Nikki Munson never got proper send-off's.

[P.J.]

^^^it was obvious TIIC of ATWT at the time had no clue who had killed Diego when they were writing it. They slapped an ending on it, made Kirk the shooter, even though I remember he was drunk at the wedding. Fan outrage saved Tom Wiggin's job at the time, but like two years later he and Sam disappeared mysteriously in the night (after a suspicious comment from James, after finding out Kirk was behind the sinking of the Valleta) and haven't been mentioned since.

And nope...TIIC were planning on doing a full-on quad with Dusty/Lily/Holden/Molly in early '04, when Lily was acting all weirded out after Rose's death. They scrapped it that spring, LK left that summer, right before Jack went off the bridge. There was talk of keeping CC if she "worked out" in the role. But, she was horrendous, even working opposite Maura. The ONLY chemistry CC had, oddly, was with Holden, but obviously TIIC had already planned to make SB's Julia the nasty hoochie momma give Lily a run for Holden.

[Actor87]

I can only remember bits and parts of the Diego/Valetta/Kirk-n-Sam debacle. That was back when I first started watching with my mom and actually remembering episodes. Before then, I had just watched them and goo-ga-ga-ga...I was off to play with a bottle. LOL. That was about the time that I really started to tune into ATWT...both psychologically and physically.

[Gray Bunny]

GL's Reva was originally going to battle breast cancer in the summer of 1999, but CBS, Rauch, and co. thought it'd be better to write a princess fairytale storyline in order to compete with the upcoming teen-oriented soap, Passions. And so San Cristobel was born, and it was years before we could completely get away from it!

When Joan Collins took on the role of GL's Alexandra Spaulding, she was to stay for 6 months; thus meaning Alex would leave Springfield again around March 2003. Collins left 3 months early, Marj Dusay reprised the role, and has been in Springfield ever since. But like MichaelGL said, it was originally supposed to be Jonathon that was Reva's stalker, not Alex. That whole story twist reeked of rewrite!

There were constant rumors in '97 that DAYS' Eric Brady was originally supposed to be gay.