All: Best & Worse Rewrites...

[Khan]

Not only that, but (IMO) it was clearly ripped off from the Lake Elizabeth storyline -- which was a history rewrite in and of itself!

[Cheap21]

This wasnt mentioned but defiently one of the worst was the constant changing paternity of Skye Chandler-Quartermaine on ABC. I iddnt mind it the first time when they made her Alan's daughter as it opened up alot of new oppurtunities for her and it actually served a purpose, but making her not Alan's daughter just so they could put her in a 5 minute relationship with her cousin Ned in a horrible storyline was just stupid.

[dragonflies]

Another worst:

AMC:

Greenlee being Jackson's daughter

[denniel]

Worst

Jill is Kay's daughter

Nick forgets the last two years and his affair with Phyllis

The real Phillip is alive as Cane

Lily is Malcom's daughter

Blech.

As a side note, Josh Taylor coming back as Roman Brady swore me off Days for good. Bad idea.

[dragonflies]

Why am I NOT shocked B&E rewrote history on another show

[Cheap21]

I wouldnt call either of these two rewrites, especially the last one. Y&R left it open for nearly 10 years that Malcolm could be Lily's father. They never confirmed or denied who her father was and it was a dangling plot line that was finally resolved a few years back. It wasnt rewritten, as that was never actually written in the first place

[P.J.]

Worst...

B&B....Bridget is Eric's daughter, when some mysterious letter appeared and sparked another DNA test. They totally rewrote history, saying Eric and Brooke has sex while he was blind (when he saved Ric from a falling something-or-other) and Brooke mysteriously just didn't remember it. *eyeroll*

ATWT...Carly married the mysterious "Winston Lowe" in Hong Kong before returning to Oakdale. Totally an uninventive excuse to send Maura out on materity leave, courtesy of Leah Laiman.

Best...

ATWT....Bob and Kim's stillborn daughter, Sabrina is found. Lisa has a son, Scott Eldredge. Doug Marland played with history, but he made it plausible.

...Julia Lindsay "accidently" meets Winston Lowe, and informs him where Carly can be found. Yes, Hogan wasn't really good at making it plausible, but giving the saintly Julia a darker edge gave the Carly/Jack/Julia triangle a tipping point. Plus...I really hated her, so I was fine with it. LOL.

[R Sinclair]

I believe that, no matter which head writer/writing team creates a character, there should be a back history already sketched -- if not fully fleshed out. That way, no matter who takes over the writing duties, they know that "Hmm... okay. We have this storyline -- but it won't work with this character because there are already too many parameters established where it won't make sense... but this other character's history could lend itself to this story, so let's go for it!"

Speaking of "lending itself" this topic lends itself to the other thread I just finished commenting on about AMC and their allegation of rewriting the death of Richard Fields. I think that Agnes Nixon should've been like, "Yo, bitch! Hold up!" when Megan McTavish even proposed the idea of having Erica raped as a 14 year old girl. I won't even GO THERE about McTavish unaborting Erica's abortion.

There should simply be lines that can't be crossed with certain characters. Now, I'm not saying writers shouldn't tell certain stories... but to simply hoist them upon veteran characters with an already established as well as VIEWED history is ridiculous.

On AMC, Richard Culliton and Megan McTavish both rewrote so much history that it became a smack in the face. Richard Culliton rewrote the history concerning Maria's plane crash and David Hayward administering the X-17 drug to make her forget her past and create "Maureen Gorman." We already KNOW that David wasn't thinking about Maria or Edmund back in late 1997, because David was deeply involved in a storyline concerning Allison Doyle and Jake Martin. Maria/Maureen never crossed his mind because it was established that he followed Allie from Stanford to Pine Valley. But Richard Culliton decided to say, "True, but between California and Pennsylvania, David happen to stop over in New Jersey, see a woman hanging to a cliff, fly her out to Las Vegas, dope her up with a memory erasing drug, nurse her back to health, concoct a story for her to believe she was a fugitive, then flew to Pine Valley to get himself ensconced in a dilemma with Allie and Jake."

Puh-frickin-leeze!

But, no... Culliton rewrote history to make it seem like David took a serious interest in Maria's picture at the first annual Crystal Ball. And in that fake-flashback, Edmund was all nonchalant about it. "Oh, that's Maria. This ball is in honor of her memory. La-dee-da-dee-dah..." Even though during the original 1997 Crystal Ball, Edmund and Tad were anything but nonchalant, as they were trying to string up Dimitri for stealing Maddie from Edmund.

As for the "best" even though I wouldn't consider it the BEST, I do think McTavish making Adrian Sword Opal's illegitimate son was a decent idea. It made the Opal character even more endearing and evoked compassion. She was portrayed, via that story, as an abused white woman who found retreatt, love and solace from a black man while she was on the run from her abusive husband -- and also, watching Opal regretfully leave infant Adrian behind once Ray Gardner found her in order to protect the baby solidified her maternal instinct. You understood why Tad loved this woman even though he was adopted by Ruth Martin. You know that, even though Ray Gardner was horrible, Tad must've found some sort of comfort and protection in Opal.

Also, having Bianca's anorexia later be tied to her self-hatred for being lesbian and "different" was smart. It made sense.

[AMCHistory]

All My Children:

Best:

Palmer and Adam's feud: Palmer Cortlandt was an established character with a family (Daisy, Myra, Nina) and an established past, when in 1983 another facet of that past came to light with the arrival of Adam Chandler. Palmer Cortlandt was now Pigeon Hallow, West Virginia hillbilly Pete Cooney who after being recruited by the military, abandoned a pregnant lover, Lottie Chandler, pushing her to suicide.

Daisy Murdoch, supposedly the only woman who ever knew Palmer, had no idea about his trashy past. His beloved eldest daughter, Nina Warner, now had a big brother, Ross Chandler.

This feud pushed storylines for the next twenty years with owenership of Chandler Industries and Cortlandt Electronics shifting between the two men periodically.

The dynamics of the relationship were made especially complex with the unique relationship each ma has with Erica Kane. Palmer always saw Erica as his equal, and one of his closest friends. Adam treated Erica like she was nothing but a social climber, but he secretly envied her power and determination.

The introduction of Pigeon Hallow also brought on so many characters that gave a dramatic foil to the affluent denizens of Pine Valley: Will Cortlandt, Dixie Cooney, Del Henry, Becca Tyree, Di Henry.

Based on this history rewrite of a longstanding feud, when Palmer and Adam teamed up, viewers took notice. I loved Palmer sweating his way through the forest to find Adam fishing and telling him about what Michael Cambias had done to their beloved Bianca Montgomery. Putting aside their feelings for each other, they knew no one could get a job done as well as each other.

Greenlee is Jackson's daughter:

This came out of nowhere but was one of the best twists in Pine Valley. It rejuvinated Walt Willey's Jackson, who had languished on the backburner since 1996.

Viewers spent two years languishing over Greenlee's abuse from her idolized father, Roger Smythe. Roger used her affections to increase his bank account. In Jackson, Greenlee finally had the father any girl ever wanted, if not 25 years too late.

Jack and Greenlee's struggle to come to terms with their relationship has been a great underlying plot point, namely in the star crossed romance of Jack and Erica.

Plus, the reveal was one of the most well written, dramatic moments in All My Children history. Rebecca Budig acted her heart out for the next two weeks from her realiztion that Mary was not lying, the confrontation at the Valley Inn, her attacking Roger's grave stone at the cemetary, culminating with her on the beach contimplating death and being saved by her father, her real father, Jackson.

I can still see Rebecca in that red fish scale dress, that is how powerful those scenes were.

[JackPeyton]

I never knew about the first one, but wow.

and i couldnt agree more about the second one.

[LoyaltoAMC]

AMC-besides the obvious, the unabortion, another bad rewrite that comes to mind is the way they wrote the Tad/Liza relationship when Marcy Walker returned to the show in 1995 after an 11-year absence. They portrayed Tad and Liza as former star-crossed lovers as teenagers, Tad the man that Liza never got over, and Liza the woman he still had lingering feelings for. That was all pure B.S. Tad and Liza were never star-crossed lovers, and by the time Liza left PV in '84 (played by a different actress), she had moved on to Cliff Warner. Having Tad sacrifice his marriage to Dixie for a romance with what had essentially been a former dalliance made no sense and was completely plot driven. Lorraine Broderick was HW at the time, and I can partly forgive her for this, since the scenario was probably dictated by ABC. Marcy returned to AMC a huge star, and they probably felt the story would only work if history was rewritten to show Tad and Liza as having been so much in love as teens. I just remember this (and the Julia/Noah voodoo stuff) being the material that never really clicked during Broderick's otherwise pretty stellar tenure as HW during this period.