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May/December romances are not unheard of in soaps or in life obviously but it does feel the Dobsons really wanted to make happen a lot of M/D romances that were pretty obviously doomed, weird even on paper and... visually incongruous, shall we say.
Louise Sorel was a beautiful woman and a great actress but those early Joe/Augusta scenes were also just... a no for me.
As I was saying about the Dobsons probably being sexual "freaks"...

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Yes, when Eden was first introduced she was a Fallon Carrington prototype, a spoiled daddy's girl.  She parachuted out of an airplane and missed her target by landing in the Lockridge front yard.   Warren was there in his signature red tank top and it was some clear soapy foreshadowing of a romance, which would have been odd since his sister was dating her brother and they were already playing out the family-rivalry-romeo-and-juliet plot.

Lionel claimed that Eden reminded him of Sophia.  He (for lack of a better term) stalked her for a few episodes, then he took her to lunch, all the while dreaming of Sophia.

Regarding the serendipity of Eden and Cruz, in an article upthread it was mentioned that Cruz was heading for the chopping block after the Andrade family was fired.  Of course there is the long told tale that Cruz was saved by a chemistry test with Eden.  This is made obvious in the rewatch because Cruz suddenly becomes more involved in solving Channing's murder than he was when first introduced.  It takes 200 episodes to solve the murder and it seems like Joe was supposed to be the one to solve the mystery, using Sophia's help, but focus quickly shifts to Cruz. 

Looking back, I enjoyed Cruz and Eden, but her character was definitely tampered down to become a romantic lead.  Early Eden has some of Marcy Walker's Liza qualities, she is a little mean to Gina and a little dismissive of Santana.  She complains a bit about the lack of closet space on Cruz's boat.  She's a daredevil and she's into riding horses.  Then, she starts calling Sophia "Mama", she breaks up with Cruz when he dares to suspect Sophia in the murder (I mean she did lurk around in a disguise for months), and she becomes more of a damsel in distress.  Her daddy-issues were an interesting motivation for the Kirk Cranston story (Kirk preys on Eden's desire to please CC and save Capwell industries during his coma), but I wish Eden was allowed more depth than being an object of desire in need of rescue.

Edited by j swift
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In the beginning, Kelly and Joe were supposed to be the supercouple of the show. They have to fight rival Peter Flint, Mason 's manipulative ways and C.C's disapproval. Eden was described as fickle, free spirited, flirting with Warren, Lionel and Cruz.

Then Dane Witherspoon was fired. Mark Arnold didn't not fit in (lack of charisma and presence, Robin did not like him ). Joe was kiled and at this moment Kelly is considered a damsel in distress and pursued many love interests ( Nick, Dylan, Pearl, Jeffrey etc...)

The show needed another super couple. The Lockridges were slowly backburned so the writers paired Cruz with Eden. It was a hit with an incredible chemistry...

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I'm on the episode where Lionel is trying to revive his libido by fantasizing about Augusta and trying to not laugh out loud. OMG those two can be so funny AND so dramatic. 

Should have never back burnered Lionel and Augusta. Should have done anything Sorel asked for to keep her.  I was fine with Laken leaving though...

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I'm 50/50 on the character. Not the actress. Sometimes I love Laken. Other times, I want to smack her. I'm not crazy about the push me pull you tactics that she pulled all of the time. I love her with the Lockridges, except sometimes Warren, but not always with Ted. Like when she tried to get Ted to NOT see Sophia. Girl, it isn't all about you. 

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I think the Joe / Augusta fling was suppose to be part of a bigger story.  

Something that stood out to me watching the 1984 episodes last year was a scene between John and Marissa Perkins. It was very well written, but, unfortunately, the acting did not match the writing. In the Perkins dining room, Marissa is going on and on about Joe and her concerns that Kelly Capwell was going to ruin him. During this rant, John Perkins tried to convince Marissa to go to bed with him, but Marissa rebuffed her husband's advances. John Perkins went to talk about his needs and how Marissa wasn't fulfilling them. I definitely read the scenes as Marissa's near Oedipal relationship with Joe was driving her husband away from her and that this set up several story threads: (1) John eventually cheating on Marissa and (2) Marissa's role as a spoiler in the Joe and Kelly romance. 

The decision to kill of Joe Perkins wasn't in the original plans so there had to be a much larger story in place for Kelly and Joe that would have kept them front and center. I would speculate that the original long term plan had John Perkins having an affair with Augusta Lockridge. John and Augusta's affair would have given Marissa enough ammunition to finally kick John to the curb and file for divorce. A now alone Marissa would have been more dependent on Joe for both help around the house, but also for love and affection. I can see Marissa convincing Joe to stay for dinner, and accidentally standing up Kelly. Kelly and Joe's relationship would have started to crumble under the pressure of Marissa's neediness. After Kelly's prodding, Joe would have gone to see Augusta to convince her to end the affair with his father (John would have been more committed than Augusta) only for John to learn that Joe had also slept with Augusta. In the meantime, Lionel would make jokes about Augusta having bed both the father and the son and make crude jokes about only Augusta knowing who was the better lover in a way only the Dobsons would. 

The final clincher though would be when Kelly and (Marissa) would have learned that Joe and Augusta had slept together. Kelly would be upset that Joe had slept with Augusta when he supposedly loved her and they would end their relationship (temporarily). I imagine Peter wouldn't have gone off the deep end and that Peter and Kelly's relationship would simply have collapsed when she learned that Peter had also been sleeping with Augusta. Again, Kelly would have shared a man to Augusta. Of course, Kelly and Augusta would have a scene where Augusta would get the upper hand over her much younger rival (and the daughter of her former rival). This would have also allowed Kelly to reunite with non-serial killer Peter until she and Joe were again thrown together.  

I think the more compelling scene would have been the confrontation between Augusta and Marissa where Augusta would question whether or not Marissa was more upset that Augusta bedded Marissa's husband or whether Augusta was jealous because she (Augusta) had done the one thing Marissa could never do: sleep with Joe? 

To top it all off, once the whole Joe/John conflict settled, Jade would have managed to find her way into Warren Lockridge's bed in order to keep the Perkins and the Lockridges interacting and playing off all the complicated family dynamics that had been built up over the course of the storyline. This also would have played nicely with the Brick and Amy story. 

There are several other reasons I think this is a possibility. One, Augusta ended up having an affair in year two with the mattress guy, a very working class man from what I recall. It would stand to reason that might have originally intended to be with John. Also, I don't recall Kelly ever learning about Augusta and Joe's affair when it originally happened. Maybe she did, but I feel like that reveal was kept in the writers' back pocket so they could drop that bomb at the appropriate time. 

Ultimately, most of the Perkins were miscast. There is no way I could see Robert Alan Browne convincing Louise Sorel to go bed. Also, Valorie Armstrong was a calm, quiet presence, but the writing suggested a much more emotionally manipulative mother who's interest in her son's love life bordered on obsessive. Similarly, Jade, who initially was a vixen, was miscast with Melissa Brennan (Reeves) who was too sweet to play a seductive social climber that Jade was originally positioned to be. I think the Dobsons just cut their losses and went in a different direction. 

This just remains speculation though. 

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Should have named the character something else, though since the show had just came out from under with Eden/"Lisa". Not to mention, Julia and Mason's law office secretary, Lisa DiNapoli. The writers should have picked up a baby names book and branched out.

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Robin Wright auditioned for Jade originally before getting Kelly...maybe she wouldn't have been so bored if she'd played Jade..who was more spirited.

And I always thought Melissa Reeves should have been Laken instead.  

I did watch some episodes with Susan Marie Snyder as Laken..and she wasn't bad.  The writing was the issue there...she could play vulnerable and rebellious...but it seemed like each episode had a different Laken in it.  No consistency..imho.

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I loved the carnation killer story but it's obvious that was not on the original Bible so everything you said could be a possibility. And you can see that Peter goes crazy in about one episode and then begin killing so fast so that was a story they invented to end the Peter/Joe/Kelly story.

I know some fans have the Bible of the first year. It would be great it they shared the original plans for Santana, The Perkins, Joe/Kelly and on.

And what would have happened if they didn’t fire Ava Lazar? Sometimes it seems that Gina took some of the stories of Santana once she was gone.

And in the first episodes they teased a Warren/Jade romance that went nowhere. And they had many promotional pictures as a couple so who knows. A triangle between Eden, Warren and Jade was the original plan?

Also I don't understand when people say that Cruz and Eden was not an original plan when from the first Marcy Walker episode you can see they shared a romance in the past.

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