OLTL: Discussion for the week June 9-13

[NYC123]

TINA!

[soapluva]

You're not alone, he does absolutely nothing for me !!!

[Toups]

Woohoooo....Rebecca Hotchkiss!.....er....I mean Tina! I've never seen Tina before so it should be interesting to see how differently Andrea portrays Tina from Rebecca.

It was great see Kevin Spirtas again too.......and of course the beautiful Susan Haskell.

"One way or the other, I swear, I'm going to win you back." Bitchy Bangs I hope she returns with Melissa in the role.

I agree, Rex was on fire today! That little jab at Charlie about not inheriting his illness.

Even though she's crying, Roxy can find a way to be hilarious: "I plead the 10th." Rex's real father is so Mitch Lawrence!

I also liked Brody and Shane's father day talk and loved how that parralleded to what Charlie said, "I felt guilty....but also proud." - that's awesome writing!!

[Khan]

That's awesome, Ryan! Thank you!

[Soapfan1]

today was awesomeeeeeeeeeeeeee

I loved the scene in the hospital with Charlie/Roxy/Rex

Go Rex Go!

Can't wait to see more of Gigi and Rex

[brimike]

I just don't understand what that gets us. Mitch has been dead for years. What would the point be? It would make him related to Miles, but that's about it.

It sure seems like they're going in that direction... but I'm not sure why Ron would choose Mitch. Unless HE'S the other baby Viki had. That'll really screw with everyone's minds. Make REX and Jessica twins. Otherwise, I don't know why you'd just randomly make Mitch Rex's dad.

Good call, Toups! It's the little things like that that make me appreciate Ron's writing. No other head writer would bother to spend a SCENE on Adriana giving a sincere apology to Marcie for the way she treated her during the wedding, never mind four scenes.

[Y&RWorldTurner]

I guess I'm going to have to agree with Sylph on something. I think the dialogue on OLTL is incredibly weak for all the fantastic storylines going on at the moment. However, as I said before, I'd rather good storylines than craptastic dialogue.

Someone on another board brought this to my attention about yesterday's episode:

[Khan]

How do I say this without spoiling anything for anyone?

(...thinks for a moment...)

Nope, can't, lol.

Let's just say...I don't think that Mitch will turn out to be Rex's biological father...and that RC is actually foreshadowing who is his father...but to understand what I mean requires taking a look at another, "forbidden" thread on this board, and I'm not going to advise anyone to do so under penalty of Toups.

(Hope I haven't said too much?)

[brimike]

Yeah, that really rubbed me the wrong way too, Alvin. You can't go halfway with the realism on this story (From Starr's POV) and then get all "soap opera" for the rest (with Blair). I did expect more realism from Blair's reaction to Starr's pregnancy. It's definitely on my list of disappointments.

[DavidEvanSmith]

There is so much to reply to in this thread!

I think I'll try to work backwards.

I love the fact that graduations (high school and college) don't seem to happen, especially on OLTL. Remember when Shannon/Rex/Jen/Riley/Flash/Marcie/Jessica/Natalie were all in college, and then suddenly, Rex is owning/running ultraviolet, Marcie wrote a book, then transitioned to teaching high school (don't really remember what happened in between). Jessica was going to work for the family paper, and pretty sure she got a job at The Sun with Todd instead of at the Banner, but I don't recall the specifics because she NEVER works. Especially through the Tess storyline. Can you get fired for not going to work because you had a multiple personality? "Oh, I'm so sorry I couldn't make it at ALL last week..... it was a Tess week."

Natalie was a receptionist at the police station (to facilitate Natalie/John if we want to put it all out on the table) and then developed an interest in forensics (to keep Natalie/John working together in cop stories and get her out from behind the desk) and then Natalie/John fell apart and she started working at Buchanan Enterprises with nary a business degree to her name, just because it's the family business? What does she know about writing reports? What is she always typing at her desk? I mean REALLY! When did she graduate?!

That's why I love the character bio pages at ABC.com, because it lists occupation for those people who really haven't put in a days work for years.

Check these jobs, as per ABC.com (and these are the ones I just don't think are realistic)

Adriana - Owner/Designer, Exposed Designs (with what business degree?)

Blair - Nightclub Owner (Capricorn) (Can't we give it back to RJ? It's named for his dead daughter's astrological sign, and he has more time to run it than Blair's damsel ass does)

Brody - Unemployed (shouldn't he fix that if he wants to be a father to Shane?! Can he work in construction to remain shirtless at least through the summer?)

Charlie - Contractor (with all the time he puts in between getting dumped in an alley behind Rodi's and lying about who his kids are... BUT, he can hire Brody to work construction, no?)

Clint - Executive, Buchanan Enterprises (he's not the COO? Didn't they call him COO on the news report the other day?)

Cristian - Artist/Club Manager (I always thought that would be a nice balance)

David - Freeloader (LMAO, ABC.com has a sense of humor!)

Dorian - Publisher, Craze Magazine (what a dead plot point that is!)

Jessica - Journalist (but even ABC.com doesn't know where she works)

Layla - Owner/Designer, Exposed Designs (again... with what business degree? and didn't she originally want to be an actress... then a waitress... she needs to get it together)

Miles - Independently Wealthy (he must be busy spending that money... somewhere)

Natalie - Buchanan Enterprises Employee (so... she's NOT an executive? Why's she bossing Gigi around all the time?)

Rex - Private Investigator/Owner, Ultraviolet Nightclub (he must have a great support staff at Ultraviolet)

RJ - Club Owner (uh....... really?! Not Capricorn, and not Ultraviolet.... so what the hell is RJ doing? Rodi's?)

Roxy - Hair Salon Owner/Hotel Manager (how do they really expect people to hold down two jobs like that? Especially Roxy!)

Vincent - Businessman with multiple interests (that says a lot without actually saying anything, doesn't it.)

Wild. To live my one life in Llanview, I need to hold two jobs to support it. Rent must be sky-high in Llanview.

Diversity - Anyone remember when they brought Jared Hall (Grandson of Ed and Carla Hall) in as an attorney and tried to pair him with Tea Delgado but he lasted all of three months? Well I think they could try recasting that role and working on it again. I think the ultimate waste of a character right now is Rachel Gannon. She's a strong black woman (as an attorney), she's tied to a core character who could stand to have more story (Nora), she has another parent off the canvas that could be revived (Hank), she has an uncle she loves who tends to be a criminal (RJ) which opposes her respect for the law, she has a brother that's a Buchanan (Matthew), an ex that's a Buchanan (Kevin), her own personal demons from the past (a past drug dependency, and also killed Georgie Phillips and served her time for it), and has spent YEARS out of town which open up plenty of possibilities for history that can be discovered in Llanview now... and she's Jewish, which adds to religious diversity in Llanview.

Rachel/Jared/Layla - So what I'm thinking is that Rachel returns to town in a big court battle (defending Jared Banks, putting her in opposition to Nora, Matthew and the Buchanans?), to reestablish the character's connections to the canvas. Then Jared Hall returns to Llanview (he'd have to start calling himself Jay Hall or something, since we have another Jared on the canvas now), and he comes back to Llanview for his grandfather Ed Hall's death/funeral (Ed made an appearance the last time Jared Hall was introduced, so apparently he still lives in Llanview off-screen), and this can possibly set up some deathbed confession for Ed Hall that he reveals to Jay that creates a mission for him in town (Ed fathered a secret child with a white woman years ago?). Maybe they can bring Carla Gray Hall in as the occasionally-seen matriarch of the Hall clan to keep Jay tied to a family whenever he's going through some drama. Jay is a lawyer and considers Rachel to be a woman with whom he's met his match. But then there's Layla. Her more "surface" interests, fashion design, the arts, make her appear flighty and shallow, not at all the woman that Jay Hall would be interested in, but over time, not fighting for him, but maybe even fighting against him (not feeling like she needs to prove herself worthy of some man who thinks he's better than her) she DOES prove to be more of a match for Jay than Rachel is. Either a love triangle or starting as one and transitioning toward a Jay/Layla (Jayla!) pairing with Rachel spiralling off into a story with someone else... Newly-returned Kevin? Joey? But Rachel needs to be hotter casting, more youthful and sexy.... Maybe the recently dropped-to-recurring by GH Kent King?

I LOVED Blair inquiring about her father. It shows that it's in the writers minds, and wouldn't it be interesting, with all this father talk... if Blair shared a father with another character?!

As for Rex's father, I've been thinking Carlo Hesser also. I do think the original plan was for it to be Mitch Laurence, but with the writers' strike and the rewrites, AND Roscoe Born landing a contract at Days of Our Lives, doing that story without Roscoe Born as Mitch would really take all the air out of it. SO, I think they decided to switch gears and pluck another major devil out of OLTL history and make Rex's father Carlo Hesser. Rex has been so hungry to meet his father, and all this betrayal by his loved ones might lead Rex down a darker road... where he'd be vulnerable to Carlo Hesser who always wants an heir. I don't think it would take too much contorting of Roxanne's past, since she was first established as a Croupier in an Atlantic City Casino, and Carlo Hesser definitely strikes me as a gambling man. Why WOULDN'T their paths have crossed at the Blackjack table? Plus, Carlo already nearly killed Natalie during his last appearance on OLTL, so if Rex wanted to get to know Carlo, the history with Carlo/Natalie would add conflict all around. There's also Rex's allegiance to law-abiding Bo Buchanan, so if Rex turned out to be Master Criminal Carlo Hesser's seed, more conflict there. AND it might make Gigi not want to tell Rex that Shane is his son if Carlo Hesser becomes a part of the equation!

But my ultimate dream... and I don't know if it will work... but it would be for Carlo Hesser to have fathered Rex AND Blair! Rex would be a brother to Blair, with all that history between Rex/Adriana and Blair/Todd over Baby Sam? Rex and Blair are talking about their mystery fathers at the same time... that's all I'm saying.

Jack Manning - He really has been underdeveloped on the canvas, hasn't he? I think that OLTL has the potential to really build on this next teen set because they have Matthew Buchanan, Shane Morasco (a Hesser heir, if Rex is Carlo's son, LOL), and Jack Cramer Manning who could all be around the same age (Jack may be younger than Matthew and Shane, but a little rapid aging can fix that). But Jack can obviously be the darker pre-teen, Matthew the good-natured white knight pre-teen, and Shane somewhere in the middle, artistic, oddball, asthma, not fitting in with many, awkward around girls, etc. Now they just need some girls to mix it up with, or start launching the gay story soon! Imagine Todd's reaction to a gay son? Pregnant teen daughter and a villainous gay son? Todd would be an absolute mess and would micromanage little Sam right into a straightjacket by puberty.

Justis Bolding as Sarah - I really do like her, but agree that she still needs a STORY to define the character. All we have to go on is the Flash era, and without the same actress, JUSTIS needs story to define her as Sarah and outshine the last actress that had more actual story, but possibly less talent. I do consider Shanelle Workman talented and liked her as part of the cast, but I think Justis Bolding is a better physical and emotional fit for the role of Sarah. But from what I've read (not wanting to give anything away for the spoiler-free), Tina's return will bring Sarah into the action a lot more, for the 40th anniversary.

I haven't seen today's episode yet (9pm can't come fast enough and Soapnet is already on my TV in anticipation), but honestly, I would have LOVED to see OLTL pull a fast one on the audience and switch Tina/Marty so that Tina was the one in Lee Ramsey's penthouse and Marty was the crown princess of Mendorra. I know the promos aired, and the spoilers were out weeks ago, etc, BUT it would have been amazing for it all to have been a fakeout, and OLTL had a different story planned where we really ALL had to be spoiler free. Imagine that? They've both been off the canvas for enough time where the switch would still have worked. I thought that Tina would be more age-appropriate for Ramsey to be caring for so much, and we'd wonder how they hooked up and if she was the reason he really came to Llanview in the first place (getting mixed up with Tina's brother Todd, and taking his penthouse to give Tina back her view of her old home, Llanview). And Marty could have gone off the cliff into a ravine, and gotten swept away onto a ship and landed in Mendorra, and nursed through amnesia by the crown prince. She could be torn between the crown prince that saved her life, and the son, Cole, in middle-of-nowhere Llanview that she doesn't remember. The stories still COULD have worked if they pulled a switch. But either way, I'm happy and still dying to see what stories unfold from Tina and Marty's returns.

OLTL's Opening - I too would rather see a completely new format, instead of the current one. This opening lacks a symbolic image, any defining trait for the show in general. And since OLTL has become such a celebration of everything wonderful in OLTL history lately, the opening should also reflect a fair bit of nostalgia and symbols of Llanview's former openings to tie everything together. I don't mind the theme music at all, but it needs a better format.

This is a title shot that I created for an OLTL opening I have on YouTube. It's based on fiction I wrote, so there are actors and characters in there that you won't identify with OLTL, but I'm showing this more for the title shot. Rather than the usual "OLTL" title abbreviations throughout the opening, all were removed and the opening starts and ends with a spelled out "One Life to Live" title over an image of sunlight breaking through clouds. The opening title shot features rapidly-flashing pictures of key actors from the soap. This new title imagery harkens back to several images from the show's former opening sequences. The font of the title itself and the characters flashing around the title is reminiscent of the OLTL opening of the 1980s, while the sun/clouds imagery is a throwback to even earlier OLTL openings of the 70s. The character shots with the buildings in collage-style superimposed over the characters remains unchanged in this video, but I definitely wouldn't be opposed to new shots of the cast, and am trying to work on a version of this that uses Soapnet commercial footage with the sun/clouds as the character shot background.

What do you think of the opening and closing title shots?

[Ryan]

OMG PM me

[Ryan]

OMG Essay post!

*I'm just joshing ya DES, I love it*

[Toups]

You can pick out any "bad dialogue" from any script.

Like I said before, I loved how ONE LINE from today's script parralled TWOstorylines. I found that to be awesome and something you don't see everyday and something you don't see on other soaps. That takes skill and planning.

[leevo64]

DAMN what a good episode. Ilene Kristen was pitch-perfect as usual. I felt so bad for all three of the people in that hospital room... mainly Rex, but Roxy probably DOES have a good reason for doing what she did, and Charlie meant no malice.

Marty's beautiful. Glad to see her back.

"You can call me Tina..." GLADLY! As if the show couldn't get any better, we now have Tina Roberts back in town as the PRINCESS OF MENDORRA?! That's just awesome. And I loved seeing Kevin Spirtas. I hope we get to see a lot of Jonas Chamberlain.

Now, reactions to Dave's post...

I actually thought the same thing about Blair and Rex being siblings through the same father. Why else would we have two different paternity questions at the same time? I think it's going to turn out to be Carlo, which in my opinion is the better choice. Mitch Lawrence has been WAY overdone.

As for the young ones... Matthew, Shane and maybe Jack are clearly the next wave. I thought Jack was younger, though? Doesn't really matter. As for making one of them gay... I say make MATTHEW gay and have Bo stand by him but Nora, having gone through the trauma of Daniel Colson, is not so supportive. This also gives lots of interesting beats - having raised a diversified family with Rachel, how can Nora not support her son, also a minority? The story can then become about Nora coming to accept her son while finally moving on from the demons of her past. And I always like a gay kid who's a white knight. Pair him up with Max's de-aged son, Frank.

[Y&RWorldTurner]

But a mother saying her teenage daughter was "making love" is a major screw up. I can't believe the script editor didn't catch that. As brimike said, it wasn't realistic and didn't fit with the overall story.