ALL: Biggest Soap Dissapointments

[Dan]

I think we've all seen characters with potential wasted, stories that could have been done but weren't. good stories that fizzled. What are the biggest dissapointments or blown opportunities you have experienced in your daytime lineup?

[MTSRocks]

Y&R

Lynn Marie Latham -From Brad's past to Victor's Epilepsy to the Clear Springs Fiasco.

Nikki and Bobby.

[Kylie]

Erica Kane's only son being a walking fetus. I wasn't disappointed, I felt and still feel as violated by the entire thing as Erica did.

[DaytimeFan]

Y&R: The Sperm Switch...that storyline never got to play out properly. Ed Scott wanted Alex Donnelly gone so Alden had to ditch her quickly...then when Diane Jenkins returned to GC (in the form of Susan Walters) the chemistry with Victor fizzled. The whole storyline should have put Ashley back with Victor with Diane and Nikki both vying to steal him away. Could have been great.

DAYS: Vivian Alamain and Lili Faversham...they were supposed to be sisters...but that got dropped after Louise Sorel was swiftly dumped, big shame.

GH: Since Jerry has been back Bobbie Spencer hasn't had a single scene with him. Also, there should have been a Noah and Bobbie reunion. That too never happened!

[JackPeyton]

GH: Michaels Shooting - this shoulda been the story of all mob stories. the one thing that links sonny/carly/jason like nothing else. the char with the most ties to the mob and the q's. the child robin raised as a baby. that child was shot in the head. to.... what? This should be felt for years, instead it was felt for a few weeks.

Days: SSK story undone. it was cheap and stupid. same with johns death.

[SteveFrame]

Biggest Disappointing Comebacks: Austin & Carrie (Days); Jacqueline Courtney's return to AW in the 80's; Rosanna's return (ATWT); Scott Bryce's return to ATWT; Steve Frame's return from the dead in the 80's (AW)

Biggest Disappointing Characters or Characters who had potential but it was wasted: EJ Wells (Days); David Chow (Y&R); Noah Meyer (ATWT)

Most Disappointing Couples: Maggie & Bianca (AMC); Luke & Noah (ATWT); EJ & Sami (Days); Lucas & Sami finally as a married couple (Days)

Biggest Disappointments in general: Dixie's death (AMC); Steve Frame's first and second death (AW); the undoing of the SSK deaths (Days); the undoing of Erica's abortion (AMC); the death of Mary Matthews (AW); the firings of Reinholt, Courtney & Dwyer (AW); Days letting Sami fall in love with EJ (Days); OLTL letting Todd "mind rape" Marty (OLTL); the loss of the Brooks sisters (Y&R)

[Sylph]

I think you are the only person who hates Harding Lemay!

[SteveFrame]

Oh I don't hate Harding Lemay. I think he is one of the best writers in the biz and gave us many wonderful things on AW, but those were big disappointments.

I could even throw in there his breaking up the shows longest marriage - John & Pat - and then killing off John just as it seemed they might get back together.

Lemay was good for AW but many of the mistakes he did make forever hurt the show in the long run. He singlehandedly dessimated the Matthews family.

He did a lot of good, but he did make mistakes too.

But I feel the same way about Gloria Monty.

Monty & Lemay did great things for daytime, but at the same time they made many mistakes that forever hurt both the shows and the genre.

[Sylph]

You are probably right in a way, but reading his book, I just agree with his decision to fire George Reinholt.

How did the character die - in a helicopter crash?

[CassieFan]

AMC - Dixie's pancake death, Josh - walking fetus, Simone's death (they could've killed somebody else who didn't matter)...

GH - Emily's, Alan's, Georgie's, A.J.'s deaths...

DAYS - Melaswen

Y&R - Cassie's death

[dm.]

Kay and Jill - mother and daughter... Cassie's death... Dru's disappointing departure... Anything LML-related...

[SteveFrame]

Plane crash - the first time

Construction accident - the second time

Reinholt could be difficult, but he was fighting for things that needed to be fought for. Particularly better dialogue which was hurting in daytime at the time. It really needed to be smarter. One thing in particular was his fight to make Alice's breakdown more realistic and do more of a public service in telling the story. I can't fault Reinholt for that. I just think he probably should have gone about it a better way.

As to the other stuff Reinholt fought for I understand his reasonings and told him so when we corresponded years ago - but in the end I think some of the things he wanted and daytime eventually got ended up hurting daytime soaps. He wanted better pay and more recognition for the actors portraying the roles. He never got it, but other actors later did.

As to the more money I do think the actors needed more money. Daytime actors were really making paultry sums at the time. The writers made way more than them - it just needed to be more distributed I think.

Reinholt could be full of himself, but he had charisma with the audience as did Courtney and Dwyer. The loss of those 3 caused a lot of damage to AW - but moreso the loss of the characters did. The Matthews were a core family and Lemay destroyed the core family and never really established another core family to even take their place. The Cory's just were never broad enough to fill the gap and the loss of Iris in 1980 to Texas struck a big blow to the dynamic of the Cory's too.

[cubsgirl]

GH

1. TMK being Diego (especially when I am thinking more and more it should have been Logan)

2. Michael's shooting

Days

1. SSK being reversed and everyone on the island

2. Wrapping up of Shelle/Phloe quad and way Shelle were written off (could of just written gone off to college/police academy instead of sailing)

3. EJ/Sami/Lucas triangle

[Sylph]

I'm interested in this dialogue thing. Harding Lemay complained that the dialogue was awful when he came to the show and when he took over, people praised the transformation dialogue went through. So are you reffering to pre-Lemay or Lemay dialogue?

And which one of those deaths were penned by Harding - the plane crash? Very unlike him.

OK, a slight change of topic: what happened to Lenore Curtin? And did Harding's creation of Sylvie Kosloff ever hit the screen?

[SteveFrame]

Harding did the plane crash death for Steve Frame. His body wasn't found. And I just looked back at my sources and it was a helicopter crash. He was in Australia on business and his helicopter went down and his body wasn't found but there was said to be no chance of survival.

He showed back up in the early 80's with a new face - the face of David Canary.

The biggest thing with the dialogue was both before and after Harding. When Alice suffered her second breakdown Reinholt and others felt Lemay wasn't being relistic enough in his handling of the situation and he fought long and hard for better dialogue in telling the story.

1975 was a rough year for AW. It was a turning point. Lemay killed off the matriarch of the show Mary Matthews - firing original cast member Virginia Dwyer. It was a shock. Then he fired Reiholt killing off Steve and then fired Jacqueline Courtney and recast the role of Alice. Also another central heroine and star Susan Sullivan who played Lenore left too.

Any other show wouldn't have survived but fans were more forgiving back then and devoted to the show. Lemay was able to keep the show interesting but the damage he did was felt very much years later.

And yes Sylvie came on. She arrived in October 1978 and stayed around until November 1979. Lemay wrote her the whole time she was on.