I'm sure it was a shock at the time, especially since he was one of the few actors on a regular show who kept working up to the point where such a change was noticeable. I think he denied it was AIDS until the end.

With Lar Park Lincoln, it was more a change of tone for the entire show that was the problem. I understand Latham and Lechowick were leaving for Homefront, but I don't understand why they decided to go with such a dark writer to replace them. I can understand not going slapstick, but to go so dark was completely unlike Knots. I'm surprised David Jacobs or somebody approved that. Losing Linda was a HUGE HUGE blow. Maybe she could've spared us the horrible Vanessa during the final season.

As for Larry Riley, I agree it was very sad and shocking to see his decline on screen. In general that Williams family had potential to be VERY strong but was wasted. Pat should've NEVER been killed off. They should've toyed with a Gary fling. And Kent Masters-King was brilliant as Julie. I wish Julie and Jason had stuck around and maybe had a teen pregnancy.

Did you guys see JVA get skewered on Family Guy tonight?

No. I'm surprised they'd go after her - was it about her plastic surgery?

Of course. Complete with real life before and after pics.

From a May 1988 Digest.

Even back then Joan Van Ark was as thin as a pencil.

I think Joan looked best in the first 3-5 years of the show.

The most disappointing thing with Joan is she never knows when to stop. She looked so beautiful in season 13, then when she returned for the series finale she'd had some more plastic surgery and looked a mess.

So strange that he hated the twins kidnapping story (which I'm only at the beginning of and has given Val some AMAZING material to work with, as well as shaken the show to the core with its high stakes danger) but is praising Peter Reckell as Johnny who was really horrible in the few episodes I've seen of his season. I guess to each their own.

how many seasons of KL are out on DVD? i've only got ahold of season 1 and 2!

The first two!

IIRC, David Jacobs hated the kidnapping story because he felt it played upon every parent's worst fears. Imagine if it were your kids, he seemed to be saying, what if you knew your kids were alive and 'out there,' somewhere, even as everyone else is saying otherwise? Not to mention the fact that it all was supposed to be the machinations of Abby -- a plot point which Donna Mills felt would've ruined her character, forcing producers to rewrite the start of the story.

On the one hand, I can see where Jacobs is coming from here. Stealing Bobby and Betsy from Val does feel like an awful thing to do to a character. To me, though, watching Val literally lose her mind as she tried coping with their supposed deaths -- something you could argue Val never really came back from emotionally, given "Verna Ellers" and everything else that happened to her over time -- was just as uncomfortable as, say, watching Karen get strung out on prescription drugs. In other words, there comes a time when a writer has to put aside the awfulness of seeing one of their creations go through such an ordeal and realize that they're onto compelling, if unsettling, drama.

But I will say this: DM was right to protest Abby's initial involvement. Granted, it muddled the story's beginning a tad (I'm still unclear as to Scott Easton's motivation for appeasing Abby and arranging the kidnappings/black market sale), but making Abby an out-and-out villain in this, especially the hell she went through several seasons before when her ex abducted Brian and Olivia, had to have been the work of some hack story editors who mistook the character for...well...I can't think of any primetime soap bitch who'd do something so foul.

I think Sable or another Dynasty type probably would have done it. I can see Angela Channing doing it too.

Abby wasn't like that, she had a heart, and I'm glad Donna fought back. I think having Scott Easton kidnap the twins because of a misunderstanding made sense, because it showed what shady people Abby was interacting with at that time.

I wonder what would have happened if the story had gone on as long as planned. Supposedly they cut the Verna part short because it was too much for fans to deal with.

Also, Michael Filerman wanted them to find only one child.

Frankly, aside from a piece of paper in Paul Galveston's address book, no one, not even Val, could have been entirely sure that the twins whom Karen and Harry Fisher had brought home to Val were, in fact, her and Gary's. Maybe one of 'em would have been, but who's to say both were?