Another World

[Vee]

Jensen Buchanan either taped or actually appeared for maybe a couple days on GH as Melissa before CBS pulled their option and sued her. (I seem to recall she did do a few days' work that actually aired before the suit, but it's been a long time. I remember it raised eyebrows among fans who knew she was still appearing on ATWT.)

JFP and GH temp recast Melissa very briefly during the kerfluffle, maybe for a few days or weeks tops. Jensen was back on GH very quickly eating up airtime and story for the bulk of 2001. When Jill and Megan McTavish fell out of favor with the cast and network late in the year, their plans began being dismantled. Melissa and A Martinez's Roy (who had become JFP's de facto new leads) began to lose airtime, and then Melissa was written out with her black widow/euthanasia storyline in early 2002 and carted off to prison.

Edited November 6, 2023 by Vee

[Contessa Donatella]

Jensen begged ignorance as her defense. I believe her simply put because if she'd known she wouldn't have done it. But, I find it hard to believe that JFP wasn't aware of the exclusivity in contracts. She put Jensen in that position. She'd been an EP for P&G at both GL and AW.

[Contessa Donatella]

I meant to confirm this. A couple days, yes, but then it was P&G who sued, not CBS. 

[Contessa Donatella]

Well, guys, I have another note without a cite & you know how that drives me crazy! It has nothing to do with AW but I know I'm in the company of good minds & good researchers so I'm going to make a note of it here. Please be on the lookout for an SOD article in 2007 or 2008 about profitability. It said that GL was the only soap making money. If that jumps out at you, please holla! Now, right back to AW ... 

[TEdgeofNight]

Anyone who believes that Jensen Buchanan was clueless about what she signed is clueless. GH was her fourth soap. Jensen is known for making bad decisions. Not defending JFP here but Jensen was no shrinking violet. She knew what she was doing. 

[chrisml]

She probably thought she could get away with and P&G wouldn't sue. I do think P&G overreacted especially as she was only on ATWT for a short bit. And it was all for nothing because she wasn't worth the effort JFP and ABC took to keep her on the show.  I have never understood Jensen Buchanan's appeal and that was before all her off the air behavior came to light.

[Xanthe]

I'll go out on a limb and say I didn't hate Jensen's Marley. She had the advantage of having storylines that didn't depend on Victoria (Anne's Marley, even at her peak which took a while to get to, seemed to exist chiefly to showcase Vicky) and she resembled a person and not just a line-delivery system. But Ellen's 1999 Marley was more raw and I wish that her storyline at the end had been better, that her trauma (especially vs Jake's treatment of her and any issues she had with Donna) had been treated fairly, and that she had been able to portray identical Vicky instead of towering over Jensen.

While I am at it (I've been looking at some May/June 1999 episodes) I think that Sandra Ferguson (Rinehart?) was a slightly better actor by then than she had been in her original run but even if Lumina had been a good idea, she didn't seem to do very much to make Jordan Stark's beloved Amelie interesting or compelling. (Also I did not care for Cameron at all.)

If they had not been in a hurry to wrap up the show due to the cancellation I wish that it had been possible even after the reveal that Remy was Paulina's daughter to keep Tito around rather than just make him the irredeemable villain of the piece. I liked Troy Hall and even though Tito was scamming Paulina I enjoyed the scenes where he was being sweet to her.

[Contessa Donatella]

To me the twins stack up this way: Anne is the Best Both. Ellen is the Best Just Marley. Anne is the Best Just Vicky. Or put another way, since Marley is the issue here. 1. Hated Anne's Marley wig. 2. Ellen first choice for Marley. 3. Anne second choice for Marley. Yes, you note correctly that Jensen doesn't rank or rate or anything. I will never understand them keeping Jensen & giving her all those ridiculous perks. Not when we could have had Ellen Wheeler playing both twins that whole time! 

I also think that Sandra was much improved at the end of the show. Jean Passanante told me that "Lumina was strange." I concur. The only good thing about Lumina, to me, was the costume ball. And, The Secret Garden wasn't much of an improvement. Also I didn't care for Cameron at all! Jordan Stark was awful but David Halliday was fairly interesting. 

I liked Troy/Tito, both the actor & the character. And, I really liked Remy! I found the Paulina story at that point typically soapy but at least decent story-telling. 

 

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[ScottyBman]

I got to meet Jensen one time here in Ohio.  She was very nice and gracious.  But I also understand that they needed Vicki to "mature".  It is difficult to keep that chip on your shoulder after a while.  She got comfortable with the money.  Her style matured as they moved the character into a more mature position.  It happened with all soaps.  But by this time, I was dropping in and out of Bay City.  The Lumina stuff may for me have been the last straw.  Pandering to the "supernatural" storyline was enough for me to bid adieu.

[Melroser]

Didn't the Lumina storyline at one point involve Alice Barrett's return as Anne? I thought there was a hint of Jordan Stark being involved with her coming to Bay City and then it got dropped. Probably because of the cancellation.  I was hoping they were leaning toward it really being Frankie that was brainwashed into thinking she was Anne. I also thought that Alice once said in an interview that she believed the intention was for Anne to be revealed as Frankie but it got cut short and they brought Frankie in as a ghost on the last episode. 

Maybe I'm making this all up, but I was hoping she was going to be Frankie and was so excited for the Lila/Cass/Frankie triangle. It has so much potential and then the show ended. 

If the show wanted to insist on the sci-fi/supernatural storylines, I would have had Jordan Stark turn out to be a long-lost Frame (instead of David) who was bringing back his dead family members with the use of his "freak machine" in the office.  Alice as Frankie. George Reinholdt as Steven. Christine Jones as Janice. Therefore, bringing back Jacquie Courtney to try and determine if Steve was really Steve since they saw a different Steve (David Canary) before. Get the Alice/Steve/Rachel storyline going just in time for Janice to appear. I mean, come on, like the show had anything to lose. It would be a farfetched storyline, but you know viewers are willing to accept about anything if it leads to something they like. Would Alice/Steve/Rachel get some former viewers to pop in? Who knows at that point?

There were so many characters they could have gotten rid of to make some room: Cindy, Etta Mae, Nick, Remy, Gary, Joe. I believe Anna Stuart wasn't re-upping. 

[Contessa Donatella]

Wow, I don't recall hearing about any of this. Interesting. Victoria told me that they were sending us a writer who would do romance & she couldn't wait. She only hoped it was so. Me, too. 

We know, of course, that NBC had been wanting just that out of AW because they wanted another soap more like DAYS had become. 

Soap fans will go along if it involves characters they love & it is soapy. 

Also never heard that about Anna Stuart. Why was she getting off the ride? 

[Melroser]

I thought Anna Stuart had said in interviews she had no intention of staying beyond her contract and then the cancellation came down so she stayed until the last day. I think she believed Donna no longer had any story of her own and was just on as Vicky's support system/talk to.  

[Contessa Donatella]

Thanks. I see. I know there was something about Linda staying until the end, too, once they learned about the cancellation. 

[j swift]

It's funny looking back that GL tried to save every penny in order to not get cancelled, but AW went out and had this huge fantasy plotline with Lumina.  The special effects seemed cheap, but there were new sets, actors, and costumes, way more than the normal budget might have allowed.  It seems like they tried to go with a bang, and spend every dime, including having a new set built for Grant in the final episode. 

[Contessa Donatella]

Well, of course, when JFP was EP she spent several small fortunes. The new block set where downtown was the hospital, the cop shop, Carlino's Restaurant & the newspaper. Then a whole new opening, both video & audio. Lots of new photography to go along with the ER/NYPD Blue look & feel. And, then besides the millions spent, the writing had to change because everything had to take place on the new set. At the time, most of us could not imagine where that money came from. 

With GL, when they did not have the money to spend, Conboy created that baseball diamond set! And then because of the new production model, they had to spend money on cameras & editors & sound equipment, etc. 

Also, it's fascinating to me that they are mandated to cut the size of the cast to save on salaries, but then they create new characters! 

Edited November 7, 2023 by Donna L. Bridges