I am not the biggest Tom Pelphrey fan, and I really think that Greg Vaughn is just adorable, but I always thought the single smartest thing GH could do was recast Lucky with TP and reinvent Lucky as a young Luke. Evolve him from good guy Lucky to angry at life Lucky -- he should be angry after all they way he gets walked on. GH already as Michael positioned to be the next Sonny, so why bring on TP as Dante? What the show needs is a strong counterpoint to the mob, a strong foil for Jason. So as beautiful as GV is, that is just beyond his range and that's why Lucky has not been the center of the show as he should be.

Lucky as a misogynistic thug who shirks any responsibility and throws fits (I know this isn't what you are suggesting, but this is what GH would make him) would probably make many fans hate him and not interest the fans who already have their own version of this character (Luke, Ethan, Sonny, Michael, among others). I think the only way to save GH is to keep Lucky a good man, and a smart man, and a member of the right side. Recasting Lucky may help, but as long as Lucky exists only to make Luke and various pets like Jason and Ethan seem like heroes, then nothing will seriously improve.

I am not the biggest Tom Pelphrey fan, and I really think that Greg Vaughn is just adorable, but I always thought the single smartest thing GH could do was recast Lucky with TP and reinvent Lucky as a young Luke. Evolve him from good guy Lucky to angry at life Lucky -- he should be angry after all they way he gets walked on. GH already as Michael positioned to be the next Sonny, so why bring on TP as Dante? What the show needs is a strong counterpoint to the mob, a strong foil for Jason. So as beautiful as GV is, that is just beyond his range and that's why Lucky has not been the center of the show as he should be.

This is not a change of focus for GH. You are merely adding yet another angry male lead to eat the airtime and treat women like crap. GH does not need any more angry misunderstood male leads. It is why the show is in so much trouble in the first place. I will never understand that the Tom Pelphrey hype. He is nothing but yet another over hyped soap actor who chews scenery. I would not let him within a mile of GH. I certainly would never fire hot Greg Vaughan and replace him with fugly TP. GH cannot afford to lose any hot younger actors.

CarlD2, we share the same brain on recasting Lucky.

Edited June 14, 200916 yr by Ann_SS

Like I said, I am not a big fan of Tom Pelphrey. I absolutely prefer subtlety & naturalism to scenery chewing. But if GH is thisclose to casting him (at least according to the soap press), I would rather he be a Spencer than yet ANOTHER mob dude. We already have plenty of mob guys and no real foils for any of them.

As for beautiful Greg Vaughn, he is just not Lucky if Lucky is supposed to be the child of L&L. Where's the edge? Why else would they bring on that horrible Teethan if they didn't realize that the next generations of Spencers lack bite? I do think GV should be working on a soap. He is very very beautiful. LOL! It's just that is he really the kind of actor you can build a soap around, is he? Lucky should be more than eye candy. Shouldn't Lucky be the next incarnation of Luke Spencer?

Edited June 14, 200916 yr by cara mia

Lucky is the new AJ, Guza hates that character and he's just Guza's whipping boy.

Have they ever tried to write Greg's Lucky like Jonathan's or not. Did Lucky get destroyed to prop Jason Morgan?

Talent, shmalent. There is a HUGE DIFFERENCE in the passion younger fans feel for Phillip, EJ, Stephanie, Chelsea and the other Days young-ins and what fans feels for the Scoobies on Y&R. Jana of the Brain Tumor is better drawn than Stephanie? Really? Better acted. Sure. Better drawn? No way. If you want so say that Billy Miller is more talented than Jay Kenneth Johnson, fine. But you will never convince me that people care about Billy Abbott more than Phillip Kiriakis. For all the faults of DAYS and there are many, the show actually has root-worthy young heroes and dashing and still sympathetic villains. Y&R started out with a much better history and ratings than DAYS but that doesn't mean that Y&R is necc always better than DAYS in every area.

Okay, well I disagree, I think most characters on Days are badly written and badly acted and have stories with no rootable characters or motivations whatsoever. I think the same is true of all the other soaps except for Y&R. And I didn't start liking Y&R again until 3 months ago, I would have lumped it in there too until recently. I just happen to think Billy Miller and Elizabeth Hendrickson are fantastic and a real boon for the show. They have story with loads of potential, wonderful chemistry and are fairly well drawn.

The three good younger actors Days did have for a while (Rachel Melvin, Blake Berris and Darin Brooks) all received awful stories and left the show as soon as they could. Now we're left with Sami who's completely stripped of everything that made her interesting, her world now revolves around dead babies and babies and oh look Sami a baby just fell out of your pocket. EJ is the mid-west's sexiest rapist. Phillip and Stephanie are little children dressed like adults. Chloe is a flip flopping moron. The list goes on.

Like I said, I am not a big fan of Tom Pelphrey. I absolutely prefer subtlety & naturalism to scenery chewing. But if GH is thisclose to casting him (at least according to the soap press), I would rather he be a Spencer than yet ANOTHER mob dude. We already have plenty of mob guys and no real foils for any of them.

There will never be a real foil for the mob as along as Guza is the headwriter which is why I said that GH is hopeless. Tom Pelphery is going to GL for the time being and hopefully, afterward he will continue to try his luck out outside of the soaps.

Shouldn't Lucky be the next incarnation of Luke Spencer?

No. I rather Lucky be Laura's son. Let Teethan is Guza's version of a young Luke Spencer.

Edited June 14, 200916 yr by Ann_SS

In 1991, Linda Gottlieb came to OLTL and wrote out just about everyone.

She kept pretty much the Buchanans and the Lords, but brought on a slew of new main characters, from Andrew Carpenter and Marty Saybrooke, to Nora Gannon and Blair Cramer, to Todd Manning and Luna Moody.....and she completely reinvented characters she kept, like Alex Olanov and Carlo Hesser..

And despite all the changes......I loved it. Why?

Because the characters she introduced were so richly drawn, so fully realized....they instantly came to life, and drew your attention to them. They weren't "cookie-cutter" characters that soaps typically add from time to time to up the drama ante.

Never before or since have I seen such a dramatic and SUCCESSFUL metamorphasis of a show so quickly.

But OLTL needed to be updated. Desperately. Not only just the characters, but the stories and the look of the show too.

No one wanted to let go of the 80's, even in 1995(PaintBox ringing a bell?). Shows realized they couldn't coast on synth cues and oil tycoon families forever.

I definitely think B&B could do what Days has done AT NO COST. Your quote, "their story had been told, backwards and forwards, at least a dozen times. There was no more there there" applies perfectly to that show.

Brad attempted to do this in 2004 with the Marones and it flopped. Badly flopped.

But the problem wasn't with the fact that Brad established a new family. It was with the fact that he had these ill-conceived characters thrust front and center, without having a clear vision or plan for them. Not to mention the Marones were islanded from the show's core: fashion and Forresters. And there's no way in hell Lesley Anne Down and Joe Mascolo could ever be as dynamic as John McCook and Susan Flannery. No matter how awful Eric and Stephanie have become over the years, McCook and Flannery are believable as those characters and they have chemistry. Now I like Down/Mascolo, but they are not "lead" material. They never were. Just look at Down at Sunset Beach as a perfect example of that.

If B&B were to forge ahead and kind of "re-invent" itself, Brad would need a strong co-HW or Executive Producer with some sort of creative control that would strike out all of his bad ideas, work on the ones that have potential, and greenlight the ones that they can play all the story beats to. Not so much someone who is a total bitch about it, but someone who could be a great influence.

Y&R is in a good position, even though I don't see some of these actors sticking around.

Plus we have Kyle, Keemo, Ricky, Nate, all rapidly aging somewhere.

The problem is that there is no way to chance the focus of these shows without replacing or adding new blood to the production and headwriting team and this is unlikely to happen.

Like I said, I am not a big fan of Tom Pelphrey. I absolutely prefer subtlety & naturalism to scenery chewing. But if GH is thisclose to casting him (at least according to the soap press), I would rather he be a Spencer than yet ANOTHER mob dude. We already have plenty of mob guys and no real foils for any of them.

As for beautiful Greg Vaughn, he is just not Lucky if Lucky is supposed to be the child of L&L. Where's the edge? Why else would they bring on that horrible Teethan if they didn't realize that the next generations of Spencers lack bite? I do think GV should be working on a soap. He is very very beautiful. LOL! It's just that is he really the kind of actor you can build a soap around, is he? Lucky should be more than eye candy. Shouldn't Lucky be the next incarnation of Luke Spencer?

What is the next Luke supposed to be? A man who hates women unless they are doormats, who hates raising children, who hates working, who hates spending time with his family? That's what Luke has become.

The only reason Ethan has bite is because of his big chompers. He's a loser who only enjoys conning people. I don't consider this to be strong and GH's continued belief in this idea of strength is why the show is circling the drain.

To me, there no longer is a Luke and Laura. Luke has made it clear he hated being tied down to Laura, he hated a wife who had a mind of her own, he hated having to raise kids with her. And there is no longer a Spencer family. Luke doesn't care about Lucky or Lulu. Lulu doesn't care about Lucky and is happy to let Luke do whatever he wants. Bobbie is irrelevant. Lucas is gone. Laura is gone. The most prominent members of the Spencer clan are Carly and her son, neither of whom have any relationships with any Spencers but Lulu.

As far as I'm concerned, Luke and Laura are dead, and so are the Spencers. I would rather just see Lucky disown any trace of his family, outside of Laura (who he is most like anyway), and be written as a character in his own right. GV may or may not be the right actor, but whether they keep him or recast him, I the show desperately needs a leading man who does not mug and have tantrums.

I do see what you're saying about Tom Pelphrey and the edge he brings to a role. I think, if any soap hires him, he might be better off on a show which doesn't have a lot of actors like him. I think he could be a good Rick or Thomas recast on B&B.

Edited June 15, 200916 yr by CarlD2

The only reason Ethan has bite is because of his big chompers. He's a loser who only enjoys conning people. I don't consider this to be strong and GH's continued belief in this idea of strength is why the show is circling the drain.

LMAO! I walked right into that one.

Maybe GH is a lost cause. I guess I thought that if Guza had an actor he liked playing Lucky, he would actually do something with him. I can see Lucky being written a male Laura, and I can see GV pulling that off. What I mean about a young Luke is an anti-hero who doesn't come from the typical soap hunk mode (though I guess TP is considered hot by some -- not so much by me though). Sonny's family and circle of friends has basically taken over the show. Any relief to that would be welcome.

Did Lucky get destroyed to prop Jason Morgan?

Of course he did. The main problem though is that Lucky is written as dumber than a box of rocks.

Ethan is horrible. Even Pelphrey has some charm to him.

Maybe GH is a lost cause.

No maybe about it. It is sad really. GH has the bones, the history and the characters to become a good soap again, but it will never happen because Guza and Phelps will be there to the end.

Of course he did. The main problem though is that Lucky is written as dumber than a box of rocks.

Funny enough when I was watching, Lucky as kid, was smarter than many of the adult characters