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Regarding the comparison between Warren Carter and Roger Thorpe, that makes sense. In what I've seen, Warren was definitely seen as an obstacle that Suzi and Cagney had to overcome. In terms of potential storyline down the road, I think it set up an interesting scenario for Jonah to deal with as his mother killed his father and both Suzi and Wendy had a strong attachment to Jonah. Killing off Suzi a couple months later kind of killed all of that potential (that would have been killed anyway when the show was cancelled). 

 

I didn't care for Sunny's suicide. Most people I've met don't like the Liza / Hogan / Sunny story. I liked Hogan and Liza because it did complicate the friendship between Sunny and Liza. Mathis definitely played the angst for all it was worth and I would have liked to see Liza and Sunny work their way back to being friends. To me, Bela's presence was an example that the show was creatively finished. There was no need to keep Bela around after the circus storyline. There were too many characters who were written as if they had longterm potential when they didn't (Brett Hamilton comes to mind as well).

 

Krawkowski never seemed to get a leading many, or much of a story, that was popular other than the initial adoption plotline. I did see some scenes between Liza and TR where they were fighting after Travis died about the adoption that mentioned TR was learning to read. That's a story I hope pops up. 

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The comment about the family structure is interesting. The show definitely eliminated that 30 / 40 something set during the early 1980s. I think bringing back Scott and Kathy would have been a step in the right direction. By 1987, Scott's stepson Erik would have been in his early 20s and would fit into that younger set. The show didn't really have a regular lawyer character so Kathy could have filled that role. I would have liked to see the show take Scott into another profession, if only temporarily, after his incarceration. Something that could have been used to generate conflict between Scott and Kathy or Scott and others in order to generate story. 

 

Bringing back Patti was a step in the right direction, but, as has been stated repeatedly, the show should have cast someone more age appropriate. Anyone have any suggestions on who'd they have liked to have seen cast based on who was available at the time (1986). They should have kept Patti as a nurse and then worked Len back into the script even as a recurring character. I would have liked to have seen a more age appropriate Patti paired with an age appropriate Lloyd Kendall (I would have brought back Peter Haskell after "Rituals" was cancelled). Then you could have Estelle Kendall going after Patti and using Len, who (in my fictional Henderson) would mentor Alec Kendall during his internship. 

 

In the show's final year, Craig Walton, Gary and Laine's son, did come to stay with Sunny for the summer, didn't he? I think I've read here (was it saynotoyoursoap?) that the plan was to pair Sunny with a Gary recast? Gary would have provided another doctor for the hospital set. Even if it was in the short term, I would have had Laine work for Lloyd Kendall handling the business end of the newspaper in order to put her at odds with Sunny. Eventually, you could bring Ted Adamson back in as a rival to Lloyd and have him go after everything that was Lloyd's. 

 

The Bergman/Walton males never fared well. Tom was played by several actors without much story. I think during his last run he was paired with Kathy. My first introduction to SFT was the SOD summaries that they post on the Remember When section of their website so I think of Tom being paired with Cindy French, the devious nurse. As mentioned, Danny was never given much to do and Gary faded after his affair with Laine produced a child. 

 

The problem with any, and all of this, is who do you eliminate in order to make the show work. The half-hour required a smaller cast. I do think the show needed an overhaul, but it would have taken a year to eighteen months to do right. 

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Krakowski had two Emmy nominations for Outstanding Younger Actress during the last two years of the show. I think she was popular but the frequent headwriter changes did not help her storylines, which were usually very inconsistent. I did like the T.R.-Ryder relationship and felt he shouldn't have been killed in the flood. But his death did give her some good material to play. The T.R.-Liza drama was great when Travis died, during the period Sherry Mathis was playing Liza. But I don't think Mathis' replacement Louann Gideon was very effective in the role.

 

For one thing Gideon seemed too young to be T.R.'s adoptive mother and another change of headwriters pushed T.R. more into the Kendalls' orbit since T.R. was originally Rebecca Kendall, daughter of Lloyd and Estelle. After the flood, when T.R. no longer had a boyfriend on the show, her scenes mainly consisted of her interacting with Estelle. A lot of T.R.'s connection to Liza and Stu was dropped which was a mistake. Then around September 86 they just sent her to college in Paris or somewhere in Europe, which Estelle was supposedly paying for. I think they basically were firing Krakowski but while her contract was running out the show was cancelled so they brought her back for two episodes during the last week of December. It helped give her and Estelle some closure. And she did have a scene with Liza in one of those last episodes, bringing some of that full circle.

 

I was a bit surprised that Krakowski received the second Emmy nomination in 1987 after the show had gone off the air. Mostly because she had such reduced screen time after the flood in March 86, then was basically written out in September. But my guess is she was nominated for the material where T.R. dealt with Ryder's death. If they had been consistent with the storytelling, they could have made T.R. into one of the show's main characters and with Krakowski's acting talent and popularity with fans, it would have been the right thing to do.

 

Re: Suzi and Cagney...Suzi actually lasted for awhile after Warren's death. Warren was killed in the last week of February '85. Suzi was arrested and all the aftermath played out through April/May. She was cleared and now married to Cagney who was helping her raise Jonah. A lot of the Suzi-Wendy rivalry was dropped and they seldom had scenes together after May '85. Paul Avila Mayer took over as the new headwriter in late April and he did not know what to do with them.

 

At one point they were living with Jo and Suzi was basically helping Jo and Stu run their bed and breakfast while Cagney was depicted on the force usually in police-related scenes. They were now without a real storyline of their own. Suzi was seen less and less. Paul Avila Mayer was finally replaced in late October. But during those six months Suzi and Cagney had gone from a main supercouple to backburner and virtually forgotten about. The next writer, Gary Tomlin, tried to make them a Nick and Nora type couple where Suzi was helping Cagney solve cases. It was mostly filler material.

 

Jonah was hardly featured during these months. Wendy was soon written out when Lisa Peluso quit. Wendy was at that point in a triangle with Stephanie and Bela. Tomlin made the stupid mistake of killing Stephanie off in January 86 which I think was done because they wanted to build up Estelle as the new Alexis Carrington type witch and this made Stephanie redundant. Also with Wendy's exit, there was no one for Stephanie to continue interacting with since her relationship with Bela was a bust and Bela was now chasing after Estelle. So after Wendy and Stephanie go, Suzi's main connection is with Cagney, Jo and Stu.

 

There was another headwriting change in June. Addie Walsh and consultant Pam Long (who was coming off a maternity leave from Guiding Light) were supposed to save the show at the end. But Walsh and Long felt Hogan and Patty should be the new main supercouple. They also gave a new story to the youngest McCleary brother Quinn, but Cagney was kind of in limbo with Suzi. They didn't know what to do with them. So they decided to kill Suzi off. Her death was very abupt.

 

If I remember correctly there was a roadside accident in October. Suzi was in a wreck on a Friday and dead on a Monday. No foreshadowing at all. She was there one minute, then gone the next. We saw Cagney and Jo grieve her but it all happened fast. Cagney was now raising Jonah on his own and quickly put into a triangle with Evie Stone (played by Joanna Going) and Jerry Henderson, grandson of the town judge. The show's cancellation was announced at this time so there wasn't enough opportunity for the writers to build up Cagney's new storyline with Evie.

 

In the final week Jo has a dream about the future where we learn Cagney went on to marry Evie who became a good stepmother to Jonah. Basically Evie was a Suzi replacement. They brought actress Teri Eoff who had played Suzi back for the final week. At the end of the Tuesday episode Suzi reappears as a ghost to Cagney and Jonah. In the Wednesday episode she basically gives Cagney her blessing to be with Evie and then Suzi just fades away. So technically Suzi was on till the end of show, but she had no appearances in November 86 and just did those two episodes in late December.

Edited by JarrodMFiresofLove
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I wasn't doubting the character's popularity, but rather the ability of the show to craft meaningful story around a well liked character/actress. Ryder was interesting. I believe he was introduced at the tailend of Carolyn Franz and Jeanne Glynn's work. I believe he was introduced with the McCullas, Joseph C. Phillips' Cruiser and Angela Bassett's Selina. There was definitely suppose to be a class element to the Ryder / TR relationship, but Mayer and Braxton went for the circus story instead (only God knows why). 

 

When I started watching clips of 1984, it seemed pretty clear to me that they were going to pursue Lloyd / Liza because it would allow conflict in the dynamic between Liza and TR as well as TR and Lloyd. TR's rejection of her natural family was a natural beat to play as well as a stumbling block to Lloyd and Liza just as the dissolution of Liza and Lloyd's relationship should have been a natural conflict for TR and Liza. I don't get the sense that any of this really played out in any meaningful way mainly because, as you stated, the constant turnover is writers as well as producers. 

 

Tomlin seems to be the last one to try and make the Kendalls work, which isn't surprising since he created them. Steve is brought back, Estelle is introduced, and Lloyd and Liza are still a couple getting a lot of story. This all seems to fall apart quickly. Steve's return was probably intended to be brief, but it might have worked better if he was kept around with a stronger actor in the role. Chase is quickly dropped. Alec is off at med school. While I don't think Joe Lambie was age appropriate for Lloyd (more appropriate as a newly created younger half-brother for Lloyd vying for his empire), I cannot even imagine Robert Reed in the role. You would think the tension between TR's two mothers would have kept TR and Liza in the same orbit. 

 

I think Krakowski was in the musical "Starlight Express" or went off to college which was why she returned to the show later. I don't think she was fired, but I could be wrong. 

 


 
Suzi and Cagney burned through a lot of story quickly. I don't blame the writers for backburnering them, at least temporarily, but I think marrying them off so quickly was the biggest mistake. In a short time, Suzi and Cagney meet, Suzi gets pregnant with Jonah, the couple lies about the paternity, Warren goes to jail, Warren escapes jail, Justine makes a play for Cagney, Suzi shoots Justine, Warren kidnaps Suzi, Suzi kills Warren, Wendy makes a play for custody, and so on and so on. I really liked Cagney and Suzi living with Kate and Kate driving Suzi crazy with her needling about how she was raising Jonah. I thought those scenes were very real, but they didn't really drive a story. 
 
I would have liked to see Suzi played more in the story with Sarah, Quinn, and Wendy. I think having Suzi and Cagney torn between Suzi's cousin and stepsister involved with Cagney's rascal brother should have been sufficient reactionary material for the couple until a new story could have been generated for them (which could have been the return of Brian Emerson as Cagney's instructor at the academy or fellow officer on the Henderson PD). 
 
I also really liked Caldwell House and was disappointed when I realize how quickly it would be gone. 
 

 
I don't get Evie and Cagney, or Evie and Quinn, as a couple. Evie didn't work for me played by either actress despite both actresses being competent. 
Edited by dc11786
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I agree there should have been more with T.R. and the two mothers. Not necessarily T.R. pitting Estelle and Liza against each other, but maybe Estelle and Liza bringing out the worst in each other and T.R. caught in the middle. But Louann Gideon was such a weak Liza that I think after Tomlin left the next writer (Addie Walsh) just decided to reduce her to one episode a week without any real storyline. If Sherry Mathis had returned or a more compelling actress had played Liza then I am sure there would have been for the character to do. They just stopped writing for her because Gideon couldn't handle any serious dramatic scenes. There was no romance for Liza after the flood. In the late 70s and first half of the 80s, Liza's romantic life always took center stage. Sherry Mathis was a tough act to follow and though Gideon tried she just didn't really cut it.

 

I agree about Joe Lambie. Like Gideon he seemed too young to play T.R.'s parent. In that case there were T.R.'s older brothers which made it even more of a miscast. I like your idea that he could have played a kid brother of Lloyd's. That would have worked. I don't remember too much about Robert Reed except he did not last long. Lambie was replaced right after the flood, and Reed was only on for three months. I would say Reed was on screen from late March to late June 86. He was one of the first ones that Walsh and Long fired. They quickly had Estelle get the upper hand and turn him over to the feds for tax evasion or something like that. His last episode he was rotting in jail and Estelle was gloating that she had defeated him.

 

I don't think there was much they could do with Alec and Chase when Adair was off screen, since that was supposed to be an important triangle. But there were two Adairs with a slight gap in between and the second one was so different from the first one that she did not have the same chemistry with the brothers. Chase was recast when Kevin Conroy left. And like Mathis' departure, his shoes were too big to fill. The second Chase was abysmal and eventually just disappeared. I think Alec would have worked if Wendy had stayed on. There had been earlier suggestions that Alec fancied Wendy after Warren died. But then she started lusting after Quinn and then lost Quinn to Sarah. So all the potential of a Wendy-Alec relationship was dropped.

 

Ryder was introduced when T.R. found out she was Lloyd's daughter and ran away from home. He and his friend Cruiser helped her on the streets. That was in early '85. Ryder was on the show for about 12 or 13 months until his death in the flood. The storyline in the summer of '85 involving the circus was really not well written at all. Paul Avila Mayer's material was all wrong for the show. He didn't get the characters or their histories and did a lot of damage.

 

The real problem with Search in those final years was that P&G kept trying to reinvent the wheel. Every six months there was a new headwriter and a new producer. Each new regime was trying to start over with a new formula instead of building what the previous regime had done. The flood was an expensive reboot that did not pan out. It generated a lot of great drama for a few weeks at the end of February and beginning of March 86, but a lot of the businesses were renamed. All the sets changed. It was too drastic a "face lift." It really destroyed continuity with a lot of what had come before. It would have been better if the flood had only wiped out part of the town, so that the writers could kill off characters that were not working and revamp a few sets but still keep some continuity. Jo and Stu's business should have remained as it was. They were a cornerstone "couple" on the show and did not need revising or rebooting in any way. I also was a bit upset that LIza's home was destroyed. That set should have remained. They basically put her into a hotel after that, and since Louann Gideon's screen time was reduced, it was just another sign the last regime did not really care about the character of Liza or about her son Tourneur.

 

I agree that the various writing teams burned through Suzi and Cagney's story too fast. They were married too quickly. And since Warren was being killed off, then Justine should have stayed on to cause continuous conflicts. Really Justine should have been pregnant with Cagney's child. That would have created the right kind of drama since Cagney was not really Jonah's father and would have logically been pulled towards doing the responsible thing with Justine and a son she might provide him. Plus if Kate disliked Suzi then Kate could have pushed Cagney into marrying a pregnant Justine, thus delaying Cagney's eventual marriage to Suzi. If the storylines had been planned better and the successive regimes had carried things out from what the previous regimes had started the show could have lasted.

Edited by JarrodMFiresofLove
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I was watching Christmas 1983 and Christmas Eve 1984 episodes I received on DVD a while back. I had forgotten how quickly Joanna Lee departed "Search for Tomorrow." Her hiring is announced in February, 1983, but she is gone by Christmas. Barrett is credited as the executive producer in the Christmas episode. I like Ellen Barrett's work on "Ryan's Hope," which I know isn't a popular opinion. I also am aware that Barrett's work on "Search for Tomorrow" wasn't beloved by fans. This also means the date rape episode was under Barrett. I thought the date rape episode had occurred under Lee. I guess its entirely possible it was still in the cards when she was there. Also in the Christmas episode, a bunch of characters on their way out of town. Cathy Phillips has offered Tom Bergman a job in Washington he is accepting, Rhonda Sue Huckaby is leaving to sing in Nashville, the Moreno family is heading out to California to see Barbara's sister, and, from my reading, Cain Devore's days as Danny Walton are numbered. It was nice to see Elizabeth Swankhammer as Suzy so I have a visual, but she isn't given much to do. 

 

Seeing more and more from the 1980s, I get it. Maree Cheatham continues to be a delightful revelation in the role of Stephanie and I can see why people were furious when Louise Shaffer replaced her. I love Shaffer, but Stephanie isn't the role for her. Like Lambie, I think it would have been fun to cast her as Stephanie's sister, a sort of faux high society type who comes to town down on her luck looking to sponge off of her sister and to make a play for Lloyd. Anyway, I loved what I saw of the Lloyd / Stephanie (with Maree Cheatham) pairing. Did that go very far? Did Steve have a say in any of it?

 

Anyway, Christmas 1983 was a mixed bag. There was some good drama with Wendy as she has lost her and Warren's baby. Lisa Peluso is a bit overwrought as Wendy, but Jay Avocone does a nice job as Wendy's big brother. Knowing where its going is interesting, but it isn't really working. There is a bit with Sunny in jail for the holidays and some Hogan / Sunny scenes. Both actors are appealing but the writing is a little flat for me. Laurie Klatcher (the first Natalie on "The Doctors") plays Sunny's working girl cell mate who hits on Hogan. There is a nice little bit where Hogan brings Sunny a gift which she thinks is from him. McCabe plays it like she knows its from Hogan, but I believe later we learn its from Jack Benton. 

 

There are some little moments I like. The Martin / Lloyd exchange is fun. Lloyd and Stephanie have some fun interplay. Jo and Martin share a moment. The Stu / Josh relationship is incredibly sweet and its a bit heartbreaking knowing he's leaving town with Barbara in the next couple of episodes. I just think there is too much going on. Warren, Kristen, and Suzy all appear in the background and Ringo has some moments with Rhonda Sue. The cast is really big at this point so I see why they were trimming it down. Barrett says the cuts were planned before she arrived. Who knows.

 

There are elements of the 1984 Christmas episode which are a bit more appealing. The action bit isn't appealing. Kentucky is having a heart attack midflight which requires Liza to land the plane. That doesn't do much for me. In Liza's absence, though, Lloyd has come to the Sentell home to tell TR the big Christmas miracle; she is Rebecca Kendall. Instead, Lloyd learns that the adoption went through and now TR is happy to be a Sentell. TR is snipy, Lloyd is devastated, and Stu has to play mediator. Lloyd leaves without ruining TR's Christmas. By the time he shows up to Stephanie's, the younger set has already arrived. Alec is thrown by Stephanie's glee about his new relationship with Wendy. The problem is they aren't dating and Wendy failed to let Alec know about the lie. There is a little more of the Chase / Justine interaction. This is clearly the post-Adair story plans for the Kendall boys. The Alec / Wendy angle has potential. I wonder if the plan was to play a Justine / Chase / Adair triangle which got lost when Stephanie Braxton and Paul Avila Mayer arrived. They quickly write out Justine and Chase / Adair never really have much conflict after that do they? 

 

There seems to be more story in the 1984 episode, but I think that might be because of the difference between a Christmas Eve vs a Christmas day episode. Anyway, I'd be curious to see what Christmas 1985 looked like. Didn't Wendy actually leave on Christmas Eve?

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Thanks. 

 

I do think Wendy's final scenes with Stephanie are emotional. It's a shame that it sort of ends that way, but I think the complexity of the Wendy / Stephanie dynamic is fascinating to see play out. I'm not sure if it's true to the nature of their relationship, but those scenes are compelling. Stephanie talking about acting like they'll never see each other again is pretty heart breaking. I know people didn't like Wendy's exit. I wonder how they would have liked to see Wendy written out. 

 

There is Estelle. I guess TR is her only child still on the canvas by that point. 

 

I was also watching an episode from late February 1985. By this point, Jeanne Glynn is credited as the sole head writer. The episode featured Suzy arriving at the police station after murdering Warren swamped by reporters. TR also received a fur from Lloyd Kendall and, by this point in the story, she knows she is Rebecca Kendall. Chase is flashing back to sleeping with Adair (it looks like they are still using clips of Page Hannah as Adair even though I think Susan Carey Lamm is in the credits, but probably hasn't aired yet). Anyway, they are playing that song Chase sang to Adair. A lot of people are credited in the cast list. I was surprised to see two different actresses listed as playing Jonah in the same week. I don't think I've ever seen something like that in a cast list even when something like that occurs.  

  

Edited by dc11786
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You can see the way that montage is edited that Estelle and T.R. are basically Tomlin's replacement for Stephanie and Wendy. So one set is being written out to make way for the other set to take center stage. Of course Tomlin used Bela in the new storyline with Estelle, but probably because T.R. was so young and the censors wouldn't allow a triangle with her, the other person in the triangle becomes Sunny who ultimately gets pregnant by Bela. Meaning Estelle ends up alone, until T.R. returns home to see her for Christmas 1986.

 

As for Wendy I don't think she was ever mentioned again after this, certainly not after the flood; and Stephanie was murdered in late January.

 

The scene with Stephanie and Suzi is a bit haunting because neither one of them will make it through 1986-- both are killed off.

Edited by JarrodMFiresofLove
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I'm watching episodes of "Search for Tomorrow" from late 1982. The NBC years are clearly influenced by the Luke and Laura phenomenon. In the October episodes, there are several stories going on, but once Warren's plane crashes in the jungles of Belogua with Warren, Ringo, Brian, and Suzy on board, all bets are off. It's pretty much all Suzy, Brian, and Warren fighting for their lives while everyone else back home worries about these young people. I'm impressed that the show put out the money for a jungle set and pays for things like a monkey to be present on the set for some establishing shots, but I just can't handle these three in the jungle. It took me a lot longer to get through November than it did the October episodes.
 
With that said, I think some of the emotional beats and outcomes are nice. Kristen, who spends all of October stumbling around looking for Brian, finally admits to Jenny that she is pregnant, Brian is the father, and she is probably going to have an abortion. It's a nice chance for the show to intersect Jenny's story (she's admitted to Stu she had a daughter that was taken from her) into another story. Also, Suzy's sudden trip to the Galapagos gives us a nice chance for Stephanie to be offended, Jo to be annoyed, but also for Jo and Stephanie to look to each other while worried about Suzy's safety. Finally, when Suzy realizes that Brian is right, Warren is a bad guy, Suzy really goes in on Warren. And when Warren continues to lie and claim that it was only one time that he sold guns, Suzy doesn't believe him. He lies too easily. With that said, there is some angst as a viewer watching Brian and Suzy reunite at the makeshift hospital in Belogua planning to start their lives together back in Henderson knowing what awaits them.
 
I'm up to Thanksgiving 1982, and Ralph Ellis and Eugenie Hunt are still listed as the headwriters. Despite the clear influences of the "love on the run" style stories, there is also a P&G feel to the show still. Characters meet up to chat over cups of coffee, or Stu's homemade cider, and there is a lot of talk about how characters feel even if we don't get that emotion from them when they are speaking. Stu appears a lot. Jo not so much. Liza and Travis are still dealing with the crappy Operation Sunburst nonsense and with the insane return of Rusty Sentell.
 
I think Rusty Sentell best personifies what works and doesn't work about the show in its present form. Rusty, who was only introduced to the show in the summer, has returned from the dead, revealed himself to be a former spy, hidden the fact that he is the head of the gun running operation Ringo and Warren are involved in, reconnected with his goddaughter scientist Aja Doyann (now that there is a name for you), and exhibited a nearly diabolic hatred for his daughter-in-law Liza.
 
Of all of this, the hatred for Liza is probably the most interesting aspect of his character. The man just despises her, and Liza, as a result, has become a bit of neurotic mess. It's the little things he does; the backhanded comments about her music career, her leisurely lifestyle, and her fear regarding Travis' involvement in Sunburst. In the last week or so of episodes, Dane Taylor, Liza's friend and confidante, has convinced Liza to sing publicly for the first time, in a long time, at the Riverboat with Rusty and Travis in attendance. It's the impromptu singing arrangement which reenergizes Liza leading to a glorious little morning meeting between Liza and Rusty, which are very common since Rusty is staying with his son and daughter-in-law and Travis is often at work. When Liza thanks Rusty for making her realize how strong she is, Rusty acts like Liza has misinterpreted him; she hasn't. Liza doesn't care. She kind of brushes Rusty off.
 
As Liza plans her trip to New York with Dane to find a producer for her music, Rusty plots to undermine Liza. He sends Ringo to trash the Sentell's home. When Liza and Rusty return from a night on the town, Liza is horrified; it's happening again. Someone is after them. The following day, stage two of Rusty's plan commences; Ringo starts calling the Sentell home and says nothing. Liza is afraid. Rusty is psychotic. The show didn't need a jungle or ninjas or island remotes. They just needed a man who despised his daughter-in-law and will do whatever it takes to see her break. It has the potentially to be really compelling, and, at this moment, it is.
 
That said, it's hard to rectify all of this because, in the meantime, Rusty is also arranging to send Ringo to North Africa to sell more guns and there's the bizarre relationship between Aja and Rusty. Aja is his goddaughter who he spent a lot of time with when Aja was younger. It provides an interesting element to the story because Aja clearly cares for Travis, but Travis struggles working with Aja (she's a scientist at TI) because he's jealous of the time Rusty spent with her growing up. So, Rusty is completely Team Aja, but Aja and Rusty spend so much time socializing that there is almost a romantic aspect to their relationship.
 
Ellis and Hunt don't seem to know what to do romantically with Rusty. Besides the complicated at best father-daughter pseudo-incest between Rusty and Aja, Rusty has also become emotionally invested in Jenny Deacon. Apparently, she reminds him of Aletha, a Greek freedom fighter he knew during his spy days. This little connection was both bizarre and interesting as, for a second, I thought they were going to reveal that Rusty knew Jenny from her days as a hooker in Los Angeles where she also knew Warren and Ringo and later lost her memory (Hunt and Ellis love plying their new characters with TONS of soap opera tropes). Later, when Ringo tries to strangle Jenny (she can connect him and Warren to a murder back in LA), it is Rusty that saves Jenny. And when Rusty realizes it was Ringo who attacked her (Ringo was wearing a mask), Rusty flies into a rage and tells him not to touch her again. I guess the show could pursue a Rusty / Jenny angle, which would either complicate or end what they are doing with Jenny / Stu (which is more poignant and less icky than I thought it would have been).
 
But fear not, for Hunt and Ellis are not done with Rusty and seem to want to have a slew of possibilities to play with. Rusty has also bought the television station with Stephanie Wyatt (as a part of the jungle storyline of all things). Rusty and Stephanie would be an interesting pairing due to their relationships with Martin. Martin despises Rusty because the General (Martin's father) always favored heroic Rusty over aging wanderer Martin. Rusty's return gives the writers a chance to really dig into the dysfunctional family dynamics of the Tourneur/Sentell clan in a way that resonates with the current canvas. Martin is still a screw up and Travis has trouble rectifying the romantic image his mother and grandfather have created of Rusty with the man he knows him to be, the man who abandoned him and his mother and had another family. There is an attempt to make Rusty a gray character when he really shouldn't be. Anyway, Martin clearly loves Jo still, but also seems to be aware that he isn't the type that can be tied down to any woman for to long a period of time. It makes a relationship impossible, but I could also see him concerned about Stephanie becoming caught up with Rusty. There's a great Stephanie / Martin scene where Martin has stayed the night, and the two are having breakfast the next morning. Stephanie talks about Martin's aftershave, which she bought for Brian, but he refused to use. Casually, Stephanie mentions she kept it upstairs in case she ever had company. Martin coyly replies that the bottle was already open when he used it and Stephanie shows no remorse. It's wicked and Maree Cheatham at her best.
 
So overall, it's maddeningly frustrating and compelling at the same time. I can see why longtime fans might stick around but why new fans would be cautious to tune in on a regular basis.
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