1 hour ago, DRW50 said:

@Lujack4Ever I appreciate hearing your thoughts. You're right, killing Lujack was very short-sighted, likely a spite move, and produced little story value unless you are a big fan of Alex's decimation with Nick. I hadn't even thought of the lost story potential in Nick not meeting Philip.

Do you think Lujack would have worked with another actress playing Beth?

Thanks. Well unfortunately we wouldn't get the flashbacks but Beth Chamberlain worked well with others like Grant and Tina so I think it could have been convincing having her play off Vincent's returned Lujack. (the closest we ever got was Beth Chamberlain's Beth telling Reva Johnathan reminded her of Lujack-to which I say NO WAY!)

20 hours ago, Paul Raven said:

When Meta married Joe Roberts he had 2 children. Kathy who was Robin's mother and Joey who was written out in the mid 50's.

So Meta could have had 'grand children' through Joey.

Or they could have done rewrite whereby Bruce Banning found out he had a child and there were grandchildren through that.

I can see Meta adopting the Faux Bauers like Johnny, as she would desperately want a family like her brother did, (and he threw it away.) That would have made a better connection then bringing in this Lainie and Jack that no one knew (though I liked the Lainie actress as Meta, and I would have made the new Bauers...more interesting then Johnny.) Meta's cousins died in one of those car crashes that were always so plot expedient in soaps, so motherless she adopted them herself and took back the Bauer name.

7 hours ago, DRW50 said:

I hadn't even thought of the lost story potential in Nick not meeting Philip.

I never followed Irizarry's career, was he on AMC when they were doing the Beth/Phillip/Harley thing? If not that would have been an interesting development and much more interesting then Phillip, in love with good old gal Harley, but chased after by a newly psycho Beth.

1 minute ago, Mitch64 said:

I never followed Irizarry's career, was he on AMC when they were doing the Beth/Phillip/Harley thing? If not that would have been an interesting development and much more interesting then Phillip, in love with good old gal Harley, but chased after by a newly psycho Beth.

IIRC, he began appearing on AMC in late 1997 for a guest run, then was popular so returned full time later on that year until the mid '00s.

On 11/30/2025 at 2:06 PM, Reverend Ruthledge said:

Oh. Good question. So many, it's hard to choose. But I can probably pull out my top five:

1. 1938. Reverend Ruthledge talks about the trouble growing in Europe during his Thanksgiving Day sermon. Ned asks Torchy to marry him. Abe dies. So much foreshadowing of the drama to unfold for both the world and for the story.

2. 1945. Reverend Tuttle is worried that he's about to be put out to pasture and his assistant Bill Brown surprises him with a full congregation for his Thanksgiving Day sermon.

3. 1948. The first Bauer Thanksgiving and Mama Bauer is still alive.

4. 1955. Meta is missing Chuckie at the Bauer Thanksgiving dinner and Mike asks, "Who's Chuckie?". I just found that a poignant moment.

5. 1968. When Ed comes to the Bauer Thanksgiving drunk, starts a fight with Mike and passes out before dinner is served. Not a heart-warming moment but good drama.

I know you know ball, I can't wait to go back through this thread and learn more.

@DRW50 @Lujack4Ever Thanks both I actually came here immediately after seeing someone’s post ranting about Lujack’s death on Facebook in the GL history group I’m in.

I think this was probably the most obvious sign for sure the Kobe/Long was going off the rails, and also Jeff Ryder wasn’t up to HW of GL. Many, many years ago there was a member who was a online friend of mine named Angel here at SON and WOST who was taken back by seeing similar criticism of Ryder because while she was at the now defunct University of the Arts she took a class by Ryder and according to her he actually spoke openly and warmly about his writing stint at GL.

Obviously Lujack’s death was short sighted by all parties involved when perhaps a simple recast was in order. Instead the show had Simon Hall hoisted on it, Beth died herself while Judi found even more super stardom on Days, and eventually of course GL ended up with Nick.

@Khan @DRW50 I still always wonder how Gail Kobe always felt about ending up at B&B being forced to do her job without drama/question after all was said and done with her time at GL and Texas. Actually I wonder why Bell even hired her. No one ever talks about her tenure at B&B lol.

BTW regarding Meta @Mitch64 guess I have always thought that Joey was Meta’s legit son with Joe and never understood why he was ignored; similarly I vividly remember seeing a Bauer Family tree in I think either SOU or SOD around the 60th anniversary that not only indicated Joey was Meta’s son, but also Paul Kincaid was Bill’s son along with the existence of some other Bauer sibling (Douglas Bauer I think?).

10 hours ago, soapfan770 said:

@DRW50 @Lujack4Ever Thanks both I actually came here immediately after seeing someone’s post ranting about Lujack’s death on Facebook in the GL history group I’m in.

I think this was probably the most obvious sign for sure the Kobe/Long was going off the rails, and also Jeff Ryder wasn’t up to HW of GL. Many, many years ago there was a member who was a online friend of mine named Angel here at SON and WOST who was taken back by seeing similar criticism of Ryder because while she was at the now defunct University of the Arts she took a class by Ryder and according to her he actually spoke openly and warmly about his writing stint at GL.

Obviously Lujack’s death was short sighted by all parties involved when perhaps a simple recast was in order. Instead the show had Simon Hall hoisted on it, Beth died herself while Judi found even more super stardom on Days, and eventually of course GL ended up with Nick.

Hey what's the name of that Facebook group? Sounds great. Ah, Simon Hall and Jessie too. A desperate attempt to recreate Lujack and Beth to disastrous results. I had to laugh when they had Simon in Lujack like clothes. So transparent and he's his half brother! For all his flaws he at least deserved ONE mention when Nick and Eric showed up on the canvas...nothing. All unnecessary as clearly Vincent was amenable to eventually come back but they had shot themselves in the foot with the death. Inexcusable really.

10 hours ago, soapfan770 said:

@DRW50 @Lujack4Ever Thanks both I actually came here immediately after seeing someone’s post ranting about Lujack’s death on Facebook in the GL history group I’m in.

I think this was probably the most obvious sign for sure the Kobe/Long was going off the rails, and also Jeff Ryder wasn’t up to HW of GL. Many, many years ago there was a member who was a online friend of mine named Angel here at SON and WOST who was taken back by seeing similar criticism of Ryder because while she was at the now defunct University of the Arts she took a class by Ryder and according to her he actually spoke openly and warmly about his writing stint at GL.

Obviously Lujack’s death was short sighted by all parties involved when perhaps a simple recast was in order. Instead the show had Simon Hall hoisted on it, Beth died herself while Judi found even more super stardom on Days, and eventually of course GL ended up with Nick.

@Khan @DRW50 I still always wonder how Gail Kobe always felt about ending up at B&B being forced to do her job without drama/question after all was said and done with her time at GL and Texas. Actually I wonder why Bell even hired her. No one ever talks about her tenure at B&B lol.

BTW regarding Meta @Mitch64 guess I have always thought that Joey was Meta’s legit son with Joe and never understood why he was ignored; similarly I vividly remember seeing a Bauer Family tree in I think either SOU or SOD around the 60th anniversary that not only indicated Joey was Meta’s son, but also Paul Kincaid was Bill’s son along with the existence of some other Bauer sibling (Douglas Bauer I think?).

21 hours ago, soapfan770 said:

I think this was probably the most obvious sign for sure the Kobe/Long was going off the rails, and also Jeff Ryder wasn’t up to HW of GL. Many, many years ago there was a member who was a online friend of mine named Angel here at SON and WOST who was taken back by seeing similar criticism of Ryder because while she was at the now defunct University of the Arts she took a class by Ryder and according to her he actually spoke openly and warmly about his writing stint at GL

Pam Long said it was a misfire, but she excuses that she was "young" in her writing career, when she already had been at Texas and GL for over 2 years. They could have just had his body never recovered by the dumb explosion and had the same scenes from Alex and Beth. Alex had it out for Billy and Kyle after that but it all went to nowhere (would have been interesting with Van in the middle but she was too busy being , as one critic said, "Alice Kramden to Billy's Ralph." ) and Beth flirted with that stupid Jackson Freement (I mean really where was that going..another character with no connections to any of the families.)We as soap viewers have seen that before and would know he was alive.

It's interesting about Jeff Ryder. Curlee said that the bad material was because of other factors (Kobe?) and Zimmer and her husband on the Locher Room credited him along with Long (and Jay Hammer of all people) with the great writing in creating Reva???/

26 minutes ago, Mitch64 said:

Pam Long said it was a misfire, but she excuses that she was "young" in her writing career, when she already had been at Texas and GL for over 2 years. They could have just had his body never recovered by the dumb explosion and had the same scenes from Alex and Beth. Alex had it out for Billy and Kyle after that but it all went to nowhere (would have been interesting with Van in the middle but she was too busy being , as one critic said, "Alice Kramden to Billy's Ralph." ) and Beth flirted with that stupid Jackson Freement (I mean really where was that going..another character with no connections to any of the families.)We as soap viewers have seen that before and would know he was alive.

It's interesting about Jeff Ryder. Curlee said that the bad material was because of other factors (Kobe?) and Zimmer and her husband on the Locher Room credited him along with Long (and Jay Hammer of all people) with the great writing in creating Reva???/

I keep telling myself it's 20/20 hindsight decades later, but why they would introduce Alex searching for her long-lost son, have him found, resulting in the actor and the romance they gave him becoming very popular, the kind of thing you PRAY for on a soap...and then flush two years of story and character building down the toilet will never not be a mystery to me.

Yeah, maybe it was Kobe being a spiteful witch, or Long being inexperienced, but that still doesn't explain how when VI was ready to come back, they created a NEW character when they easily could have concocted some story about Lujack still being alive. They brought back Roger, and we saw him fall off a freakin' cliff!

(When Judi played Beth, all the men who knew her had to be in love with her--much like Reva. Jackson I think was kept around to remind the audience that no man could know her and not be in love with her. Also, Michael Wilding had a hugely famous mother and they probably thought that gave the show some aura).

No, you could've undone Lujack's death. He died in their arms. Roger at least fell off that friggin' cliff and his body wasn't recovered.

And what BS (about Long being "young" in her writing career). She wrote Alan disappearing into the jungle and presumed dead. She wrote Hillary dying via a bomb. She knew the difference. All she would've had to do was have Lujack's not recovered after the bomb on Infinity went off.

As for who Zimmer praises for Reva---well, c'mon. She praises anyone who wrote Reva as sex on a stick.

7 minutes ago, P.J. said:

And what BS (about Long being "young" in her writing career). She wrote Alan disappearing into the jungle and presumed dead. She wrote Hillary dying via a bomb. She knew the difference. All she would've had to do was have Lujack's not recovered after the bomb on Infinity went off.

This definitely supports the theory that Gail Kobe wanted him "dead dead," in order to punish VI, so that there could be no way to bring him back later.

7 minutes ago, Khan said:

This definitely supports the theory that Gail Kobe wanted him "dead dead," in order to punish VI, so that there could be no way to bring him back later.

Right? They also could've recast and done the old plastic surgery gave him a new face route. If they didn't want to recast immediately, they could've put him in a coma for six months. Soaps declared pretty early on that no one was unrecastable. Certainly not some raw kid two years into a role.

23 minutes ago, P.J. said:

No, you could've undone Lujack's death. He died in their arms. Roger at least fell off that friggin' cliff and his body wasn't recovered.

And what BS (about Long being "young" in her writing career). She wrote Alan disappearing into the jungle and presumed dead. She wrote Hillary dying via a bomb. She knew the difference. All she would've had to do was have Lujack's not recovered after the bomb on Infinity went off.

As for who Zimmer praises for Reva---well, c'mon. She praises anyone who wrote Reva as sex on a stick.

No. There was slender wiggle room. Lujack was in his hospital bed and shouts out BETH! The allege moment of him dying. When they came back from commercial he's not in his bed anymore and everyone is grieving and I was like...wait he's dead?! So...the wiggle room is anything a writer could imagine could have transpired off camera when he was taken out that room. He could have suddenly rallied and for whatever reasons a good writer could come up with his family and friends were led to believe that he died. It was entirely possible for Lujack to come back from that in the right hands. Just ask his grandfather and namesake Brandon who died on screen but turned up alive and well enough to be cavorting with an island beauty his one true love of his life as we were told.

Also about Jackson Freemont-they rinsed and repeated with him being up against Phillip for Beth's love but after she "died" it was Jackson chasing after Phillip's woman Chelsea Reardon. Guess they were out of ideas. Then they made him a villain, then he reformed and had him driving trucks for Sampon/Lewis at one point (talk about not knowing what to do with a character-from international music producedr to trucker)and then he disappeared back to London. Name dropped when it was time to write Chelsea out and she left to join him there.

Edited 45 minutes ago45 min by Lujack4Ever

28 minutes ago, Lujack4Ever said:

Just ask his grandfather and namesake Brandon who died on screen but turned up alive and well enough to be cavorting with an island beauty his one true love of his life as we were told

Yup. I watched Lucille Wexler let Brandon die on screen in real time. He was a weak old man who could barely get out of bed. Then he shows up years later alive and remarkably spry.

It reminds me of that movie Soapdish where they decided to bring back a character who had been decapitated.

"He doesn't have a head! How am I supposed to write for someone who doesn't have a head!"

It's a SOAP OPERA. You just do it.

Jackson's journey on the show had a whole lot of bizarre ups and downs. I'm thinking they were really determined to keep him for the full length of his contract.