57 minutes ago, kalbir said:

You're welcome. Did you notice in the tribute that Mrs. Zaslow didn't mention CBS/P&G?

I did! I don't blame her at all.

16 minutes ago, P.J. said:

Well, I swear they aged Coop to be older than Lizzie. I generally dislike SOARSing, but I lobster hate out of whack aging of characters. There are too many examples to list, GL just seemed to randomly bring back "legacy" children to fit whatever story they needed a character for.

Beth seemed to take a correspondence course in "Schtupping your Daughter's Ex and Future Lovers" from the Brooke Logan School of Yucky Family Dynamics.

LOL! That's wild. So I just looked up the Coop character and I didn't realize John Driscoll was playing him! I had a huge crush on him in my 20s haha. I wonder what he's doing these days, he doesn't seem to be an actor anymore.

13 minutes ago, P.J. said:

I have the impression that Jerry and Liz stayed close. They continued to host a charity event together for years, IIRC. And I may be mistaken, but I think they lived somewhat close to each other.

That makes me so happy to hear. I could tell through a few interviews I've listened to that both Liz and Maureen knew Jerry's wife well and always joked about how she was the boss of the family and always had to get him straight on technology, etc. haha.

15 minutes ago, alwaysAMC said:

LOL! That's wild. So I just looked up the Coop character and I didn't realize John Driscoll was playing him! I had a huge crush on him in my 20s haha. I wonder what he's doing these days, he doesn't seem to be an actor anymore.

I think he left Y&R to join the military. Not sure since then.

8 minutes ago, DRW50 said:

I think he left Y&R to join the military. Not sure since then.

Even more attractive haha.

I always thought some of Beth's actions post Lorelei like the Coop story, the Alan story, etc.. were a result of her DID persona Lorelei still calling the shots instead of Beth.

It wasn't until the last months of the show that Beth became more like the Beth of the early years.

8 minutes ago, Soaplovers said:

I always thought some of Beth's actions post Lorelei like the Coop story, the Alan story, etc.. were a result of her DID persona Lorelei still calling the shots instead of Beth.

Having sex on a restaurant floor...

10 hours ago, zanereed said:

I think Kobe's emphasis was more on plot versus character, which is why she was just fine in firing most of the people she did. If anyone pushed back on something planned for their character, they were expendable. Better to have Pam Long create a new character played by a new actor than to try to placate a beloved vet. I was told that the only exception to this was Charita Bauer, who Kobe liked and admired. Apparently Kobe gambled that she could completely change the show to her image (to be fair, as most producers did) without pushback as long as Bert Bauer was on the show. Obviously, Charita's untimely death put that theory completely to rest.

This is why I never thought Long and Kobe meshed well. Long seemed to thrive writing for characters versus big events (i.e. Susan Piper/Barbados/back-from-the-dead Brandon Spaulding to start with...).

Trouble with Kobe's revamp was that the characters mostly were dropped/left within a few years so there was no solid foundation.All the families were fragmented with more members off-screen than off in some cases.

Succeeding teams made it worse by making more changes.

They should have re-established the Bauer's with Hope returning and maybe Mike turning up with a new wife and step children.

Then decide which other families should be prominent- Lewis, Marler, Shane, Reardon, Spaulding and structure the show to suit that vision.

@alwaysAMC It was on this day in 1997 that Vince Williams (Hamp) passed.

7 hours ago, Spoon said:

@alwaysAMC It was on this day in 1997 that Vince Williams (Hamp) passed.

Aww, may he RIP. I look forward to the day when I get to see more of his character and storylines.

17 hours ago, DRW50 said:

Not to be crude - well, I'll be crude - but all this version of Beth cared about was if there was a dick involved. If Nick/Santa Claus had appeared during her run, she would have slept with him too.

🤭🤭🤭🤭🤭 Goals.

10 hours ago, Paul Raven said:

Trouble with Kobe's revamp was that the characters mostly were dropped/left within a few years so there was no solid foundation.All the families were fragmented with more members off-screen than off in some cases.

Succeeding teams made it worse by making more changes.

They should have re-established the Bauer's with Hope returning and maybe Mike turning up with a new wife and step children.

Then decide which other families should be prominent- Lewis, Marler, Shane, Reardon, Spaulding and structure the show to suit that vision.

I think all those succeeding teams didn't care for a core family like the Bauers. The Spauldings and Lewises always seemed to be more attractive. Plus, once they SORAS'd the hell out of Alan-Michael in 1987 to 18 (born in 1981), it probably would have been tricky to bring on at least Hope due to this.

My issue with removing the Bauers was that a core family with a rich history was gutted in about year. By the end of 1984, Ed was recast for the second time in 3 years, Hillary and Bill were killed off for no good reason (though Ed Bryce was really brought back in a guest role to finish Bill Bauer's story), Mike and Hope were completely written off, and Charita passed away off screen. It was Ed and Rick remaining, with Michael O'Leary having a little over a year under his belt and (IMHO) Richard Van Vleet being completely miscast as Ed.

I still think that Kobe planned to recast Mike Bauer once she fired Don Stewart. Meaning, Mike Bauer would leave for Washington DC temporarily in September of 1984 and return by October or November with a new actor - just in time to rescue Alexandra in Barbados and to add further legitimacy to Brandon Spaulding's return. However, when Peter Simon didn't resign with the show, they quietly wrote Mike Bauer off to Washington DC, never to return.

4 minutes ago, zanereed said:

I think all those succeeding teams didn't care for a core family like the Bauers. The Spauldings and Lewises always seemed to be more attractive. Plus, once they SORAS'd the hell out of Alan-Michael in 1987 to 18 (born in 1981), it probably would have been tricky to bring on at least Hope due to this.

My issue with removing the Bauers was that a core family with a rich history was gutted in about year. By the end of 1984, Ed was recast for the second time in 3 years, Hillary and Bill were killed off for no good reason (though Ed Bryce was really brought back in a guest role to finish Bill Bauer's story), Mike and Hope were completely written off, and Charita passed away off screen. It was Ed and Rick remaining, with Michael O'Leary having a little over a year under his belt and (IMHO) Richard Van Vleet being completely miscast as Ed.

I still think that Kobe planned to recast Mike Bauer once she fired Don Stewart. Meaning, Mike Bauer would leave for Washington DC temporarily in September of 1984 and return by October or November with a new actor - just in time to rescue Alexandra in Barbados and to add further legitimacy to Brandon Spaulding's return. However, when Peter Simon didn't resign with the show, they quietly wrote Mike Bauer off to Washington DC, never to return.

If she did, she should have just stuck to her plan, although with Hope gone and the Bauers so diminished it wouldn't have had much impact without Don Stewart. On top of the loss of Mike, Ed was, as you said, poorly recast. And while I liked Peter Simon, his Ed was never going to work as a patriarch (Simon also likely would have balked at the idea).

They should have tried to do a better job with bringing in a new branch of the Bauer family than they did with Johnny. And then brought back Mike and Hope. Ideally Stewart could have returned permanently post-Kobe.

I’m up to December 15, 1998.

The Coopers are mourning Jenna’s death at the diner and it’s so heartbreaking to watch. Justin Deas is doing an amazing job, not overacting at all. Susan/Daisy stops by to see Harley while she’s mourning, which surprises her. She wants to tell her Grandpa Buzz how sorry she is for his loss, so Harley introduces her to Buzz and Frank. Side note, Daisy is coming across way too strong here and seems to have an agenda, because she ran away from Phillip to do this when he showed concern for her adopted dad. We’ll see what her true intentions are soon. Phillip shows up and scolds Daisy for lying to him and running out of the house.

Everyone prepares for Jenna’s funeral. Harley is taking it really hard and Jenna’s spirit visits her. They talk about their past and how they started at odds, but how Jenna decided to stay and help Michelle during the blackout years ago, and she turned herself around. Meanwhile Daisy insists on going to the funeral, so Phillip introduces her to the Spauldings, which surprises Beth. Matt and Vanessa get ready to leave for the funeral and Vicky shows up ready for a Spaulding meeting, which irritates Matt, who then says to Vanessa she can’t take a single day off work to help bury her best friend (ouch!). Vanessa tells Vicky to leave and Matt/Vanessa argue about her working too much again. Matt leaves and Jenna’s spirit shows up for Vanessa, telling her she agrees that she’s spending more time with work over family. She needs to always put family first over anything. Jenna makes her promise not to let Matt slip away and to cherish the gift she’s been given, and Vanessa promises. Vanessa asks Jenna to kiss Henry for her (her father), and Jenna says she already has and he looks marvelous. They have a tearful goodbye and it was so sweet. Jenna then visits her boys and kisses them goodbye and tells them to always be there for their father, Buzz. Jenna then sees Alex and Alex says that believe it or not, she’ll miss her (apparently they got off to a really bad start when Jenna was first introduced on GL). They cheers their drinks and Alex says she’ll keep a watch over Buzz. I really like how they creatively gave characters a chance to say goodbye to Jenna like this.

Blake tries to convince Holly to go with her to the funeral, but Holly tells her that Jenna’s death is her fault and she can’t face the Coopers. Blake says that’s ridiculous and pushes her to go. Jenna’s spirit visits Holly and tells her to think about her future and how to proceed. Holly hugs her and cries out an apology and Jenna tells her it’s alright and she understands. She said it was brave to tell Buzz even though Jenna knew she was the Stalker, so she forgives her. Jenna says her boys will be just fine and Holly needs to believe that and she needs to get well for herself. Holly thanks her and feels much better, it seems, and Holly later says it’s all over and she throws away her nursery rhyme book (LOL).

Buzz is alone before the funeral and we see a flashback to their early years. Jenna’s spirit then shows up and they have a very sweet conversation. They both cry and Buzz falls into her lap while she comforts him. This was some of Deas/Hutchison’s best work I’ve seen, great acting and raw emotion. Strangely, we don’t see the funeral ceremony itself, but I’d much prefer to see Jenna have personal closure with each character, like we got, vs. hearing everyone talk about her at the funeral.

Cassie, still out of town, calls Harley and apologizes for missing her wedding, and Harley tells her about Jenna’s death. Cassie stills feels like she needs to stay away because of the Josh situation and then hangs up. I’m assuming Laura Wright being pregnant in real life is why Cassie has been MIA quite a bit lately.

Being suspicious of Teri, Reva flies to Detroit and meets with her brother George DeMarco. George tells her that Teri was in a relationship that didn’t work out, which distanced her from the family. They’re worried about her and want to make sure she’s ok, so he encourages Reva to make sure she finds a nice guy to take care of her. Meanwhile, Annie is confiding in Dinah about how she’s nervous the drug isn’t working anymore, but Josh stops by and forces himself into the house and ends up kissing Annie. He calls her Annie by name in front of Dinah, which surprises them and Teri tells him he can never call her Annie again, she’s Teri only going forward. The next day at work, he is uncharacteristically rude to Wanda, misses a deadline, and orders flowers for Teri with no sender name on the order. Reva comes in and tells Josh about her visit with George and he gets upset for meddling. Reva says it’s odd that Teri didn’t call her family for Thanksgiving and missed her mom’s birthday, but Josh is still upset and Reva can’t believe it. Reva leaves and confides privately with Wanda about how odd Josh is acting these days, which Wanda agrees. Alan then shows up to talk business, but Josh demands that he stop talking to Teri (bc he’s still on the drug, of course). Meanwhile, Annie has broken into Reva/Josh’s house to get to his aftershave, puts on Reva’s lipstick and pretends she’s Reva for a second, but then Reva comes home and finds her there! Reva demands to know why she’s there and Annie says she’s patrolling the neighborhood and thinks Reva could be the next Stalker victim since she’s left her kids alone before (a dig). Reva then calls Josh and tells him Teri is there and he needs to come home. Josh shows up, but Alan does too and takes Reva outside to talk about Josh. He tells her that Josh said to leave Teri alone and that something seems wrong with him.  Inside, Josh kisses Teri and tries to get her clothes off. He calls her Annie and said they need to come clean to Reva, but Teri is freaking out and knocks him out. Reva/Alan come in and demand to know what happened and Teri says he just fainted. Josh finally wakes up and can’t remember what happened, so Reva takes him to the hospital. Alan pressures Teri about Josh and she says he told her she reminds him of Annie. Later at the hospital, Josh’s blood is drawn for tests, which Annie realizes the drug will show up in the results, so she finds a way to intercept the tests and show a negative result.

Michelle confides in Drew about Danny kissing her, which confuses them both. Danny starts taking some of the same classes as Michelle at school and she confronts him for following her. He apologizes, but still seems suspicious.

Vanessa confides in Alex that she’s jealous of Beth and that Beth has changed and she’s leeching onto Matt. Alex tells her she’s never been the jealous type, but Vanessa says she just hates Beth. Later, Vanessa and Dinah visit the plastic surgeon and Dinah’s prognosis looks good. Still not over Beth’s constant comments on how old Vanessa is, Vanessa privately asks the doctor if she can have a consult with him, but quickly takes it back and leaves. Later that night, she runs into the doctor at dinner and he says she’s so beautiful and doesn’t need any work done.

Jim Lemay (Susan’s adopted dad) comes by to pick her up and this guy is played by Anthony Addabbo! I remember him as the short-lived second Dimitri Marick on AMC. Anyway, Harley tells him that Susan seems very upset with him, and she told her how he likes to drink too much. Jim denies it and says she likes to exaggerate sometimes. He does seem like a nice guy, and handsome to boot. Jim reveals that her mother died over a year ago, which means it wasn’t just recent like Susan said, which surprises Harley. Susan shows up and he gently confronts her about what she’s been saying, but she starts crying and says she wants to stay and get to know Harley better. Harley tells her it’s for the best if she goes back with her father, but they can always visit and see each other periodically. While Harley and Jim are talking privately, Susan suddenly leaves and runs away and Phillip and Jim run to look after her. Harley later finds her around the house and Susan breaks down about missing her mother so much, which leads to a beautiful moment between the two of them where Harley explains why she and Dylan had to give her up for adoption. The group comes back together and Harley suggests that the four of them spend Christmas together, which really excites Susan but Phillip is visibly annoyed at the idea.

Buzz wants to leave SF with the kids so all reminders of Jenna are gone. Selena is there to help him through all his emotions and convinces him not to leave town.

Holly got Ken a job as the mall Santa Claus, which is cute but also very laughable considering he’s a convicted felon that was in prison for years. Drew and Jesse take Cooper to see Santa (Ken) and Coop asks to see his mom for Christmas, which is sad. Drew does a good job of handling Coop and Jesse gives her a friendly little kiss on the cheek, which Michelle happens to see from a distance. She later confronts Drew about it and Drew tells her the truth of what happened, but pushes back at Michelle saying she’s hungry for attention and has Jesse on one arm and Danny on the other.

8 minutes ago, alwaysAMC said:

Meanwhile, Annie has broken into Reva/Josh’s house to get to his aftershave, puts on Reva’s lipstick and pretends she’s Reva for a second, but then Reva comes home and finds her there! Reva demands to know why she’s there and Annie says she’s patrolling the neighborhood and thinks Reva could be the next Stalker victim since she’s left her kids alone before (a dig).

Annie has gone single white female on Reva again.

@alwaysAMC Jenna came to town and stole some of Alex's jewelry. Then Roger used Jenna to get a hold of Spaulding. (way too long a story) while Alex was out of town.

And part of the reason I loathe **** is his self-righteous [!@#$%^&*] nature. ANYONE who knew Vanessa knew her work was important, and that she had a tendency to "bury herself in work" when she was upset. Aside from whether or not Jenna was "Vanessa's best friend", the fact that &&&& wants to ream her for how she reacts to someone's death, when we know how hard she took Maureen's death and Henry's, he can go STFU. From the way you described it, Vanessa wasn't expecting Vicky. Yet **** assumes the worst. UGH.

58 minutes ago, zanereed said:

Plus, once they SORAS'd the hell out of Alan-Michael in 1987 to 18 (born in 1981), it probably would have been tricky to bring on at least Hope due to this.

This was a TERRIBLE misstep. I adore Carl, but let's face it, if he had never been on the show we wouldn't miss him. They could have SORASed Alan Michael only a few years or parked him in a boarding school while Hope returned. They did that with Rick and Phillip and it was fine, their parents didn't seem overly young. Basically, they made it impossible to bring Hope back without aging the character like 20 years. Which would have made her around Ed's age.

It has been suggested that instead of bringing in Ed's sudden godson Kelly, they should have brought in Peggy's son Billy Fletcher. Well, they could have done that at this point, too, with Peggy sending Billy to her good friend Ed, and he could have taken AM's place in that teen story. (Although they would have had to do something about his name--they couldn't call him Bill or Billy or even Fletch, LOL). Or they could have brought in Dylan sooner.

They could have still had a young AM involved in stories with the Spauldings--feeling like the afterthought compared to Phillip, Alan still trying to find a way to mess around with his trust fund...he didn't have to be 18 years old. Yeah, that would lose the Harley romance, but maybe they could have involved her with Phillip sooner.

1 hour ago, zanereed said:

I still think that Kobe planned to recast Mike Bauer once she fired Don Stewart.

I didn't know he was fired, I thought he left because he wanted to. There had to be some good will left because did come back briefly.

TBH, I was never a big fan of Stewart--it was so obvious he was reading a lot of his lines off the cue cards. I think it would have been much easier to recast him than Alan or even Ed. Yes, bring him back married--sure, with a stepson, there's someone else who could have taken AM's place in the teen story. And have a biological child with the new wife, to beef up the Bauer presence.

Oh, I had the most WILD idea the other day--we all were talking about the possibilities if Holly's ex-husband Dietrich Lindsay had been brought on the show as a regular character. How about if Hope returned--with the news that she was engaged to Dietrich! Of course she would be attracted to another rich, powerful man. She could have met him while visiting Holly in Switzerland. Maybe...she could have even been one of the reasons Holly and Dietrich split? They could have recast Alan sooner and had him fuming in jail about it. 😂