4 minutes ago, alwaysAMC said:

Lillian seemed to really be a flawed character in some ways, or at least had some grey to her. You would have never know if you started watching GL when I did. She just seems like a lovely lady that everyone in town loves haha. But yeah, given that background, especially with the Mo stuff, I too would find it odd that Vanessa/Lillian were supporting each other in that way. I guess that's what happens when writers don't know the backstory and you're limited with characters when you want to get certain plot points across vs. connect to the backstory of characters.

Hmm, Lillian. Yeah, she was NOT a good person when she first came on the show.

She utterly failed Beth, looking the other way while her husband Bradley physically abused her. She refused to face the fact that Bradley raped her.

In the beginning. Later, she supported Beth. Beth, at the time practically a saint, forgave her mother. She forgave everybody, except for Bradley. Even Alan, who treated her like dirt. Then when Alan came back to SF, he treated her like dirt again.

I know this is hard to believe because 1990s-2000s Beth is SO different.

Anyway, BACK to Lillian: there was a brief time where they were playing around with a love triangle involving Lillian/Mike Bauer/Alexandra. There are a lot of theories around why this happened, but for whatever reason, they decided to fire Don Stewart, the actor who played Mike. So it never went anywhere.

After that, Lilian was pretty much the devoted mother and dedicated nurse. Dinah came to live with her. When Beth went missing, she and Dinah were very close. She was devastated, of course, when Beth declared dead (falsely, by Alan, because he wanted Phillip to "get over it" and stop looking for the missing Beth). Beth was eventually found, and they were happily reunited. (For some WILD reason, they brought Bradley back into the story. He was in jail while Alan was in jail. I never figured out the point of that).

Then a few years later she was diagnosed with breast cancer. During this time she and Ed, who were always friends, because closer and had an affair. Lillian (who was never the brightest bulb in the chandelier) wrote Ed a love letter. Mo found it. That's when she confronted both of them. While trying to get away from Ed, she crashed her car and died.

Of course, Lillian was really, really, REALLY sorry about her part in this, as was Ed. And then...pretty much everyone forgot about it. It was never really brought back into the story, when it should have been. Bridget and Nola adored Mo, there should have been scenes of them tearing Ed and Lillian new ones. Just goes to show how that storyline was used simply to get rid of a character rather than growing into more story over the years.

And, yeah, then after that, she was pretty much just the nice nurse lady. It's a shame they didn't use more of her complicated past, with her daughter, with Dinah, with Ed, with the people who loved Mo.

38 minutes ago, GL95 said:

I have hit a bit of a wall in my binge as I’ve gotten to mid 1993, so I’ve been checking out random old episodes YouTube pushed. I watched a Founder’s Day episode from 1984 today that was interesting (warning there’s a few technical issues on the video)

There’s a lot in the episode. First it’s one of those giant events with a bunch of extras. Reva is married to HB but Billy is suspicious of her and Josh while he’s married to Van and she is very pregnant. The guy Billy has spy on Reva/Josh (he’s in the wheelchair which I sort of vaguely have read about) gets caught by Van and she’s pissed and she gives an epic speech. You can see some of the Reva/Josh chemistry here. Phillip is reeling over LuJack and Beth (and I think a little over sharing attention in the family) and is an absolute raging, unrepentant jerk. Ross lectures him and he never really feels bad about anything-it sort of reminded me of Holly trying to explain basic human decency to Blake at times. GA doesn’t seem all that youthful in the young Phillip years but then barely ages-it’s like he was a 35-40 year old man for 25 years. Random thing I noticed with LuJack and Beth in the closeups is their teeth are clearly imperfect, and it’s something I like about GL even into the 90s that it’s filled with attractive but still human looking people. (So nice compared to anything today where everyone is supposed to look the same!)

Anyhow, here’s the link for anyone interested. (There’s also a Fletcher subplot involving him romancing some random woman I don’t understand haha). https://youtu.be/Z6Esmijjakg?si=RHj7Qpl6K7rOsk7b

Founder's Day was after the infamous "Slut of Springfield" scene, where Josh and Billy had plotted to humiliate Reva, but Reva's meltdown left Josh feeling guilty.

Van had been on edge as Billy's obsession over ridding the Lewises of Reva grew, and her finding out that Billy was still more focused on Reva than her and their marriage was a breaking point for them. Van leaves him, (allowing for Maeve's maternity leave) and Billy really goes over the edge, literally throwing Reva out when he finds her and Josh together.

The mystery woman Fletch is "romancing" is Susan Piper. She's a part of the Barbados plot, involving Tony/Annabelle/Jim and the Spauldings.

15 minutes ago, alwaysAMC said:

Glad you're enjoying them and they're helpful! The Danny/Michelle story is a little tedious for me, but I'm open-minded. We're about 4 months into Danny and the storyline, but it might have seemed that way because they feel so isolated and we rarely see Michelle in SF anymore. With the Michelle recast and the isolation, it did feel like Michelle/Jesse were cut off quickly.

Oh gosh, I would have been shocked too. Especially losing both Dinah and hart within weeks of each other, it had to be a blow in real-time. That's why I largely dislike spoilers because it takes any surprise out of it. When you're surprised, you tend to have more of an emotional reaction to it that you'll never forget.

I too thought Dinah became OTT after a while. I liked her in 1995 and then she lost me during Lonatrat, but then really lost me in the Cassie/Hart triangle. I haven't seen any of GL except what I've watched over the last year (1995-early 1999), except I did watch the series finale a few months ago. So, I'm curious to see how the new Dinah actress is and how much they discuss her history from this era and how she's been redeemed or not. Like I would think eventually she'd come back and have to face charges for killing Hart, unless too much time has passed and the characters who would care aren't really in her orbit or even on the canvas (Cassie, Blake, etc).

I do like PAS, but I'm still warming up to Joy as Michelle. Sometimes I keep thinking back to her being Reva's young adult clone (since I've been binging so quickly)... and I miss Budig of course. I just really got invested in Michelle/Jesse as a couple, so it's taking time for me to warm up to Danny/Michelle.

Ahh interesting, thanks for the background! And no, they never touched on that when Moniz was there as Dinah.

Lillian seemed to really be a flawed character in some ways, or at least had some grey to her. You would have never know if you started watching GL when I did. She just seems like a lovely lady that everyone in town loves haha. But yeah, given that background, especially with the Mo stuff, I too would find it odd that Vanessa/Lillian were supporting each other in that way. I guess that's what happens when writers don't know the backstory and you're limited with characters when you want to get certain plot points across vs. connect to the backstory of characters.

I personally never really loved Rebecca Budig as Michelle, but bingeing I might have liked her better because I really hated Jay and she was just an annoying boy crazy teen to me until they brought Abby in which softened her up some. And I really, really hated the Zachary plot. I was a bit irked at the SORAS decision to begin with as the show lost some additional heart with Bill/Ben/Michelle no longer being together all the time, especially Bill/Michelle. I personally liked Joy better in the role and thought she had the right mix of both warmth and tenacity.

29 minutes ago, Mitch64 said:

And yes, Kyle makes more sense then Alan to prop Reva...but the role did not hinge on Malloy (who I never found interesting since the early days of his Edge run) they could have recast him and at that time, Kimmer really did have chemistry with a lot of guys.

I have always said that the GL canvas could have easily accomodated two mutl-millionaire business guys--Y&R has had that going on for literally decades. And, in fact, could have made the business stories more interesing. (Lewis Oil was never really a contender against Spaulding).

So who would have been a good replacement for Malloy? Ooooh, I have to think about this.

1 minute ago, DeeVee said:

I have always said that the GL canvas could have easily accomodated two mutl-millionaire business guys--Y&R has had that going on for literally decades. And, in fact, could have made the business stories more interesing. (Lewis Oil was never really a contender against Spaulding).

So who would have been a good replacement for Malloy? Ooooh, I have to think about this.

I feel like letting Roger actually build his empire following the Alex divorce would’ve worked-feel like there were a lot of ways to do this.

10 minutes ago, DeeVee said:

So who would have been a good replacement for Malloy? Ooooh, I have to think about this.

Well, Lee Godart would've been a good match visually, but good luck explaining how Tulsa-born Kyle has acquired a European accent all of a sudden, lol.

OTOH, what about that guy who played Frank Andropoulos on ATWT?

Just now, Khan said:

Well, Lee Godart would've been a good match visually, but good luck explaining how Tulsa-born Kyle has acquired a European accent all of a sudden, lol.

He played a New Yorker on AMC with a father who had an American accent. (I suppose they explained he was brought up in Europe with his mother? I don't recall).

Nothing will ever be funnier than the character on OLTL who was Dutch or Scandinavian with a strong accent. One day it magically disappeared (still the same actor, too).

I keep thinking Kyle has to have that Black Irish look like Malloy. For instance, Malcolm Groome, who played Patrick on RH. (He said in interviews he was disappointed they changed Pat from a bounder to a super nice guy. Here would have been the chance to play against that).

42 minutes ago, DeeVee said:

Hmm, Lillian. Yeah, she was NOT a good person when she first came on the show.

She utterly failed Beth, looking the other way while her husband Bradley physically abused her. She refused to face the fact that Bradley raped her.

In the beginning. Later, she supported Beth. Beth, at the time practically a saint, forgave her mother. She forgave everybody, except for Bradley. Even Alan, who treated her like dirt. Then when Alan came back to SF, he treated her like dirt again.

I know this is hard to believe because 1990s-2000s Beth is SO different.

Anyway, BACK to Lillian: there was a brief time where they were playing around with a love triangle involving Lillian/Mike Bauer/Alexandra. There are a lot of theories around why this happened, but for whatever reason, they decided to fire Don Stewart, the actor who played Mike. So it never went anywhere.

After that, Lilian was pretty much the devoted mother and dedicated nurse. Dinah came to live with her. When Beth went missing, she and Dinah were very close. She was devastated, of course, when Beth declared dead (falsely, by Alan, because he wanted Phillip to "get over it" and stop looking for the missing Beth). Beth was eventually found, and they were happily reunited. (For some WILD reason, they brought Bradley back into the story. He was in jail while Alan was in jail. I never figured out the point of that).

Then a few years later she was diagnosed with breast cancer. During this time she and Ed, who were always friends, because closer and had an affair. Lillian (who was never the brightest bulb in the chandelier) wrote Ed a love letter. Mo found it. That's when she confronted both of them. While trying to get away from Ed, she crashed her car and died.

Of course, Lillian was really, really, REALLY sorry about her part in this, as was Ed. And then...pretty much everyone forgot about it. It was never really brought back into the story, when it should have been. Bridget and Nola adored Mo, there should have been scenes of them tearing Ed and Lillian new ones. Just goes to show how that storyline was used simply to get rid of a character rather than growing into more story over the years.

And, yeah, then after that, she was pretty much just the nice nurse lady. It's a shame they didn't use more of her complicated past, with her daughter, with Dinah, with Ed, with the people who loved Mo.

Thank you for this backstory! I knew about the Mo/Ed/Lillian stuff, but didn't know the other bits until today, so thank you! Knowing how sour fans felt about the show after Mo died, and then to your point, there really didn't seem to be a lot of aftermath to create good story from it... does make me better understand why some thought GL could be in cancel territory in 94-95, just out of pure anger haha.

40 minutes ago, GL95 said:

I personally never really loved Rebecca Budig as Michelle, but bingeing I might have liked her better because I really hated Jay and she was just an annoying boy crazy teen to me until they brought Abby in which softened her up some. And I really, really hated the Zachary plot. I was a bit irked at the SORAS decision to begin with as the show lost some additional heart with Bill/Ben/Michelle no longer being together all the time, especially Bill/Michelle. I personally liked Joy better in the role and thought she had the right mix of both warmth and tenacity.

A few of us have talked about this last year on the boards, but I'm a bit biased because I love Budig from her role on AMC. But I also never really got to see Miner's Michelle where people thought she shined, especially during Mo's death, etc. So I get long-time fans' opinions when they go from that little girl they cared about to this teenaged boy-crazy, Madonna bra-wearing Michelle haha. I personally found Miner to be annoying, but I never got to see her good stuff or much of her and Bill together. I do remember Ben and really thought he was fun with his random Boston or New Yorker accent haha.

I felt like Michelle/J never really went anywhere because she was more drawn to Zachary and J's recast was taken into a different direction (I liked that recast!). Yeah, the Zachary being an angel thing was weird. I appreciated the backstory with Meta that they tried to tie in, but it was just a little too supernatural for me and clearly it couldn't be sustainable. But it was Jesse who I really found to be her first true love and I really loved that love story. By that time, Michelle wasn't as boy-crazy and became a little more mature.

5 minutes ago, DeeVee said:

Nothing will ever be funnier than the character on OLTL who was Dutch or Scandinavian with a strong accent. One day it magically disappeared (still the same actor, too).

LOL, I don't know the OLTL character, but I bet Michael E. Knight's character 'Martin' on GH could give him a run for his money. He came onto the scene with this Kentucky Fried Chicken/Foghorn Leghorn OTT accent and now today, he just sounds and acts like Tad Martin. It is so funny to me. It tells me that maybe his character wasn't originally long-term, but once they decided it would be, he couldn't realistically keep up with that wretched accent.

1 hour ago, DeeVee said:

I hate when soaps have that kind of amnesia. No way would Van ever be friends with Lillian. She may not have been directly responsible for the death of the only real female friend Van ever had, but she hurt her deeply. Van would not forgive that.

Not only were Dinah and Lillian close, she almost became like a surrogate daughter to her. Lillian was heartbroken when Dinah found out she was Ross and Vanessa's kid and left to go live with Ross.

Again, amnesia.

Yeah. There's a fine line, and you don't need characters to hold on to every incident in their shared experience, but Van would've never done more than be civilly polite to Lillian. At some point, Van should've been so frustrated by Beth that she took pot shots at Lillian, and dredged that up. But pairing her up with **** really took some of the bite out of her. I wouldn't go as far as Van disliked other women, but she rarely trusted them, and always seemed to gravitate toward male friendships.

But it's also a reason it should've been Van involved in talking Holly through her nuts period. They had that personal connection, where Reva had none with Holly. Like zero.

8 minutes ago, alwaysAMC said:

Thank you for this backstory! I knew about the Mo/Ed/Lillian stuff, but didn't know the other bits until today, so thank you! Knowing how sour fans felt about the show after Mo died, and then to your point, there really didn't seem to be a lot of aftermath to create good story from it... does make me better understand why some thought GL could be in cancel territory in 94-95, just out of pure anger haha.

A few of us have talked about this last year on the boards, but I'm a bit biased because I love Budig from her role on AMC. But I also never really got to see Miner's Michelle where people thought she shined, especially during Mo's death, etc. So I get long-time fans' opinions when they go from that little girl they cared about to this teenaged boy-crazy, Madonna bra-wearing Michelle haha. I personally found Miner to be annoying, but I never got to see her good stuff or much of her and Bill together. I do remember Ben and really thought he was fun with his random Boston or New Yorker accent haha.

I felt like Michelle/J never really went anywhere because she was more drawn to Zachary and J's recast was taken into a different direction (I liked that recast!). Yeah, the Zachary being an angel thing was weird. I appreciated the backstory with Meta that they tried to tie in, but it was just a little too supernatural for me and clearly it couldn't be sustainable. But it was Jesse who I really found to be her first true love and I really loved that love story. By that time, Michelle wasn't as boy-crazy and became a little more mature.

I’ll admit my Michelle/Jesse recollections aren’t super strong. I watched all four CBS soaps off and on and changed which was my primary-admittedly Michelle often was fast forward fodder to me by the time Jesse rolled around if I was in a hurry and needed to get through 3.5 hours of recorded soaps fast back then haha.

2 minutes ago, P.J. said:

Yeah. There's a fine line, and you don't need characters to hold on to every incident in their shared experience, but Van would've never done more than be civilly polite to Lillian. At some point, Van should've been so frustrated by Beth that she took pot shots at Lillian, and dredged that up. But pairing her up with **** really took some of the bite out of her. I wouldn't go as far as Van disliked other women, but she rarely trusted them, and always seemed to gravitate toward male friendships.

But it's also a reason it should've been Van involved in talking Holly through her nuts period. They had that personal connection, where Reva had none with Holly. Like zero.

Holly also went out of her way to offer support to Van during her attempted rape trial even though they weren’t close, but they weren’t great at pulling from history at this stage.

44 minutes ago, DeeVee said:

I have always said that the GL canvas could have easily accomodated two mutl-millionaire business guys--Y&R has had that going on for literally decades. And, in fact, could have made the business stories more interesing. (Lewis Oil was never really a contender against Spaulding).

So who would have been a good replacement for Malloy? Ooooh, I have to think about this.

What about two Capitol alums...Nicholas Walker or Bradley Lockerman?

2 minutes ago, P.J. said:

What about two Capitol alums...Nicholas Walker or Bradley Lockerman?

I'm familiar with Walker--yeah, I think he could have worked.

I don't recall Lockerman that much, but looking at photos of him from when he was young--I TOTALLY can see him as Kyle. (As long as I ignore the awful 1980s moussed-up mullet hair style in some of his pictures, LOL).

4 minutes ago, GL95 said:

Holly also went out of her way to offer support to Van during her attempted rape trial even though they weren’t close, but they weren’t great at pulling from history at this stage.

Exactly. And the fact that Holly did that allowed Maureen to see her in a different light, and made the closeness of Michelle and Holly after Mo's death more palatable.