8 minutes ago, DRW50 said:

I know Doug Hutchison was praised highly for his work, but like Pelphrey I just thought he was very hammy (worse than Pelphrey).

While I readily admit to being a die-hard crusty curmudgeon, I am being honest and straightforward when I say that I never heard anyone praise Hutchinson for his work on TGL, let alone highly. Was it in a soap magazine? On the internet?

8 minutes ago, DRW50 said:

I do wonder what may have been if they'd culled some of the people who were just there because they were cheap and hired some stronger talent. This is another reason why soaps being an hour long and needing to fill so much time hurts them.

Soaps should have been cut back to 30 minutes each a looooooong time ago. Cutting the casts down to 18 or so players would free up some money to pay writers who can actually write.

6 minutes ago, vetsoapfan said:

While I readily admit to being a die-hard crusty curmudgeon, I am being honest and straightforward when I say that I never heard anyone praise Hutchinson for his work on TGL, let alone highly. Was it in a soap magazine? On the internet?

I remember seeing this at the time, maybe in some soap magazine as I wasn't reading any GL board at that point.

10 minutes ago, DRW50 said:

I remember seeing this at the time, maybe in some soap magazine as I wasn't reading any GL board at that point.

Oh, okay. I was just curious. Thank you.

If I were held at gunpoint and forced to choose, I'd keep Tom Pelphrey on the show over Doug Hutchinson. Or Bradley Cole, LOL. 🤭

3 hours ago, vetsoapfan said:

While I readily admit to being a die-hard crusty curmudgeon, I am being honest and straightforward when I say that I never heard anyone praise Hutchinson for his work on TGL, let alone highly. Was it in a soap magazine? On the internet?

Soaps should have been cut back to 30 minutes each a looooooong time ago. Cutting the casts down to 18 or so players would free up some money to pay writers who can actually write.

I didnt think DH was so bad..it was just...an odd choice to play Roger's son. He came off very smarmy...I swear, he had a scene where he and Jarsh were talking about teaming up to take on Spaulding, and he was visibly flirting with him (that is all we needed, a rejected male lover of Josh going crazy when he want back to Reva...)

I thought that having some characters floating around made it seem like a real town, but they could easily been recurring...Rick, Frank, Buzz, that D.A. none of them needed contracts but they made the town seem bigger having characters like that around once in a while.

I know newbies are less expensive, and at the end, especially budget-friendly, but lord....keeping the likes of Ava Peralta or Remy or Ashleigh relevant was painful. Just because Ava was the rotten kid of two rotten parents didn't mean you needed to keep her around.

19 minutes ago, P.J. said:

I know newbies are less expensive, and at the end, especially budget-friendly, but lord....keeping the likes of Ava Peralta or Remy or Ashleigh relevant was painful. Just because Ava was the rotten kid of two rotten parents didn't mean you needed to keep her around.

Ava was egregiously bad. Beyond. I've always felt she was a poor man's replacement and her intro to the show was just ridiculous. Why would Jonathan pay a $3K debt for a random girl he just met? Like, he just gave the loan shark all the cash. Then she was Sandy's secret wife, Olivia's daughter and then went into her bad girl era by hooking up with Bill. I don't remember if she made it to the end of the show. All I know is that she should've never been part of the show, but alas, she's also forgettable.

2 minutes ago, CrazySexyQ said:

Ava was egregiously bad. Beyond. I've always felt she was a poor man's replacement and her intro to the show was just ridiculous. Why would Jonathan pay a $3K debt for a random girl he just met? Like, he just gave the loan shark all the cash. Then she was Sandy's secret wife, Olivia's daughter and then went into her bad girl era by hooking up with Bill. I don't remember if she made it to the end of the show. All I know is that she should've never been part of the show, but alas, she's also forgettable.

No, she didn't. I think she had a brief return after Max's death, but Remy moved on to Christina (played by Karla Mosley now on BTG) in the final months. I think the writers tried to recreate a Holly/Roger/Blake vibe with Olivia/Jeff/Ava, and of course, it failed miserably.

3 hours ago, CrazySexyQ said:

Ava was egregiously bad. Beyond. I've always felt she was a poor man's replacement and her intro to the show was just ridiculous. Why would Jonathan pay a $3K debt for a random girl he just met? Like, he just gave the loan shark all the cash. Then she was Sandy's secret wife, Olivia's daughter and then went into her bad girl era by hooking up with Bill. I don't remember if she made it to the end of the show. All I know is that she should've never been part of the show, but alas, she's also forgettable.

I just read synopses but wasn’t Ava also a big part of the terrible AM return?

One of JvD's last episodes as Ross was the introduction of Ava. Ava was the biggest dud since Gus's sister Eden.

I expect a degree of OTT acting on soap operas, to me it's part of the appeal. Not everyone should be shouting and stuff, but a mix of different acting styles and energies. I think the appeal of Jonathan was that he was the most like Reva out of all of her kids. Reva finally met her match, someone who could really go head to head with her.

Cheap newbies are fine, it's the characters that they play that was the issue. Instead of Ashley, Doris, Christine, Cyrus and Grady- we should've had Stacy, Peter, Jason, Kevin, Clarissa, Young Maureen and Zach. Peter could've been a new doctor or Med student at Cedars. Stacy could've easily been a lawyer, D.A. opposing Jeffrey. Create a new Four Musketeers with Jason, Kevin, Maureen II and a second female-- maybe a teenage offspring of Johnny and Roxie. Familiarity, use of legacy, building on the past-- thing I loved about soap operas.

Edited 15 hours ago15 hr by Spoon

7 hours ago, Mitch64 said:

I didnt think DH was so bad..it was just...an odd choice to play Roger's son. He came off very smarmy...I swear, he had a scene where he and Jarsh were talking about teaming up to take on Spaulding, and he was visibly flirting with him (that is all we needed, a rejected male lover of Josh going crazy when he want back to Reva...)

I thought that having some characters floating around made it seem like a real town, but they could easily been recurring...Rick, Frank, Buzz, that D.A. none of them needed contracts but they made the town seem bigger having characters like that around once in a while.

It was Hutchinson's smarminess and weirdness in the role that turned me off completely. Roger's son should at least have had nuanced layers to him, which made the audience feel he was a viable character worth investing in.

6 hours ago, P.J. said:

I know newbies are less expensive, and at the end, especially budget-friendly, but lord....keeping the likes of Ava Peralta or Remy or Ashleigh relevant was painful. Just because Ava was the rotten kid of two rotten parents didn't mean you needed to keep her around.

Right. There were so many pointless, boring characters floating around...fire ten of them and bring back a major character or two whom the audience wants to see!

10 hours ago, Spoon said:

One of JvD's last episodes as Ross was the introduction of Ava. Ava was the biggest dud since Gus's sister Eden.

I expect a degree of OTT acting on soap operas, to me it's part of the appeal. Not everyone should be shouting and stuff, but a mix of different acting styles and energies. I think the appeal of Jonathan was that he was the most like Reva out of all of her kids. Reva finally met her match, someone who could really go head to head with her.

Cheap newbies are fine, it's the characters that they play that was the issue. Instead of Ashley, Doris, Christine, Cyrus and Grady- we should've had Stacy, Peter, Jason, Kevin, Clarissa, Young Maureen and Zach. Peter could've been a new doctor or Med student at Cedars. Stacy could've easily been a lawyer, D.A. opposing Jeffrey. Create a new Four Musketeers with Jason, Kevin, Maureen II and a second female-- maybe a teenage offspring of Johnny and Roxie. Familiarity, use of legacy, building on the past-- thing I loved about soap operas.

I'd argue there was some familiarity with Doris, as she'd been on the show since the late '90s, but I agree most of the new characters weren't necessary compared to legacy characters.

12 hours ago, Spoon said:

Familiarity, use of legacy, building on the past-- thing I loved about soap operas.

If you think about the soaps that are still on the air today, they do EXACTLY that. The Bell soaps, DOOL, GH--they have always understood that their young characters--most connected to existing families on the canvas, with a few new ones tossed in now and then--are important. Not just because they want to attract young viewers with stories about young people, but because those characters grow up and become major adult characters in the future. Maybe not all of them stay on the canvas forever, but out of each crop you're probably going to get one or two who will stick with the show for a long time. That's how you refresh the show, while still keeping true to the origins of the story.

GL fumbled there. Doug Marland understood it, Pam Long understood it, but then into the 90s they faltered. Bridget should have been the future of the Reardon family. They had BIll and Michelle, but as pointed out they fumbled when they didn't put Bill and Michelle together. Sure, Michelle had plenty of story, but it mostly sucked. And, oh, dear, what they did to poor Bill. Dylan and Samantha never really caught on, Stacey was never brought back, J. was--I don't know what they were thinking with him. Don't get me started on what they did to Ben, Marina, Lizzie, Marah, Shayne--they could have grown into the next generation of characters but it just didn't happen. (Possibly partly due to CERTAIN SOMEBODIES who wanted always to be front and center).

Edited 3 hours ago3 hr by DeeVee

Well, I'm not exactly sure I needed Bill and Michelle (at least the adult versions) to end up together, the fact that they weren't the building blocks of another incarnation of the Four Musketeers sucked. Curlee set it up perfectly, and succeeding writers just either misused or ignored it. That Ben was killed off was atrocious.

And it stuns me that Josh and Reva's kids are so meh and largely absent during the shows final years. Meanwhile, Marina is shoved into inappropriate relationships with her godfather Mallet and her near-father AM.

27 minutes ago, DeeVee said:

Don't get me started on what they did to Ben, Marina, Lizzie, Marah, Shayne--they could have grown into the next generation of characters but it just didn't happen. (Possibly partly due to CERTAIN SOMEBODIES who wanted always to be front and center).

I blame most on those on bad casting and writing choices. Ben being killed off was just sickness and depravity that ConWest couldn't get enough of. Marah and Shayne I think were hurt by the actors they chose to play them in the '00s, aside from Jeff Branson (by which point the show was ending). Marina was treated as the new generation but she was still ill-used after Aubrey Dollar left.

Lizzie did eventually find her way, and I suppose Bill did too.

I think the biggest mistakes were probably made with how they fumbled teen legacy characters in the '80s and '90s.

In terms of certain somebodies, I think Jonathan hurt Marah and Shayne more than anyone else did.

Edited 2 hours ago2 hr by DRW50

The only Shayne that really clicked was Jeff Branson, but that was too little too late-- plus they stuck Hume with Marina (barf) at the end as they raised his daughter with Edmunds dead daughter. Giving Reva and prince Eddie a shared granddaughter.