It was probably smart of Carl Tye to not come back-I think “adult” AM became Rick and they’re very different actors and would likely have faced blowback. I’ve seen a fair number of 1989/90 episodes with him and I think he’s good, but it would’ve been a thankless thing coming back.

Going back to Alan/RR, I do think that it’s just hard to keep a more villainous character going that long without it getting stale especially where the plot relies so heavily on continually screwing over family members.

8 hours ago, P.J. said:

The real problem is that Chris Bernau had this reserved formality ( that's the best I can describe it) and way of holding himself that made him unique.

That's a really good way of describing his performance as Alan. I think the word "urbane" also fits. He gave Alan a patrician air (Bev did this with Alex, as well). It's like they were psuedo European aristocrats while still being very American when their ruthless sides came out. Either Raines never picked up on that or it was beyond his acting range.

When I read Bev wanted Daniel Davis to play Alan, at first I thought, no way, the butler from The Nanny? But then I watched some episodes of Texas where he played Elliot Carrington. He gave Elliot that same urbane air. Even though he was not anything like Bernau physically, I do think he could have pulled it off.

5 minutes ago, GL95 said:

Going back to Alan/RR, I do think that it’s just hard to keep a more villainous character going that long without it getting stale especially where the plot relies so heavily on continually screwing over family members.

That's just it. He shouldn't have been "the villain." He should have functioned on the canvas more like Victor Newman does on Y&R.

Victor started out as a really bad guy (i.e. imprisoning and feeding a rat to his wife's lover) but he eventually evolved into the show's patriarchal figure with the gray morals who stirs the pot now and then. Alan definitely could have become something like that, though IMO a Bauer should have been the patriarch.

48 minutes ago, DeeVee said:

That's just it. He shouldn't have been "the villain." He should have functioned on the canvas more like Victor Newman does on Y&R.

Victor started out as a really bad guy (i.e. imprisoning and feeding a rat to his wife's lover) but he eventually evolved into the show's patriarchal figure with the gray morals who stirs the pot now and then. Alan definitely could have become something like that, though IMO a Bauer should have been the patriarch.

Yeah, and they just had it in the same boring loop with his sons for basically RR's whole run. Step 1: Do something awful behind their backs Step 2: Secret comes out, act stunned that he's getting cut off (either sulk or plot revenge-depends on the mood). Step 3). Grand gesture or Alan is in serious peril so he is forgiven for the past misdeed. Rinse, repeat.

You can do this every few years but you can't do it every single plot cycle-the audience has to actually want the reconciliation stage to work. You pretty much always want either AM or Phillip (or Alex for that matter even though she has her own issues of course) to just get away from him forever.

I still contend they would have been better with the Spauldings to figure out an AM recast that worked and have the consistent tension be AM/Phillip push-pull with solid periods of peace so there's actual investment in the relationship. One thing that was striking in 1990 was how effective it was to have AM/Phillip really function as family because with their Bauer/Marler connections they end up linked to virtually everyone. Obviously Phillip is like a brother to Rick so he has the Bauer side link without AM, but AM accompanied Phillip to Marler family events as an extension of the family. The brother dynamic of Phillip clearly being the favorite and no matter what AM does he will always be the baby brother in Phillip's eyes is a more sustainable dynamic to play off of than how Alan always had some self-serving scheme for shallow reasons that would screw over AM or Phillip.