36 minutes ago, AMCOLTLLover said:

@Mitch64 I’ve heard a lot about that but never watched those episodes. Maybe I should give it a try. 
Maybe it’s a generational thing but I don’t get the hate for the last Alan Spaulding. I mean I did saw the original one for more than hundreds of episodes and loved him as much as everyone else but the latest Alan actor wasn’t that bad. He did great with the material given and was fitting for the 90’s and 00’s.

I mean I’m in the minority but I did enjoy the GL 00’s. 2008-09 was rough filming wise but when it came down to storytelling it was actually pretty decent. 
Maybe I’m too young to see the hate torwards the 00’s coz the others are used to the better golden age and I’m not coz I wasn’t born. But they will always have special place in my heart! 2004-2008 was another peak for GL. I enjoyed 1997-98 so much with Annie, Alan and them all but when Reva and the clone story happened like 1999-ish I was losing faith in this show. But I do think they redeemed themselves. People are way too harsh on the 90’s/00’s GL

I think so, too, but you're totally correct that this is distinctly a minority position!!! For me it's not that I wasn't born. I just came to GL late in the game. Going back to the 70s I was watching soaps but it was other soaps. I have a whole cluster of GL Minority positions. I do not disdain either Marj Dusay or Ron Raines. Despite my love for Beverlee McKinsey. I do not hate the Coopers. I'm actually a fan of Harley's. I do not blame her or Buzz for Global Warming. Possibly the only dislike I have where I fall in line with the SON majority in GL terms is in detesting Lucy/Sonia Satra. 

2 hours ago, Contessa Donatella said:

He really got a lot of work after the AMC walk-off, didn't he?

Not for several years. I wasn't sure if ATWT or GL hired him first - looking at IMDB (which, bewilderingly, only credits him at OLTL from 09-12), it was ATWT first. At the time I think he had an SPW interview which mentioned being out and he was grateful for the chance to come back. After his brief ATWT stint in 1999 he then got a bit more on there and a bit on GL before returning to OLTL in 2002.

1 hour ago, Mitch64 said:

I think the writers strike may have actually helped that it went off the rails and Pam had to fix it so she went with the split..maybe? Say what you want about Long, I have never seen a show course correct a storyline as fast as she did when the strike ended and it was totally not a storyline that yo would expect from her. That storyline would never air after the dumbed down 90s...way too complicated for people to follow and even the "good" people Jeva, were not perfect. Compare that to the cartoon of Annie vs. Reva. I know Forbes says she joined a soap and thought she would stand around with big hair and shoulder pads and she was thrown into this psychosexual gothic storyline and was not expecting it.  And who could resist Reva/Sonni having a catfight on Christmas Eve in a convent?

The story was confusing even for the time, which is saying a lot, but at least it was compelling, unlike others of that time like the trucking vendetta or Simon's parentage (I think I've had to ask you all on here about 3 times if he was actually Alex's brother or not). 

Michelle Forbes was so dynamic, a once-in-a-generation soap casting, on a show that needed new female blood. And Long didn't have long (no pun intended) to write for her before the lengthy strike kicked in. I can see why she wanted to do whatever she could with Forbes, even pairing her with Roger near the end when they knew she was leaving. In another life Forbes and Zaslow would have been one hell of a pairing for film or TV.

I always think of Robert Newman talking with SOD in the late '90s about how he still had people asking him to explain the Sonni/Solita storyline.

16 minutes ago, DRW50 said:

Not for several years. I wasn't sure if ATWT or GL hired him first - looking at IMDB (which, bewilderingly, only credits him at OLTL from 09-12), it was ATWT first. At the time I think he had an SPW interview which mentioned being out and he was grateful for the chance to come back. After his brief ATWT stint in 1999 he then got a bit more on there and a bit on GL before returning to OLTL in 2002.

Well, IIRC Shapiro tried to blackball him, literally in the sense of "You'll never work in this town again." So, given the close-knit (?) almost inbred way the soap working community is, it's a wonder he ever got work, at all, again. But, if you ask me the biggest lesson from that was that if you're smart you inform actors what they're going to be playing up front rather than letting them be shocked the day they're meant to play some monster. 

3 hours ago, AMCOLTLLover said:

I mean I’m in the minority but I did enjoy the GL 00’s. 2008-09 was rough filming wise but when it came down to storytelling it was actually pretty decent. 
Maybe I’m too young to see the hate torwards the 00’s coz the others are used to the better golden age and I’m not coz I wasn’t born. But they will always have special place in my heart! 2004-2008 was another peak for GL. I enjoyed 1997-98 so much with Annie, Alan

I respect your opinion...I actually didn't HATE some of the Rauch/MADD era...and contrary to everyone on here...I LOVED Holly the stalker..she looked sexy as hell and for once during that era she wasn't sitting around getting yelled at by Fletcher, listening to Blake or just in the background...But I think one of my favorite scenes of that time sums up the era..it was during the clone, and Alan calls Holly to tell her that there was clone running around town..Holly, deep in her stalker period is drunk (she pulls a bottle from her desk) and dismisses him with a funny line I can't remember (maybe it was "Alan, I haven't had enough drinks to believe that,") It was funny, and the actors delivered it, but it was so dumb and cartoony...Alan would have gotten himself and Spaulding in a [!@#$%^&*] load of trouble, and Holly doesn't even think that this captain of industry might be going nuts so she should investigate? Alan is portrayed as in ineffectual blow hard as usual, etc. 

Some of the stuff during that time is really entertaining (especially after what comes later) and there are hints that its still GL...(whenever the vets are on, holidays, etc) but its like its GL Lite. Or more accurately, its like GL was suddenly on ABC...everthing was too bright and broad it just wasn't a CBS/PG soap anymore (IMO) 

2 hours ago, DRW50 said:

I always think of Robert Newman talking with SOD in the late '90s about how he still had people asking him to explain the Sonni/Solita storyline.

LOL..I never got that..Sonni/Solita are sisters in a small very Catholic Venezuelan village. Sonni is a live wire rebellious girls but not evil, though her repressive dad says so and so do their conservative neighbors...Sonni was the good girl, who sneaks out to have sex with a guy about to take his priestly vows, is caught and thought to be Sonni. Sonni takes the rap for her sister, is paraded through the town and whipped, all the while being called slut, and she then kills herself, where Sonni finds her in a closet...goes nuts and assumes her "personality" through the lens of her father (sly, wicked, sexually promiscuous and just bad.) She marries Josh, falls off a cliff, they think she's dead, she wakes up and thinks she is Solita, who, along with no longer a priest cause he is evil and creepy as hell, Will (and who she has an S/M relationship with) comes back to con Josh that she is actually Sonni.  

I mean it's PERFECTLY clear ( to a weirdo like me who grew up on this soap nonsense!) 

4 minutes ago, Mitch64 said:

I respect your opinion...I actually didn't HATE some of the Rauch/MADD era...and contrary to everyone on here...I LOVED Holly the stalker..she looked sexy as hell and for once during that era she wasn't sitting around getting yelled at by Fletcher, listening to Blake or just in the background...But I think one of my favorite scenes of that time sums up the era..it was during the clone, and Alan calls Holly to tell her that there was clone running around town..Holly, deep in her stalker period is drunk (she pulls a bottle from her desk) and dismisses him with a funny line I can't remember (maybe it was "Alan, I haven't had enough drinks to believe that,") It was funny, and the actors delivered it, but it was so dumb and cartoony...Alan would have gotten himself and Spaulding in a [!@#$%^&*] load of trouble, and Holly doesn't even think that this captain of industry might be going nuts so she should investigate? Alan is portrayed as in ineffectual blow hard as usual, etc. 

Some of the stuff during that time is really entertaining (especially after what comes later) and there are hints that its still GL...(whenever the vets are on, holidays, etc) but its like its GL Lite. Or more accurately, its like GL was suddenly on ABC...everthing was too bright and broad it just wasn't a CBS/PG soap anymore (IMO) 

I found GL watchable, at times entertaining, during the Rauch/B&E period. The wheels come off in the last year or two and looking back I know what I was initially fine with was a big mess in the long run (the Santoses and San Cristobel - although GL actually did manage to move away from them, which some soaps never do). 

It wasn't until the Labines came in with Rauch that something shifted for me and the show started to feel very sour and unpleasant. It wasn't just their fault, but I lost my interest and other than a brief period in the last months of 2002 that didn't change (and then Conboy/Weston and the later arrival of Jonathan finished my viewing experience until the cancelation news).

As for Alan...Ron Raines was a decent enough actor. I wasn't surprised that he had a real following onstage, in musicals. I just don't think he was tough enough or sexy enough to be Alan. To be Alan you need to be cutthroat and charismatic. Chris Bernau was a very tough act to follow. 

I would have chosen Dennis Parlato, although he was still on Loving at the time Alan was cast. I would have waited a lot longer to find a more suitable figure, whether it be Dennis or someone else. 

19 minutes ago, Mitch64 said:

LOL..I never got that..Sonni/Solita are sisters in a small very Catholic Venezuelan village. Sonni is a live wire rebellious girls but not evil, though her repressive dad says so and so do their conservative neighbors...Sonni was the good girl, who sneaks out to have sex with a guy about to take his priestly vows, is caught and thought to be Sonni. Sonni takes the rap for her sister, is paraded through the town and whipped, all the while being called slut, and she then kills herself, where Sonni finds her in a closet...goes nuts and assumes her "personality" through the lens of her father (sly, wicked, sexually promiscuous and just bad.) She marries Josh, falls off a cliff, they think she's dead, she wakes up and thinks she is Solita, who, along with no longer a priest cause he is evil and creepy as hell, Will (and who she has an S/M relationship with) comes back to con Josh that she is actually Sonni.  

I mean it's PERFECTLY clear ( to a weirdo like me who grew up on this soap nonsense!) 

So Solita was the good girl?

I think the DID element also confused people, especially as the end, IIRC, implied that she had become the bad sister again.

42 minutes ago, Mitch64 said:

LOL..I never got that..Sonni/Solita are sisters in a small very Catholic Venezuelan village. Sonni is a live wire rebellious girls but not evil, though her repressive dad says so and so do their conservative neighbors...Sonni was the good girl, who sneaks out to have sex with a guy about to take his priestly vows, is caught and thought to be Sonni. Sonni takes the rap for her sister, is paraded through the town and whipped, all the while being called slut, and she then kills herself, where Sonni finds her in a closet...goes nuts and assumes her "personality" through the lens of her father (sly, wicked, sexually promiscuous and just bad.) She marries Josh, falls off a cliff, they think she's dead, she wakes up and thinks she is Solita, who, along with no longer a priest cause he is evil and creepy as hell, Will (and who she has an S/M relationship with) comes back to con Josh that she is actually Sonni.  

I mean it's PERFECTLY clear ( to a weirdo like me who grew up on this soap nonsense!) 

BRAVO!

 

2 hours ago, DRW50 said:

Michelle Forbes was so dynamic, a once-in-a-generation soap casting, on a show that needed new female blood. And Long didn't have long (no pun intended) to write for her before the lengthy strike kicked in. I can see why she wanted to do whatever she could with Forbes, even pairing her with Roger near the end when they knew she was leaving. In another life Forbes and Zaslow would have been one hell of a pairing for film or TV.

I only caught the tail end of Michelle Forbes GL run, but did anyone BITD think she would have the post GL career that she did? She's been working steadily for the better part of the last 35 years, and in some pretty big hits too.

15 minutes ago, kalbir said:

I only caught the tail end of Michelle Forbes GL run, but did anyone BITD think she would have the post GL career that she did? She's been working steadily for the better part of the last 35 years, and in some pretty big hits too.

It's always hard to tell. Michelle never had the big breakout moment but has never really needed it. I'd imagine few would have guessed within 5 years of leaving GL she would have been offered a central role in a Star Trek spinoff.

10 hours ago, AMCOLTLLover said:

I’m really trying to get back into this show and can’t decide which year I want to start.

My favorite storylines were Jammy, Bizzie, Eli Simms from 1983 (my very first year and my first episodes I’ve ever watched of GL).. Reva vs Annie, Gus and Harley adventures..

 

Honestly, you can't go wrong starting with any period you love. I end up skipping around my favorite eras for one reason or another.

20 hours ago, DRW50 said:

This seemed to happen quite a bit with GL in the mid/late '80s. 

lol...true enough. But I don't think anyone gives a second thought to characters like Calla.

7 minutes ago, DRW50 said:

AT It's always hard to tell. Michelle never had the big breakout moment but has never really needed it. I'd imagine few would have guessed within 5 years of leaving GL she would have been offered a central role in a Star Trek spinoff.

What show was this?

22 minutes ago, Contessa Donatella said:

What show was this?

Deep Space Nine. Kira was originally Ensign Ro, from MF time on TNG. Forbes did not want to be typecast.

30 minutes ago, DRW50 said:

It's always hard to tell. Michelle never had the big breakout moment but has never really needed it. I'd imagine few would have guessed within 5 years of leaving GL she would have been offered a central role in a Star Trek spinoff.

As far back as her tenure on Homicide, when she did do any press it always seemed to me that she wanted to be a character actress, and was very selective about her choices. I think she has had the career she has mostly by design.

Edited February 7Feb 7 by titan1978

2 minutes ago, titan1978 said:

Deep Space Nine. Kira was originally Ensign Ro, from MF time on TNG.

Thanks. Now I remember.

5 hours ago, Mitch64 said:

Larkin and Marcia were..."dating"....with an agenda.

 

What is this about? Were they rumored to be beards for each other?

Also, the last couple pages have been fascinating, I didn’t know Malloy was difficult, and yet, it doesn’t surprise me in the least!

1 minute ago, titan1978 said:

What is this about? Were they rumored to be beards for each other?

Also, the last couple pages have been fascinating, I didn’t know Malloy was difficult, and yet, it doesn’t surprise me in the least!

Marcia Cross is gay?!!!

If you want a minority opinion---I liked Lucy. 

Sometimes it's just a matter of the comparison. I didn't hate the Coopers (well, except Nadine). I loved Harley, (her reaming out Buzz and Nadine after Frank's wedding is easily in my Top Ten GL moments of all time) and was aghast when Phillip cheated on her with Beth. But I did grow really weary of Buzz rather quickly. And I scratch my head over Frank lasting so long.

 My dislike for certain eras stems mostly from knowing how good it was, and how far it had fallen.