3 minutes ago, TheyStartedOnSoaps said:

Soon after Fiona was fired for GL, with a year to go on her contract.

I will always love Fiona for that...while bigger stars...( I think we know who I mean) knew what side their bread was buttered on and kept their usual big trap shut so they could continue to gobble up screen time.

 

16 hours ago, DRW50 said:

I never saw the resemblance, mainly because JFP's very famous hairstyle is not similar.

Thanks. I don't remember this blizzard, admittedly I was barely watching for large parts of 93 due to most of my favorite cast members leaving.

I may be wrong, but I believe there was a rumor that P&G fired Fiona because she had an issue with how Michael Zaslow was treated. It may have been something else though.

The only thing I remember about the blizzard was that Mindy got stranded with Nick/Eve... and this was the first time you saw that Eve wasn't dealing with a full deck when she started taunting Mindy.  Mindy had a look of disbelief/fear, but when Nick came into the room.. Eve resumed her normal demeanor.

15 hours ago, DeeVee said:

I have also mulled the possibilities of bringing back this unseen sibling. I've also heard that her name is Lana. (First thing I would do, though, is change that name. Like Chelsea, it doesn't seem like a Reardon family name, since the rest of the kids have either Irish or saint's names. Naming soap characters poorly is a pet peeve of mine.)

I read somewhere that she worked on cruise ships, so she would have been out of the country for a long time. She also had a couple of sons, which would have beefed up the Reardons if they had brought her into the story.

My idea for NotLana is having her be an old flame of Alan's. A lot of people (including me) complain that after Hope, Alan never had a real romance. (Reva doesn't count, IMO, that was always ridiculous). There's a big gap in his backstory where she could neatly fit in. Marland bent over backwards to portray his brief encounter with Jane Marie/Jennifer as transformative. That he did a bad thing (seduced and impregnated a minor) but felt responsible for her and wanted to do right by her, even to the point where he told Hope about it before he ever laid eyes on Jennifer.

The next thing we know about him after that is he married Elizabeth and started cheating on her during their honeymoon. (In my scenario, the Maryanne Carruthers story never happens.)

It would make sense that something happened in between to change him from a sensitive young man to a womanizer who regularly humiliates his wife.

I would date their love affair at the time Alan was in Chicago being mentored by Henry. Of course, Brandon, and maybe even Henry, wouldn't approve. The fact that she's Tom Reardon's kid connects her to the secret from the Fishing Trip Mystery storyline, which would bother both of them, plus Brandon is just a snot-headed snob who busted up Alex's love affair because Eric wasn't good enough for the Spauldings. Maybe Brandon insisted Alan marry Elizabeth, threatening to disown him like he did with Alex. Which would give him a pretty strong reason to be resentful of Elizabeth (he owes her everything but hates that it cost him NotLana). And giving NotLana a strong reason to have a lingering resentment of Alan, for chosing wealth and power over her.

NotLana could come back to town many years later with her sons. She'd be "the one that got away," maybe with the secret that one of her kids is Alan's. It would be ironic if he had a male heir out there around the same time he was busy switching someone else's kid with his dead one.

I think that would have been much better than making Gus his kid with a woman who had no ties to anything or anyone on the canvas (especially since they ended up killing him off).

When she comes back, she could become close to Ed and Michelle for the sake of her dead sister. Maybe Ed falls in love with her. Or a returned Mike. Add perhaps a returned Hope into the mix. There would be lots of ways to weave her into the lives of both the Bauers and the Spauldings.

Lana could have been a stage name, or a way to rebel against the Reardons since she could have been the black sheep of the family.

Or Lana is the americanized version of the Irish name Alannah

Edited April 11Apr 11 by Soaplovers

11 hours ago, DRW50 said:

Is that the same part Mary Ellen Stuart would briefly play?

No, she plays a cop. I think she's Rusty's partner, but she also interacts with (maybe dates?) Ross.

I was one fan who really liked Josh with Harley, obviously a minority position.

12 hours ago, alwaysAMC said:

Speaking of the 90s, the other aspect to this storyline is Lucy's HIV scare. It's a little cringe how dire and doom and gloom everyone is treating it.  "Lucy you can DIE, Lucy you can KILL people if you're not tested".  Everyone is scared to touch her or share food/drinks with her.  I find it so odd that employers have asked and refused Susan jobs because she's HIV positive.  There is no way they can ask that question these days, and I don't even know if they really could back then.  But again, I know this is the 90s and I understand the HIV/AIDS sentiment back then, but it just doesn't age well.

Soaps did not handle the issue very well back then. Almost across the board, when they did this kind of story it was always centered on a young, beautiful woman tragically facing death, usually because she had a partner who was a drug addict or slept with a prostitute. It was similar to the way 19th century literature used young woman beautifully dying from consumption.

I can't think of one show that had a man sick or dying from AIDs except for General Hospital. (Anyone who knows differently, feel free to correct me). GH was the only show that had the guts to have it happen to a main character, a young woman who the audience watched grow up from a little girl. (The male character who died was her boyfriend). They showed her living with HIV, going to medical school, eventually marrying and having a baby, etc.

The other shows usually imported a character only for this purpose usually while, as in the case of Lucy, a main character was going through an AIDS scare. ("Fun" fact: Ellen Wheeler portrayed this type of character on All My Children). The character would inevitably die on  screen (gorgeously, of course) or eventually be yeeted out of the story, as in the case of Susan on GL. I believe Susan was still alive and healthy by the end of the show. She was living off-screen with Nick. I seem to recall Alex talking about them.

Hands down the cringiest of these stories was on Y&R. I think her name was Keisha. Malcolm married her the day she died. As she faded away in his arms she declared how happy she was while wearing a white wedding gown. 

 

 

17 minutes ago, Contessa Donatella said:

I was one fan who really liked Josh with Harley, obviously a minority position.

I think people did..it was just cut short with RN leaving. I liked them as a short term thing for him getting over Reva...(why or why can't soap characters simply date or have a short term relationship without it immediatley going to marriage or fans call them a "supercouple")  The problem was, as Curlee said, Harley was busy hobbling around in Reva's high heels, and it flirted with her becoming Reva Jr. (which Wheeler/Kreizman totally remade her into...EVERY man was in love with her..etc.)

I also liked how they flirted with Jenna/Josh before Fiona left the first time.

1 minute ago, Mitch64 said:

The problem was, as Curlee said, Harley was busy hobbling around in Reva's high heels, and it flirted with her becoming Reva Jr.

Can I ask where she talked about this? The Josh/Harley thing has always intrigued me.

2 hours ago, Mitch64 said:

To tie it in to my story, I would continue with NotLana (totally agree a Reardon would not be named that unless Bea was a big Lana Turner fan..) be the owner of the farm NotAmish Reva ends up on, and Alan comes a sniffing around after her (again, I would have a private eye find her for Alan and he is intent on using her for his advantage over Josh and again, just for [!@#$%^&*] and giggles and he knows it will bug the crap out of Alex to have Reva back...) Alan somehow has an accident and Amnesia Reva brings him to the house and NotLana is "Oh crap.." when she sees him.

Oh, yes, that would have worked beautifully. What like most about it is that it would subvert the audience's expection ("He's not getting involved with Reva AGAIN!" - I'm sure I screamed just this at the time). Then it would turn out the story was going in a different direction. Plus, it would eventually get Reva out his orbit.

I still remember thinking how ridic it was for Josh to take the kids and head off to Italy because he THOUGHT he saw Reva in some travel video.  And the thing is, when Josh and then Reva returned to SF, did they even MENTION the video, maybe explain or reveal that it WAS Reva, or "Princess Catherine"?  Nope.

Amazing how so-called "rebels" and "straight-shooters" get very quiet and acquiesce when the issue is not about them and/or they are afraid of losing their jobs. It's the ones with real backbones who still speak out. I applaud Fiona Hutchison for standing up for Zaslow. It could not have been easy especially when the so-called face of GL did not.

 

5 minutes ago, chrisml said:

Amazing how so-called "rebels" and "straight-shooters" get very quiet and acquiesce when the issue is not about them and/or they are afraid of losing their jobs. It's the ones with real backbones who still speak out. I applaud Fiona Hutchison for standing up for Zaslow. It could not have been easy especially when the so-called face of GL did not.

I did not know this about her. I am so glad that someone spoke up for him. The way Zaslow was treated was atrocious.

15 minutes ago, Mitch64 said:

I also liked how they flirted with Jenna/Josh before Fiona left the first time.

Remember the random date Josh had with Lucy?  That was an interesting Chem test.

The problem with Josh/Harley is the speed with which it developed. Reva dies in July, and Josh is asking Harley to marry him NYE. Now, obviously, that was done to up the stakes before RN left, but honestly, the romance did more to develop Harley's character than anything.

And it was better than the other direction it looked like they were heading---Vanessa and Josh really start relying on each other through Reva's PPD and death. And in soapland....

 

1 hour ago, Vee said:

Can I ask where she talked about this? The Josh/Harley thing has always intrigued me.

I am not sure, I just remember an interview..most likely Soap Opera Digest when I was waiting in line at Jewel.

 

58 minutes ago, DeeVee said:

Oh, yes, that would have worked beautifully. What like most about it is that it would subvert the audience's expection ("He's not getting involved with Reva AGAIN!" - I'm sure I screamed just this at the time).

Totally, there is no way I would have Alan involved with Reva again, besides using her as a pawn, and the old Reva who went off the bridge, would be using him right back to land on her feet..instead of...what we got..Alan obsessed with Reva and tearing down the wretched 5th Street, and Reva crying over Marah wanting Annie "Mommy" and marrying Scuzz

1 hour ago, chrisml said:

Amazing how so-called "rebels" and "straight-shooters" get very quiet and acquiesce when the issue is not about them and/or they are afraid of losing their jobs.

Ha..yes, all of a sudden this straight shooter has NOTHING to say? She is busy pimping out her latest story but can't yack about that? I always wanted to like Zimmer but that made me really see her in a new light.

3 minutes ago, Mitch64 said:

Ha..yes, all of a sudden this straight shooter has NOTHING to say? She is busy pimping out her latest story but can't yack about that? I always wanted to like Zimmer but that made me really see her in a new light.

I can understand some of the other cast members not saying anything because they had no power in the press. Kim Zimmer had a little bit of power. Kim Zimmer could have given an interview in the press. She always gave interviews when she was angry about something on the show, but suddenly, she was silent Kim. And she then goes to say that Paul Rauch was her favorite EP and that he would never have ruined GL the way Ellen Wheeler did.