Ah, the infamous "wing tips" they gave Ellen Demming to "age" Meta, even though Ellen was only in her early 30's at that point...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w5ZR0uTpofE

April 1956 TV Radio Mirror

Carl, this is way off topic, but is your current avatar Caroline John?

Yes! I'm so glad someone recognized her. I loved Liz Shaw. I'm so sorry Caroline passed away last year.

Indeed. Who has lost a lot of fine actors over the past two years, and Caroline was certainly one of them.

I only asked because I seem to watch the exact same shows as you do, based on the different avatars I've seen you use .

But, back to GL...

That makes me feel less pathetic for using all these. If you ever want to talk in any of those show threads I'd enjoy reading your views.

Anyway, didn't Christopher Walken fill in for his brother on GL? Or did he not? There seems to be a noticeable age difference.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6XYZ4osheT4

Whatever else was going in the last year of GL, I'm still thankful to Ellen Wheeler, Jill Lorie Hurst, and Grant Aleksander that this wasn't the final word on Phillip Spaulding.

What infuriated me is GL never seemed to even remotely deal with Phillip's psychosis upon his return. He was just back, and that was that - even after he threw Grady off a cliff, which to me indicated he was clearly still unstable, and which IIRC was never discovered by the rest of the town. To me the fact that Phillip had completely lost it and then mysteriously returned from the brink was far more compelling. But it was barely addressed at all, unless I missed some episodes (I wasn't watching all that [!@#$%^&*]). That to me is a gold mine of story, whether or not the original breakdown story was any good. The idea that this raging creature is lurking beneath the placid, genteel surface is very compelling.

Olivia there reminded me of when I loved the character, and Chappell. She's a parody of herself to me now, but if she could get that focus and that edge back, I'd take Olivia back on a revived GL - preferably bisexual and single, with no Natalia in sight.

Edited March 12, 201312 yr by Vee

I have a feeling they might have dropped some of that due to cancelation.

I think they just dropped it as for one, they didn't know how to deal with it, and they just wanted to sweep "Phillip is the big bad, " under the carpet and forget it (remember Wheeler wanted GA and Phillip back as a James Stenbeck type bad guy and he wouldnt do it.) I think if they had brought him back when they should have (when we discovered he was alive) that would have been a very good storyline.

I remember at the time most viewers were cheering when Phillip threw Grady off the cliff...I just laugh that he was brought in to be this big character and that was the end, nothing, he was gone.

I always just figured that Alan got Phillip a lot of intensive psychotherapy while he was away. Yes, it would have been nice to get some exposition about how he was so zen after killing Grady, but I'm just glad he didn't return as the Big Bad, or didn't stay that way for long.

I did enjoy that scene with Phillip and Olivia being able to laugh (or at least chuckle ruefully) over her metaphorical dancing on his grave during the penultimate week.

I'm not asking for Phillip to be a cartoon villain, because I know Grant objected to the character's downfall and those proposed plans. But I did think it was a potentially good idea to give the character some edge again and make him unpredictable - he had once been the clean-cut prince of Springfield, and he fell apart and began roaming the world like a phantom. For him to go a little gray, I think, or a little dangerous is far more interesting than the same old.

Edited March 12, 201312 yr by Vee

That makes me feel less pathetic for using all these. If you ever want to talk in any of those show threads I'd enjoy reading your views.

Anyway, didn't Christopher Walken fill in for his brother on GL? Or did he not? There seems to be a noticeable age difference.

Carl,

I was trying to find some evidence for you, but I haven't thus far. From different things that I read over the years, Christopher/Ron *did* fill in for Glenn on occasion (I guess despite that age difference).

Off topic - did you get the new version of "The Aztecs" on DVD (I noticed your new avatar )?

I saw a nice icon of her.

I do mean to watch the Aztecs again soon; Barbara was one of my top five companions and that was one of her best episodes.