IDK, it seemed like Nola should have been introduced earlier.  Seemed like a 1980s character in a 1990s soap. Seemed like Nola would take the opposite position and nothing come of it. 

There were so many things wrong with Dinah introduced in 1995 that I just never bought the hype. 

Ross acting so stupid about Dinah.  Even Roger would set a boundaries with Blake in 89 to early 90s.  

Blake acting like she didn't do just as bad, if not worse things in the past. Blake literally having no life.  No women friends until Annie. Can tell when Dinah was a sneak, but not Annie. 

Holly and Roger regressing on their relationship with Blake.  Seemed like they treated her like a 20 year old than a full adult. 

Henry would have given Dinah money and a place to live in a heartbeat. Yet Dinah (who just wanted the money) never seems to get a clue. 

There is no way Dinah would fall in love with Roger.  Roger likes to be in control. No way would he even get involved with her.  It was bad enough that whole Roger/Alan, Roger/Alexandra, Roger/Holly storylines from 1994 fell flat. Then all of a sudden in 1994, Roger thinks WSPR isn't worth anything and the next does again only to lose WSPR to Dinah who always acted like work was a four letter word. 

Maybe, I need to go back to GH old 1980s mystery storylines.  They have the entire storyline in order from start to finish on YouTube.  LOL

 

 

 

 

Edited August 1Aug 1 by MLH

4 hours ago, DeeVee said:

I will say that he and Jean Carol had a nice vibe, MUCH better than with KZ. If they wanted to do Alan in a relationship with a lower class woman, IMO, that had more potential. 

I gotta admit, Nadine having Alan's number, unlike his most recent conquest Reva was an interesting choice. Before I never quite understood why Ross was ever interested in that airhead. But there's a scene around AM and Harley's wedding where she's telling him why she left town, and it almost made me sympathize with her....and I hate her skanky ass.

3 hours ago, MLH said:

I didn't mind how long Roger was behind the mask, because he was grooming Alexandra. 

But he didn't need to be behind a mask. He and Alex weren't onscreen at the same time, and per established history, before she came back, she'd been out of town for twenty years. 

Maybe it was supposed to be a surprise to the audience (ala James Stenbeck's "Hello, Barbara" return) but I kinda doubt it. Sometimes you just have to honor your history. Later, when Vanessa returns, she doesn't recognize Holly. 

1 hour ago, kalbir said:

I loved the Calhoun era but sadly the momentum didn't last.

But...at least we had that last hurrah to savor. As disappointed I am about how the soaps have been decimated over the last few decades, I'm still grateful for the gems we received from time to time.

8 hours ago, DeeVee said:

The plan was always to replace him or write Alan out. Maybe if he had been a hit with the audience, they might have kept him on. But the audience was expecting Bernau back, because they lied about how ill he was, so he really didn't have a chance to win them over.

I will say that he and Jean Carol had a nice vibe, MUCH better than with KZ. If they wanted to do Alan in a relationship with a lower class woman, IMO, that had more potential. 

I liked Nadine. I liked that she didn't go out with Billy right away after he fired Reva from her job at Hamp's bar/restaurant they started. She knew what she wanted and went for it. I didn't like that they kept her tied to the diner.  

Between Vanessa and Nadine, I liked Nadine better. I didn't care for Billy or Buzz for her.  Her and Ross were funny, opposites attract short romance.  I didn't see the romance between Nadine and Alan though. 

22 minutes ago, MLH said:

I didn't see the romance between Nadine and Alan though

They never took it there, but Pilon was kind of dour, and she lightened him up. The way they were using each other was interesting. They could even be a bit funny. Not every relationship on a soap has to be star-crossed lovers, but they had the potential to be an interesting pair, IMO.

6 hours ago, P.J. said:

Maybe it was supposed to be a surprise to the audience (ala James Stenbeck's "Hello, Barbara" return) but I kinda doubt it. Sometimes you just have to honor your history. Later, when Vanessa returns, she doesn't recognize Holly. 

Did she have much interaction with Holly in 1980?

I have been scanning through the mixtape soap uploads over the last few weeks - I haven't posted any here because they are all 1987 GL, which is already available. One thing I notice is how much heavy focus Johnny and Roxie get, especially during his cancer story. The story is so maudlin, including a sequence where he's flying and seems to be tempted to commit suicide (?). And multiple episodes with flashbacks of their great love. Was Kristi Ferrell let go or did she want to leave? If she was let go, what a grotesque way to write out a character - her boyfriend gets a miracle cure, and she's put in an asylum. How long was it before Johnny moved on? I wonder how long he even remembered her.

1 hour ago, DRW50 said:

I have been scanning through the mixtape soap uploads over the last few weeks - I haven't posted any here because they are all 1987 GL, which is already available. One thing I notice is how much heavy focus Johnny and Roxie get, especially during his cancer story. The story is so maudlin, including a sequence where he's flying and seems to be tempted to commit suicide (?). And multiple episodes with flashbacks of their great love. Was Kristi Ferrell let go or did she want to leave? If she was let go, what a grotesque way to write out a character - her boyfriend gets a miracle cure, and she's put in an asylum. How long was it before Johnny moved on? I wonder how long he even remembered her.

Johnny leaves town, dumping Chelsea because he visited Roxie and decided he still loved her.

6 minutes ago, P.J. said:

Johnny leaves town, dumping Chelsea because he visited Roxie and decided he still loved her.

Thanks.

I can't remember if either are mentioned again. Maybe Roxie, briefly.

5 hours ago, DRW50 said:

Did she have much interaction with Holly in 1980?

If their time overlapped, it probably wasn't by much, and I couldn't find any reference in the recaps that they met. I just found it a bit odd that Van wouldn't have recognized her, because she had dated Ed and because it had been such an important case for Ross.

But fwiw, I've never found any reference to Van meeting Rita either. And that seems very unlikely to me. 

6 minutes ago, P.J. said:

If their time overlapped, it probably wasn't by much, and I couldn't find any reference in the recaps that they met. I just found it a bit odd that Van wouldn't have recognized her, because she had dated Ed and because it had been such an important case for Ross.

But fwiw, I've never found any reference to Van meeting Rita either. And that seems very unlikely to me. 

You're right that she probably should have known of Holly, given the rape trial and the publicity, then Roger kidnapping Holly.

I think she must have interacted with Rita at some point as she was sniffing around Ed for a while.

One thing I notice is Maeve is not treated well enough by hair and wardrobe in those 1987 episodes. I remember her looking more stylish by the time I started watching (1990 or so) until she got together with Matt.

38 minutes ago, DRW50 said:

I think she must have interacted with Rita at some point as she was sniffing around Ed for a while

I don't recall specific scenes between them, but Vanessa hired Joe Bradley to break into Alan's room at the club while he was separated from Hope. He found a letter Rita wrote to Alan where she declared her love for him. Vanessa sent the letter to Ed anonymously. This is just as Rita left town after the affair with Alan.

Before that, Vanessa was at the Spaulding mansion and the hospital a lot. They were both Sarah's patients. They had to have crossed paths.

12 hours ago, P.J. said:

But he didn't need to be behind a mask. He and Alex weren't onscreen at the same time, and per established history, before she came back, she'd been out of town for twenty years. 

Maybe it was supposed to be a surprise to the audience (ala James Stenbeck's "Hello, Barbara" return) but I kinda doubt it. Sometimes you just have to honor your history. Later, when Vanessa returns, she doesn't recognize Holly. 

Why in the world would Van not recognize Holly?

15 hours ago, MLH said:

I didn't like that they kept her tied to the diner.  

Between Vanessa and Nadine, I liked Nadine better. I didn't care for Billy or Buzz for her.

Oh, my a Nadine fan exists!!! I thought Nadine was knock off Nola..but so was Harley at first. Though I did love her as a greedy social climber with a B-Hollywood past. One of my fave scenes was Frank talking about how he didn't have a traditional mom or upbringing, as she would "Let us stay up late watching Johnny Carson eating out of a bucket of chicken!" That line itself would only be written by a GL writer at that time (I cant imagine anyone in Marland's ATWT saying that) and exemplified Nadine and the Cooper family which made them unique, before they tried to turn them into the Super Dooper Coopers the selfrighteous center of SF.

I hated that they put poor Deenie chasing after Buzz and living at the diner all the time...now that I think about it, the same thing happend to Nola, stuck in the Boardinhouse and then chasing Buzz. Both of them deserved better.

9 hours ago, DRW50 said:

Was Kristi Ferrell let go or did she want to leave? If she was let go, what a grotesque way to write out a character - her boyfriend gets a miracle cure, and she's put in an asylum. How long was it before Johnny moved on? I wonder how long he even remembered her.

Ferrel wanted to go, which is one of the dumbest things she could do, what other acting job could she get? Long talked her into staying longer after her contract ran out so she could write her out..but THIS is how you do it..being dragged out to go to a nuthouse to never be heard from again...(they did mention Roxie as a possible stalker during that time..)