5 minutes ago, kalbir said:

CBS/P&G were shaken by 1978-1982 ABC big three huge rise and dominance, thus the changes to the shows, and were shaken again by Reilly Days huge rise in the aftermath of OJ.

The Bells were the only ones who were powerful enough to resist this kind of pressure. And, surprise, surprise, they weathered the storm and survived while most other soaps sunk.

7 minutes ago, P.J. said:

So E&B are who I should be blaming for the awful pairing of Vanessa and the himbo?

I'd say there was plenty of blame to go around. The writers, the network, the sponsor, even some of the fans. A perfect sh!t storm. 

16 hours ago, Speed Racer said:

PJ:    Wonderful writeup re: Van/Reva.  Yes, theirs should have been a full blown-up rivalry.  Can't have that though, not with Reva and Zimmer on the canvas.  I mean, how would it look?

I always thought that numerous GL characters should have been regularly snickering about all things Reva behind her back, just like people would do in real life.  Characters laughing at Reva, lots of eye-rolling, comments made about how it's best simply to avoid her, etc.  

Reva was *always* so entitled, wasn't she?  Yeesh.

Right? Reva always should've been the outsider, no matter who she married or what respectability she tried to earn. 

10 minutes ago, DeeVee said:

I'd say there was plenty of blame to go around. The writers, the network, the sponsor, even some of the fans. A perfect sh!t storm. 

No doubt they could've hired someone with real talent if they hadn't had to pay Kim and Justin Deas' salaries. *Oh, to dream...*

43 minutes ago, P.J. said:

While I'm impressed GL got an ad---what a bad Harlequin romance novel cover. Who put that look on Kimmy's kisser? Reva never would've looked as nauseously forlorn as that EVER. That should've been reversed. Or simply focused on Alan and the mayhem he'd cause.

You should have seen the tv commercials.  Obviously influenced by Harlequin Romances.

You guys weren't kidding about how confusing the storyline became on the Sonni/Solita story. 

Edited August 12Aug 12 by MLH

52 minutes ago, P.J. said:

So E&B are who I should be blaming for the awful pairing of Vanessa and the himbo? Where she ends up having the exact same fights she had with Billy and Ross about working (or working at Spaulding...) Where the moron who's never raised a child (and ghosted his own family) lectures her on family values? And these are the morons who gave her some brain-eating incurable disease and had her fake her death approximately six months after Henry died? (Because apparently, simply divorcing ****'s ass after finding out he'd been a speedo wearing himbo and lied about it wasn't dramatic enough.)

I know I'm drifting...but I really needed to get a mini**** rant out.

And are these the people who brought that loudmouth Laura Wright to this show? Another thing I could thank them for. NOT.

Oh, and re: Phillip and Beth and that secret assignation---Phillip's flippin' leg was also broke. I know that would really put me in the mood to bang my bordering on psycho ex. Sorry, not sorry---I LOVED Phillip/Harley.

LOL - don't hold back now!!!    Haha love the passion behind it.

40 minutes ago, MLH said:

You should have seen the tv commercials.  Obviously influenced by Harlequin Romances.

You guys weren't kidding about how confusing the storyline became on the Sonni/Solita story. 

Ugh...like Reva was ever ever EVER a loyal wife to HB. She bounced around braless "helping" poor Josh by practically smushing the funbags in his face every chance she got. She flippin' slept with his son hours after he left town. She then either lied or just plain "forgot" that Kyle brained a defenseless Billy from behind with a 2x4, and patted herself on the back for not just leaving him in some podunk hospital in Idaho.  UGH.

the Sonni promo isn't much better. It's weird...I remember loving the ATWT promos around the same time. Maybe if they hadn't tried to shoehorn Reva into everything, it would've felt more natural. 

32 minutes ago, alwaysAMC said:

LOL - don't hold back now!!!    Haha love the passion behind it.

LOL...sometimes the voices in my head take control of my fingers.

It's funny...'97 is when my full-blown obsession with ATWT's Jack and Carly starts. No wonder, if GL was written by these douches. And I remember Melissa Salmons (who spent years on GL) writing some of the best scripts for them. They have a lot of the same sparkage that Van and Billy do.

Re: Kyle, he comes across as a replacement for both Alan and Josh.

Going by the timeline, Chris Bernau and Robert Newman both departed 1984 and returned 1986, and Larkin Malloy arrived 1984 and departed 1987.

1 hour ago, MLH said:

You guys weren't kidding about how confusing the storyline became on the Sonni/Solita story. 

OMG, OMG, OMG...I'm just finding out what a mess this story became.

I've been simultaneously watching the early 1988 part of the story--just before the writer's strike started--and the 1989 wrap-up.

The story makes ZERO SENSE.

The ending has Sonni turning out to really be Sonni, who took on Solita's persona because it was her fault Solita killed herself when they were 14 years old. Her memory of the time after she first married Josh and all the things she did with Will is wiped out.

I just watched a flashback from early 1988 of Will and Solita--who isn't dead, she's making porn in Argentina (and being criticized by the director for being a bad actress, you can't make this stuff up, folks). Will tells her Sonni fell off a cliff and has died, so they plot to have Solita take her place so they can scam Josh.

THEN, Reva decides to show Josh some photos she took of "Sonni" and Will kissing. He bursts in on them, goes completely apesh!t, but Sonni and Will convince him that he is mistaken, that they were just pretending to have an affair because Sonni was testing to see if she could still work as a psychiatist. (I don't understand that, either, possibly I misunderstood because the translation from German was not clear).

Whatever story they told him, JOSH BELIEVES THEM. (Josh has to be contender for biggest dumb-dumb on soaps, ever).

This is the tip of the iceberg. There are so many things that were changed/dropped/forgotten. Sonni's appearing and disappearing parents, Will's mother who was perfectly sane the first time we see her, then she's a nutjob for no apparent reason. Somehow Will went from becoming a Venezuelan defrocked priest to a psychiatrist to Josh's buddy who sounds like he grew up in in the USA.

Mess doesn't even begin to describe this story.

The scabs can't be blamed for this! 

Edited August 12Aug 12 by DeeVee

1 hour ago, DeeVee said:

OMG, OMG, OMG...I'm just finding out what a mess this story became.

I've been simultaneously watching the early 1988 part of the story--just before the writer's strike started--and the 1989 wrap-up.

The story makes ZERO SENSE.

The ending has Sonni turning out to really be Sonni, who took on Solita's persona because it was her fault Solita killed herself when they were 14 years old. Her memory of the time after she first married Josh and all the things she did with Will is wiped out.

I just watched a flashback from early 1988 of Will and Solita--who isn't dead, she's making porn in Argentina (and being criticized by the director for being a bad actress, you can't make this stuff up, folks). Will tells her Sonni fell off a cliff and has died, so they plot to have Solita take her place so they can scam Josh.

THEN, Reva decides to show Josh some photos she took of "Sonni" and Will kissing. He bursts in on them, goes completely apesh!t, but Sonni and Will convince him that he is mistaken, that they were just pretending to have an affair because Sonni was testing to see if she could still work as a psychiatist. (I don't understand that, either, possibly I misunderstood because the translation from German was not clear).

Whatever story they told him, JOSH BELIEVES THEM. (Josh has to be contender for biggest dumb-dumb on soaps, ever).

This is the tip of the iceberg. There are so many things that were changed/dropped/forgotten. Sonni's appearing and disappearing parents, Will's mother who was perfectly sane the first time we see her, then she's a nutjob for no apparent reason. Somehow Will went from becoming a Venezuelan defrocked priest to a psychiatrist to Josh's buddy who sounds like he grew up in in the USA.

Mess doesn't even begin to describe this story.

The scabs can't be blamed for this! 

Sonni was in a porn movie? I think it's that German translation. They put some of the most crude 'translations'. She acted all shy around Roger!

That's why I wish there was some well done translations or a way to see old episodes in their own voice!

@kalbir Good observation. 

@P.J. There are even worse ones!  There's one with Reva talking in a southern accent talking about how she is still married to Billy and how funny it was telling his fiancé, Vanessa. She's wearing a fur coat to boot!  

So ridiculous!

Edited August 12Aug 12 by MLH

2 hours ago, MLH said:

Sonni was in a porn movie? I think it's that German translation.

Nope. Josh finds some of the porn movies later on. Those are episodes I saw in English. So the reveal was Sonni did those as the Solita personality. That does not explain how she was falling off a cliff on her honeymoon with Josh around the same time, as was implied in the 1988 episode.

When Sonni met Roger, she would have  had no memory of any of this.

2 hours ago, MLH said:

There are even worse ones!  There's one with Reva talking in a southern accent talking about how she is still married to Billy and how funny it was telling his fiancé, Vanessa. She's wearing a fur coat to boot!  

So ridiculous!

LOL, that would have been from the time Reva was first introduced. Reva's accent was WAY heavier in the beginning. She was wearing fur because as Billy's ex she squandered a lot of her divorce money.

3 hours ago, DeeVee said:

Nope. Josh finds some of the porn movies later on. Those are episodes I saw in English. So the reveal was Sonni did those as the Solita personality. That does not explain how she was falling off a cliff on her honeymoon with Josh around the same time, as was implied in the 1988 episode.

When Sonni met Roger, she would have  had no memory of any of this.

I think both Alan and Alex  knew about it before Josh. Bonita Solita. 

3 hours ago, DeeVee said:

Nope. Josh finds some of the porn movies later on. Those are episodes I saw in English. So the reveal was Sonni did those as the Solita personality. That does not explain how she was falling off a cliff on her honeymoon with Josh around the same time, as was implied in the 1988 episode.

When Sonni met Roger, she would have  had no memory of any of this.

Wow! So ridiculous! I guess her forgetting it all helped in trying to get a normal life in Springfield.

I can't believe Roger nor Blake wouldn't dig further into her past

22 minutes ago, P.J. said:

I think both Alan and Alex  knew about it before Josh. Bonita Solita. 

Alan, yes. (I think that's why he slept with her 🤢). Alex, I'm not so sure. She was constantly bleating about what a great friend Sonni was to her.

19 minutes ago, MLH said:

I can't believe Roger nor Blake wouldn't dig further into her past

Roger wasn't exactly in a position to be judgemental about something like that.