3 hours ago, Soaplovers said:

I've said this before, but I think Beth should have stayed died and not been bought back from the dead in 1989.

To me, Beth served as Phillips salvation and conscience... so having her be dead ensured Phillip would gravitate toward the dark side... and the ghost of Beth would have haunted any, and all relationships he would have.

I know the show tried to have Chelsea be a Beth replacement, but the show wisely ended that relationship during the writers strike and paired Phillip with mysterious Blake.

Did any of you think that Phillip had chemistry with either Blake (Elizabeth Dennehy or Sherry)?

I really liked the 'Beth Is Alive' storyline.  I really bought into his obsession/love for Beth.  I really didn't see as much chemistry with anyone else.  But, then again I just didn't like how things were being written by 1996/1997.

Just reading that Beth had a baby by Alan and marries Alan-Michael boggles my mind. I just can't stomach it. 

12 hours ago, MLH said:

  

@P.J.  I didn't even get to that part.  The return of Phillip and Beth was horribly done to me.  

There's a lot about Beth that is cringey during the '00's. I guess not killing Beth off when Phillip returned was seen as "respect" by TIIC at the time, but given what happened, they might as well have, IMO.

11 hours ago, Mitch64 said:

 

I would actually rather have Ross and Van be the core. I know people love Billy and I do too, but Van stying with that lout is as weird as her staying with boring pretty boy Matt. Ross is her true match.  If I was an exec with all power who didn't hav e to listen to the Bloss and Mattresses, I would have had Blake just get sick of being a mom, and run off with her latest screw. (going back to McTrash I would have had Blake screw Matt instead of Rick and have the kids..throwing Ross and Van together. That would have lit up the CBS switchboards with Mattes and Blossies all pissed off!

It's too bad TIIC didn't have the courage to write a sexy nearing 50ish couple enjoying sex back then. They'd do it now. Ross and Van could've put **** and Blake to shame. 

I will never believe that Van stayed with that idiot for any other reason than her child. Sorry, not sorry, ****fans.

10 hours ago, DeeVee said:

I never saw the episode where they named the kid. Does anyone know where they came up with the name Peyton? I think I heard that when they thought it was Rick's they AGAIN made a failed attempt to name someone after Bert, and came up with Bernadette. (Which I'm guessing is why they made her Alan's kid, so they could change the name).

I really do think it had something to do with Peyton Manning. I'm not sure why that jumps out at me, but I was a huge Peyton fan at the time.

13 minutes ago, P.J. said:

I really do think it had something to do with Peyton Manning. I'm not sure why that jumps out at me, but I was a huge Peyton fan at the time.

It did become a popular name at the time because of Manning, but I don't think either Alan or Beth were sports fans. 😂 I was wondering if they ever actually explained why they picked it.

5 hours ago, MLH said:

I really liked the 'Beth Is Alive' storyline.  I really bought into his obsession/love for Beth.  I really didn't see as much chemistry with anyone else.  But, then again I just didn't like how things were being written by 1996/1997.

Just reading that Beth had a baby by Alan and marries Alan-Michael boggles my mind. I just can't stomach it. 

I think you mean she married Rick. Beth never married Alan-Michael.

As much as I believe they ruined the character of Beth, they didn't do Rick any favors either. His obsessive need (I won't even say love) to have her in his life is kinda twisted.

18 hours ago, Soaplovers said:

Did any of you think that Phillip had chemistry with either Blake (Elizabeth Dennehy or Sherry)?

Grant had ooodles of chemistry with Sherry. Then again, I think everyone did. Even Frankie D.

22 hours ago, DeeVee said:

I never saw the episode where they named the kid. Does anyone know where they came up with the name Peyton? I think I heard that when they thought it was Rick's they AGAIN made a failed attempt to name someone after Bert, and came up with Bernadette. (Which I'm guessing is why they made her Alan's kid, so they could change the name).

How does one get "Bernadette" out of "Bertha"? Weird. I guess it's not anymore weird than "Berta" and "B.B.". 

13 hours ago, P.J. said:

It's too bad TIIC didn't have the courage to write a sexy nearing 50ish couple enjoying sex back then. They'd do it now. Ross and Van could've put **** and Blake to shame. 

That's one of the many missed opportunities with GL...they teased Ross and Vanessa many times and never saw it through, even though Jerry and Maeve had fantastic chemistry and the characters had a great backstory. Yes, they could have been the core patriarch/matriarch...ironic, since both started as a bad boy/bad girl. But it makes sense for this show because Bert also was far from a perfect person in her younger days. She grew into the role, and these two could have, too.

2 hours ago, Reverend Ruthledge said:

How does one get "Bernadette" out of "Bertha"? Weird. I guess it's not anymore weird than "Berta" and "B.B.". 

I know, silly, isn't it? And Bernadette would have not been a modern soap heroine name, either.

MY thought was they should have invented a pretty, more fashionable MIDDLE name for Bert, and name a kid that. "Did you know Bert's full name is Bertha BLANK Bauer? Why don't we call her BLANK? Isn't that a pretty name? And so in fashion now!"

So. Simple. Especially since ED is called that after Bill Bauer's middle name. It's even a kind of tradition in the family.

55 minutes ago, DeeVee said:

That's one of the many missed opportunities with GL...they teased Ross and Vanessa many times and never saw it through, even though Jerry and Maeve had fantastic chemistry and the characters had a great backstory. Yes, they could have been the core patriarch/matriarch...ironic, since both started as a bad boy/bad girl. But it makes sense for this show because Bert also was far from a perfect person in her younger days. She grew into the role, and these two could have, too.

How Ross, Van and Josh ended up the straight-laced, moral pillars of Springfield is a little strange. LOL. Ross and Van should've been that couple of old lovers that had a hot affair and turned the town on its ear.

Edited September 6Sep 6 by P.J.

22 hours ago, DeeVee said:

That's one of the many missed opportunities with GL...they teased Ross and Vanessa many times and never saw it through, even though Jerry and Maeve had fantastic chemistry and the characters had a great backstory. Yes, they could have been the core patriarch/matriarch...ironic, since both started as a bad boy/bad girl. But it makes sense for this show because Bert also was far from a perfect person in her younger days. She grew into the role, and these two could have, too.

Agreed...and that is why I always liked GL better then ATWT...their core family was...messy (Bill was a drunk who left his family, Bert was a shrew...Meta was rebellious...Ed was like his dad..Mike was self righteous...) and more real then the perfect Hughes family (though Irna did give Nancy shades...) 

That is the problem with soaps at that time...they went against long term success (giving the show a strong core couple) for short term...fan favorites like...ugh..BLOSS, and MATTESSA! Just because some people at home at all the time in the world to write to the studio..... Plus, following my scenario...Matt and Blake did have chemistry...

Part of the problem was shows grew adverse to ending couples seen as "fan favorites". I liked Blake and Ross, at least at first. And I can understand why Ross needed a stable relationship after nearly 15 years of lovin' on the town's womenfolk. But at about affair number #3, they should've been over. Even Josh and Reva took breaks from each other (at least when either RN or KZ left.)

And no matter my feelings about ****, the show might've been better served when Maeve wanted to leave by letting her divorce **** and keeping a (arguably) popular leading man. I don't recall them having an abundance of them at this time.

54 minutes ago, Mitch64 said:

That is the problem with soaps at that time...they went against long term success (giving the show a strong core couple) for short term...fan favorites like...ugh..BLOSS, and MATTESSA! Just because some people at home at all the time in the world to write to the studio..... Plus, following my scenario...Matt and Blake did have chemistry...

The attitude of TPTB on soaps back then reminds me a lot of the people running failing restaurants Gordon Ramsay is trying to save. They'll have a cheapo all-you-can-eat menu that they're losing money on. Ramsay will tell them to get rid of it.

"But we'll lose the customers we have!"

No matter how much he tries to explain that they're losing money on those customers, and how getting rid of the cheapo deal and adopting a good menu people actually want to eat will bring in a lot more new, higher-paying customers, they still don't listen.

We don't talk about it as much as the other reasons many soaps went down the tubes, but kow-towing to shippers (or fans of certain individual actors) was definitely one of the big mistakes many of them made. They were the squeaky wheels, they got the grease, to the detriment of the stories. 

11 minutes ago, P.J. said:

Even Josh and Reva took breaks from each other (at least when either RN or KZ left.)

I think this is the key. When you have that kind of super-popular couple, you HAVE to break them up periodically. Mac and Rachel on AW were central to the show until Doug Watson's death for this reason. It's just the nature of the beast.

But when you have insane fans threatening who-knows-what if you break up their darlings and keep them together long after the rest of the audience is tired of them, you do your show real damage.

(And, yes, some of them ARE insane. I used to be on a screenwriting message board run by two very successful Hollywood screenwriters who wrote a hugely popular franchise. At one point, the board was overrun by shippers threatening all kinds of things if they didn't have the heroine end up with this guy instead of the other guy. They thought THEY were the reason the franchise was successful, when in reality the majority of viewers didn't care about the romance part of the movies at all. It was like being in an alternate reality).

The problem with the whole concept of a super couple was that writers, and viewers, were invested in two people being star crossed and being kept apart due to internal and/or external circumstances.

Once the supercouple finally got together and had their storybook wedding, writers couldn't come up with suitable stories for a couple once they were together that maintained and/or surpassed the anticipation viewers felt.   And viewers started having meltdowns if their favorite couple had conflict and/or were broken up.

Josh/Reva were constantly broken up and reunited within a year or two... it lost it's impact after awhile for the non Jeva fans.  Before the show was canceled, I think the writers realized that Josh and Reva needed to move on with other people...and had the show not been canceled, they wouldn't have been reunited so quickly since some fans seemed to like Reva with Jeffery (shame it wasn't Richard instead of Jeffery) while the show was trying to chemistry test Josh with other people (I recall the show chemistry testing Blake with Josh).   Once the show was ending, the show spent time working Josh/Reva back together and even moved the timeline forward a year in the final episode since it made more sense to reunited them down the line then at that moment).

Blake/Ross had three affairs between the two of them, although I will say I liked the twist of Ross being the one to cheat on Blake and the final showdown between Tory and Blake was done effectively (I got two of my college friends to become a view because of that story)

Ross and Vanessa conflicts me because they had such good chemistry and an ease around one another so I enjoyed when they would give one another advice about their current relationships and/or work situations.... but I had wished that Ross/Vanessa were end game at the same time.

However, I did like Billy and Vanessa together as a couple... but I did like that once they were broken up in 1994.. the two still maintained a friendship and trust with one another.

I was happy with Billy/Vanessa as end game, but had it been Ross/Vanessa.. I would have still have been happy.  I was just happy that Vanessa was served well and not neglected.

Before Maureen came onto the scene, Ed/Holly were end game (seeing episodes from 1979 and 1980 where Ed and Holly were longing for each other made it clear that the Dobsons/Marland clearly set them up as end game).   So having Holly coming back in late 1988 and being a threat to Ed/Maureen made sense since she was also a threat to Ed/Rita back in the day as well.