5 hours ago, prefab1 said:

Honestly, they should have sent Eleni packing as soon as Melina left. I just saw that Jennifer Roszell was there for 4 straight years--just as long as Melina--and I couldn't believe it, since she seemed like such a non-entity, and I didn't feel the chemistry between her and Frank. 

I've found this to be so weird too, as a contract player. I've watched her for 3 years now (March 1995-April 1998) and she's just a background diner waitress. She had one amazing scene when Nadine died, and then she finally got to play in a storyline when Jenna returned and they were bringing down Jeffrey for a couple weeks. Otherwise, she's barely been used in 3 years, which I find odd considering Eleni was a big character with Melina. They never gave Roszell a chance at all, from the beginning. She's not a bad actress, so I wish they gave her more. At least Frank's had something to do with his police academy and being town detective.

Edited October 3Oct 3 by alwaysAMC

Actually, there were three Elenis, not two.  There was a substitute Eleni in late 1994/early 1995.  Wendy (Kaplan?), who starred in at least one of the Friday the 13th movies.  I liked her and was hoping she would be a contract hire once Kanakaredes' contract was up.  Didn't happen, obviously.

Speaking of horror movies, whatever happened to the actress who portrayed Trudy?  She was a foe of Nola's and friend of Morgan's during the early 1980s.  She starred in the 2nd Friday the 13th flick.

Aside from that, I thought that the role of "Skunk" should have been expanded, also in 1995.  He was the guy Bridget was seeing.  Likable, and very much the type of guy that Bridget would be interested in.  He was written out after learning that Bridget was a momma.  Bridget should have had her own guy, new to Springfield.  I don't like Bridget with Frank, Billy, Rick or Hart.  Nope.

 

In '88, I think Ross was mostly involved in a drug case. I think the character's name was Nicky, and he was Cam's father's supplier. Mindy gets mixed up in it via Rusty, Ross is semi-dating a cop played by Mary Ellen Stuart, and (as was normal for Ross) he's probably riding herd on Phillip somewhat. Towards the end, he's defending Josh for the attempted murder of Will. Nadine doesn't come to town until Jan/February '89. Whatever they have going on kind of stalls when Vanessa comes back, and Ross is more interested in Holly than Nadine. 

3 hours ago, Speed Racer said:

Aside from that, I thought that the role of "Skunk" should have been expanded, also in 1995.  He was the guy Bridget was seeing.  Likable, and very much the type of guy that Bridget would be interested in.  He was written out after learning that Bridget was a momma.  Bridget should have had her own guy, new to Springfield.  I don't like Bridget with Frank, Billy, Rick or Hart.  Nope.

 

LOL - Oh Skunk, I remember him. He wasn't really developed, but I get what you're saying, she made more sense being paired to an outsider or 'bad boy' vs. the good/righteous boy Frank and Rick. Even when she pined over the newer Harts, it was more of a fantasy, but you can tell she belongs with someone more gritty/less perfect. 

Man I miss Bridget, she was great. Another one with an awful goodbye - just randomly out of the blue, good bye.  GL wasn't great with sending characters off (in the 90s).

Edited October 4Oct 4 by alwaysAMC

7 hours ago, alwaysAMC said:

 GL wasn't great with sending characters off (in the 90s).

I don't think they were good in general at goodbyes. Probably a consequence of so many regimes and no consistency.  There are some meaningful goodbyes (Vanessa in '88, Josh in '91) and some tragic deaths (Lujack, Reva and the bridge, even ***** and **** as I don't want to spoil you), Roger's '80 exit stands out.

But otherwise it's some random deaths, (Jackie, Hillary, Leslie Ann, Maeve) and people randomly picking up and leaving town (Katie, Tony and Annabelle who go on summer vacation and leave off screen, Quint and Nola decide to leave together, but I think only say goodbye to Henry onscreen. Johnny comes back from visiting Roxy and breaks up with Chelsea, ouch.)

There aren't a lot that seem to happily send people off to the next chapter of their lives, that we just don't get to see. Harley and Mallet get married, Phillip, Beth & baby Lizzie go to Arizona for their community service, and Phillip does at least stick around through Sam's surgery.

I’m pretty new to all the lore, I’ve been watching a lot of classicGL and Spauldingfield stuff on YouTube. There’s no one around here that can fill me in on 1952-1979 right? I’d love to know what happened when Bill Bauer came back and why he faded off canvas until that weird ass Eli Sims story.

9 hours ago, alwaysAMC said:

Man I miss Bridget, she was great. Another one with an awful goodbye - just randomly out of the blue, good bye.  GL wasn't great with sending characters off (in the 90s).

Yea, it was so weird after the life she built up...one minute she was pushing Dylan away, and chasing Hart, and the next she is like "Oh, I'm going to go live with Dylan.." No goodbyes to Nola or her family, (but by this time she and Chele acted like they hardly knew each other...) 

 

1 hour ago, P.J. said:

There aren't a lot that seem to happily send people off to the next chapter of their lives, that we just don't get to see. Harley and Mallet get married, Phillip, Beth & baby Lizzie go to Arizona for their community service, and Phillip does at least stick around through Sam's surgery.

Yea, that is weird..they could have had a short story where Bridget and Dylan get together again as she supports him through the Reva/Annie trial...(but then everything has to be ALL about Reva) This was the perfect time to have Jenna and Buzz leave town together happy..(after this they made Jenna a bad soccer mom, then killed her, and Buzz does really nothing) I am surprised that Ed got a party send off during McTavish...later on he just disappears.

1 hour ago, P.J. said:

There are some meaningful goodbyes (Vanessa in '88

That was the one where everyone in town--literally--came to the airport to say goodbye to her. I thought it was funny, but at least she got to say goodbye to everyone.

At least Hillary's and Leslie Ann's deaths were part of an ongoing plot (the Barbados mystery and the Dreaming Death story). Never understood why Maeve stayed on the show a good year past her usefulness to the story. Frankly, I think she wasn't even worth killing off. They could have had her and Ben leave town. (Then maybe we would have been spared the awful grown-up Ben story). I can put up with Jackie being killed off in a plane crash rather than the planned alternative, which was Carrie's alternate personality murdering her. But she was an important character for a long time and should have had a better send-off. 

Hope's was terrible. She signed the divorce papers, told Alan off, then walked out of his office and was never seen again. Both times Alan was written out was stupid. Running away from Federalis into the jungle, and going on a completely ridiculous and out-of-character rampage and being sent to prison. (Not to mention the end of his character, dying because he was the only blood match to save Phillip, who had copious blood relatives who could have been a match).

While Roger's first exit was very memorable, they waited years after MZ passed away to have him simply die off screen and all his enemies joke and cheer about it. I'm not sure why they even bothered. Did it impact the storyline at all? I don't think so.

38 minutes ago, DeeVee said:

That was the one where everyone in town--literally--came to the airport to say goodbye to her. I thought it was funny, but at least she got to say goodbye to everyone.

 Never understood why Maeve stayed on the show a good year past her usefulness to the story. Frankly, I think she wasn't even worth killing off. They could have had her and Ben leave town. (Then maybe we would have been spared the awful grown-up Ben story).

Maeve's departure happened due to the actress opting to leave when her contract expired, and it was during the scab period of writing so they killed her off in an accident.   Long's first episode back post strike was Fletcher either finding out that she hadn't survived.. or it was the aftermath of finding out she died.. and the whole community gathered together (there was even a nice scene where Reva/Josh try to comfort Ben about Maeve's death.. and it started the whole Maureen/Fletcher emotional affair, etc).

24 minutes ago, DeeVee said:

That was the one where everyone in town--literally--came to the airport to say goodbye to her. I thought it was funny, but at least she got to say goodbye to everyone.

At least Hillary's and Leslie Ann's deaths were part of an ongoing plot (the Barbados mystery and the Dreaming Death story). Never understood why Maeve stayed on the show a good year past her usefulness to the story. Frankly, I think she wasn't even worth killing off. They could have had her and Ben leave town. (Then maybe we would have been spared the awful grown-up Ben story). I can put up with Jackie being killed off in a plane crash rather than the planned alternative, which was Carrie's alternate personality murdering her. But she was an important character for a long time and should have had a better send-off. 

Hope's was terrible. She signed the divorce papers, told Alan off, then walked out of his office and was never seen again. Both times Alan was written out was stupid. Running away from Federalis into the jungle, and going on a completely ridiculous and out-of-character rampage and being sent to prison. (Not to mention the end of his character, dying because he was the only blood match to save Phillip, who had copious blood relatives who could have been a match).

While Roger's first exit was very memorable, they waited years after MZ passed away to have him simply die off screen and all his enemies joke and cheer about it. I'm not sure why they even bothered. Did it impact the storyline at all? I don't think so.

Imagine my surprise on watching the German episodes. I'd read that Van's exit was day x, and day x's episode is one long Van/Reva talk at the airport, where Van is suddenly all buddy buddy with Reva again, after months of sniping over their places in Alan's life. And Van is just all concerned about opening ol'Reve's eyes to the fact that Reva is falling for Alan.  And I'm just ROLLING MY EYES, thinking WTF is Van giving one flip about Reva's stupidity? 

On watching the German episodes, I realized Vanessa spends nearly the entire week packing up her life and saying goodbye. Her last episode is actually the day after the talk with Reva, where she says goodbye to Dinah, A-M, HB and Henry, Alex and Phillip, and Ross. Alan shows up, but they don't' speak. 

Maybe it was just that she'd been so heavily in story that year that she got that buildup to leaving. And while maybe not a "happy" ending, at least a purposeful one. Considering Long seemed so blase about Van for so long (maybe that's the wrong word...but often didn't know what to do with her outside of being Billy's supportive wife) it had some effort put in to it. It's even kind of a lynchpin in the story of Phillip and Alex's plot to oust Alan, as Van's leaving kind of cements Henry's support for them.

Oh, and honestly, if Beth Ehlers hadn't returned, GL might've finally been forced to dump Deas. There is no doubting Deas' talent, but Buzz had run amok. Frank had never been a character strong enough to really generate story, and it was clear TPTB had no interest in him and Eleni anymore. 

Buzz doesn't really do anything for that last decade other than run around in an apron at the diner. The regrettable Maryanne Carruthers story notwithstanding.

Edited October 4Oct 4 by P.J.

Isn't he paired with Olivia for a while? Oddly I think some people felt that was one of her better pairings.

Edited October 4Oct 4 by DRW50

8 minutes ago, DRW50 said:

Isn't he paired with Olivia for a while? Oddly I think some people felt that was one of her better pairings.

They started a Olivia / Buzz / Frank love triangle at one point (February 2006). I thought it was a terrible idea and stopped watching again. Others may have loved it

2 minutes ago, dc11786 said:

They started a Olivia / Buzz / Frank love triangle at one point (February 2006). I thought it was a terrible idea and stopped watching again. Others may have loved it

Thanks. I think I saw a clip or two but not much else. I think she chose Buzz over Frank? I don't know.   

32 minutes ago, P.J. said:

Buzz doesn't really do anything for that last decade other than run around in an apron at the diner. 

According to Margaret Colin (Deas wife) he was fine with that. By that point he had lost his ambition, and was perfectly fine being a house husband while Colin travelled the world purusing her career. Deas gave up his career to stay at home with the kids, and letting Colin pursue hers. He was fine staying at Guiding Light to provide security and health insurance for the kids.