November 5Nov 5 Member I’m up to June 30, 1998. *The ending credits of Friday 6/19 show a Ryan Brown portraying Bill Lewis. Hmm, we haven’t seen Bill in a long time, and they published the recast’s name before he premiered. Sad to see Bryan Buffington go without any sort of farewell shot. I think the last we saw him was at the hospital when Vanessa almost died and gave birth to Maureen. Jesse and Michelle go to their special place at the lighthouse and talk. She tells him she wants to pursue her medical degree and become a doctor. She reveals that Wyatt, the HIV/AIDS counselor at Cedars passed away while she was at the blind institute, and he was a reason she wanted to go that route. I loved that they brought up Wyatt again, but was shocked to read that the real actor passed away in early ’98, so this was a nice homage to his character. At the end of the 6/16 episode, they had a special ‘In Memory of Our Friend - Keith Christopher…’ note with his birth/death dates. Anyway, Jesse and Michelle end up making love (yay!), which Michelle has her vision for (she was blind their first time). Later, Michelle takes Jesse to a pre-med student/college party, which is full of richer/stuck-up kids, which makes Jesse feel uncomfortable. Ok, in the 2/26 episode, the new actor playing Bill shows up mid-way through the episode, appearing a bit older. He’s at the party, which has Brandy and Monica’s “The Boy is Mine” playing in the background (LOL - I love that song and this era, but that song itself feels out of place at this party). I wonder if the producers just didn’t think Buffington would ever look the age they wanted him to be at this point in the show and they finally let him go? Anyway, Jesse and one of the preppy students get into it and Jesse leaves the party upset. Michelle follows him and tries to reassure him that she loves him for who he is and she doesn’t want a guy like those at the party (or Bill, as Jesse insinuates). Blake is getting ready to come back home. I guess Keifer might have been pregnant in real life? She’s been gone ‘traveling’ for a couple months now, so I figure that’s the case. Ross and Holly head to the airport to welcome Blake home, while Ben and Beth discuss his feelings for Blake. I actually really like that Ben has a friend in Beth. He plans to go to the airport to welcome Blake back too, but Beth cautions him against it. He decides to not go, but then gets a mysterious phone call. He kisses Beth goodbye in a hurry and leaves. At the airport, Ross and Holly watch the passengers get off the plane, but Blake isn’t there. The agent tells them that a Blake Marler wasn’t on that flight. We then see Ben enter his apartment and Blake is there! She says she got an earlier flight and had to see him first, oh gosh. While he’s excited, she tells him she left to get him out of her system and it finally worked. This is all very flirtatious and seductive, which is exciting, with Ben pushing her about seeing him first vs. Blake saying she’s got to get him out of her life. She then shows him a restraining order that she put on him, but he vows to get it overturned. But she says she knows about Beth and how he got fired, but he says he’s not finished here. She later goes home, makes up a story about a flight change, and embraces Ross with a big hug/kiss and they go to bed. Meanwhile, Holly, having a suspicion that Blake went to Ben first, shows up to his apartment and sees the restraining order. He shows her the video he has of Blake and him in bed and Holly vows to stop him. The next morning, Holly confronts Blake with the truth. She continues to make comparisons between Ben and Roger and how Holly and Blake are torn about them, but Holly is pushing Blake to not make the same mistakes she did with Fletcher/Roger. I think that’s an interesting comparison, I wonder if Ben was GL’s way to ‘replace’ the Roger character since Zaslow left (and later passed) and they wrote out the character, hmm. So Blake is poised to tell Ross the truth about Ben so they can move on, but in true Blake fashion, she chickens out. Holly then breaks into Ben’s apartment in attempts to steal the tape, but Ben catches her. Blake shows up (shocker) and the two ladies argue about the situation while Ben revels in it. Later, Griffin tells Ross that Blake filed a restraining order against Ben, which surprises/upsets him since she didn’t involve him. He asks Holly about it and assumes Ben must have physically abused her if it was serious enough for a restraining order. Holly tries to stop him from going to Ben about it, but he goes anyway. He shows up knocking at the door, as Blake, yet again, is there with Ben trying to get the tape back. Blake hides, overhears the guys argue, and then Ross leaves. Ben finally decides to give Blake the tape, but taunts her about knowing she’ll watch it over and over again, because she can’t get enough of him. At home, she puts it in a drawer (dumb), and Blake gets Ross to understand why she couldn’t go to him about the restraining order and they make up and go to bed together. It’s interesting with Holly, in many recent scenes she’s ordering a drink from the bar, which leads me to believe she might develop a drinking problem soon. Another episode, Rick shows up to her house, where she’s supposed to babysit Kevin/Jason, but notices she’s been drinking, so he takes the kids back with him. Vicky goes to Michael’s apartment and tries to steal his cloning research papers, but Michael catches her. He gets so mad at her, but she keeps pressing him about needing to work with Alan and get funding. Michael tells her to go to hell, he wants nothing to do with them and then physically removes her from his apartment. Michael then burns up all his research papers in the fireplace and says it can never fall into the wrongs hands, but we later see Vicky with some papers and she said she can never let anyone destroy her dream. She goes to Alan and tries to convince him to help her because she’s ditched Michael and is determined to take over cloning. He buys into her confidence and welcomes her to the Spaulding team. He then tells her about Annie, how Josh ran her away, and how he will do anything to get her back. He then tells Vicky the first person he wants to clone is Annie LOL - oh boy. Later, Griffin runs into Vicky and recognizes her. He finally puts it together and realizes she attended one of his guest lectures last year and at the cocktail party, she kept asking questions about SF and the Spaulding family. Hmmm. Cassie runs into Matt and Josh and they tell her Reva is still alive, which she doesn’t believe. Meanwhile, Josh has the clone believing they’re getting married, so she’s very excited and thinks the real Reva helped get them there. The writing gets sloppy and inconsistent here, because Josh randomly starts to believe again that Reva is dead, but is resolved to make the clone happy since it wasn’t her fault for being in the position she’s in. So, he reluctantly now agrees to marry what he thinks is the clone in hopes to just make her happy. They plan to marry in Cross Creek and spend 2 weeks there with the family. The clone leaves the real Reva locked up in the pool house with now no more food, so essentially leaving her to die while they’re in Cross Creek. The letter the real Reva wrote to Sean arrives at the prison and he fights to get out to save her. He lures the security guard, disarms him and escapes. He finally makes it to SF right as the family heads to Cross Creek. He gets to the Lewis house, which is dark and empty, and sees the note on the door that says to hold deliveries for 2 weeks. He manages to get into the house and Cassie catches him and freaks out. As he’s trying to convince her he’s there to help, she knocks him out. He wakes up and tells her everything and she cries and can’t believe her sister is really alive. As Josh/the clone are driving, she says something that makes him pause, so he decides to turn around and go back to the house. He finds Cassie and Sean and realizes Reva is alive, while the clone runs to the pool house in attempts to move her before they find her. While Reva was locked up, the clone gave her a little TV and tapes to watch, so she secretly filmed a message to Josh. The clone took the tapes back home a while ago, and Josh happened to think to watch the tape that the clone said has home videos of the kids, and sees Reva’s message and realizes she’s in the pool house. He runs to save Reva and finds both Revas fighting. Josh and Cassie save the real Reva, just as she passes out from dehydration. They call Michael to come help her, who is amazed that Reva is alive. Reva wakes up and settles into the home, taking a much needed bubble bath and Josh takes care of her like a loving partner. Meanwhile, Frank got an alert about Sean being on the loose and starts searching the home and property, since Cassie had called the cops earlier when she knocked out Sean. Not knowing what to do with the clone, Cassie takes her to Harley. Before this, Cassie and Harley became chummy commiserating over their relationships with Phillip/Hart. Cassie hired Harley to take her case on with the clone, so she would stay silent. Harley of course doesn’t believe it for a while, but comes around after talking to the clone. Meanwhile, Michael goes to church and apologizes to God, asking him for forgiveness by trying to play God with his cloning efforts. Dinah continues to lash out at losing Hart to Cassie and when Vanessa suggests she move on, she lashes out hard towards Vanessa. She tells her she can get any man she wants, including Matt. Vanessa gets stern with her, asking why she’s talking that way. Dinah viciously tells her about New Years Eve and says Matt kissed her, which was passionate and consensual (it was not, she forced it, he was in a drunken fog, thinking it was Vanessa since Dinah put on her robe, and then realized it was Dinah and lashed out at her). She said Matt wanted to make love to her and Vanessa then SLAPS her. So happy to see that, very much deserved! I love to see Dinah be put in her place and Vanessa really did that here. Dinah is a character I love to hate, primarily because Wendy Moniz is such a great actress. Later, Vanessa tells Matt about her fight and what Dinah said, and Matt tells her how the night really happened, which Vanessa appreciated.
November 5Nov 5 Member Sonia Satra has shared that they did ask her back in the mid-2003/04 timeframe but with a change of producers (from Conboy to Wheeler) that led to stop in the negotiations.
November 5Nov 5 Member @Robluvthebeach Never knew that. Thanks. I wonder what the story would have been. Probably sleeping with Gus... @alwaysAMC Thanks for the latest mini-review. I also love to hate Dinah by this point. That's her best use. The Cassie/Harley friendship is one of those times where the characters we are meant to like are paired together, rather than what is interesting. Harley, at least until she was paired with Mallet, used to have unique relationships and friendships. I think you're right about why Bill was recast. Ryan Brown, unfortunately, is little more than a Ken doll. I don't believe he would be a child of Billy and Vanessa any more than I believed he was a child of Jill Foster.
November 5Nov 5 Member 7 hours ago, Soaplovers said: I think the Dobson's were setting up Floyd/Lanie as a couple.. probably a slow burn couple with him being a screw-up/annoyance to Katie and Lanie was developing a crush on Ed. Not sure how close she was to Ross/Justin.. but she seemed a lot younger than both of them and not sure if their parents were alive or not. Perhaps the Dobson's were going to reveal Lanie had a daddy complex from losing her dad at a young age hence the crush on Ed. Whatever the reason, Marland dropped the Lanie/Floyd connection and move Floyd into the Nola/Kelly story while Lanie was move to a supporting role working in Mike's office and eventually had a low key relationship before being written off. That makes sense. I preferred Floyd under the Dobsons to Marland. He was goofy, stupid, annoying - we've all known someone like Floyd, and I couldn't dislike him. I didn't dislike him under Marland either, but he was very dull, clearly just there for the plots of other characters (a custody battle to upset Nola, many, many, many scenes of Leslie being warned by Josh about "Candy" or whatever her name was). I know the actor genuinely did music but I also thought the overnight music sensation story was like something out of a B-movie from 20-25 years earlier. I can't see Lainie and Floyd being hugely interesting as a pairing either though. Edited November 5Nov 5 by DRW50
November 5Nov 5 Member @Robluvthebeach that makes sense, I remember Lucy and AM being name-dropped around that time. I think it was around the time that David returned to town for the last time. I could just imagine the messy quad with the two sisters (Harley, Lucy) and the two brothers (Gus, Alan-Michael) 😆. Edited November 5Nov 5 by Spoon
November 6Nov 6 Member Since I'm almost through the clone storyline, and the behind the scenes is being talked about, I went back through my notes I kept while reading Kim Zimmer's book and this is what she said about the storyline, which is interesting and a good reminder: She said fans hated the human cloning storyline, but she didn’t hate it because it creatively intrigued her and stimulated her as an actress. She also got a bump in salary during that time for playing two characters (interesting!).She explains the whole story in detail (which wow, I need to go watch that crazy mess), but she said the network and P&G execs actually came to Rauch and told them they needed to do that story. Usually, GL isn’t known for outlandish stories like that (which Rauch was used to at OLTL - Vicki goes to heaven/Clint goes back in time and Eterna). However, the network got tired of the story and told the writers to give her an aging drink so the clone will die and they can get out of this. Kim said she always believed a story like that should have been on DAYS or OLTL, but not GL because GL was a show about family and social interaction. That story was exhausting and required her to memorize 70 pages of dialogue a day, film every scene twice; the other actors who had scenes with both Reva and Dolly hated it because they had to film everything twice and then wait around for Kim to change clothes and makeup.
November 6Nov 6 Member 15 hours ago, DRW50 said: @alwaysAMC Thanks for the latest mini-review. I also love to hate Dinah by this point. That's her best use. I think you're right about why Bill was recast. Ryan Brown, unfortunately, is little more than a Ken doll. I don't believe he would be a child of Billy and Vanessa any more than I believed he was a child of Jill Foster. So far, I totally agree. Interesting casting choice...
November 6Nov 6 Member 41 minutes ago, alwaysAMC said: Vicki goes to heaven/Clint goes back in time and Eterna). The OLTL time travel story was actually pretty good. (The other two--no). The reason it was good was because it dealt with the Buchanan and Lord family origins. (Also, it was a Western and I love Westerns. But that's just me). I always say the reason Dark Shadows was so good was because no matter now wild it got, it was always about character. They TRIED to make the clone story about character, about Josh and Reva's relationship. That just made it come off as extremely creepy. At least they were smart enough to pull the plug. And cry me a river about how hard KZ had to work. She must have had a GREAT agent because other soap actors who played dual roles did not get paid extra. (Or they did and they lied about it.)
November 6Nov 6 Member Best recasts: Gina Tognoni, dinah Marler Ric Hearst, Alan-Michael Spaulding Bethany Joy Lenz (Joie Lenz), Michelle Bauer Emme Rylan (Marcy Rylan), Lizzie Spaulding Daniel Cosgrove, Bill Lewis Jeff Branson, Shayne Lewis Kimberly Simms, Melinda Lewis (Mindy) Eleanor Parker, Maureen Reardon Worst recast Brian Gaskill, Dylan Lewis Nancy St. Alban, Michelle Bauer-Santos Ron Raines, Alan Spaulding Marj Dusay, Alexandra Spaulding Crystal Hunt, Lizzie Spaulding Michael Dempsey, Alan-Michael Spaulding Geoffrey Scott, Billy Lewis Robert Bogue, AC Mallet Barbara Crampton, Mindy Lewis
November 6Nov 6 Member 4 minutes ago, Spoon said: Best recasts: Gina Tognoni, dinah Marler Ric Hearst, Alan-Michael Spaulding Bethany Joy Lenz (Joie Lenz), Michelle Bauer Emme Rylan (Marcy Rylan), Lizzie Spaulding Daniel Cosgrove, Bill Lewis Jeff Branson, Shayne Lewis Kimberly Simms, Melinda Lewis (Mindy) Eleanor Parker, Maureen Reardon Worst recast Brian Gaskill, Dylan Lewis Nancy St. Alban, Michelle Bauer-Santos Ron Raines, Alan Spaulding Marj Dusay, Alexandra Spaulding Crystal Hunt, Lizzie Spaulding Michael Dempsey, Alan-Michael Spaulding Geoffrey Scott, Billy Lewis Robert Bogue, AC Mallet Barbara Crampton, Mindy Lewis I didn't mind Rob Bogue, although that may be down to my finding Mark Derwin's Mallet unlikeable most of the time.
November 6Nov 6 Member 17 hours ago, alwaysAMC said: I’m up to June 30, 1998. . I wonder if the producers just didn’t think Buffington would ever look the age they wanted him to be at this point in the show and they finally let him go? Anyway, Jesse and one of the preppy students get into it and Jesse leaves the party upset. Michelle follows him and tries to reassure him that she loves him for who he is and she doesn’t want a guy like those at the party (or Bill, as Jesse insinuates). Short of growing five inches and packing on 30 pounds overnight, Bryan was never going to look as old as Rebecca Budig's Michelle. The irony is, Bethany Joy Lenz and Bryan are closer in age, and wouldn't have looked as mismatched as he and Budig did. I get that maybe they simply wanted Bill in more adult stories, but had they waited just a bit, we might not have suffered through Ryan Brown, who was horrible. Best Recasts: Rick Hearst ----Alan Michael Sherry Stringfield ----Blake Grant Aleksander---Phillip Danny Cosgrove---Bill Kimberly Simms---Mindy Bethany Joy Lenz--Michelle Worst Recasts: Carrie Mowry---Jackie Marler Signy Coleman---Annie Dennis Parlato--Roger Crystal Hunt---Lizzie Mandy Bruno---Marina Nancy St Alban---Michelle Ryan Brown---Bill Edited November 6Nov 6 by P.J.
November 6Nov 6 Member 27 minutes ago, P.J. said: WOW...that is some soap opera hair on Hope! LOL, it was the 80s. I gotta say, GL did refrain from the crazier big hair styles of the 80s for the most part. So that's something. But they were not kind to Roussel. Her hair kept getting fluffier over time, until she was divorcing Alan. Then she finally cut her hair. And the way they dressed her...also Cullen as Amanda. They should have sued the costume people. Even for the 80s, their clothes were hideous. Anyway, I was watching that episode during my lunch hour and had a few thoughts: What a LONG cold opening. Almost every bit of it was full of exposition dumps. The conversation between Trish and Mike about Josh was VERY interesting. When those of us who watched the Marland years when they aired said the off-screen Lewises were talked about long before they hit SF, we weren't kidding. Lots of talk by Trish about how HB was disappointed in Josh. This is January 1982, and I'm pretty sure HB and Billy were first mentioned way before that, in 1981. They don't hit town until 1983. Then we get to see what a worm Josh was back then, pressuring Nola's friend Gracie to make dinner for him (and presumably have sex with him) while also asking Ben about Morgan's portrait, because he was chasing the married Morgan. All that stuff about Carrie in jail and Ross investigating her before the murder trial...snore. Marland may have loved that storyline, but it never did much for me, and in the end it made little sense. It also did not make good use of Jackie and Justin, and emphasized how weak Mowery was as Jackie. Hope visiting Alan in jail. The start of Alan's redemption tour. The character was pretty much put in mothballs for a year. It wasn't until after Marland left that someone finally said, "Why are we wasting this character?" I would have SO preferred Alan and Hope breaking up over the lies he told her for three solid years about Roger. She should have torn him a new one. It would have been a good time to bring back Rita, even if it was a recast. This "Romeo and Juliet" thing, and Alan being contrite is so freaking silly. Not to metion, boring. That's why they had to come up with some mysterious guy trying to kill Alan, so SOMETHING was happening to them. Marland's last year on GL was definitely the weakest, with the awful Mark Evans story still coming down the pike.
November 6Nov 6 Member 35 minutes ago, DeeVee said: LOL, it was the 80s. I gotta say, GL did refrain from the crazier big hair styles of the 80s for the most part. So that's something. But they were not kind to Roussel. Her hair kept getting fluffier over time, until she was divorcing Alan. Then she finally cut her hair. And the way they dressed her...also Cullen as Amanda. They should have sued the costume people. Even for the 80s, their clothes were hideous. Anyway, I was watching that episode during my lunch hour and had a few thoughts: What a LONG cold opening. Almost every bit of it was full of exposition dumps. The conversation between Trish and Mike about Josh was VERY interesting. When those of us who watched the Marland years when they aired said the off-screen Lewises were talked about long before they hit SF, we weren't kidding. Lots of talk by Trish about how HB was disappointed in Josh. This is January 1982, and I'm pretty sure HB and Billy were first mentioned way before that, in 1981. They don't hit town until 1983. I mean, that's some Y&R, Ashley/Nikki hair goin' on. That's probably the only time I've seen it on GL. Amanda/Morgan/Lainie had long hair back in the day, but it was never done like that. Vanessa has her '80's mane in full force, but it's not sticking out two feet from either side of her head. (Maeve, to her credit, was the master of the one finger--don't mess with the 'do--head scratch.) I was amaze-balls that the Lewises were mentioned before Diane Ballard's murder. AMAZED. Marland would continue do that later on ATWT, start building up characters before they hit town, usually in the business setting.
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