4 minutes ago, Khan said:

Even a storyline with Will developing one-sided obsession with Josh would've been interesting, if controversial, lol.

It would have, and would have made more sense of just why Will was obsessed with him. I would have added the ONS angle because Josh was, beyond sanctimony, such a passive character, even in a story where three people were obsessed with him. I would have appreciated seeing more exploration of his own actions driving people to extremes.

7 hours ago, P.J. said:

Honestly, I'm not sure what the plan with Sonni/Solita was. I'm not sure anyone knew. GL was not the kind of soap that would've kept a "bad" character (one who schemed to kill her husband). I'm not sure Long has ever said what the story was (both girls are alive or one living/one dead). I think the scabs at some point doubled back because Michelle and Joe Breen were really good actors and the scabs weren't very creative.

The reason this storyline jumped the trolley HAD to be because of the strike. Long was not prone to writing overly-convoluted mystery plots. Even if you didn't care much for her mystery stories, they were pretty straight-forward and understandable. That's true of both the Fishing Trip Mystery and the Barbados Mystery.

I'm not even sure that Long created the characters of Sonni and Will. I think Will came on before she returned, maybe Sonni, too? Will and Josh must have talked about her, at least. I believe Long came back just after Josh dumped Reva over Mara's paternity. Literally one of the first things she did when she came back was put Reva in her red dress and cause a scene at the country club, where she caught Alan's attention.

So she inherites this story, and then there's a long writers strike. I'm not even sure Will and Sonni were intended to be these dark, almost twisted characters in the beginning. Then when the scabs came in there was so much wacky stuff: Will and Sonni having this weird, sadistic relationship, plotting to kill Josh while Sonni was still jealous of Reva (because, of course), Will once being a priest, Sonni (or was it Solita?) being a porn star in Argentina. Sonni fell off the cliff, no, Solita fell off the cliff, no, Solita was impersonating Sonni, Sonni was caught in bed with Will and whipped almost to death by her father, no, it was Solita, who ended up hanging herself, then Sonni took over Solita's persona, blah, blah, blah...

It was pretty insane, and totally not the kind of mystery story Long had written before.

As crazy as the story was, the audience did like Forbes and Breen, so Long had to figure out ways to keep them on the show, at least until their contracts ran out.

I can't envy her coming back from the strike, because she had to put out a bunch of fires: Bernau was gone, she had to fix the Sonni story, she was told to bring Roger Thorpe back from the dead, which changed whatever direction she originally intended for Blake, etc, etc.

Edited 48 minutes ago48 min by DeeVee

21 minutes ago, DRW50 said:

Josh for most of the '80s and onward was so dull it was hard for me to imagine him being with anyone, although I could have seen the Marland version as a scheming bisexual, complete with shades, LA connections, and coke addiction.

They never would have done the story but it would have added a much more interesting angle to the Will Jeffries character if he'd had a drunken one-night stand with Josh which Josh mostly wanted to forget about but had driven Will around the bend.

Now, that's interesting...something you could do something with. At first blush, It could have provided a basis for Will's hatred of Reva, which didn't really exist but could have. Perhaps it should have been Will who tried to destroy her rather than Sonni/Solita.

Making Will gay and Josh a closeted bisexual would've worked wonders for the show. It certainly would explain Josh's inexplicable loyalty to Reva, the crying, always blubbering, Diva of the Century. That both Josh and Reva are forever too dense to figure something like that out would add to the fun! Vanessa would figure something like that out fairly rapidly, which in itself fascinates me. Hmmm......there's an entire plotline in there somewhere. And lots of character development.

A viable alternative to a scenario like that would be for Josh to become impotent, admitting to Reva that he simply isn't physically attracted to her anymore. Imagine a scene like that! And a very bitter pill for Reva to swallow, something that would derail her. With her stock in trade in permanent absentia, Reva begins to adopt a Baby Jane Hudson-like persona, complete with smeared makeup and lots of cheap booze.

An appropriate end for a Diva.