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[victoria foxton]

Johnny Bauer meets Ed Bauer. Reva is accused of hogging airtime. But watching 1986. It's Simon & Jessie who ate up tons of airtime.

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Edited November 12, 2018 by victoria foxton

[NothinButAttitude]

What is everyone's thoughts on Simon & Jessie? From what I've seen, I find them boring. Hell, most of the canvas around '86 seemed boring and pointless. 

 

And what was the point of Calla and Jessie if they just so happen to be carbon copies of Beth/Lillian? I just found them to be a bit more polished. 

[victoria foxton]

I think Simon worked well with Alex and India.  But being paired with a bland Jessie ruined that. Simon and India should've been the shows scheming fun couple. Calla's syphilis drama was bad. GL worked overtime trying to make them into a supercouple. 

[Khan]

I still don't believe they saddled Calla with syphilis. 

[j swift]

The "presentational" nature of the actor playing Simon makes it difficult to infer his sincerity.  So, when he goes from being to a con to a charmer, I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop.   

[Soaplovers]

 

From what I heard, the actress playing Calla was supposed to have been a Trish recast.. but at the last second, created the character of Calla and paired her with Ross (I guess when she was supposed to be a Trish recast.. the actress tested with the actor that played Ross.. and they had chemistry).

 

I don't think Calla/Jessie were a carbon copy of Lillian/Beth.. at least when they first came onto the scene.  Calla was a social climber, distrustful of men.. and was trying to keep Jessie from getting hurt.... while Lillian was in an abusive situation and turned a blind eye to the abuse she and Beth suffered.   Jessie was sugary sweet and almost too stupid to live.. while Beth (played by Judi Evans) wasn't a wimp, but had a backbone.  

 

And I liked India/Simon together... and having them be together would have enhanced the India/Alex feud.

 

I do agree 1986 was an odd year for the show.  Pam Long departed in January/Febuary 1986.. with Jeff Ryder as sole head-writer until April 1986.. when he and Mary M became co-headwriters until sometime in the summer of 1986 when she got a new co headwriter by the name of Ellen B... and than Sheri Anderson and her hubby took over by October/November 1986.   So with the vast amounts of writer upheaval... that could explain why the canvas seemed boring/pointless.

 

 

[DRW50]

 

Rebecca Staab was a good actress, which she showed in glimpses (the episode with Beth's funeral has a good performance from her, reading a love letter Beth wrote about Philip), but Jessie was so bland and also saddled into a would-be "supercouple" before she even had a chance to develop in her own right. 

 

Simon was just too much - I think they should have stuck with the Spaulding material and not had him involved with Jessie. 

 

I also had a hard time seeing him as straight, even though the actor was straight. 

Edited November 12, 2018 by DRW50

[NothinButAttitude]

 

This I agree with. Simon had life when he was with India. I would've been more fun for them to have been the pairing that stayed being a thorn in Alex and Phillip's sides. It would've probably given India more life on the show than she had.

 

 

Not saddled with syphilis, friend! 

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Wow. I didn't know that. Why were they recasting Trish? I thought they got rid of Rebecca Hollen. Did she leave on her own will?

 

 

From what I've seen of Jessie, she comes off as Beth-lite. I feel like even if they did flesh her out more, she still would've been a more polished version of Beth. I feel like she needs more edge from what I am watching as of late. 

 

So you do think that Simon should've remained a Spaulding? 

[DRW50]

 

I think he would have been better off staying more in their orbit, and they could have brought in a few other new characters to revolve around Alex. They could have brought back Victoria.

[NothinButAttitude]

 

Glad that you brought up that last part as I feel that one of the major flops that GL made was not playing up the Tamerlain/Spaulding connection. 

[JaneDigby]

I remember drifting away from the show circa 1986 and watching it again I can see why. I never got the LuJack/Beth pairing and the decision to split up the 4 musketeers made no sense. India was an interesting character but her storylines were usually nonsense. I liked her with Simon. Why someone thought pairing Simon with Jessie was a good idea ... no clue. I still have no idea what the whole Billy triest to kill Kyle story was all about.

 

What did work for me was Kyle & Reva. If only to hear Reva say she didn't want to bag another Lewis man. That alone made it art. Then you had the whole swoony romantic thing going on, Reva being less of a boor and actually trying to be a decent person, I bought that she genuinely wanted to do right by HB. Good soapy stuff. I remember watching the day she jumped off the bridge - and I remember being really upset she dropped her engagement ring. I don't know why they dropped Kyle to bring back Josh and put us through the endless lather, rinse, repeat of Josh & Reva. Come to think of it, the whole Princess Catherine story was a Kyle vs the Lewises retread. 

 

I'm surprised at how well some of this has held up.

[Mitch]

God, how I hated Jessie and Simon.  Interesting thing was that India was going to be Beth' cousin, but when MKA auditioned for it Long wisely knew she couldn't loose her but that India would work best as an upper class (though down on her heels ) character.   I wonder if Roxie was created to fill the rough edged social climber position Long was working towards.

 

Simon didn't work as a Brandon's illegit kid..it was stupid and made Alex look like a fool. The big problem was that at that time all the families were in their own little orbits the Spauldings had a storyline, that didnt crossover into the Lewis..(Reva) storyline and the Bauers had their own storyline...etc. Another illigit Spaulding just put them more in their little world.  I thought it would have been interesting if Simon (played by someone else..) was a Reardon but more of a male social climber like Nola was.  He and India could have hooked up and she and he could have played Alex...(the old, you remind me of Lujack so much...) He could have charmed Alex...(not in the way they had MarjAlex perving on that Chippendales dancer looking character) etc. That would have brought the Bauers/Reardons into Spaulding territory and made the canvas seems bigger.

 

I never bought Reva and Kyle I wasnt a big fan of the actor and thought Kyle was an [!@#$%^&*]. Big mistake was making Kyle, Billys brother, again making the canvas so small. He should have been a guy who was the head of a company that Spaulding took over and he was still president, bringing him into the Spaulding fold but having him be at odds with both that family and the Lewises.

[JarrodMFiresofLove]

Nobody ever talks about Warren Andrews. Was that a Pam Long creation, or was he added before her first stint as head writer? The character lasted a few years but we never knew anything about his background, did we? Or if he had a family?

[NothinButAttitude]

 

Did they ever have any direction for Warren? Because I just feel like he was implanted on the show with no direction at all. I think the only saving grace was that Warren has chemistry with Alex, but outside of that--was there any real purpose for him? No. Not at all.

[JarrodMFiresofLove]

 

He worked well with India too. He had an earlier storyline where he was involved with a nurse who died from the dreaming sickness disease or whatever it was called. I think he started as the hospital administrator who butted heads with Ed, then he switched over into the Spaulding orbit. He was always meant to be a weasel type, but they never married him to anyone and they never brought any of his family to town, so he we didn't find out much about him and what made him tick. Probably the reason he lasted four years was because the actor who played him was very good, but it was largely an undeveloped role.

 

I see he just died last year. I didn't realize he'd received a Daytime Emmy:

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warren_Burton

Edited November 14, 2018 by JarrodMFiresofLove