Lorraine Broderick as AMC head writer

[You're Soaking in it]

I could never get over those posters! I mean, surely Brooke could not have done all that without some help... She had to have called someone:

"Hi, Opal? I could really use a favor... Well, I'm thinking about shooting and killing Jim... Yes, the guy I've been seeing- I know, I know... I'm as surprised as you are... Well I found out that he took these raunchy photos of Laura... Right... but I have a few where she's just in her bra and panties. So I had several of those blown up and tinted in different pastel hues, because I wanted to plaster them all over the room for when Jim gets here.... Well, I could have left the walls bare, but I really wanted to freak his shiit right when he walks in, so .... I know it's a big favor, but if you're not busy, can you come help me with the ladder and posting these things up? It's just a lot of work for one person, and I'm so short and you're so tall....... Oh, thank you so much, Opal. See you in... say about an hour? ... Great! ... bye."

[DRW50]

I know. They made a few gutsy choices there, with Trevor and Opal (I'm glad James Mitchell refused to let Palmer be homophobic).

I always wanted Timmy to eventually come out. That would have been good story.

[EricMontreal22]

I think Broderick did a good job of showing that some of the "good" characters were prejudiced while some of the more bad old school ones, like Palmer, weren't (slightly ironic since Palmer's portrayer, JamesMitchell has been basically as out as a gay man as is possible to be since at least the late 40s when he was dancing in Billion Dollar Baby)

[Pine Charles]

LMAO!!!

[DRW50]

He's definitely needed, as the current Martins are unbearable. A lot of what should have been legacy characters, like Charlie, Bobby, even Jamal, never panned out. I guess in the more recent years that's because guys like Ryan have to constantly hog everything. Like at OLTL where John, Todd, Rex make it impossible for characters like Kevin, Joey, or Danny Wolek to have a shot.

[Vee]

This will likely be unpopular. I've honestly always found Brooke - since I started watching, anyway, which to be fair was the early '90s, perhaps past her prime - to just be this limp sort of drip of a woman, very sour and long-suffering and almost comic in the way she is always screwed over or unhappy or dating a terrorist or a serial killer or the guy who killed her kid or what have you. Her hair stayed exactly the same for about fifteen years, and she always looked pinched and upset, because like those of us watching her in the audience, she knew she was about to get the Apollo Theater hook again in some way or another. It was the nadir of the character when she was fluttering around Leo, pleading with him to enter a loveless sham marriage with her dumbass daughter which she knew was a sham, and yet it seemed totally in character for the Brooke of the '90s and onward to me to do that; she who was always seemingly miserable or getting reamed in some way or another for someone else, with this perpetual, desperate look on her face like a shelter dog that just got beaten with the September issue of Vogue.

However. I really liked Brooke with Adam, and I hated that that was curtailed during McTavish's last stint. I also think what they did to Julia Barr was criminal; however lame I found her, Brooke was an institution. There should have been some ongoing place for her. I'll be glad to see her; Pine Valley is missing something when Brooke is not suffering. With Brooke's luck, she will come back remarried to a man who turns out to be an Al Qaeda operative/beastiality enthusiast.

And you guys are right - the Jim story was the beginning of a trend McTavish created, then perpetuated when she returned in 2003, where all the good characters gang up to commit felonies or "get someone," often in the lamest way possible. This is why I always had a hard time taking AMC seriously compared to the other two soaps as a kid; Tad and co. pull out all the stops to get Brooke off a murder rap, except it's some kindergarten funhouse bullshit complete with wacky disguises! and crazy hijinks! Wocka wocka! Ain't we stinkahs? I mean, really; remember when Michael Cambias was around and they did the same [!@#$%^&*]? Tad, Ryan, and Aidan, the [!@#$%^&*] government operative, like egged him or threw him in the trash or something? And remember when Tad got "revenge" on Adam with fuckin' Rae Cummings' help, in those really stupid scenes - like, his revenge was smashing a cream pie in his face on national television? Really, Tad? This is all you guys got? Throw Michael Cambias in the trash? Wacky disguises? Cream pies? Every time AMC does this it's all like "so and so is going down!" and then it turns out to be a bunch of middle-aged suburbanite men, like, leaving dogshit on someone's front step. Wow, you guys are hardcore! It's just laughable to me. Okay, I'm done with this meandering rant.

[DRW50]

You should have seen some of the reaction to her on the boards years ago. She definitely had her share of detractors. I believe there was even a spoof website which featured a Brooke English "choose your own adventure" game. For instance, when Jamie goes missing, you can choose to be upset, or have sex with your boyfriend. Or if Laura is having a problem, you can choose to care, or choose to make a cruel remark an go have sex with your boyfriend. They also had the shelter she ran as having BROOKE ENGLISH HOMELESS SHELTER in big neon letters, and she would get angry when she'd walk in and they wouldn't fall at her feet. There was also a segment where she got tipsy at a bar, Michael Delaney took her home, and she insisted she could "turn" him.

[EricMontreal22]

Well I loved and love Brooke--I remember my first memory of her was I think when either with Edmund or with Tad (which came first? lol) and she was so sad cuz Edmund was choosing Mria over her,or Tad was choosing Dixie over her lol. Either way I was 12 or 13 but I still found it so incredibly sad and oddly moving the way she dealt with it. I dunno if I would as an adult, but--so yeah my memories of her are basically of her suffering too but Barr brought so much to the role.

I do believe McTavish would have written fro her and this is one thing I don't blame her for and I'll repeat, the way she was ousted without even a mention was seriously the one thing in AMC history that made me consider giving up on the show--not the Unabortion or the myriad of other problems. It upset me that much (it was sneaky how ithappened too--kinda too fast for fans to react...)

[Vee]

I thought that Maria/Maureen story crippled Brooke for good. Didn't she spend months dithering over that secret, always with that same Brooke English "Oh [!@#$%^&*]" look on her face? I had absolutely no sympathy for her when the truth came out. And then of course Frons took over, and having a triangle with three vets of that age was unthinkable to him, which unfortunately led to the endless Aidan/Maureen saga and the bit with Rebecca Mader from Lost a.k.a. Margaret Cochran #1 and the exploding beach chair. Jesus Christ, that was bad. And then Edmund was horribly ruined, along with Maria.

[EricMontreal22]

How wonderful! I wish it was still up

I forgot that that weird operative was that woman from Lost! And yeah man awful writing--Edmund going psycho and locking his wife up (wow kinda liek Zach!) etc

[DRW50]

The Maria/Maureen story was a mess, but I did feel some sympathy for Brooke. It was a horrible situation. I think Barr's performance was what saved it for me.

Then they all but got orders not to write for her, it seemed like. I remember that McTavish made token efforts -- she was central to Edmund's insanity towards the end and there were some very juicy moments when Maria learned Edmund had left Brooke in charge of everything.

Brooke wa one of those characters I sort of took for granted until she was gone.

[EricMontreal22]

I think a lot of people did.

[You're Soaking in it]

About 10 years ago, back when the net was relatively fresh and new, people on message boards sometimes referred to her as "BOREooke".

I wasn't one of them. But I agree that she was often a polarizing character... though she'll always be, first and foremost, a legacy character.

[Vee]

Yeah, I took her for granted. I admit it. I miss Brooke.

But that's not the only veteran female lead I'm hard on. I could launch into an extremely unkind diatribe about Liza the sex goddess from about '97 or '98 onward, but it would probably feature a number of really juvenile Lane Bryant jokes and I don't think anyone wants that.

[DRW50]

There was also a Brooke English Slapping Society. There was one for Bobbie Spencer too.

I guess at the time everyone did think these characters would be around forever. And although I did like Brooke more often than not I have to admit some of the stuff around that time, like the Pierce mess, was fodder for parody and mockery (remember the "hot" sex scene with Pierce in Stuart's museum, where the light and shadows kept going in and out)?

Poor Liza. She really got such bad writing for most of her AMC return. It was like punishment for that brilliant first year.