How should ATWT end and who should come back??

[DRW50]

I don't know if it was Hensley or if it was Marland. There had been several stories over the years about Holden resenting poverty and the farm life and getting his heart broken, and embracing a corporate, ruthless side. I think Marland may have been interested in exploring the colder side of the All American farm boy.

[Vee]

Well, goodness knows he sure did love exploring the all-American farm boy in general. I recently started plumbing through some of the Marland characters I'd neglected, like the sixty other Snyder men, or the various long-lost sons, and he easily had at least four or five of those strapping farm boys on at any given time. Not that I am complaining. Oh, Doug.

These clips are hilarious. Justin Deas as Hippie Tom and John Dixon: Screenwriter.

[DRW50]

Neal was Mary Kay Adams. That was the first time I'd ever seen her. Later on I learned she had been on GL and I said, "That's Neal." It took a long time, and all the great clips online, before I really got into her as India. Even when she appeared on GL some in the 90s I still thought of her as Neal. I really loved that character, and her relationship with Scott, and all the potential she could have had.

Did Lucinda and Scott ever sleep together? I can't remember.

I didn't read the soap press at the time but I knew something was changing with ATWT. First Caleb was recast, which I never accepted, as he was one of my favorites. (I didn't realize WHY he was recast until some years later). Then Margo was recast and I was upset. Then by the end of the year, Iva and Lyla, two of my favorite characters, were going or gone. I never felt quite the same about the show again. Of course then when I was starting to get into it again, with the John/Lisa malpractice lawsuit, all the firings started, and when I started again after that, they fired my favorite actress (Allyson Rice Taylor). I almost felt like someone was trying to get me to quit watching the show...

[DRW50]

Caleb and Seth and Holden and Josh and Linc and Hutch...I didn't know quite why at the time, but I always paid more attention to scenes where Linc didn't have a shirt on.

[Vee]

It's wild looking at these old clips and remembering just how young Brian Bloom was when he debuted as Dusty - this was around the same time he played the streetwise pipsqueak in Sergio Leone's wonderful Once Upon A Time In America. They cultivated young talent on this show back then.

I understand why people were so angry about McCouch's Dusty, who was brought in as a shady character and utterly disconnected from John and others, when those bonds were so obvious in many of the Marland episodes I used to watch and still do. I agree the islanding of the character was a mistake, but I thought it was extremely commendable that they brought someone who was once so integral back in force, and I thought McCouch's chemistry with Martha Byrne was incredible. Now, of course, he just looks old and sleazy; Dusty has been taken beyond the extremes of the recast and has become an oily joke. I haven't cared about anything he's done since Rose.

[DRW50]

I think what confused me about Dusty's return is why he needed to be Dusty. It's not that Dusty had always been immune to character rewriting -- some fans have said Dusty was much more into horses and the outdoors before Marland came along and made him the preppy to Holden's brooding country boy -- but aside from the history with Lily, they had to make up most of his past. I think they claimed he and Paul had been close friends when they were teenagers, which wasn't true. It came around the same time as Paul being rewritten and recast and I think it was very heavy. I think, like with Craig, there was no real reason for them to bring the character back, because most of what I remembered Craig for, his history, his relationships with people, was irrelevant to the stories told when the character came back. The stories they put him in, destroying Barbara's life, falling in love with Carly, those could have been given to a new character just as easily as a returning one. Since Dusty never really got involved with Lily again, the same happened with him. His most popular pairing ended up being with a girl who was barely older than Lily was the last time he'd been on the show.

When they brought Rosanna back, I thought it worked, at least until it became Cabot Cabot Cabot Cabot, because she was a mix of the warm Rosanna of the early days and the very hard edged Rosanna of Yvonne Perry's later appearances.

I think Goutman just didn't care about the history of the show, or when he did, it was only his history. Some of the stuff he allowed, like having Craig's last return start with Dani sleeping with him and calling him "Daddy," was reprehensible.

I do wonder sometimes how we would have felt back then, if the Internet was around now. I know some have told me Marland did John no favors, that he ruined Steve Andropolous, etc.

[P.J.]

Yes, Lucinda and Scott slept together. Joe Breen's Scott, not Doug Wert's.

I think Holden had brain surgery/amnesia simply because Marland wanted to bust up Holden and Lily forever. Martha had left, Rattray and Hensley didn't click. Physically taking away his memory (with NO hope of them coming back, of course ) gave him an out. I did read it was something Marland regretted doing later, when he got Byrne back in the role.

I think some of the "re-characterizations" could have worked, IF they'd been properly explained. Dusty had been away for twenty years---people do change from 18-35. TIIC just never bothered to explain why. Craig's flip-flop was inexcusable, IMO. Yes, "old Craig" was manipulative. But he was never the cold, calculating poser Hunt Block portrayed him as. It's harder to forgive a revamp, when we've actually seen a long and sustained turnaround like we did under Scott Bryce.

[DRW50]

That's interesting. I had sometimes wondered if he wrote some of that hoping Martha would return. I guess not. Looking back, some of Rattray's exit did seem final. Remember when she unadopted herself from Lucinda? Ouch. That was good drama.

I never cared for Wert's Scott, too much smirking, but then, the role was horribly written most of the time. Let's not show him with his family, but let's show him getting Rosanna hooked on gambling! I wonder if they would have paired him with Carly if Maura had stayed, or if they would have put her with Mike.

I really liked Joe's Scott. I wonder if they were modeling him on a young Craig. He had that sort of relationship Bryce's Craig had with Lucinda early on.

[All My Shadows]

They better ask Tamara Tunie to return. She did it two months ago, I see no reason why she wouldn't do it again to wrap it up. Her and Ben reuniting is a no-brainer.

[DRW50]

I was hoping she'd get back together with Duncan.

[Vee]

Ben and Jessica seemed so lazy, like, hey, it's two black people, pair 'em up. Ben was never remotely as interesting or valued as her.

[DRW50]

At the time I was so put off by most of her stories, which seemed to almost entirely revolve around her needing to be put in her place and degraded by oily men who treated her like garbage and used her for sex, that I never even really noticed Ben/Jessica.

[All My Shadows]

Ben/Jessica had good chemistry, and I liked the overall relationship more than any of their "stories." The Doc Reese [!@#$%^&*] was preposterous.

[P.J.]

^^^hey---I floved Ben! I do hope they ask Peter Parros to return for a little bit. It'd be nice to see him help out Jack more.

I've never understood why TIIC never recast the role of Scott Eldredge. Other than they really didn't want to deal with Lisa and Tom. I know Eileen Fulton's an "icon" in the industry, but Lisa's always been flighty and foolish--and seeing at at seventy isn't pretty, IMO. (there--I said that)

I so don't want to think of who'd they'd have paired Maura up with if she'd never left the first time. Not that it wouldn't have been great---but we might not have gotten Jack and Carly.

[Paul Raven]

Re The ballerina involved with Bob.This was Dana,played by Deborah Hobart.This occurred in 79,when Ralph Ellis and Eugenie Hunt were headwriters.Her ex husband Ian was also around played by Peter Simon.

When they left Doug Marland filled in before going to GL,but I have never known exactly when he wrote or what stories he penned.Either he or the Dobsons wrote out Dana.