Worst rewrite/changing of history

[Paul Raven]

Y&R- Katherine has always been a kick ass business woman.

DOOL - Bill's affair with Kate Roberts drove Laura to have a breakdown and be institutionalized.

[DRW50]

Paul, what bothered you the most about the Bill/Laura rewrite? I think in some ways it was a way to incorporate new history, but it's too bad they trashed Bill and never gave Laura a real story.

I agree that the baby Gabrielle stuff wasn't necessarily a rewrite but I did think those made up flashbacks of Zach and Reese drinking and talking and oh let's have this baby, or whatever, were odd, especially since that was when he was still having his oh so special friendship with Greenlee, and his kids were ill.

[Paul Raven]

Carl,what bothered me is that it never happened!!

We saw Laura's breakdown onscreen and there was no Kate Roberts.The puzzling thing was that Bill had had an'affair' with Kate Winograd(Elaine Princi) and it was puzzling as to why they didn't use that,perhaps saying that after the breakdown,when Bill left town,he hooked up with Kate again and she had a child,

If Princi had returned,flashbacks could have been used and old and new fans alike could be catered for.

As you say,if it was intended to turn Kate and Laura into adversaries,that never panned out. Laura was pretty much an afterthought and not really the Laura of the 60's and 70's.

[MichaelGL]

On GL, did Ben and Alex have an existing relationship when Matt Bomer was in the role? I know they played up the fact that Holly was his stepmother for awhile, but Alex was also there for Ben as well for she and Fletcher were an off and on item for quite awhile.

I might be veering off topic with this, but probably the most successful rewrite of history on GL was probably the Nick/Lujack reveal under Nancy Curlee. So many emotional beats were played with that storyline and you can tell the writers took their time to cover all of their bases with it....

....unlike the Maryanne storyline on GL. It just seemed odd that Ed, the Lewis brothers, Alan, and Buzz all knew each other before finally settling down in Springfield.

Ben's reveal as a serial killer was painful to watch, and Fletcher's absence equally painful as well.

[Mr. Vixen]

When they went back and REWROTE Laura killing Rick on GH.

COME ON, ABC, we are not stupid. I very well remember seeing Laura bludgeon Rick with a candlestick on my television, and I assure you Scotty Baldwin was NOT anywhere near to her, nor did he sweep into the attic without Laura noticing, and kill Rick.

Laura killing Rick, while very sad, was actually a very well acted storylne. And the afterplay of Liz/Gia/Nik/Lucky, etc. driving him off of a cliff was actually a good story, because it showed how much they were devoted to Laura.

But in the end, GH rewrote it in a craptastic way (I mean COME ON, we WATCHED it happen), as an excuse for Laura to wake up...Only for her to leave for Paris and never come back, while Luke has yet to visit her. Between that and Ethan being Luke's son, I am pretty convinced Anthony Geary's first 20+ years on the show were a waste, since they decided to go back and change everything we had seen happen during them anyway.

[DRW50]

Paul, thanks for the info. I never even remembered that Bill had had an affair at all, I thought it was just Laura's mother's death that had upset her (did they mention this when Laura returned to the show?). Do you think they may have intended to bring Princi back but she was still with OLTL? Or was this after she left OLTL? I know Princi had played another role on DAYS after playing Kate Winograd, but fans probably wouldn't have minded. It's all a bit pointless in the long run as Bill never really had any major story on his return, Laura and Kate only had some tension later on, briefly, when Mike and Austin were both in love with Carrie, and Lucas didn't embrace his Horton side until late in his run.

MichaelGL, I don't remember Alexandra and Ben having any scenes together with Bomer in the role. He debuted in fall 2001 and Alex returned as Joan Collins in fall 2002. They didn't interact. Then Marj took over in very late 2002/very early 2003, and again I can't remember her interacting with him.

Yes, it was as if Fletcher never existed. The only person they brought up was Kyle Sampson and that was fleetingly. And then his rich grandfather who also was not actually on the show, just mentioned. Awful waste of history. And he was ruined for that awful Shane recast who looked like he was more interested in getting frosted tips than in romancing Marina.

Speaking of GH rewrites, how can we forget about the "oops, Michael didn't kill AJ after all!" retcon? Who was it who killed AJ?

[Mr. Vixen]

It was some doctor. I think his name was like Asher Thomas. The story was that years ago AJ had convinced the doctor to try and kill Jason after his car crash years before. And then after that AJ was blackmailing him constantly because Asher had attempted but failed. So then when AJ was in the hospital (after he kidnapped Michael, who for sometime was presumed dead), Jason shot him, or shoved him off a balcony or something like that.

AJ was in the hospital, and this Thomas person, whom no one else new, and who had been missing from the hospital for 10+ years, showed up as AJ's doctor. So, when it looked like Michael did it, it turned out this doctor has framed him, and hypnotized Michael into believing he did it.

And then Asher somehow died, too.

[DRW50]

That's horrible. I missed all of that, thankfully. They really took the hatchet to AJ. They tried to make it where he was evil so far back that he tried to have Jason killed in 1996?

Too bad he didn't succeed.

[Mr. Vixen]

Yeah, they kept making AJ worse and worse. It was like every single time they needed someone to die, or a way to rewrite history to prop someone else up, they would just keep rewriting AJ to be more and more evil, when in reality, he never started as the pure evil he was when he died.

It was a wretched storryline. I wouldn't be surprised if AJ rises from the dead again soon. It just seems inevitable, after it's happened twice before.

[Southofnowhere]

Zach being Gaby's father was NOT a change of history or a rewrite.

[quartermainefan]

the 2000s was a giant rewrite of GH history. Rick Webber got in the worst, but we can't forget Heather Webber either. She apparently had a secret affair with Luke all those years ago. And when you speak of affairs you run smack into Holly Sutton who somehow had an affair with the miserable Luke while we saw him happily married to Laura.

[classicmoment]

I love that picture of Francis

[P.J.]

I hesitate to call Brad's rewritten history the worst case of ATWT rewriting history (my pick would be Lucinda and James' secret past that brought David in as their possible son; with an honorable mention to Carly's secret husband Winston, which invalidated THREE marriages) but it was certainly the most annoying. Not only did it completely change the Brad/Jack dynamic, which was the bedrock on which Jack's character had been established on, it seemed like an extremely random choice made once TIIC decided they'd need a "hunk" for Katie when Mark Collier left the role of Mike. TIIC were so loathe to even mention Brad's past, they didn't even use it to excuse Janet not telling Brad he'd fathered a child.

[Gray Bunny]

I remember one scene (I may have it on tape somewhere) in the fall of 2002 when India was in town for the First Wive's Club of Phillip's meeting. And at some point at the Beacon hotel lobby, India was introduced to Ben. She told him how his mother Maeve was a very dear friend of hers. She then offered help if he ever needed any... too bad he didn't remember that offer when he started being a male escort to raise money. Oh, wow, now that I think of it, 2003 was so full of hits and misses for GL. 2002 was their last period of great storytelling.

[dc11786]

I think Ben worked for Alexandra for about an episode or two during the transition from Taggert to Weston. This was right after he worked at Beacon and right before he started working as an escort.