OLTL: How would you fix Todd Manning

[catsmeouch]

What if Todd got amnesia and totally forgot who he was (not this Jessica "selective amnesia" thing, but full blown memory loss) and had to re-discover himself in the process? Imagine the shock to your system to discover you're a murdering rapist. I think Trevor St. John could pull it off, and it could re-form the Todd character in the long run.

[marceline]

I think that's what a lot of us have been saying one way or another. Whether through brainwashing, tumor, neurosyphilis or whatever, the only way to fix Todd is to fall back on the soap cliche of the clean slate. Could TSJ pull it off? Sure. Would the audience accept it? I don't know.

[catsmeouch]

I think it could be a compelling and well-written story, especially if Todd starts to wish he never gets his memory back. Amnesia is a soap staple for sure, but I've yet to see it really be used effectively, which it would be in this case.

This is the kind of story I also would've liked for Mitch Laurence but I actually think it would work better for Todd since he's a main character/part of the fabric of the show, unlike Mitch who pops in and out like a male Sheila Carter.

[All My Shadows]

IMO, the current structure of daytime storytelling really wouldn't allow a truly successful redemption story for Todd. Oh, it can happen, because I think any character can be redeemed of anything, but the way things are now, a story (and I don't even want to use the word story because it'd have to be much more than just a story) would have to be very, very meticulously written and acted. Even if RC and TSJ had it in them to do it, it's just not the type of thing that soaps do anymore.

[marceline]

BINGO! I know TSJ wanted to do the story of Todd's court-ordered anger management but the show wasn't interested.

[Mr. Vixen]

How I would fix Todd Manning:

I would kill him. I would have him be beheaded while standing next to a set of train tracks, and an object from the track flies up and chops his head off.

His head is completely gone, but the paramedics fidn it, and then get to his body while his heart is still beating so they rush him to the hospital and put him on ice.

Just when they are about to creamate him, thinking that there is no hope, a doctor arrives from europe saying she can bring him back to life. So she sews him back together, but he lapses into an apparent brain death. She concludes that the traumatic experience was too much, and his body is purposely shutting itself down. So she gives him elctroshock therapy trying to erase that part of his memory, but she [!@#$%^&*] it up and erases all of his memories back until 1993.

He awakes from his coma, and the most recent memory he has is of him raping Marty Saybrooke. Later, Todd goes to the bathroom, looks in a mirror, and doesn't recognize himself at all (due to him NOT remember his plastic surgery). He freaks out, and goes into cardiac arrest, and later requires a heart transplant.

After recovering from the heart transplant, he will find the best plastic surgeon in the word and DEMAND that she redesign his face to the only way he knows. She will come to Llanview and due so, and therefore Roger Howarth would be stepping back into the role.

So then we will have the ORIGINAL todd back, and all of the BUTCHERING they have done to him, because he wont have any memories from after 1994.

[catsmeouch]

Yuck. No more Roger Howarth. Eww! At least with TSJ we don't have to look at the face of Marty's actual rapist.

[Mr. Vixen]

Roger Haworth is the only person that will ever be Todd.

[catsmeouch]

No, Trevor St. John IS Todd. It's not often a recast is better than the original, but Trevor is.

[All My Shadows]

LMAO.

Roger Howarth is just as bored with this ridiculous character as TSJ is.

[marceline]

Damn right. Something about playing Todd seems to wear down the actors. At this point you could put them both on screen for a smirk-off.

[dragonflies]

Yeah I'll have to disagree with this. Trevor is playing a character that sure isn't Todd. The character is unrecognizable. They should have just kept him as Walker Lawrence

[Doyen]

If anything needs to be "fixed," it's the remote controls of the complainers.  

[Mr. Vixen]

agreed. i liked him better as that, and he could have had more of a future. i think there is a todd curse...after so many years, no matter WHO is playing him, the character is boring.

I think Roger Haworth was a million times better. TSJ sucks.

[Doyen]

Perhaps Roger Haworth (whoever he is) was a million times better, but Roger Howarth wasn't. All anybody has to do is look at ten episodes between 2001 and early 2003 to see that TSJ is as good an actor (perhaps better) as RH is. And I say this as someone who liked RH's Todd. I just love how disgruntle members of RH's fan club cling to 1993, as though sums up his entire stint. It doesn't. TSJ's Todd hasn't seen a valley as low as what the character went through in 1997. Howarth's version of the character peaked with the Bastard Lord s/l, which concluded his marrying pregnant Blair the second time. After he returned from Ireland, his Todd became this odd mix of Freddy Krueger and Ed Norton/Barney Rubble, and was never the same.

So silly. It's been damn near ten years since Howarth bolted the show -- and this was after ten years of him regularly jumping ship, only to begrudgingly return for limited stints (after his quest for greener pastures didn't produce anything solid), which left all Todd-related storylines vague and inconclusive...because the writers could never count on RH staying beyond his current contract. Get over it. He didn't want the job anymore. The fact that he hastily jumped ship to OLTL's timeslot competitor (to play a recast), rather than renew his contract to continue playing the much more acclaimed Todd should say as much. If Clinton/Nirvana-era Todd is what you crave, I don't know what to tell you...other than to take to YouTube, and to get out your flannel. Even if he did make an unlikely return, it would probably be about as on par with his original stint as Andrea Evans 2008 come back was.