Most frustrating/annoying retcons

[P.J.]

BTW...does Jill not being Katherine's daughter still mean she's not a Foster either?

I don't even watch Y&R anymore (sort of) but Kay being Jill's mother has to be right up there on the list. B&B's making Bridget Eric's daughter, not Ridge's blew chunks too.

On ATWT, it'd be Lucinda and James supposedly knowing each other and conceiving a child way back when.

[catsmeouch]

They haven't bothered to explain. Jill hasn't bothered to look into it. As of right now, it should be assumed that she's not Liz Foster's daughter.

Why Jill would choose to look for Katherine's child rather than her own parents is beyond me.

[DRW50]

Yes, Jill isn't a Foster by blood. She now has no past, and yet she keeps on doing the same tired obsessive stories with Katherine even though they aren't related. I think the only reason they unrelated them, besides MAB wanting to throw her power around, was to give us Billy/Mac part 3, and look how well that went over.

Even ATWT at least briefly wrote in some of Iva's biological family when they unrelated her from the Snyders.

[Khan]

Oh, God, where do I begin, lol?

Well, that's a good place to start, lol. Even worse (IMO)? When Adam returned (as Riley) and basically said he "flipped" on account of being almost killed by Maddie and Gwen.

Say what you will about Douglas Marland's rules. If you look at a character's actions in the story and say, He/She wouldn't do it, you have failed. It's true not just for soap opera, but for any dramatic genre.

Frustrating, for two reasons: 1) it totally rewrote backstories/histories for Alan, Billy, Buzz, Ed and Josh; and 2) the story itself was a complete copy-cat of Pamela Long and Richard Culliton's Lake Elizabeth story w/ Bill Bauer, Henry Chamberlain, H.B. Lewis, Brandon Spaulding - which was a retcon in and of itself, except, for whatever reason, the retconning wasn't as offensive - w/ Carrie Nye, aka Miss Piper, back playing a completely different character (but not really), to boot!

Do not get me started.

Again, do not get me started.

[Khan]

It's possible Y&R wants us to forget Liz's admission about Jill's adoption, but if they've gone to the trouble of finding Kay's long-lost daughter son, then perhaps not.

[Khan]

Exactly. I gave them the proverbial benefit of the doubt, though, in hopes that Phillip's presumed death and coming-out would provide tremendous impact on everyone's lives. Shame on me, I guess. Now, I just want Phillip back (w/ or w/o Bierdz, at this point, makes no diff to me) to explain he really wasn't gay, but only said that b/c he had to "die" in order to protect some other, terrible secret concerning the Chancellors.

[lovely_m]

They brought him back to say it's okay that Cane lied to you because I told him to. That ended up blowing up in their faces. Now Cane says he isn't bad as Tucker is because when he conned Jill and Kay he did it because he wanted a family. Basically it's okay to take advantage of two grieving women so you can have a family. He never told them Phillip was alive.

ETA: It also ruined the "Who's Delia's Daddy" storyline. Not to mention that Cane lied to "the love of his life" Lily about this. On the bright side, it made him less like an idiot.

[CSF]

So true. Y&R is such a piece of s hit anymore.

[DeeeDee]

HE WAS MOLESTED BEHIND THE ROSE TRELLIS!

THE SYMPHONY IS COMPLETE!

[Khan]

No, lol.

Here's the deal: Phillip was working @ Chancellor Industries when he "died," right? I'll accept the Phillip-is-gay story if, and only if, they say that Phillip faked his death and moved to Australia, not simply b/c he was gay and couldn't handle the stress of being a husband and father, but b/c he'd become sexually involved with a male employee while working @ the company. Phillip's lover, in cahoots w/ a "third party" in possession of some incriminating photos of the two, threatened to expose the affair unless Phillip used his influence with Kay to move that blackmailer up within the company's ranks. Phillip knew he could never persuade Kay to give some lackey a substantial promotion, but he didn't want to risk CE being the target of a sex scandal, either; so he arranged the car accident that (supposedly) ended his life.

Phillip's gay lover? J.T.'s father, Tom Hellstrom. The other blackmailer? Tucker McCall.

[dragonflies]

AMC:

Jesse's 20 years on the run suddenly getting changed to Jesse hooking up with Rebecca barely weeks after he left Angie and Frankie and getting her pregnant(ugh)

Zach fathering a child for Bianca, at the time his premature son was fighting for his life and he NEVER left town, not once.

The unabortion

GH: Emily having a twin that was sold on the black market

Luke cheating with Holly and fathering her child

Also the retcon of it being said that Liz has NEVER been without a man in her life, when there was YEARS she was single.

I'll probably add more as I think of them

[applcin]

OLTL - Clint not being Jessica's father. Jessica was conceived the night Clint brought Viki back from Niki Smith. Man, I can't tell you how much I despise the existence of the Mitch Laurence character and all his ridiculous resurrections. There was also a period there where they were re-writing the origin of Niki Smith every few years.

GL - Jenna slept with Jeffrey Morgan and conceived Rocky. Um, no, she hadn't had to sleep with Jeffrey to save Harley (aka Starla).

GL - Cassie hadn't loved Edmund. Well, she did a pretty good imitation!

OLTL - The overused "Asa has a bastard son somewhere" device. Maybe not a retcon but, seriously, every so often, we'd "discover" that Asa had possibly or definitely impregnated someone years ago and had a longlost (possible) son: Max Holden, Ben Davidson, David Vickers. I think Asa would have turned out to be Spencer Truman's father had PC not gotten ill and that story changed.

[Leia]

Currently it is Teen Jess on OLTL. Good gosh if this is the biggest retconn but this character capitalizes on most of my complaints. I also hated when they wrote the DID in as a part of Jessica's childhood. Also hated her deBuking.

[lovely_m]

Every single retcon regarding John Black. The only reason I say this is because he's had so many.

[quartermainefan]

GH had so many annoying retcons and sometimes they happened fairly soon after the initial con.

AJ was a drunk Carly had to make sure could not get her baby. In reality, AJ was sober and Carly had to drug him and frame him into looking like a drunk so she could raise her baby with Tony.

AJ threw Carly down the stairs. But in reality, Carly waved her hand in AJ's face to show him her diamond ring, he grabbed her hand and she yanked it away and fell in the process.

Luke cheating on Laura? I guess if Laura was on the show it would bother me more, but it doesn't actually affect anything happening today, so I just ignore it. It didn't happen if I didn't see it.