Ratings the Replacements SPW 8/3/99

[Gray Bunny]

It's funny how someone can be forgettable in one role and a knockout in another. Budig's so-so run as Michelle but hit performance as AMC's Greenlee is similar to Gina Tognoni, going from ho-hum Kelly on OLTL but hitting it outta the ballpark as GL's Dinah.

[scherra]

I was ranting about that on another board (a Joie fan board) a while ago, but if they couldn't bring back Ed Bauer (iow, Peter Simon, who had zero interest in coming back), they should have at least addressed his absence upfront rather than sweep it under the carpet. Just drove me insane we were supposed to accept the Bauers wouldn't hear a peep out of him while Michelle went through some of the worst crises in her life (eg. a forced marriage into a mob family, a murder trial, a miscarriage, her birth mother's return). It's a miracle Joie was able to capture as much of Michelle's Bauer-ness as she could when the character wasn't even allowed to dwell on the most important person in her life, aka her own father.

She had great chemistry with all the Bauers (Mary Stuart, Michael O'Leary, Amy Ecklund), and as frustrating as the murder trial was, I loved that she got to work with Jerry ver Dorn. And I loved her scenes with Susan Pratt. Pratt is not a warm actress either, but she played Claire as very vulnerable where Michelle was concerned, and I enjoyed watching mother and daughter struggling to find their footing with each other. I loathed Claire Labine's efforts to turn Danny Santos into Sonny Corinthos (PAS is just not credible as a godfather), but she gave Joie some of the best material she ever had as Michelle (eg. lines that did not make me cringe, substantial interactions with anyone not named Santos or Bauer):

Too bad all of Michelle's firm, sound reasoning for keeping Danny out of her and her child's life was destroyed with the recast.

[Mitch]

Not only destroyed by the recast, but by a scared MADD and the Mannywhacks who insisted the ratings fall was because they had broken up. They missed a great opportunity at that point, by having Chele keep her pregnancy from Danny and have her marry a recast Bill(who is in on the scheme) and pass the baby off as his. They could have had Meta and Claire in on it, and Chele and Claire could have bonded over it. That would have also brought Van back in the picture as the doting mother her law who eventually would be outraged that Michelle and Bill lied to her. That way they could have kept the Chele/Danny thing going on but not have them actually be together, kind of like, you know, soaps used to do. Ah, that was the point of GL when it really started to fall apart, they let the Abby actress go, and she and MOL were cute together and could have been a younger Ed and Mo, without the angst to those two. It was nice to have a couple who seemed normal and kind of light and jokey. Speaking of, I know I am in the minority but MOL used to be so cute, as he was in this clip, what the hell happened to him, just a few years later he would become a bloated old man. It didnt help that Kreizman and Wheeler insisted on making Rick a pathetic fool. Loved Aunt Meta..too bad they didnt bring her in right after Mo died, I don't think that the show would have felt as "cold," as it did after that...(also love that Mary Stuart made Meta an old broad that had been around and knew how to kick ass when need be...)

PAS was terrible at being tough. I thought when Danny was brought in he was supposed to be the "legitimate,' son who would have a real career, and it was only after Micks death that he was relunctantly drawn in. But when they had him trying to be tough guy gun ho mob man it was ridiculous.

[DRW50]

I think GL was just not a show suited for mob thuggery.

PAS was bad as a mafioso type...but then that was a bad choice to ever take the character there.

The biggest problem with Michelle was that she was not able to stand on her own as a character. The potential was there with Joie but otherwise, from the time of Budig to St. Alban, I don't think she ever worked. The problem was they never tried to define her as her own person and there was no longer any Bauer family, but even with the men in her life, the only relationship that worked was Danny. I would say that Danny basically carried Michelle after St. Alban was hired. I know some fans would disagree and say she was fine on her own when Taggart put her with Bill, but that didn't work for me, and I thought she came across as a cold shrew.

I was just watching those clips a few days ago, a tape of that episode when Joie's Michelle left. Those last scenes with Michelle and Meta and Rick were great. In a lot of ways Meta and Michelle obviously had so much in common. They tried to have Meta and Michelle comparisons when Budig was in the role but it was tough to buy.

I don't think you're in the minority. I'm not sure if he had some bad work done or what but he just looked off in those last few years.

I remember how brilliantly written and acted those Rick/Abby breakup scenes were. What impressed me the most was that Abby knew Rick hadn't slept with Claire but was leaving him anyway. That was such a breath of fresh air.

[Mitch]

Wow, if that was work he shoulda sued. I kept wanting at the end of the breakup scenes for Abby to slap Claire and move back in. Labine should have had Abby come back a few months later pregnant. Coming back to let Rick know and to have the baby, but still not sure if she can get back together with him, and have him win her back by being the nice funny, Rick of old. I did like that the break up scenes had a newly svelt O'leary running around with his shirt off and in tight jeans, that would have won me back for sure.

Sigh, I alwasy thought it was weird that the girls were always after angsty, too him self too seriously bony face Phillip (not that I myself would ahve kicked him out of bed for eating crackers) when they could have cute, charming, funny Rick, (who was also a doctor!!) I LURVED Rick and Mindy and one of Long's worst mistakes was breaking them up over freakin annoying Roxie Shayne.

[DRW50]

I think Amy Ecklund wanted to leave but that was probably down to lack of material. I hated to see her go. She was a very underrated actress, and her story was one of the best McTavish has told in her soap career.

They seemed to founder with a lot of the younger characters in the mid/late 80s. Rick and Roxie broke up and then what did he do until Meredith? I know he had a pill addiction for about ten minutes. Then Meredith was more about Phillip, as most of Rick's stories ended up being for the rest of his time on GL, aside from Blake, Abby, and Mel.

Did they still play a Rick/Phillip friendship when Bolger was in the role? Bolger was so hot but he was a very different character.

[Mitch]

Ecklund did want to leave because of lack of material, she wanted to start a stand up career (shades of Ray Rooney!) The problem with Rauch/Madd/E&B and everyone who came after them, they felt if they didnt show 24/7 or their "Super couples," or the ones they deemed a ratings draw, then the show would fail, but a steady diet of just Reva and Josh, Danny and Michelle, Cassie and Richard, Harley and Gus...just made a good portion of the regular audience, the ones who were not their crazed fans (and had a life so didnt write in constantly) hate those characters and the exhausting retreads upon retreads of stories they were treated. The Abby story was cut short because E & B had so much story to tell of Reva in San Crud..(which far beyond Mo's death and Reva's clone, even the mob, I mark as the turning point of this show dying, fairy princes and queens and mythical countries were far too ABC in the 80s for GL.) The show needed the balancing of characters like Rick and Abby, Ross and Blake, etc.

GL made a big mistake in the 80s when they had the Four Muskateers as kind of normal college kids, the show hit number one, and in the fall they somehow all graduated and went their own ways, Phillip was working at Spaulding, Rick was in Med school, Mindy became a bitter biotch until she had her won boring fairy tell prince come into her life, etc. They should have followed them all through school, and into young adulthood and careers. That way all the younger people watching them could identify and follow them.

Bolger and Oleary had hardly any scenes at all. I remember one smarmy scene where Rick goes to Spaulding to talk to Phillip to find names of Madames in Alaska (dont ask, Roxie had amnesia and went back to prostitution and Rick was going to find her) and Phillip is all smarmy like Rick is going to go get a whore (in Alaska??? and why would Phillip either GA or Bolger ever need to pay for sex???) They might have had them have a scene when Bert died. Bolger was freaking great looking but he wasnt Phillip and he didnt have any warmth with anyone, least of all O'leary. But GL was really, really in a bad place during his recast, and it was quite like him in fact, pretty to look at but cold and distant and not familiar at all.

[DRW50]

That's very well said.

I wonder what it would have been like if they hadn't had a few women carrying big portions of the show, like Reva and Alex. I wonder if it would have collapsed even more, or if they were in some ways also a problem.

What I never understood with Rauch is why he brought Ed back briefly when Budig was there but never with Lenz. I might be wrong, there might have been like one episode in there somewhere, but I don't think Ed was ever around then.

[Mitch]

He wasnt around with Lenz at all, I think after the failure of Nu/Old Ed they just didnt want to go there (and it was actually a good idea of Rauchies to bring the original Ed back but it really, really didnt work.) If Peter Simon didnt want to come back (and he was a notorious pain in the ass) they should have just recasted with a totally new actor.

Speaking of Simon (and totally off topic) I don't know why he fought the Ed/Nola pairing, I think it could have been good..(if they had written Nola correctly, and if Brown could have shaken off dour, depressing Iva..) Budig was such as radical recast for Michele (and I for one dont think they should have kept Minor in the role, but I would have had a closer recast) she went from quiet, thoughful Miner to valley girl Budig.

[DRW50]

I wonder if he didn't want to go to an older woman after the pairing with the younger Eve.

So is Amy still a standup comic?

In the time you watched what was your favorite era?

[scherra]

I don't know how comfortable Michelle would have been with that kind of deceit in the first place (though it depends on the writing, and good-to-excellent writing can sell dicey ideas), and I think she could have convinced Danny to just leave her alone for their child's sake and safety. I just loved that they'd finally found a perfect setup for Michelle to be single and independent for a while (and who better than Meta and even Claire to counsel her on that matter)... but then NSA showed up, and it was like the whole thing was an effing joke.

Couldn't agree more. Could never, ever understand this mentality that Danny and Michelle had to be together no matter what, or some of the fans hissing every time Joie's Michelle dared contradict him.

I dropped GH as soon as the Mob took over, and appreciated that Rauch & co. resisted the temptation of portraying them as the good guys--the writing wasn't subtle but at least they drew the line clearly between good and bad. What the Santos family engaged in was bad, they told us, and Danny was a reluctant participant/heir, which played to PAS' acting strengths. I loathed what he became under the Labines.

I think this was the case for pretty much every character since the early/mid 1990s. They had no lives, no identity, practically no meaningful relationships outside their romantic interests, and the only characters who fared reasonably well were those viewers could associate with better times (eg. 'remember when Holly used to run WSPR, Van was a corporate powerhouse') played by actors who gave them more layers and life than what was on paper.

I'm realistic enough (and by then had watched long enough) to know the problems that plagued Michelle or Danny went well beyond the two characters and the two short years Joie was with the show (or the god-knows-how-long NSA has been with GL). But it's still difficult to look at one of the few good things GL got right (recast a critical role with a good actress) in the final decades only to squander the potential away on pointless storyline after another. Hardly the only mistake GL ever made, but that's the Joie fan in me speaking, who also wishes she could have worked with the entire cast rather than her small circle of Santos and Bauers. She had great chemistry with Robert Newman (though it helped he's such a generous actor) and Peter Hermann as TeenCloneReva, and I relished watching the then-16-yo Joie Lenz face up Laura Wright (whose idea of playing 'strong' is getting in somebody's face). I wish she could have had more opportunities to work with the rest of the cast. She's always spoken fondly of her time on GL, but compared to what TPTB in the early 1990s or the 1980s would have done with someone like her in the cast... she missed out.

It's a tough call, and I can relate to their 'nobody but Peter Simon' mindset to some degree. But it was ridiculous the extent to which they wouldn't talk about him while his children went through such tough times. Would it have killed them to have Michelle strike some conversation with Ross or Holly or Vanessa about why in the world her father wasn't there for her, is something that went through my mind a million times. Did they fear a severe case of mention-itis, ie. mention a long-absent character and it'll lead to viewer expectation he'll show up?

[DRW50]

I think they just did not care about the show's history. Or if they did the efforts were quickly quashed, like when they brought in a black Spaulding, only to barely ever write for her.

I also feel like they just did not want to make the effort with Ed. I don't think Ed was unrecastable. Peter Simon himself was a recast. If they had really committed to rebuilding the Bauer family it might have worked.

[Mitch]

Actually, during the "Michelle Murder Trial," they had Rick mention to Ross that he was looking for Ed but couldnt find him, and he was worried that he was drinking again. Taggert picked up on that by having them say that he was held hostage.

Not only that but they brought back Alex to fight with both Faux Annie and Vickie, and they totally dropped it. Made no sense at all. Granted the black Spauldings were a dumb part of GL history, but a pissed off Vickie could have produced tons more story then Plot Point Fake Annie, but by that time they went for the most cartoon thing they could come up with.

I thought that,if they were so wed to PS as Ed, they could have brought in a recast Mike, which would have ammped up the Bauer vs. Santos thing as he was Mr. Law and Order and he was in charge of the "Crime Commission," when he left. Would love to have seen a new Mike fight the Santos and romance Alex and fight with Alan and bring back the other leg of the Bauers, Hope and A-M (of course, I would have a divorced Hope, or Mike have an entirely new family off cammra which would repopulate the Bauers with another leg. That bad thing about that era of Rauch and E & B, there were some really good ideas and some great potential which was just wasted for really stripped down, dumbed down, trailer park GL, which is what the show became under Wheeler.

[Mitch]

One of my favorite times on GL was the first what two years of Pam Long...the Four Muskateers, the introduction of Reva, Alex the Reardons, and the Bauers still the center of the show, with Bert and her amputation. I also loved the start of the Cabin Mystery, and well, anything that started Mr. Tony Hot Ass Reardon was good with me. But then something happened in the fall of 85 and the show was stripped of the Reardons and the Bauers and we got the LEwis and Reva 24/7 ..with dumb Kyle "flaring nostrils," Sampson and Newman left and Aleksander left, and they killed Hillary and wrote out Mike and the show became cold, boring, kind of amoral and flat.

I also liked the Curlee era of course, and even the year after Mo died, the show was going great guns, until once again, TPTB caught stupid fever and redirected the show to be all about Buzz and the Coopers. I also am embarrased to say I loved the first part of McTavis (though it wasnt perfect) with the returns of Nola, Amanda, Reva and Brent/Marion. After that ended and we got Roger being gas lit and the 5th Street follies with Alan wanting to knock down the diner (must have been Davey's inspiration for 10 years later Phillp wanting to knock down Company) and it all fell to crap!

[DRW50]

It's too bad they didn't bring Don Stewart back for a longer stay. He came back in 1997 for a few days and was fine. Then nothing else, ever. I don't even think he was ever mentioned again. For them to bring him back after such a long period of obscurity must have suggested they have some possible ideas.

I felt the same way you did about early McTavish. I had some hope even up to early 96, but between Dinah the long-suffering heroine and SAVE FIFTH STREET and Dahlia singing every other episode...