All - Returns that fizzled

[DRW50]

Bradley Bell spent an entire decade spitting on the Spectra family.

[Bright Eyes]

Kate Roberts - No, she never was Dr. Kate Winograd, but she should have been,

Laura Horton - I love Jamie Lynn Bauer and the story was fine, but that was NOT Dr. Laura Ann Spencer Horton Horton.

Tony DiMera (90's) - See Laura.

Dr. Sandy Horton, Steven Olson, Valerie Grant ... all failed returns.

---

A return that SHOULD have happened ... Linda Patterson.

[Daphne]

Did anyone mention Gina Tognoni's return to OLTL?

[Dr Neil Curtis]

OMG! I thought I was the only one who thought Kate Roberts should have been Kate Winograd. She would have been more like a Dorian Lord Character, businesswoman/doctor.

As for Laura, I like Jamie Lynn as an actress, but felt Laura was miscast. I never seen Sandy, Steve, or Valerie but I always wished Val had return to the fold when Tamara Tunie left ATWT. I know Steve was suppose to be a badboy horton but the writers never knew what to do with him and always wrote him into a hole.

[ChitHappens]

Vanessa Marcil Giovanazzo's return in 2010. What a joke. I have gone from indifference to hives with this silly character. Dumb bitch walking around asking anyone who will listen to keep her from Sonny. Ugh! And those cheeks?! Yick!

ANDREA

[Quent]

ATWT:

Margaret Reed had the best comeback as Shannon, quickly followed by a horrible storyline. Her comeback from the dead (her head had been shrunken by Duncan's ex-wife...don't ask) was the last time a soap really surprised me with a storyline twist. There were no spoilers , so I never saw it coming. Unfortunately, Reed's great comic timing was never used on her return, as she was placed in one depressing story after another. To make matters worse, Duncan stayed with Jessica. Michael Swan and Tamara Tunie are GREAT actors, but they had no romantic chemistry. Duncan and Shannon had all the heat.

[DRW50]

Ugh. The Shannon return was so depressing and miserable I keep blocking it out. That was also one of the last times, probably the last, a soap surprised me. They treated the character so poorly.

[miche]

Jonathan Jackson

Natalia Livingston

Vanessa Marcil

Sarah Brown

[SFK]

In hindsight, ITA. He never ever *bothered* me per se, but I was not at all enthused by anything Charlie was involved in, he seemed like a blander, more boring version of Jack (which is really saying something, imo). I think AMC was siced to have themselves a Kennedy/baby Rat Packer. He also suddenly seemed ten years older than the one who messed with Erica. I liked Charlie when he was a teen with Julie, the actor who was in the Masters of the Universe movie.

I saw him a few months (has it been years?) ago on either Oprah or Bill Maher (I know I know, what an either/or ). He'd struggled with alcoholism for many years which I did not know.

[EricMontreal22]

I came to AMC as a kid just as Ceara's incest storyline was in full play (apparently this was how Nixon wooed her to do the soap). I thought it was *riveting*, but I actually back then had never even heard the term "Luke and Laura" and had no idea who she was--that coulda played all the difference.

I will admit they already seemed to have no idea what to do with her afterwards. I did follow her and Jeremy to Loving where they worked on their marriage for a month(Fall 1991--almsot a year before Jeremy moved there full time with Ceara being killed off camera), and that's how I got hooked on that show. So despite all that, I have a hard time calling her comeback a flop.

[EricMontreal22]

For some reason I found Lawford's Charlie just utterly unappealing and downright ugly--cruel I know, and I know many didn't. I do remember, again at a young age, I found out that some kids of family friends of my parents had watched AMC with their mom for years (AMC as well as Y&R, ATWT and GL)--and they all said how disappointed they were when he came on as Charlie as they had found the previous Charlie one of the most attractive cast members. Anyway, he just came off as obnoxious--and I suppose bringing back Cecily to hook up with him in maybe the first (and lamest?) Internet storyline on soaps was a good way to make him leave the show.

(And I've always kinda liked Jack in an older man kinda way I can kinda see the similarity but he never made your eyes role when he'd come on screen--at least not mine)

[EricMontreal22]

I do Anita wasn't bad IMHO but was completely useless when Bobby left--and then if anything it seemed like Julia came in to replace her boring "random nurse" role. (and yes Bobby and Greenlee were tested ina few scenes and were charming I thought--I remember one in an elevator). Greenlee needed someone like him to set her off--maybe David was too extreme (though I liked them at times) but Bobby was a bit liek Leo--a charming schemer who DID have reluctant morals. She doesn't need to be paired with the Knight in White Armour type character--

One more I just though--another McTavish, was when they brought back the outstanding Broadway performer Tonya Pinkins as Livia. The show was lacking in Black females at the time, and it shoulda been dynamite, but she just faded away. I kinda wonder if all these lame returns were McTavish's fault--she seemed othave the idea and story for them to come on and then someone else just allowed them disappear (the same way Brooke did, a character McTavish, however dismally, loved writing for for years).

An example of Fronsian intervention at its worst.

[EricMontreal22]

I don't think RB's return counts. Like or hate the story, scenes like her marriage to David were great--and the show certainly has used her. Of course they did with Bianca too but I do agree that ended in disaster...

[EricMontreal22]

Yep, when they were still wrongly half-trying to pair Charlie and Hayley, who shared the PI office.

She did have some great scenes with Mary Fickett (some of her last scenes I think) during the 25th anniversary week. Even looking back on her charming 80s work I think it was more due to the pairing of her and Maurice Benard as Nico who really are a lot of fun, when you look at old clips. (What the Hell happened? I have never found Benard even remotely appealing on GH--even initially, yet he genuinely was on AMC in the 80s)

[JackPeyton]

CCBobby & Greenlee were very good in the little they had together.