SOD Best and Worst of 1994

[Mr. Vixen]

Thanks so much Carl! As usual, very great stuff!

[Daphne]

Say what??

[EricMontreal22]

Loving did improve in 1994--I'd love to see that write up.

I remember loving the Wildwind dinner/breakfast scenes.

[DRW50]

[JackPeyton]

John/Sharlene really are the most boring couple i have ever tried to watch.

[oscar21]

[DRW50]

They didn't explain, I don't believe.

[Pine Charles]

They didn't explain. I guess we were supposed to forget that Janet ever had facial surgery.

[EricMontreal22]

Yeah that was lame, though I have enjoyed, with mixed reactions depending on the time, Kate in the role.

The Janet plastic surgery was so over the top soap (remember the great "This Is Your Life" episode with her all banadged up? Some of that was filmed by director Goutman as a hommage to the famous Twilight Zone episode). Yet I really think int his case the actor and the writing made it work. It was a gamble for a show like AMC (though AMC had done wacky plots iwth mixed results before) but IMHO the sum justified the means.

[beebs]

Mood-altering pearls....yep. Sounds like DAYS circa 1994 to me. I still don't love the idea of Jamie Lyn Bauer as a recast Laura, when Laura was always a natural blonde (I remember reading Marlena's first episode's script on Jason47's site where they mention that detail about Laura), obviously it's a minor thing, but it's there. It'd be somewhat akin to replacing Jennifer with a non-blonde, rly.

And as for Jensen Buchanan, I never remotely liked her as Vicky (never really saw much of her Marley). It came off like everything that made Anne Heche's Vicky jump out at you was toned down 10x when JB took over. All of the edge was gone. I may not be remembering it right, but her Vicky always put me right to sleep.

Watching the lead-up to Roger's shooting was so amazing. Alex's toast to Nick and Mindy was gold, and the chaos immediately afterwards was priceless too (if a bit messy). Michael Zaslow's Roger is pretty much my favourite soap character ever, I could watch him all day and night.

[soapfan770]

I've been so meaning to reply to this!

I'm curious to see the write up on Jason Biggs' Pete. I don't remember liking the story much mainly having Julie have missing kids just dumped upon her, though kind of funny. On the flip side, I don't remember Cal/Connor/Kirk being bad but you know I was more interested Holden/Lily/Damien and I never cared much for Cal either.

Best Wacko should have gone too Janice on ATWT or somebody else. Speaking of ATWT, yes Scott being missing was a mess before they dropped it. Wasn't he smuggling stuff and Lisa discovered it?

I agree and sadly my favorite Y&R story of '94 which was April murdering Robert was so much more dramatic and was still even overlooked then as it played out. It's a shame that neither Cindy Eilbacher nor Conci Nelson(Kay Alden's daughter) were written out and not brought back.

I agree and I always wondered why Ashley was paired up with a brand new character. Michael Tylo was talented back in the day but he always seemed awkward on Y&R though he did well as evil Rick at least. Not too mention their story turned into one big hot mess in 1994.

Another hot mess because the story turned convoluted so quickly. My god Ivana was brutally murdered just for this!

Who Shot Roger? was a great tale I loved Roger hiding in Holly's basement with that bullet stuck in him. The Spauldings had weird stories in '94, from Alex's little scandalous photo reveal at Nick and Mindy's wedding (I could have cared less), Alan the Japanese businessman, and then the Alan/Tangie/A-M triangle which was boring.

[DRW50]

I don't remember the photo reveal. What was that? I agree that they had odd stories. The Mr. Tashewa stuff I laughed at and hated at the same time -- I still remember that bad Japanese accent as he sat behind a screen. The stuff with Tangie/AM/Alan was so dull, he should have been with Gilly. I barely stayed interested in GL in 94, when I got a chance to watch. For me the highlight was the Bridget/Vanessa custody battle and Julie going after Frank.

I wonder if they paired Ashley with Blade because they struggled to write story for her. Her relationships with Brad and Victor were very complex and the show didn't seem to want to fully resolve them. They did this another time too, with Stephen Lassiter, didn't they?

I will write up the stuff you mentioned in a little bit. At the time I really enjoyed Pete/Julie. I liked the idea of this kid making Julie's life a mess, yet they also respected each other on some level. This kicked into high gear when Julie took Damian's ransom money and Pete helped her. I liked that story. I hated to see Julie go but at least she left on a good note. Let's not talk about the stories which later dumped Aaron off on her (as if!) and then wrote her as dying for about five years

I don't remember much about Cal/Connor/Kirk. I think I missed a lot of ATWT at that time, and I was angry about Shannon's botched return and about Iva and Lyla being written out.

Janice was the best. Holly Cate played the hell out of that role! Oakdalian put up some stuff of her from Thanksgiving 1993 where she is wearing silly outfits to try to sell herself as being a simple girl, and she's trying to get out of the Hughes Thanksgiving, she keeps giving awkward glances. As soon as Meg meets Janice she sees right through her.

[soapfan770]

Alex tried stopping Nick and Mindy's second wedding with a slideshow of some uncompromising photos of Nick in bed but ultimately the wedding continued on and Alex was kicked out.

It's an interesting parallel between Blade and Stephen, both characters played by well known daytime stars(Rod Arrants and Michael Tylo), both men having crazy women from their past(Leanna Love and Mari Jo), and both meeting tragic demises (plane crash and car crash). I always thought Bell must have loved Ashley as a character because he never wrote her out and was kept on the front burner a lot, even when her stories were not too good.

I wish Holly Cate did more in daytime and it's a shame her Janice is not up there with Daytime's other great psychos.

[DRW50]

ATWT was generally written off by the time Janice was peaking, which is a shame, as she was great. I've sometimes felt that her success made ATWT comfortable enough to bring Carly in, because the psycho before Janice, Debbie Simon, was terrible.

I do think Bill Bell must have been fond of Ashley, as he tried to keep her going no matter what -- Ashley is a tough character to cast and to write for and it has showed onscreen. I liked Brenda Dumani, I'm sorry she didn't get more chances. The whole Blade/Rick thing never made sense to me. I mostly just liked Mari Jo.

Thanks for reminding me about the wedding thing. You can see how fond my memories are of Nick/Mindy or of Alex at that time. They degraded Alex so much not long after Marj took over. I felt for her.

On the Y&R stuff from earlier, I actually really liked the Keemo story, I thought it was the type of big weepy melodrama which Peter Bergman is better at than the other aspects of Jack. I also liked Laun, and the love story. I hated the end though.

The April story was great. Wonderful acting from Cynthia and Doug and the ending was a heartbreaker. I still can't believe they had April come back for like 2 days with Rebecca Staab. Just more disrespect for history.

[DeeeDee]

Not really.

Bill had plans for Blade but Tylo/Epperson had NO chemistry & Tylo himself couldn't carry the story.

*cough*blamebergman*cough*