I was admittedly presold for SJB, but I really liked Madison when I came back to DAYS with that umpteenth reboot. I thought the writing in that business story/romance early on there was unusually adult for the modern show and you're right, she did have real chemistry with Eric. Of course it fell apart and Dena Higley and co. announced their triumphant return the following summer by slaughtering her, hurling Jack down the elevator shaft, etc. Ho hum.
I have no idea what the Ian Buchanan story was about. I have defended McPherson/Thomas a lot on the early stuff (and re: the former's work on AMC 2.0) but if they really thought that character was going to work as a successor to Stefano they were dreaming.
I've revisited some of it on occasion since, but all I remember about the Camille Hawkins mess on AMC is tuning back in to the show around the holidays as a teen and she made her debut floating above the trees like a ghost or something. I had grown up watching Dark Shadows in syndication but that was a new one on me for this show. I think this was the same holiday season where a tree or a mausoleum fell on crazy Dimitri. I had no clue WTF was going on. The next time I checked in on the show with any real regularity Camille was about to die, and then there was Dixie standing in the wreckage of Holidays moments after they wheeled her charred corpse out. The circle of life!
Claudette Beaulieu from GH should be on this list. A much-hyped stunt casting of another of Frank Valentini's OLTL favorites, Bree Williamson. Claudette came on the show as a conspicuously French Canadian old flame of both Nathan West and Griffin Munro, two of the most inert and uninteresting characters on the show. (I'm pretty sure the French Canadian thing was only there because Frank, Ron Carlivati and co. got very horny over Ryan Paevey's flawless ability to speak French when he was first hired and used to make him do it all the time onscreen, though RC was gone by then.) Claudette was embroiled in a triangle with both deeply boring men and was also yet another unwelcome OLTL interloper. She of course brought with her the mutant hellspawn that still darkens our lives: Charlotte Cassadine.
Charlotte was believed to be Claudette's child with either Nathan or Griffin at the time. Who cares? Not me. She was gone in I think less than six months, abducted by Valentin who it turned out was the real father of Charlotte, along with Lulu as her unwilling mother; Claudette was merely a surrogate. After all that hype the story was a huge dud, they kept claiming Claudette could come back, the door was open, etc. and repeatedly hinted at her return, was she dead or alive, etc. Eventually they had Jessica Tuck or someone tell us she was alive and had escaped Valentin a couple years later. No one cared.
I'm surprised FV never tried to bring Claudette back again. Maybe Bree just kept saying no.
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Vee ·
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