8 hours ago, j swift said:

Question: Was there ever a connection made between the fact that Cathy Craig's baby with Joe Riley was named Megan and then Vicky's long-lost daughter was named Megan?

 

Megan Gordon was probably named by Roger, (I guess he married later and had Sarah).  She also would have been older than Megan Craig-Riley. The whole coincidence is also likely due to a change in writing and production.  However, it was interesting that an oversite in naming Todd Manning created his whole relationship with Vicky but there was no mention of the two Megans.

 

Two fanfic possibilities: (a) Somehow Cathy Craig knew about Eterna and named her daughter Megan just to torment Vicky about her secret child. (b) when the whole town gathered around Megan Gordon's deathbed to retell the history of Landview (because that's what nobody does when a loved one is dying) Vicky's memories of being present at the birth and death of Megan Craig-Riley were effected by time travel.

 

Nobody ever mentioned the coincidence about both babies being named Megan, but by the time Jessica Tuck's character was introduced, I doubt TPTB in charge of the show even knew about Cathy Craig, let alone her daughter. Writers like Pat Falken Smith, Douglas Marland, Claire Labine and a few others were wont to study shows' history and weave it into current storylines, but most writers never seem to bother.

 

While watching TGL in 1984 (I think), I cringed when Kelly Nelson asked Ed Bauer, "Do you remember Steve Jackson, the surgeon?" and Ed replied, "Yes, he was on staff here at Cedars."

 

Um...Steve Jackson had also been Ed's FATHER-IN-LAW, and was Rick's maternal GRANDFATHER, so this dialogue between the men just showed that the writers had no idea about the show's history.

 

On AW, someone once asked Jamie how he and Sally were related. He said that, "She's my cousin or something."

 

Nooooooooooooo. Your stepmother's daughter is not your cousin, Jamie.

 

Mistakes like that are simply annoying.

Edited January 4, 20187 yr by vetsoapfan

The generational changes in head writers seems remarkable.  You get the originators who are strict stalwarts of story, then you get their trainees who assert their individuality by ignoring history and trying to be socially relevant, and then you get the current generation who treat history like cannon to be mined either for camp or trivia.

Did they mention Cathy Craig and Kevin's kidnapping during Jessica's abduction?  I know Viki herself referenced it in her hysteria when she initially found Jess's crib empty, but did anyone else?  At the very least, I might have had the police question Cathy to see whether she had anything to do with it.

1 hour ago, Khan said:

Did they mention Cathy Craig and Kevin's kidnapping during Jessica's abduction?  I know Viki herself referenced it in her hysteria when she initially found Jess's crib empty, but did anyone else?  At the very least, I might have had the police question Cathy to see whether she had anything to do with it.

 

Didn't Erika Slezak mention in an interview that she, herself, added that line in the script, because the new writers did not mention Kevin's kidnapping at all?

I wanted to recommend an amusing re-watch.  I put together a playlist of the youtube videos of Irene Manning's explanation of the Todd/Victor Jr story with the original death of Irene Manning from the period when Tina was introduced.  It creates some retrospectively amusing observations. 

 

(1), Vicky finds out that Karen is a suburban hooker when she collects Irene's things from the hotel and sees Karen in the lobby.  Karen is there looking worse-for-wear in a green shawl, Marco introduces her to the "john" and the guy is really handsome.  It is easy to see how Karen kept her secret because no one would guess that such an attractive guy was paying Karen for her time. 

 

(2) Irene looked healthy when she was dying.  The doctor tells Vicky that Irene is in constant pain and has only days to live but honestly, except for some shortness of breath in discussing Tina, Irene seems fine.

 

(3) Years later, Irene tells this whole story to Todd, Victor and Vicky but she never mentions Tina?  She briefly mentions that she was reuniting Vicky with her sister.  However, she never mentioned if she tracked Tina or Tina's kids. 

 

(4)That entire exposition was so rushed and contrived it would have been better if McBain was given the job of explaining the outcome.  McBain's main duty is trying to tape Irene's confession (despite the fact that she is confessing in front of 3 witnesses; including 2 journalists and a former mayor).  I would prefer if he had actually done some detective work and then explained the outcome. 

 

(5) The timeline from Tina's birth to the twins doesn't really make sense. Todd/VictorJr are the same age as Kevin who is easily 15-18 years younger than Tina  So how long was the Victor/Irene affair?

The whole ending with Irene was horribly written and rushed. I didn't even pay attention to half of the dreck Barbara Rhoades was spewing. (And I loved BR before her OLTL stint).

Did OLTL have an interim HW before McTavish took over. It looks like from the credits Gillian Spencer had top billing for the second half of 1999

I thought it was widely rumored that Farren Phelps was the uncredited head writer during a good chunk of ‘99.

 

On Thursday, January 04, 2018 at 3:59 PM, vetsoapfan said:

 

Didn't Erika Slezak mention in an interview that she, herself, added that line in the script, because the new writers did not mention Kevin's kidnapping at all?

 

I don't know, but wouldn't be surprised if she did.

It's funny that if the writers had made Megan Gordon into the un-dead baby of Cathy Craig & Joe Riley then they would not have had to come up with Eterna.  Megan would still have had a reason to feud to with Vicky.  Also, 10 years later, Vicky wouldn't have had to explain how she gave birth five times (Megan, Joey, Kevin, and the Jessica twins) but only remembered three of the babies.

 

I'm also surprised that future writers never used comebacks of the Michael Grande, Max Holden or Paul Kendall families; nor was there ever reference to Tony Lord's progeny.  Victor Lord had three kids postmortem (Tina, Todd & Vic Jr), it would have been far easier to explain a long lost kid of Tony Lord from when he was traveling abroad.

47 minutes ago, j swift said:

It's funny that if the writers had made Megan Gordon into the un-dead baby of Cathy Craig & Joe Riley then they would not have had to come up with Eterna.  Megan would still have had a reason to feud to with Vicky.  Also, 10 years later, Vicky wouldn't have had to explain how she gave birth five times (Megan, Joey, Kevin, and the Jessica twins) but only remembered three of the babies.

 

I'm also surprised that future writers never used comebacks of the Michael Grande, Max Holden or Paul Kendall families; nor was there ever reference to Tony Lord's progeny.  Victor Lord had three kids postmortem (Tina, Todd & Vic Jr), it would have been far easier to explain a long lost kid of Tony Lord from when he was traveling abroad.

 

The writers were generally incompetent and ignorant of history, so they took the lazy was out.

2 hours ago, j swift said:

It's funny that if the writers had made Megan Gordon into the un-dead baby of Cathy Craig & Joe Riley then they would not have had to come up with Eterna.  Megan would still have had a reason to feud to with Vicky.  Also, 10 years later, Vicky wouldn't have had to explain how she gave birth five times (Megan, Joey, Kevin, and the Jessica twins) but only remembered three of the babies.

 

I'm also surprised that future writers never used comebacks of the Michael Grande, Max Holden or Paul Kendall families; nor was there ever reference to Tony Lord's progeny.  Victor Lord had three kids postmortem (Tina, Todd & Vic Jr), it would have been far easier to explain a long lost kid of Tony Lord from when he was traveling abroad.

 

The whole thing was ridiculous: Eterna, Megan and Sarah wondering which of them was Viki's daughter, the "feud" between Megan and Viki that was over so quickly. 

On 1/5/2018 at 1:39 AM, robbwolff said:

I thought it was widely rumored that Farren Phelps was the uncredited head writer during a good chunk of ‘99.

 

1999 was a hazy year for writing teams. ABC initially tried to keep it discrete that McTavish had been removed (again) as head writer of All My Children. Word started leaking, and ABC confirmed the rumors only after a distinct tonal change started being noticed in AMC's on-air scenes... ABC's official response at that point was that McTavish had been moved to a consultant role for ABC Daytime, and that Agnes Nixon was back leading the AMC team, along with Elizabeth Page and Jean Passanante. 

 

Rumor was that McTavish had been out AMC's door as early as March, and that she at some point after that began co-writing OLTL with Phelps, to see if it was going to be a good fit. In their eventual announcement of McTavish becoming OLTL's HW, ABC said she had been "consulting" on the show.