"No, really, they're better than you think!"

[All My Shadows]

Barbara/Henry meant more Barbara airtime, so there was no way that wasn't gonna get the "okay" from a lot of people. Even when the show's final weeks are disappearing before our eyes, and Barbara's spending the entire hour cooped up in a makeshift cell talking to a damn clown. It was refreshing to see Barbara worried about Barbara for a change after being preoccupied with Will, Paul, and Jenn for so long, but still...

I liked B/H together in the beginning, but once they got the "soul mates" edit and Vienna was made out to be an absolute terror in order to justify Henry cheating on his wife, I was too through. And this comes from someone who spent the better part of those four years wondering why the hell Vienna was ever anything more than a day player who disappeared once that Simon/Katie thing ended in '06.

[DRW50]

I hated what they did with Vienna, but I was mostly interested in Barbara's reaction, and generally, Barbara did stay away from Henry and try to take the high road. I would have been more insulted if they had done some pseudo-Rylee writing and had Barbara and Henry whoring it up under Vienna's nose.

The story, even with the bad writing, was also the closest ATWT had to a long-term outline in its last two years (they first began as an affair for Henry to get Barbara's money in summer 2009 and then it built up).

[DeeeDee]

Especially when he had SO much more chemistry with Leyden & Collier.

[All My Shadows]

Whomp, there you go, Paul Leyden. I didn't really see much of his original run, but I thought he/Simon brought lots of life to the show when he returned in 2006.

[DRW50]

The big problem with any of those men was that they were only there for black hole Katie. As a result I could not invest in anything they did outside of being Katie props. I still don't know why the show didn't try to keep Simon around to pair him with Katie at the end instead of putting her with Chris. Leyden was the only man Terri Conn has had chemistry with in her entire soap career.

[Quent]

Carl , AMEN!!! Katie's last scene should have been Simon marching into WOAK and sweeping Katie off her feet ala "An Officer And A Gentlemen".

We're getting way off topic here, but I hope someone starts a thread with all the things ATWT did wrong at the end (even though they had PLENTY of time to do it right!)

[lovely_m]

It's a shame Paul Leydon couldn't stay on longer and ended up playing a waste of space character on Y&R.

[DeeeDee]

Josh Casaubon

Tyler Christopher

Mark Consuelos

Real Andrews

Terrell Tilford

Ashley Tesoro

[Soapsuds]

A threesome?? Hmmm..maybe the three could have taught Luke something.

I always thought Katie and Simon were the endgame for the finale. Instead she got stuck with boring Chris Hughes...so totally opposites...grrrrrr

[AlexElizabeth]

One of the absolute worst soap couples I've ever seen. They were awful together. Katie and Chris = puke.

[All My Shadows]

Has Cosgrove ever been half of a good couple, though? I know Bill and Lizzie had their little fanbase on GL (they have a chintzy little page on wikipedia), but Cosgrove, no matter how cute he can be, has never oozed romance or sex appeal for me.

Speaking of ATWT, I thought Zach Roerig was only okay as Casey, but he improved by the time he got Friday Night Lights and now he's pretty good on Vampire Diaries, but he's still got that whole surfer dude thing going on...and if you thought that was weird for Oakdale, it was even worse when he was playing a Texan rodeo star.

[DRW50]

I thought Cosgrove was OK with Crystal Chappell/Olivia.

[MichaelGL]

Yeah, Cosgrove was pretty good with Crystal Chappell.

[P.J.]

I love Danny Cosgrove. He's the only person ever to make GL's Beth Chamberlain tolerable to me, and he made that horrid hair model who played Ho-livia's daughter seem lifelike. I think he exels more at comedy, however, and I loved him with Natalie Zea on Dirty Sexy Money. It's too bad he and Gina Tognoni played brother and sister on GL, 'cause I thought they had some really inappropriate chemistry---probably more than he and Lizzie had.

Zach Roerig improved greatly while on ATWT. So did Billy Magnussen.

To answer the original question---Nicole Forrester as Cassie Layne. She got vilified for the Josh/Cassie hookup. She wasn't a bad actress. It's not like she was Nancy St.Alban or anything.

[MichaelGL]

Oh! How could I forget the steamy Beth and Bill pairing! Cosgrove and Chamberlain were pretty hot when paired together.