AMC - Tuesday - April 26, 2011

[EricMontreal22]

Yeah, it seems odd for a male actor in particular to lie about his age. Then again maybe he always looks older--he certainly didn't like 19 or whatever when he was on GL, but I have a hard time buying it either. It just seems odd--he's a good looking guy and at this point to lie about his age makes zero sense to me.

Anyway Ithought it was a good episode though some of it was kinda dull. Lotsa great Cara/Tad stuff, I really liked th ebond between Kendall and Griff... And please, Zack as a ghost is fine but I don't want him back. Zendall when they started *were* great--I often forget that now though because they just were ruined as a couple, in so many ways.

[EricMontreal22]

Last time we had a reverend on was in 99 with that priest who fell for Brooke and wvolunteered at her homeless shelter and turned out to be the drunk driver who killed her daughter (a story by Agnes Nixon nearly everyone but me seemed to despise lol)--don't think we ever saw his church though. But Opal went to his church too, just like she apparently now does for Ricky.

[Jonathan]

JV looked so much younger during his stint on GL. I think the reason he looks older is because he filled out more in his face and has buffed up.

[Antoyne]

I was watching semi-regularly when Ricky and Griff both showed up and it's amazing how much everyone's opinions of the two have changed..Can someone tell me what was the major turning point?

[LoyaltoAMC]

Did Agnes write that story? I know Agnes was credited as HW during that story, but I always thought that was Passanante's idea. That whole time was very weird. Agnes wrote the Bianca coming out story, and some of the touches during that time were cleary "Nixonian" (The Glamourama, the conflict with Marian and Opal), but I wonder how much she was paying attention to the other stuff that was going on, including Alex Devane, Brooke and the reverand, the Dillons' exit story, the Linda Dano crap, etc. Maybe it's me just looking at rose-colored glasses thinking Agnes couldn't possibly have dreamt up SO MANY stinkers at once, but some of the more plot-driven stuff does reek of Passanante.

[Steve]

Yes, I think it was Agnes' storyline. I always thought there was so much more potential to that story than the writers touched on. If Brooke had looked into her heart and realized that Elliott accidentally killed her daughter yet she intentionally murdered Jim years later. It could have been a story of redemption and forgiveness. I think the suits at ABC got scared and scrapped it too soon.

[EricMontreal22]

I would lay money on it being an Agnes story--for better or worse it felt like a lot of her older stuff, just perhaps with worse execution (similarly I think she created the Becka/Greenlee/Scott thing and then Leo coming in--it felt like an attempt to do a young love story like from the 70s--with Greenlee being a poor little rich girlversion fo young Erica, sadly I think heroines like Becka--ie dull--went out on soaps after the 70s).

The Brooke story was still fairly early on in Agnes' return when the show felt a lot more like her show--small town feel, a new emphasis on class conflicts, the Glamorama, etc. By the end of Agnes' stint (before the credits switched just to Jean Passanante's name) I do think Agnes may have only still been writing the Bianca stuff--this was when the show suddenly got very schizo, what with the Libidizone story happening at the same time as the end of Bianca's coming out, etc--it was a mix of super cartoony and one dimensional, with that great Binks stuff--and as soon as Agnes' name left the show completely fell into the one dimensional cartoony style (the giggly ecstacy taking teens like Marcus and Mindy, Dogboy, the endless Ghost Jesse stuff, etc).

But, yeah for good or bad, the Priest story felt like, at least in concept, classic Agnes'--and again maybe it was the kind of story that would have worked better in an earlier decade. I would love to know more about that era--I know Agnes returned partly to clean up the mess of McTavish' second run, and I remember an interview where she was kinda apologetic that it would just be a short return stint saying hwo full time headwriting wore her out too much now, and I believe she was looking after her sick husband. But the first year or so did have a lot that felt like classic Agnes to me-- And then when she left it in Jean Passanante's hands (who had made a name for herself as breakdown writer during the first Malone/Griffith era at OLTL and seems to have coasted miraculously on it ever since--even after breaking her contract with AMC shortly after her disastrous solo stint and leaving them without a HW for a few months) the show was IMHO worse than it had been during the McTavish era... I wonder if Agnes looked on in horror or just couldn't be involved (she was rumoured to be back helping the writers a bit during the following Culliton era--and though it's prob partly staged the A&E Bio of AMC shows her at a story conference at this time).

I forgot the Linda Dano mess was around then--I thought for some reason it was the tail end of McTavish--but wasn't that mostly story dictated by some ABC Daytime head? I barely even remember her time at AMC, just at OLTL... What a crap crossover that was--it makes me actually appreciate the in comparison subtle brilliance of the AMC/OLTL crossover a bit more.

I do agree--and again it could be rose coloured glasses--that the other stories you mention don't seem like Agnes' ideas, though of course I assume even in her busy/distracted state she had to have approved them. With the Brooke/Eliot story part of the prob was fans complained early on and, I read as well because he was a priest, the execs seemed to have asked for it to be cut short. I agree with Steve that it had more potential than shown. But of course this is all conjecture--still, like I said, I'd make a healthy wager the story was at least partly Agnes' doing...

Here's one scene I found from Oct 2000--I think they very quickly wrapped the storyline up (not even sure if he got an exit) right after this