7 hours ago, carolineg said:

I agree JJ was unlikely to be cast after he was a child/pre-teen.  I would say the same for Amber Tamblyn.  But is JY really that hot?  He is no Greg Vaughn. Tyler Christopher was smoking hot, maybe not hired specifically for his abs, but c'mon he was pretty gorgeous @FrenchBug82

Of all the people mentioned I actually would go for JY last. Not that he is not good-looking obviously. But JJ, TC, CB can come to my house anytime first.
So I wasn't making a case about their attractiveness in general - such a subjective thing anyway - but we are talking stereotypes of what's "good-looking" per soap standards and while I strongly disagree with Vee's dismissal of it as "usual", I certainly agree with them that JY was a case of abs-based hire.
I simply think it is particularly surprising they went there in this very specific case and I hear nothing that makes it convincing to argue it is not.
Funny thing though is that in the end we all agree it was a miscast which was the point so no need to belabor whether it was as "to be expected" as ya'll seem to think.
I do think YOUR point which is that it is possible to be insanely attractive without looking like an underwear model is 100% correct and I'd argue anyone who watches soaps knows it is perfectly possible to find attractive-in-various-ways people who can act. And soaps do more often than it commonly believed aka my point.
We will never fully know what was in their heads when they misfired so badly with JY.
 

Edited July 12, 20214 yr by FrenchBug82

JJ made Lucky as a cop totally work when it never had before, AFAIC. He and Dante should've run the show for years to come like Luke and Scorpio.

35 minutes ago, FrenchBug82 said:

I simply think it is particularly surprising they went there in this very specific case and I hear nothing that makes it convincing to argue it is not.

No one needs to convince you - it's simply how the network worked in the early 21st century. I had a huge crush on Jonathan Jackson as a kid, so it's not a question of me not finding him attractive. I thought he was very hot. That doesn't change the fact that had the network or the execs there had their choice, they would never have cast him as their teen heartthrob. The higher-ups are often very shallow and focused on more conventional types of 'beauty'. JJ and Amber do not fit that shallow mold. These are facts. That doesn't make them any less beautiful people, but they are not the cliche soap 'type'.

27 minutes ago, Faulkner said:

JJ was never going to win any pose-offs, but he’s dreamy and tortured in the Christian Slater/River Phoenix mold. He’s a great-looking guy to this day. He was so singular and idiosyncratic that it was harder to simply slot him (or an actor like him) into a generic B-list leading male role to fit whatever narrative the show wanted to sell at any given point. Jacob Young and especially Greg Vaughan are much easier to use as Play-Doh. Lucky *never* made sense as a cop to me based on his history. GV felt like an entirely different character.

JJ, upon his return, was such a soulful actor that he almost made it work, but he returned to a very diminished show, which catered to a lot of his worst actorly instincts.

So many tears on JJ's return.  So much time spent on Siobhan and Liz/Lucky went nowhere.  Liz/Lucky may have been too damaged to repair at that point, but the show spent so little time on it.  RH/JJ still sparkled together, but throwing Lucky into the Balkan mess was a miss.  JJ wasn't great as a cop, but an undercover WSB spy did sort of work for me.  As a child he was very savvy with computers, had a sense of fearlessness and adventure, and it does seem like something he might be into as an adult.  Idk, he tried his best and got a few emmys for it.  I wouldn't put the return in the miss category like Brenda's, but in the so-so pile.

26 minutes ago, FrenchBug82 said:

We will never fully know what was in their heads when they misfired so badly with JY.
 

I guess it was just an attempt to sex Lucky and Lucky/Liz up a bit.  Before this everything was pretty chaste and virginal with those two.  And GH probably felt it was time to move them forward.  IIRC, which I might not, there was a big push with that young adult scene around that time.  I remember all those black/yellow ads they had and remember Liz/Lucky strongly featured.  JY was just a strange choice.  They easily could have found an actor with the qualities they wanted that had stronger chemistry with RH because she has chemistry with almost everyone.

Talented actor that he is, I was never a big fan of JJ's Lucky, even at the best of times, so admittedly I am biased, but the scenes of him telling Liz that the high point of his feelings for her was when he found her bleeding from a rape just reinforced everything that ever put me off about that pairing, even back in the day. 

Edited July 12, 20214 yr by DRW50

I don't blame him or even Lucky for that; that was Guza. JJ explicitly said he left again after only a couple years because of the excessively grim and dark writing that failed to reunite that couple in a healthy way, which is what he felt had been promised him.

8 minutes ago, Vee said:

I don't blame him or even Lucky for that; that was Guza. JJ explicitly said he left again after only a couple years because of the excessively grim and dark writing that failed to reunite that couple in a healthy way, which is what he felt had been promised him.

Which doesn't seem like a big ask?  There were many ways to reunite them in an organic way and JJ coming back made it easier to accept some things that happened with the JY and GV recasts.  Although Lucky saying Liz/Nik were "rutting like farm animals" was amazing.  I died.  That was a legendary line lol.

Just now, carolineg said:

Which doesn't seem like a big ask?  

It's not, at all. Guza and co. just didn't like Liz.

36 minutes ago, Vee said:

I don't blame him or even Lucky for that; that was Guza. JJ explicitly said he left again after only a couple years because of the excessively grim and dark writing that failed to reunite that couple in a healthy way, which is what he felt had been promised him.

It was Guza, yes, and it was a disgusting scene, but in some ways it was what Guza had built up all along. Michele Val Jean wrote some beautiful material for Liz on her own terms, but any time Lucky got involved, it became all about him, similar to how Laura's rape revisit was so much about him and about Luke. The natural endpoint of that era of the pairing, and Guza's vision, was for Lucky to remind us, one last time, he could only truly love Liz in the forever moment of him finding her bleeding in the snow.

Due to that scene, several viewers think Lucky never should return again and that he is essentially worse than Peter August. I, on the other hand, disagree with that. They're characters who have done and said far worse things than what he said, and they get reprieve after reprieve. My dream casting for Lucky will be Jeff Branson. I think some people forget Lucky Spencer has ties on the screen other than Liz; 

He has a son he hardly sees and stepsons he hadn't seen since Obama was in the White House. 

 

If the show was motivated in bringing back Lucky, Tommy Hardy, and Serena Baldwin. I swear I would shut up on Twitter wishing for it everyday. 

10 minutes ago, Forever8 said:

My dream casting for Lucky will be Jeff Branson.

He would thread the needle pretty well between JJ and GV. 

24 minutes ago, Forever8 said:

Due to that scene, several viewers think Lucky never should return again and that he is essentially worse than Peter August.

I know there are a thousand and one Liz apologists on this board but just no to Jonathan Jackson's Lucky not being able to return to the show because he called Liz out on her whoring around GH like a common tramp. What Guza did to GV's Lucky was disgusting, and the way he used Liz to apply endless abuse, after endless abuse was something out of a farce.

It was vindicating to watch JJ's Lucky call her out on all of her despicable actions after Liz cheated on Lucky with Jason, Nikolas and then pretended Jake was his. Enough with the crocodile tears for Lies Webber. 

Edited July 12, 20214 yr by Skin

28 minutes ago, Forever8 said:

My dream casting for Lucky will be Jeff Branson

That is a VERY inspired idea. I totally co-sign. He even LOOKS like a mix of the previous Luckys and he has the range. Would never have crossed my mind but kudos for thinking of it.

2 hours ago, carolineg said:

I guess it was just an attempt to sex Lucky and Lucky/Liz up a bit. 

But, see, this is why this is so bizarre.
They wanted to sex up Lucky/Liz up a bit? Why not?
They thought they needed a hunkier guy to do that? Sure. Why not?
They don't care how good an actor he is? Now it starts to become puzzling, but fine let's take Vee's argument that it is par for the course at face velue.
But they didn't even hire someone who had any chemistry with Liz? This makes no sense.
So I will go to my grave thinking there was something uniquely weird about this casting.
And I say that without even touching on the later rumors.

28 minutes ago, FrenchBug82 said:

But, see, this is why this is so bizarre.
They wanted to sex up Lucky/Liz up a bit? Why not?
They thought they needed a hunkier guy to do that? Sure. Why not?
They don't care how good an actor he is? Now it starts to become puzzling, but fine let's take Vee's argument that it is par for the course at face velue.
But they didn't even hire someone who had any chemistry with Liz? This makes no sense.
So I will go to my grave thinking there was something uniquely weird about this casting.
And I say that without even touching on the later rumors.

This was when the show was lodged in Jason's colon. They had no real interest in Liz outside of Jason. 

28 minutes ago, FrenchBug82 said:

They don't care how good an actor he is? Now it starts to become puzzling, but fine let's take Vee's argument that it is par for the course at face velue.

LOL, this is not "my argument". It's what literally happened! It has happened countless times throughout the history of soap operas, let alone network television. TV executives routinely make tacky decisions. Why is this so impossible to believe? This is not a forensics debate society.