It's been way too long since I posted anything at all on the SON Forums. I selfishly read them to excess daily and enjoy the information, insight, opinions, and visits back to 'soap yesteryear.'

It has been rather apparent to me that Fiiona Hutchison maintains quite a bevy of fan support here throughout SON. This thrills me, as Fiona Hutchison is my persoanal ALL-TIME Favourite Daytime Diva. I have, like so many others here, adored her work & beauty since 1987 when she lamented her love life to her Abuela in Argentina~ (On OLTL) of course.

I hope to encourage, invite, begin a new topic for Grande(wink) discussion regarding Fiona, her Characters, Gabby or Jenna alike. How many other fans still treasure this unique lady's talents and contributions to her Daytime Shows? How many people prefer Gabrielle Medina to Jenna Bradshaw? Or Jenna to Gabrielle? How many still love thinking back to the years when Fiona worked daily with the likes of Andrea Evans? They were 'kinetic energy' on screen together!!!!

How is it that Fiona was never awarded an Emmy for Gabrielle in 1991? Or even in 2004 for her work after Al's death aired? The scenes she shared with Erika Slezak just after Al's death just stunned me! Was Fiona instantly well-received and popular in her role as Gabrielle? I seem to recall that she was quickly recognised for her exotic beauty in S.O.D. These are but a few of the questions I can only hope/anticipate that get discussed here within this thread..... Long Live Gabrielle & Jenna~

Jean Carol always played up Nadine's loneliness and vulnerability, which is why I felt sorry for her. I had seen Nadine over the years, through good and bad times, and the one constant was how lonely and desperate she was. Buzz and Jenna were strangers to me, and then Buzz just took over the storyline, with that godawful "accent" and the gum-smacking. That was the end of my GL.

Technically, I shouldn't have felt sympathy for her, especially since I also liked Bridget, but the show did a wonderful job with Nadine's motivations and with the price Nadine paid - she went back to the poverty she'd spent her adult life running from.

Did she really go back to poverty? The way I remember it was that she moved in with Frank and Eleni and had to work at the diner or something. Which was probably a station in life (living with extended family and working a blue collar job) that a lot of viewers could relate to... If the point was that Nadine was being punished, that sort of encapsulates a lot of what drove soaps into the ground in the last couple of decades: the assumption on the part of people behind the scenes that the existences of many viewers were tantamount to bad kharma. ]I just remember Nadine having her family rallying around her against awful Jenna...

And don't get me wrong, I thought Jean Carol was great, I just didn't see Nadine as being redeemed or especially rootable. When Jenna was having her miscarriage, wasn't there even one of those stock soap scenes where she called Buzz and Nadine answered and hung up on her? That was especially ugly because of her recent history with Bridget.

I just felt like the show struggled with any identity for Jenna and it was easier to downgrade her to Buzz's galpal and Roger's victim, partaking in phenomenal stories like stolen face cream.

I wasn't watching at that point and I don't recall a face cream story at all. What I've seen of the post-Curlee era on YouTube was a mess for most of the characters. To me, the logical thing to keep Jenna relevant after she lost Spaulding would have been for her not to have lost the baby and then have Henry step up and offer to marry her to give her clout and power to fight Roger for custody. It would have been a great swan song for William Roerick, who passed on a year or two later, and it would have been shades of Reva and HB's marriage of convenience (with better diction).

Did she really go back to poverty? The way I remember it was that she moved in with Frank and Eleni and had to work at the diner or something. Which was probably a station in life (living with extended family and working a blue collar job) that a lot of viewers could relate to... If the point was that Nadine was being punished, that sort of encapsulates a lot of what drove soaps into the ground in the last couple of decades: the assumption on the part of people behind the scenes that the existences of many viewers were tantamount to bad kharma. ]I just remember Nadine having her family rallying around her against awful Jenna...

Not poverty in real life terms, but I'd say in soap terms. (I think at one point she and Buzz were living in some hovel with nothing but old beat up mattresses on the floor).

They didn't really care about punishing Nadine, because she was there mostly to be a third wheel for Buzz, but I do think that Nadine losing everything and going back to Fifth Street was supposed to be a rebuke, or a wakeup call. I don't think it encapsulated what killed soaps, because Nadine was never a character who was treated like a saint. She was always on the outside. Even when she lived with her family again and they were close to her, it was never the same as a close relationship, because Nadine had never been there for Frank and Harley when they needed her most. It was a much more honest relationship than most of what happened on soaps, then or now.

I mostly remember Frank and Eleni having too many problems of their own to start big witch hunts against Jenna, but then I couldn't stomach most of GL at that time, so I can't tell you.

To me, the logical thing to keep Jenna relevant after she lost Spaulding would have been for her not to have lost the baby and then have Henry step up and offer to marry her to give her clout and power to fight Roger for custody.

I would have had Henry legally adopt her (if he already hadn't - I can't remember) and fight that way. He loved her too much like a daughter to ever be more than that. A custody battle would have been great viewing, especially since Vanessa was fighting for custody of Peter around the same time. If she felt like Henry was more interested in Jenna's problems, that would have been good character conflict.

Edited May 28, 201213 yr by CarlD2

Not poverty in real life terms, but I'd say in soap terms. (I think at one point she and Buzz were living in some hovel with nothing but old beat up mattresses on the floor).

They didn't really care about punishing Nadine, because she was there mostly to be a third wheel for Buzz, but I do think that Nadine losing everything and going back to Fifth Street was supposed to be a rebuke, or a wakeup call. I don't think it encapsulated what killed soaps, because Nadine was never a character who was treated like a saint. She was always on the outside. Even when she lived with her family again and they were close to her, it was never the same as a close relationship, because Nadine had never been there for Frank and Harley when they needed her most. It was a much more honest relationship than most of what happened on soaps, then or now.

Oh, I agree, Nadine's relationship with her family was very truthful. I just think "poverty = punishment" is a problematic message, whether we're supposed to root for the character or not. And especially offensive in a genre with such a large audience of working class women. Before daytime soaps tried to become Dallas/Dynasty clones, I think there was a realization that characters like Rachel and Delia struck a cord with some viewers because they came from nothing. Both of them actually moved up in socioeconomic status soon after their schemes fell through, but they paid in other ways that were more fitting/creative. Delia was cut off from the Ryans (for a little while, at least) and Rachel got a taste of her own medicine when Iris went after her. Reilly was gone by the time Nadine lost Billy, right? Otherwise I would think the mattress scenario (which I don't recall) was a prelude to Vivian having to work as a hot dog vendor, etc. Not that it's necessarily better or worse than the rape redemption stories that have been the norm since...

I would have had Henry legally adopt her (if he already hadn't - I can't remember) and fight that way. He loved her too much like a daughter to ever be more than that. A custody battle would have been great viewing, especially since Vanessa was fighting for custody of Peter around the same time. If she felt like Henry was more interested in Jenna's problems, that would have been good character conflict.

Either way, I just think keeping her in Henry's orbit in a meaningful way would have been a goldmine, and why they missed an opportunity to give Roger another heir (wasn't this right after Leonard Stabb's accident?) is beyond me. And yes, although I don't understand how Jenna and Vanessa became friends, I agree that a conflict over Henry's attention when they both stood to lose their children would have been more organic (they still could have reached an understanding, but whatever the face cream story was, I don't think that would have been the way to go about it). They could have even had Henry express sympathy for Bridget because she reminded him of her Aunt Nola...

Edited May 28, 201213 yr by DeliaIrisFan

I just think "poverty = punishment" is a problematic message, whether we're supposed to root for the character or not.

I agree with you, but I don't think it was a punishment as much as just a restart. The real punishment for Nadine was that Buzz would never truly love her.

I think Reilly was gone by then.

She and Buzz were living in a hovel around the time of that Pauly story, which I only saw a little of, and that was enough for me. He had played Bunny on SB, so he was another friend of Jill's. He was a mobster and his money was hidden in a mattress, and Nadine flushed it down a toilet, or something.