Retcons and Rewrites

[Antoyne]

<blockquote class='ipsBlockquote'data-author="y&r_fan" data-cid="1162494" data-time="1356940219"><p>

Wasn't she always? </p></blockquote>

No. Have you not seen their old cat fights? Lauren was not a &#33;@#&#036;%^&amp;*] when it came to Sheila until recent rewrites.

[Cheap21]

Yep. Lauren used to be the aggressor, especially on B&B. Sheila, I wouldn't say was scared, but definetly seemed a bit intimidated that Lauren would be on the edge of taking her down, especially when she tried to rebuild her life in LA. Lauren in recent years is ready to have a breakdown at the mere mention of the name Sheila as they write her as being unhinged and not as confident as she was in the 90s when dealing with her

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a-6XawX3F-A

[Khan]

She also molested her own daughter and built a city underneath Corrie in order to stash her gold.

[Khan]

True dat. Depending on whom you ask, either all the murders were hoaxes from the get-go, or most of them were except for Doug and Alice's, or Doug and Alice's were the fake deaths and the rest weren't, or they all were legit until Ken Corday panicked and demanded that JER rewrite the ending.

[DRW50]

Considering the producer they have coming in you may not be far off.

[JackPeyton]

Yup, many theroies.

I subscribe to most of the deaths were supposed to be real, up until Doug. Alices was absolutely not, no way, no how.

[Khan]

Paul Rauch is (back from the dead and) producing Corrie?

[DRW50]

Stuart Blackburn, who was so desperate to push his favorite couple (who have, literally, zero fans - I have never seen one) that he had the woman's husband, an upstanding vicar, begin physically and verbally abusing his bedridden father so that viewers would hate him.

[Khan]

I subscribe to the same theory, JP. I, too, think most, if not all, of the murders were intended to be real until someone -- Ken Corday, NBC, Sony -- flipped their [&#33;@#&#036;%^&amp;*] and JER had to change the story. And I say that, because I don't believe JER ever really respected DAYS. He just looked at the show as his chance (next to PASSIONS) to play God as HW.

[ChitHappens]

I agree. I believe Reilly had every intention to keep the dead dead and was only forced to bring them back. Reilly does not like to be told what to do at all, so he was probably pissed he had to re-write that.

[Eric83]

<blockquote class='ipsBlockquote'data-author="JackPeyton" data-cid="1162574" data-time="1356966378"><p>

Yup, many theroies. <br />

<br />

I subscribe to most of the deaths were supposed to be real, up until Doug. Alices was absolutely not, no way, no how.</p></blockquote>

Alice dying by doughnuts would have NEVER been real.

And Bill Hayes already said he knew Doug's death was being faked. He couldn't even tell his own wife.

[Khan]

I remember reading an interview w/ Ilene Kristen (ex-Roxy, OLTL) where she said the original Jessica/Natalie story was supposed to reveal that Jessica was really Roxy and Walter Balsom's daughter and Natalie Clint and Viki's. I remember reading, too, that then-EP Gary Tomlin and HW's Lorraine Broderick and Chris Whitesell rewrote the outcome, giving us the ridiculous Clint-and-Mitch-both-impregnating-Viki twist, because viewers had figured out the original reveal ahead of time.

Now, I'm not saying I could buy Natalie as the "real" Jessica Buchanan (although, to be honest, the twist on its own seems tantalizing). I will say rewriting the story's climax was wrong for two reasons: 1) soap operas aren't about "what happens next," but "when it will happen"; and 2) the story never should have been about the twist itself, but the fallout. It shouldn't matter to me that I know that Jessica and Natalie were switched at birth. What should matter to me, and what should have mattered to the show, was how everyone, and especially Viki, dealt with the revelation.

[JackPeyton]

during the murders on days you could also see a tone shift around the marlena reveal/killing tony, and then it went full on campy from dougs murder - by that point i think the decision was made to reverse all of this, new salem was created, and alice was selected to be the final victim for shock value leading into the flying coffin.

[kwaku_ag]

Does Jason Quartermaine becoming Jason Morgan count? Or is that considered as a character assassination?

Either way I HATED how the writers made Jason so unbearable. I loved him when he was a kind hearted and intelligent teenager who was madly in love with Keesha. Once he started working for Sonny, he ditched the Quartermaines and started treating Keesha like [&#33;@#&#036;%^&amp;*]. I also think Steve Burton's acting suffered because of the character's drastic personality change.

[~bl~]

If someone watched Conboy's Santa Barbara, the MAC thing was even more annoying as they also did a variation of that story with John Callahan, John O'Hurley and others. So it wasn't as if they were just copying GL's Lake Elizabeth. Also another thing that was ridiculous is how it mucked up some history parts, like how could Josh be engaged to Harley and know her father was alive and not tell her. How could Billy marry Nadine knowing she was a bigamist (that said he was drunk, but come on…) Also the guys were all different ages, and now all peers. Ed had been married more than once by 1977 and dad to both Freddie and Christina, Alan only came to Springfield at the end of 1977, but he was Phillip's Dad and a grown man. Billy due to Melinda's age would have been an adult too. The only one who could have been teen-early 20s in 1977 was Joshua as he went to Berkeley before moving to Springfield. To note, the first Lewis in Springfield was Trish, and she was tied into the story as Andy's former wife - both Josh and Trish came to town in 1981. The interview the actors did when it was going on was the best part of it as it was completely entertaining.

For me the Ridge is a Marone story was a big rewrite on B&B I loathed. Having him not be Eric's son just made it possible for Ridge to date Bridget, and Rick/Bridget to date Ridge's children.