Because like GL in final years, it was clear that ATWT had no long-term story projections and they were flying at the seat of their pants.

Totally agree. I believe some of that was the uncertainty that surrounded the shows, so they were forced to throw things in the hope they would create buzz, but as you said about the lack of long-term projections, they were unable to take those stories further when they had potential.

In that case I also think it was because the show was canceled. Too bad, as I liked the story.

That was a bad idea to begin with. Roman hunted Stefano, was killed. Bo/Hope/Marlena get even. Stefano creates the Pawn as revenge on all parties. Stefano becomes obsessed with Marlena and hates John. It didn't need anything more.

IA. DAYS has always made it sound as if the feud between the DiMeras and Bradys went far, far back when really, the fact that Roman upended Stefano's nefarious business doings was justification enough for the continued animosity between the two families. It's as if some HW with little knowledge of the show's history watched a few scenes and assumed what has now become canon.

That got especially worse during Hogan Sheffer's misguided and just terrible run as HW.

Maria's return on AMC. They wasted Edmund much of the time that Maria was away, matching him up with TKFP (which was also not a good story on the stage as it had been nearly 10 years since Jackson Montgomery had lamented about the sister whose death he thought he was responsible for), and then the mishap with Alex/Anna (which was story that felt as if it was being written as it went along rather than any long term vision).

TPTB held off on reuniting Edmund and Brooke long past the point of it feeling organic. Edmund was pissed after Alex returned to Dimitri, and Brooke was torn up after finding out that Eliot was really the man responsible for killing her daughter.

The two bonded over their broken hearts, and it was the perfect time to bring these two characters back together, it would have given the Edmund/Brooke fans the wedding they wanted, allowed the characters to form a family, and then bam - Maria's back on the scene... perhaps right around the time Edmund's kids are starting to call Brooke, "Mommy."

Instead, with three different writing teams responsible for Maria's return, her reunion with Edmund, and then her betrayal with Zach, it was a major clusterf... all around. Brooke became the monster who lied about Maria being alive. Edmund became the monster who drugged Maureen, and then planned his divorce behind Maria's back. Maria/Maureen was just a mess, who couldn't decide from week to week if she was Maureen or Maria.

Yes to all of this! Maria's return was poorly done, and Brooke was utterly wasted for a large portion of time. Alex/Anna was a hot mess that absolutely felt like it was being written as they went along. I understand that Michael Nader's drug addiction was part of the problem - was Dimitri dead? Could he be brought back? But he died TWICE and came back TWICE in a matter of months. It was ridiculous.

They seemed to be going one direction with Alex, and people wondered if she was Anna, and it was just all over the place and it made it hard to get a good feel for who Alex really was. I'm not even sure Finola knew if she was playing an original character or Anna with amnesia or something along those lines. There wasn't a huge difference, IMHO, between Anna and Alex, other than Alex being a doctor. But you know, with Adam and Stuart, you could not only easily tell a difference between the two characters, you could tell a difference between, say, Stuart and Adam pretending to be Stuart. You just didn't see that much of a distinction between the characters with Alex and Anna. I assume that TPTB started Alex while still trying to work through the details and get permission to use Anna Devane as well, and perhaps Alex being her twin was a compromise AMC and GH worked out?

My understanding is that Alex was brought in for a romantic pairing with Edmund, but then Finola got pregnant, which complicated the situation a bit because they had to hide her pregnancy and write her off for a while. That, and the love story told in flashbacks between Alex and Dimitri was far hotter than the lukewarm romance between Edmund and Alex, so perhaps the plan to stick her with Edmund was scrapped, and they rewrote a lot. Either way, it was a mess in a lot of ways.

Santa Barbara - two words. New Stailand. Richard Eden (Brick Wallace) has gone on record several times saying that he hated that storyline. I don't blame him a bit.

The way I remember the Alex situation was, they initially wanted her to be revealed to be Anna after all but someone pumped the brakes on that - Angela Shapiro, Finola, the writing team, I have no idea. Then they came up with this dumb nonsense where Alex had been brainwashed and 'trained' to be just like her sister, not that the idea of Anna-as-Alex was any better (I hated that idea). Then they realized Finola had much more chemistry with the fired Michael Nader than John Callahan and reversed themselves - and brought on Anna herself, hoping to use Anna-in-the-attic as a consolation prize for Edmund, which BTW was so [!@#$%^&*] gross. When they finally realized neither Finola Hughes would ever have chemistry with Callahan, they paired her with Vincent Irizarry and let the whole thing go.

I liked Anna on AMC a lot.

I liked Anna on AMC a lot.

Oh don't get me wrong - I liked Anna on AMC a lot too. I just don't think it was handled well with who Alex was and what she was doing and with whom Finola was going to be paired. Edmund and Brooke reunited in their grief for Dimitri and a desire to investigate Alex would have been a better story for John Callahan, I think. Oh well - hindsight and all that.

Oh don't get me wrong - I liked Anna on AMC a lot too. I just don't think it was handled well with who Alex was and what she was doing and with whom Finola was going to be paired. Edmund and Brooke reunited in their grief for Dimitri and a desire to investigate Alex would have been a better story for John Callahan, I think. Oh well - hindsight and all that.

Agreed. I actually didn't mind Alex or Anna, but both characters were better suited for Dimitri and David. JC and FH just did not have any romantic spark, and then there was the ick factor of trying to date the identical sister of the sister who just dropped his ass.

It is also a clear case of forgetting history because Edmund was in a rage with how quickly Dimitri and Alex reunited, and they had only a short time together, and despite Brooke not revealing "Maureen," Brooke and Edmund had a complicated romantic history and dear friendship - they chose to make Brooke look bad for actions as a valid excuse for Edmund dumping her so quickly, but it did jive with his own history of being dumped nor the fact that Brooke and Edmund's relationship had spanned a decade.

Edmund looked like a jerk, and then with the show's attempt to put Aidan (Frons hot flash at the moment) with Maureen, and Edmund doping Maureen with experimental drugs - he just continue on the downward spiral, including him looking like mean, spiteful and revengeful when Zach came on the scene.

I truly wish that Richard Culliton had been given one more year to play out his stories. While not everyone likes his style as a headwriter, he took a dreadfully dull show when he came on board, and gave it some true excitement. And while I think Edmund and Maria would have ultimately ended up together, I think a lot less damage would have been done to Brooke and Edmund's characters all for the sake of bringing back Eva LaRue, who was just pressured into coming back, and then wanting out once it was clear her real life marriage to JC was over.

Edited February 19, 201411 yr by EnglishTea

I thought Culliton's time was the last really mostly solid year the show had on ABC. It wasn't perfect but I enjoyed it tremendously. They were cooking. But Frons took him out.

I thought Culliton's time was the last really mostly solid year the show had on ABC. It wasn't perfect but I enjoyed it tremendously. They were cooking. But Frons took him out.

Meh. My main complaint was that Culliton and later Rayfield seemed to think that Chris Stamp was an acceptable character to be paired with Erica Kane. What a joke! Plus they moved Vanessa from villain who could stay on the show to over the top crazy person who had to be killed off, and they retconned David's father - who had previously been viewed as a decent human being - into a drug lord. Oh, and of course there was the 'Vanessa had Richard Fields child and watched him rape Erica but did nothing to stop it' mess. There were a few bright spots for me between 2001 to mid-2003 (namely David and Anna's romance and Erica and Jack's affair), but it definitely was not one of my favorite periods.

IIRC, Rayfield killed Chris Stamp almost immediately. They had that hilariously awful 'location shoot' in the woods where he was killed to the blaring, ill-suited strains of Moby.

I was under the impression doubling down on Vanessa came from Agnes. But I loved it so I didn't care.

Edited February 19, 201411 yr by Vee

I felt like Culliton had few choices with Chris Stamp. He'd been brought in during Passanante in, what, spring 2001? Then he was killed in spring 2003, like they were just waiting for his contract to run out.

Edited February 19, 201411 yr by DRW50

I was under the impression Chris Stamp had been brought in right before Culliton, but I may be off on the timeline. I thought Jack Scalia, the character, etc. was an Angela Shapiro/Passanante initiative.

He was.