Stories that you feel personally flopped and could've been better....

[slick jones]

Ugh! No. Penny. Brown. Penny. Ever. Please.

I worked in a bar when TK was on OLTL. Our regulars would start coming in at three in the afternoon. Its amazing how many shots we did to that brown penny flashback they showed so often.

[vetsoapfan]

Phillip Chancellor being alive, and returning to Genoa City as a gay man, was a major flop.

Rick Webber returning to Port Charles as a degenerate who had cheated on Lesley, and then ended up dead, was a disaster.

[slick jones]

What they did to Rick Webber was obscene! Nothing in his character made him that kind of man! A cheater, yes, a scumbag, no!

[amybrickwallace]

HAHAHAHA!!! How many people had completely passed out and fallen off the barstools by the time the show ended for the day?

[slick jones]

I plead the fifth, which is what you could drink over the course of....."Brown Penny..............."

[amybrickwallace]

LOL!! Some people plead the fifth, some people drink the fifth, some do both. I guess many people were relieved when TK joined AMC as Zach Slater, a completely different character than Patrick Thornhart - Zach has to be his most beloved role, I have a feeling that's what most soap fans would say.

I third the disgusting story that brought Rick Webber back to GH in 2002. That was a major slap in the face not only to longtime viewers but to the actors, who were playing the same roles they had played in the 70s but with a completely retconned history. I know they had to find a way to write Genie Francis off the show, as she left in a contract dispute, but there had to be a better way to do it.

[cassadine1991]

Weren't they going to have that Rick molested Laura all those years ago but changed it?

[amybrickwallace]

That I don't know. If so, I wouldn't be surprised.

[Khan]

That was the rumor, yes. IIRC, Chuck Pratt was still co-HW, so it seemed as if he would be ripping off from himself -- or more precisely, from a story he had told years before on "Melrose Place." (With some minor changes, of course. For one, MP's Alison was molested in the basement, rather than the attic.) However, someone -- perhaps at GH, perhaps at the network -- dictated that the story be changed. Nevertheless, what DID make it on-screen not only resulted in Rick Webber's murder (a stupid and irreversible mistake, IMO) but also resulted in a complete contradiction of established characters' histories and behaviors as well. And short of a Jedi mind-wipe, I can't figure out any way GH could un-do any of it either. Not Rick's insta-history as a serial womanizer (which is ridic, given how the whole Rick/Lesley/Monica/Alan quadrangle played out back then), not his and Scott's attempts at covering up his crime and brainwashing Laura, not his murder years later or anything else.

Honestly, even a story where Laura remembered getting pregnant by David Hamilton, having the baby in secret, and then giving it away without anyone noticing a thing would have made more sense and done less damage than that [!@#$%^&*].

[John]

What's even sadder about the Rick Webber story is that Guza & Pratt were both Scriptwriters from 82-87 and Rick was bug then and he never molested anyone or had an affair with anyone but Monica. So him being a serial cheater sucked

[amybrickwallace]

That could have been a GREAT story, and had Genie Francis stayed for the long haul, I have no doubt she would've knocked it out of the park. Of course, they still could do it today if GF decided to return full-time. Also, it would give Kin Shriner and (dare I even dream?) Denise Alexander meaty material to work with as they were both around during the David Hamilton story in 1977(?). I know it was pre-Luke and I think even pre-Bobbie.

[Khan]

Ah, but remember what Pratt told AMC's actors shortly after coming aboard. He told them he didn't care about history and that he preferred writing characters OUT of character every so often in order to keep us on our toes.

[cassadine1991]

Didn't he block Agnes Nixon from meetings during his tenure? Unfortunately under this regime I doubt we'll ever see this or if we do then it will be abysmal

[Khan]

From what I have read on these boards, yes. For the first time in the show's history, I think, too.

[cassadine1991]

Wow...