On B&B in the early years....I remember Stephanie having some mute Daughter and no one knew who she was or something....Angela? LOL. I remember watching it at the time and thinking...who even cares? What even happened to her? And we cared because....

Angela, who had water on the brain from birth and Stephanie lied about her being dead to spare Eric pain, or something. Stephanie didn't know that she'd died years earlier and the doctor had replaced her with a woman named Deveny, whom I think fell in love with Thorne or something.

Susan Flannery had an interview in the mid or late 90's, before B&B's writing got really awful, where she said that she used a line from that story (the line where they talked about how the real Angela had died when her wheelchair had gone into traffic - "she rolled all the way down 7th Avenue") any time she thought something in the writing was getting stupid again.

Edited May 13, 201510 yr by DRW50

Proteus on AMC. That storyline was a mess. If I recall correctly, they didn't know who it was when they started it, they went through a regime change, and the whole thing was an unmitigated disaster.

How about every return of Carrie and/or Austin on DAYS? I remember in particular their 2005 return was heavily hyped and then it all fell flat. Both Clark and Peck were off the show again less than a year later.

On B&B, the examples of stories without consequences are endless.

On B&B in the 90s/00s, there were many instances where characters flirted with each and the audience thought they were going to be paired up, but it lead nowhere.

Examples would be Clarke and Brooke, Lauren and Ridge, James and Stephanie, Donna and Ridge, or Taylor and Eric (they ended up together two decades later, though).

In 1999, they introduced the photographer Giovanni (played by Victor Alfieri) who was a contract role. He flirted with both Brooke and Macy, but nothing ever happened between them. Then he had a little story with Clarke fighting for Morgan's affection which lasted for about two weeks. Giovanni was taken off-contract a few months later and helped Kimberly plotting against Thorne and Brooke, which also led to nothing with Kimberly hastily leaving town in early 2001.

In 2006, B&B introduced Harry Jackson as a new love interest for Phoebe Forrester. Harry was also supposed to be the son of a friend of Nick's (weren't there also rumors that he would turn out to be Nick's son?). He was a contract role but vanished after two months.

Kristen Forrester and Antonio Dominguez were a frontburner couple between 2001 and 2002. Once they got married and had adopted Zende, they vanished without explanation and not a single character seemed to care.

In 2004, Samantha Kelly was revealed to be Caitlin Ramirez's mother. The show spent a lot of time with Samantha and Hector trying to re-build the family they never had, but then Samantha was abruptly written off the show, as was Caitlin a few weeks later. Hector lingered around for one more year with no significant storyline. Also, nothing ever came out of Samantha's early infatuation with Ridge.

When Felicia presumably died of cancer in early 2006, she was taken care off by Dr. Christian Ramirez (Mario Lopez), Hector's brother. He fell in love with her, but they never even kissed once. Once Felicia had fully recovered, Christian was dropped like a hot potato never to be seen again.

Between 1999 and 2001 (and again in 2003), a lot of the show's storylines revolved around Amber and her trying to keep "Little Eric", Becky and Deacon's son. In the end, Deacon and Macy gained custody for the child. After Macy had died in 2003, Little Eric disappeared and nobody cared about his whereabouts. Not even Rick seems to remember how much he loved that child and how he fought for him.

The fight between Felicia and Bridget for Dante Damiano also led nowhere since he was written off without explanation. Even Dante and Felicia's son Dino was completely forgotten even though the Forresters fought for his custody. When Dante first appeared, he and Taylor apparently had some mutual history in Europe which wasn't important anymore after one week.

Thanks for that write-up.

I have the B&B DVD's released in the U.S. and I saw that episode where a goth-looking Felicia is about to marry Dante, but keeps flashing back to seeing Bridget and Dante kissing, and I thought, "boy, this sure didn't last long and had absolutely no overall effect on anything current day."

B&B sure has bad luck at using celebrities that are having a lull in their career at the time, only to blow up afterwards. To think they totally squandered Mario Lopez, and then right after, he had a career resurgence through Dancing With The Stars. Same with Betty White, who became the talk of the town with her SNL appearance in 2010... right after B&B killed her character off.

Some other pointless characters that went nowhere...

Late in 1996, they introduced Enrique (George Alvarez) and illegal immigrant Claudia Cortez (Lily Melger). Both recently poached from GH. And both given storylines that went nowhere fast. Claudia briefly had a closeness with Thorne (Jeff Trachta, then Winsor Harmon), but he quickly moved on to trying to get Taylor. Enrique had a brief flirtation with Michael Lai (another character who didn't have much to do). They all disappeared by summer of 1997, if not earlier.

Yes, Claudia, Enrique and Michael all vanished in June 1997 and were removed from the opening credits once Amber arrived.

Michael was on contract for about 2 years. She first appeared in the summer of 1995 as Dylan's roommate and was added to the credits in November along with Lark Voorhies as Jasmine, another pointless character. Michael worked at Forrester Creations and was secretly in love with Dylan, but he only had eyes for Jessica and then had an affair with Jessica's mother Maggie. I think she even tried to help Dylan cover up his affair with Maggie in front of Jessica. In 1996, Clarke tried to woo Michael but she turned him down. Michael then dated Grant Chambers for a while and lived with him at his beach house until he married Brooke.

Claudia and Enrique were introduced in December 1996. Claudia was an illegal immigrant, working as a sewer for Forrester Creations. Enrique was her ex-lover who tried to win her back. Claudia, however, fell for Thorne. Once Claudia was allowed to stay in the US, Thorne reunited with Macy. Claudia was seen in the background for maybe a month until she disappeared without explanation. For a brief time, both Enrique and Michael were suspects in the "Who shot Grant Chambers" storyline. When that was resolved, they vanished without a trace.

That story (the illegal immigrant story) was so unsuited for B&B, even if it was set in Los Angeles.

I think the most memorable part about it was the idiocy of Thorne divorcing Macy by fax.

Yes, Claudia, Enrique and Michael all vanished in June 1997 and were removed from the opening credits once Amber arrived.

Michael was on contract for about 2 years. She first appeared in the summer of 1995 as Dylan's roommate and was added to the credits in November along with Lark Voorhies as Jasmine, another pointless character.

Ironically, I actually began watching B&B because of that pointless character, Jasmine Malone. Being a Saved by the Bell fan back in the day, I wanted to see Lark Voorhies do her thing. Never saw much of her until her ending story (where Sly raped Jessica, and Jasmine figured out he was the rapist, and then he got burned to death in a fire), but got hooked on Brooke losing her [!@#$%^&*] in Barbados, Sheila poisoning Stephanie, and all the rest.

Edited May 17, 201510 yr by Gray Bunny

Didn't George Alvarez leave GH for B&B then - only to wind back up on GH before 1997 was out? (I believe that would have been right around the same time Real Andrews returned to GH as Taggert.)

Yes.

Thanks. I liked the detective George Alvarez played on GH (and the character name escapes me, LOL) - but he was a nice, cooler-headed contrast to Real Andrews' hot-headed Taggert.

He played Alex Garcia. I think B&B stole him and lilly melgar because there was talk of the "chemistry" on GH. Det. Garcia always seemed to have a crush on Lily. Anyhow, he was fine, but Lilly Melgar didn't have chemistry with anyone on GH, but she was anything but pointless. Her story, IMO, changed everything about Sonny, the mob, S&B, etc.

Proteus on AMC. That storyline was a mess. If I recall correctly, they didn't know who it was when they started it, they went through a regime change, and the whole thing was an unmitigated disaster.

I think I've heard the same.

Proteus should have taught everyone a valuable lesson. Namely, that no one should start a story where one character is manipulating others "from the shadows" without knowing from the beginning who that someone is.

Thank you, carolineg - I think he also reprised the character on PC, if I'm not mistaken.

Proteus on AMC. That storyline was a mess. If I recall correctly, they didn't know who it was when they started it, they went through a regime change, and the whole thing was an unmitigated disaster.

Yep. Oooh... Vanessa killed that smarmy gigolo guy! She's a murderer! And then.... nothing. What a hot mess.

Also on AMC, the two Ericas story. What felt like months of Erica locked in a room, talking to herself, and all for NOTHING. Jane/David had tremendous potential, and there were so many great directions that story could have gone. What did we get? Erica deciding that she loved Jack and wanted to be with him, Jane turning herself in so Erica could live happily ever after, and then Jack and Erica imploding for the umpteenth time. What a waste.

Prior to that, Erica's involvement with Caleb was pretty pointless. Bianca's whole involvement with Zoey/Zarf was equally pointless.

Thank you, carolineg - I think he also reprised the character on PC, if I'm not mistaken.

he did early on but the character was recast on PC and played by Eddie Velez