If Lemay was ever going to bring back Missy and Ricky, it would have been for the transition to 90-minutes -- and he chose not to. He did beef-up the Matthews clan a bit with Susan and Dan. But Russ was gone at that point (for about a year) and John Randolph was killed. So he really did have room for Missy and Ricky on the canvas too.
The actors recast as Susan and Dan were well known theater actors. And the actor playing Dan was actually a Scottish actor using an American accent. Dan was written as a little stodgy and seldom seemed to laugh or smile -- not unlike the exiting John Randolph in many ways. And Susan was written as such a neurotic (even though she was a psychiatrist), so she wasn't much fun to watch either. I think Lemay was trying to display the damage an interfering mother like Liz had done to her own daughter, but it was just too heavy to enjoy. I didn't dislike the actors, but thought Lemay made them a little too troubled to be people the audience could identify with.
I agree that Rauch/Lemay were unlikely to have cast Carol Roux as Missy. They had a problem with any actor who was proud to be on a soap opera, and they would probably have feared Roux might have "soap star syndrome". LOL. But I don't think the role was un-recastable. Actors like Denise Alexander or Jada Rowland could have made Missy's return successful.
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Tisy-Lish ·
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