I loved Kathleen Layman's MJ. She felt very relatable to me. She was presented as smart but underappreciated. I didn't think that Larry was the right kind of love interest for her and I was ecstatic when she started dating Stephen Yates' Jamie. They were very charming together and much lower-key than typical soap couples.
Kathleen Layman and Julie Osburn were excellently cast as sisters. I loved the fact that they were both intelligent but MJ was more responsible where Kathleen was more likely to take risks and then beat herself up for her failures. But I also liked the writing better in this period and thought that the characterizations were better-handled.
When Sally Spencer took over the role of MJ, Jamie had already left town and Larry had left the police force. The new headwriter made the decision to demote MJ so that she had to wear a uniform because they wanted the character to have a distinct look -- but it had the effect of making her subordinate to her new partner Adam instead of having seniority in the department. I liked Sally Spencer in the role and I was a fan of MJ and Adam together, but I was very frustrated by the way the character was written, especially her relatonship with ex-pimp Chad.
I don't think that Kathleen Layman could have done a much better job with the degrading material MJ was saddled with. And it was maddening to me how all of it seemed to be designed to grind MJ down while trying to raise Chad up.
I was very disappointed when they wrote MJ out so soon after Adam called off the wedding. However I was happy that when they wrote Adam out they at least gave them a happy ending offscreen but that was a very small consolation.
By
Xanthe ·
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