Twists You Hated

[SoapDope]

 Yes, Jill not being a Foster screwed up Bill Bell's original storyline bible. 

 

GT was right. If they had played the massacre right it could have been awesome. I also agree they should have just ignored that UFO crap from The Colbys on Dynasty. 

 

I HATED the way they wrote Pam Ewing off Dallas and that weird disappearance of Katherine shortly after she visited Pam in the hospital and said " Sleep On Little Sister". Morgan Brittany said she never knew what was up with that. She thought they would play all that out and then nothing. 

 

I think Hotel fell apart after the death Of Anne Baxter and the departure of Shea Farrell. Those last 2 seasons SUCKED.

[j swift]

I hate twists that get repeated:

 

1. The ol' Amnesia/I'm f*$#ing your brother twist:

Ryan's Hope - Jill's amnesia, meeting Dakota, and him being Frank's half brother

GH - Felicia's amnesia, meeting Decker, and him being Colton's half brother

 

Both Jill and Felicia looked ridiculous during their amnesia and they didn't wind up with either brother.  I did not care for either Dakota or Decker, and their respective haircuts were no substitute for personality.

 

2.  The parent of the wrongly accused is really the murderer twist:

GH - Heather's mother really killed Dianna Taylor

OLTL - Megan's father really killed Michael Grande

 

In both cases the writer's had to go to extremes to make it plausible and it wound up being absurd.  Both cases had prosecutors who were totally gung ho to lock someone up; until it turned out to be an older character and there was no punishment at all.

 

3. The undercover old lady crime lord twist

GH - Luke's physical therapist is Grant Putnam's Russian spy boss

AMC - Leo and Brooke both had drug dealing moms

 

In both cases the "evil" was indicated by the actresses lowering their vocal register while they schemed - I did not care for either interpretation

[victorlord75]

The way I remember it, Luke's physical therapist, Natalie Dearborn/Natasha was written to be spectacularly campy.  How many times did she need to borrow a coin to make a sinister phone call from the hospital lobby, for example?  How many times did she and Gregory meet at a park bench to make their evil plans?  I wish they would have kept Natalie on after the whole spy story ended, instead of conveniently and quickly killing her off.  I found Melinda Cordell's performance as Natalie more amusing than irritating.

 

The GH twist I never forgave GH and Guza for was out of nowhere, placing GH in a financial crisis which precipitated Steve Hardy's death by heart attack.  That then gave the Cassadines the ability to "save" the hospital and re-open it.  To me, as a longtime viewer, I found it very hurtful that the hospital was anything less than perfect under Steve Hardy's watch.  I know it's all just a fictional story, but I hated the back-handed character assassination of Steve Hardy.  I would have been more accepting if they simply said that the Cassadines poisoned Dr. Hardy, offscreen of course, since the story was brought on by John Beradino's passing.

[Darn]

 

You would have rather have Steve Hardy murdered? I'm confused, I think I'm missing something from the story!

[Titus Andronicus]

John is the love child of Colleen Brady and Santo DiMera. John's origins have been retconned a lot but that one was particularly offensive. Every last bit of the storyline, from its origins with Doug and Julie was to prop up Sami and E.J. There was absolutely nothing compelling about it and you knew, as sure as Tony DiMera and Jack Devereaux are never truly dead, that this wouldn't stick either.

[NothinButAttitude]

 

I always felt they should've left John's backstory alone and left him as an Alamain. 

[victorlord75]

What I was trying to say was that I resented them making the solid, reliable, always dependable Dr. Hardy look like an incompetent who then died of a heart attack as a result of over-worry.  In my opinion, it would have been more satisfying to me to honor Steve Hardy's legacy and find a more insidious way for the Cassadines to take over the hospital.  That way, the members of the Hardy family would also have had a reason to despise the Cassadines, not just the Spencers.  They did have Audrey hold a grudge for a little while, but they didn't do much with it.  

[titan1978]

And Tom.  He was working with Luke and Laura against the Cassadines.

 

Its hard to say what would have been, because the hospital takeover story was not served well once Culliton took over from Guza.  Bobbie marrying Stefan, the hospital story and the faberge egg thing and whatever Stefan was doing with Lucky were all started under Guza, and concluded poorly by Culliton.  There was that window of time when Guza’s outlines were still in use under Culliton that the show didn’t noticeably change, but once it was all Culliton it fell apart.

 

I vaguely remember that the Cassadines created the financial problems by buying and defaulting loans, suppliers, etc and that was something Tom was trying to get more proof of.  So it wasn’t really Steve’s fault.  But it was still a sad way to write his character out of the show.

[Vee]

It's been a long time, but I remember finding Stefan and Bobbie scorching hot as a kid. I dunno if they'd hold up today, but I loved that. I don't know why Matt Ashford failed as Tom, beyond the Felicia pairing not working and the show clearly not knowing what to do with the character.

[DRW50]

Tessica. Rather than recasting Jessica with someone who could act, OLTL instead just decided to essentially ditch the heart of the character for perversion and exploitation on so many levels I can't even count them all. I think the most annoying was Bess and Wes, because you could tell "Cartini" (ugh) thought they were so damn clever. 

[Markjeh]

ATWT - Gwen being Carly's half-sister.

[victorlord75]

Your memory is far better than mine concerning the Cassadine hospital takeover story, that is for sure.  For the most part, Richard Culliton was a pretty good writer, but for some reason, GH wasn't a good fit for him.  I think he was the one who created Miranda, Jax's ex., the same Miranda who was terrified of Stefan--though no one ever bothered to address why!

[titan1978]

That was also the end of Guza’s 6 month bible, although Culliton was the HW.  Her backstory was given to Alexis.  She was the lost Mikkos daughter.

[victorlord75]

I was not aware of that at all.  I don't want to derail the subject of this thread, but, while I like the character of Alexis, am I the only one who sort of viewed her as a copycat character of Norah Buchanan on OLTL (at least initially)?

[Wendy]

 

Nah. To me, she is just a more tortured version of her Julia Wainwright character (who long predated Nora) from Santa Barbara (complete with a daughter named Samantha, although the latter one was a retcon), still a lawyer but a lot less ethical and "put together". As an aside, don't know if her opinion changed over time, but a few years ago, NLG was asked which soap character she preferred, even though she has now played Alexis for much longer, she said Julia. Maybe because that character had much better writing, is my guess.