Best US Soap Scenes

[Khan]

 

Well, at least Tom didn't get Alice drunk before telling her their daughter had passed.  (I still can't believe Irna (or whoever) thought that was okay for David and Ellen Stewart on ATWT.)  I understand why Alice had to be stoic and philosophical about Addie's death -- it provided a counterpoint to Tom's anger and lashing out at God -- but both their reactions just seem so...off to me, for some reason.

[vetsoapfan]

 

When a usually-composed, benign patriarch or matriarch goes off the rails and starts to rage, it can be quite unnerving for the audience. On Another World, when Jim Matthews told his wife Mary that their son Russ' wife Rachel had cheated on him and had a son by another man, Mary went berserk. All her pent-up anger and rage at Rachel exploded in an instant, and she screamed, "I hate her! I...HATE...HER!!!!" Mary had always been so poised and self-contained, so her sudden explosion of fury was frightening to see. Tom Horton's uncontrolled emotion was hard to watch as well.

 

I agree that soaps could not pull off a character like Jenny Wolek today. She was a good, moral, altruistic woman, but she was never boring, sickeningly sweet or bland. Brynn Thayer had the ability to add nuance, depth, and interest to her noble character, just like Jacquie Courtney had done as Alice on Another World. (And Trish Stewart had also done as Chris Brooks on The Young and the Restless.) With the weak writing and (often) poor acting on today's soaps, young "good-girl" heroines are trite and disposable.

 

A Daytime to Remember gave significantly more airtime to the reruns of GH and AMC than OLTL. Weren't the OLTL eps limited to just two weeks? At least we got to see some really great episodes from OLTL in those two weeks. TPTB were clueless to think that just by virtue of having Demi Moore in a few scenes, a GH episode could be considered a "classic." Viewers care about characters they love, regardless of whether or not the actors playing them ever found later success in primetime TV or theatrical motion pictures. Did a majority of viewers really love Jackie Templeton and consider her a legendary Port Charles character? Pffft! Demi More and her character were ultimately just momentary blips in GH's history, hardly worthy of praise.

 

Marlena had wonderful chemistry with Don Craig, and JA was an excellent, sexy, charismatic actor. I can acknowledge that DH also had good chemistry with WN's Roman Brady, but I never stopped wanting Marlena and Don Craig to reunite. I know some viewers find Drake H attractive, but his acting is limited and ultimately he drags her down.

[Darn]

 

I think the best revenge was giving Erica a daughter who WAS nothing like her. A good-natured moralistic person. Unfortunately this is what they thought Bianca was but she was just an a**hole.

[Vee]

 

It was set up for a month or so. Jesse had been lurking around town; Tad and Krystal(!!) knew he was alive. He refused Tad's entreaties to tell Angie and Frankie he was alive because of a ridiculous villain who was after him (20 years ago) and had threatened his family. It was silly. Angie had returned to town haunted by the memory of Jesse (which had supposedly ended her marriage to Jacob) and he'd been coming up a lot. A week or two earlier she'd glimpsed him by accident but thought she'd been injured/hallucinating. So Jesse was very much on her and everyone's mind.

[Khan]

You know, I'm surprised they never had Darnell Williams play Jesse and Jacob simultaneously* after bringing the former back from the dead?  At the very least, I think Jesse would have wanted to meet the man who bore more than a passing resemblance to himself.

 

*As far as I know, anyway.

 

(Actually, I once floated the idea that Jesse and Jacob were the same person; that Jesse pretended to be Jacob, because he just couldn't keep away from his family.  But that felt awfully cruel to Angie and Frankie.)

[Vee]

I can see why they avoided Jacob - they were focusing on the returned supercouple. But he did get plenty of mentions. IIRC he was living in Paris. I would've liked to see him eventually or have Jesse deal with the Jacob issue, but that's understandably not something you jump on immediately. His and Angie's daughter Cassandra (from The City) would mention him a lot, and I believe he got a mention or two during her abduction storyline on AMC 2.0.

 

The intriguing thing is there were claims at the time that Agnes had a hand in the material for the Angie/Jesse return. I don't know how true that was, but they did make a point to tie in the man Jesse had taken a bullet for in the '80s (John Remington, who tried to romance Angie after he died) into the fairly silly backstory - "Remy" was the bad guys' true target, and had been buried in Jesse's place - and then they also made a point to randomly make the actual criminal mastermind be Roy Gardner, played by the legendary character actor David Rasche. He was Ray's brother, a seemingly straight-shooter federal agent, and Opal fawned over him a bit, but it didn't go beyond a simple mention of how much better a man he supposedly was than Ray. The Gardner connection felt very much like Agnes to me, though.

[Khan]

I thought his name was Robert?

 

Anyway, you're probably right about Jacob -- although I wish they had focused on that part of Angie's past, instead of creating a secret, second family for Jesse.  (What was it with Brown & Esensten and their retcons on top of retcons?  First, they created the Princess Reva/San Cristobel mess (on GL) and wedged it between Reva's plunge off that bridge and Amish Reva; then, they created Natalia and Rebecca and wedged them between Jesse's escape from his captors and his return to Pine Valley.)

[Soaplovers]

 

If Reilly had been headwriting when this was done, it would have been just another year, another Marlena being held captive without any long term fall-out.. but when this was done, it was Sheri Anderson that was head-writing.. and this kick-started so many different stories that are felt to this day.

 

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[Vee]

Can someone please link me to this discussion of how they got Ellen on ATWT drunk to tell her about her dead baby? I know I saw it around here recently and it's driving me crazy.

 

 

I think it was Pratt who did the secret family. I may be wrong. I liked Shannon Kane, but I thought making Jesse a bigamist for twenty years (with a white woman, no less) while failing to reach out to his widow and son was unconscionable on so many levels. It stained the character for me from then on. Unwatchable.

 

And you're right, it was Robert.

[Khan]

 

No, I think I'm the one who's wrong.  It probably was Pratt, and not Brown/Esensten, who introduced Rebecca and Natalia.  At that point, head writers on AMC seemed to come and go so quickly, I think I have it confused as to which HW's did what and when.

 

I liked Shannon Kane, too; and I think tying Natalia to the Hubbards wasn't a bad idea.  But, I wouldn't have made her Jesse's daughter.  (She could have been Eugene's daughter instead.)

 

Between the discovery of Jesse's past life w/ Rebecca and Natalia and his role in the Lucy/Ellie baby switch, I'd say Jesse was stained for me as well.  There are times when I'm not sure whether bringing him back from the dead was a smart move, in the long run.

[SFK]

 

I was reminded of this just last night while reading the Post article about B. Smith's husband and his girlfriend. I won't derail the thread, but an interesting story, to say the least:

 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/lifestyle-guru-b-smith-has-alzheimers-her-husband-has-a-girlfriend-her-fans-arent-having-it/2019/01/28/1a9dbbc0-12c4-11e9-b6ad-9cfd62dbb0a8_story.html
 

[Khan]

 

Actually, I think this was Reilly's handy work.  Even Sheri Anderson would have been above ripping off AMC.

[titan1978]

I thought they were co-hw through the affair before she left.

 

I was so excited when Marlena returned, but the two Romans kind of killed the momentum until they decided to have that affair storyline.  Even though I prefer Wayne as Roman, that was the right story at the right time on that show for Marlena. She really got that one last chance to be a full character, capable of making mistakes, hurting those she loves and undeniably in love with another man.  Before the devil got involved.

 

Can’t believe it has taken me several days to remember this one.  I was riveted to Carly buried alive.

 

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[Soaplovers]

 

The closing credits in October/November/early December had Sheri Anderson head-writing without Reilly.  It was  a really good storyline showcasing Marlena as a therapist with marital problems with Roman, while Isabella dies from cancer with Isabella asking Marlena to watch over John.

[DeeeDee]

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