B&B: Amber. From 1997 to 2004, she was front and center, was the tortured heroine, and she even had a family built around her. Then after her icky romance with Thomas (Drew Tyler Bell) had fizzled, she was quietly dropped from the canvas in early 2005 ... only to reappear several years later. During her second stint, she was written as a desperate troublemaker and was eventually dropped again. I don't even remember how she left.

58 minutes ago, DramatistDreamer said:

John Dixon, ATWT. 

While some characters on ATWT only seemed to get a lot of story during one, maybe two writing regimes (if they were fortunate), John got quite a bit of prominent storylines over several writing regimes from the late 1970s throughout the entire 1980s. 

Even in the 1990s, he got a pretty decent amount of screen time, although the quality of the stories could be inconsistent.

A few years before he left though, he seemed to be a glorified extra at times.  I guess those disputes of seniority and salary pay-cuts were really brought to bear before he pretty much faded and only showed up for a brief story arc right before the show's cancellation to usher Lucinda off the canvas.

 

Agreed, actually the way ATWT wrote for and treated most of its veteran cast during its last decade or so on the air was pretty unforgivable. 

Ginny Blake, General Hospital. She came on HUGE in 1984, brought in to disrupt Rick and Lesley's lives, then ending up marring Rick (after Lesley died, of course), forming a bond with Mike, murdering D.L. (and letting Bobbie take the rap for it), eventually birthing a second child and trying to keep Derek Barrington at bay. They burned through a ton of story for her -- and Rick -- and both were gone after Thanksgiving 1986.

11 minutes ago, BetterForgotten said:

Agreed, actually the way ATWT wrote for and treated most of its veteran cast during its last decade or so on the air was pretty unforgivable. 

 

+1

At times I just couldn't bring myself to watch regularly in that last decade.  It was so so so bad! 

It galls me that people try to make excuses for the horrible writing by saying something like "...well at least it wasn't..." It wasn't what?  Good?  The standards were so friggin' low in that last decade...!

Yeah, I understand that people are willing to pat those writers and Goutman on the back for making Kathryn Hays a glorified day player in the last decade but what if someone had actually written compelling material about a woman facing retirement and 'empty nest' and all of the challenges a mature woman moving into her elder years faces?  Hays might have finally been a candidate for an Emmy in her last years but TIIC wasted all that talent of hers!

 

Remember in the 1980s when there was a B story about Lisa facing "The Change" A.K.A. Menopause?  All those great pieces of dialogue and that scene where  Lisa looks at Frannie (Julianne Moore) and blurts out "Well, you've just got your whole life ahead of you, bless your heart!" without an ounce of irony and Frannie, with concern and a perplexed expression asks "Lisa, are you alright?".  It was a brief but meaningful scene and both actresses really played all the beats just right.  

 

I just hate how, in the show's last decade, the vets were used mainly as mouthpieces or rendered irrelevant or crazy (Barbara). I don't care what Colleen Zenk says, her character lacked the complexity and cool sophistication that she once wielded.  But I guess to her, she had screen time, was placed with a younger man and that's all that mattered to her. 

16 hours ago, Khan said:

OLTL's "damn Rappaports" (tm Asa Buchanan).

That's "Rappadavidson's" LOL

6 hours ago, reallyhateskateonlost said:

And yet they fail to mention David Hayward who Anna was married to!

 

and ignore that Anna had a kid with David who died as well

The Eckerts on GH.  They spent a lot of time on the family only to be completely gone a few years later never to be spoken of again.  Poor Lucky never got to see his buddy Sly again.   I get why, but man, they wasted a lot of screen time on Bill and Jenny.

 

Meg on ATWT, she was a huge deal, they wrote for her, she got a lot of screen time then abruptly she was basically back burner, not leading stories 

22 hours ago, titan1978 said:

Hearing the name Dimitri Merrick on a recent GH episode made me nostalgic for when he arrived on AMC, and that lead me to thinking about how that show slowly phased him out.

 

If you watched AMC in the early 1990’s, Edmund and Dimitri were huge characters that were always front burner.  An entire family backstory, a significant set (Wildwind), and romantic pairings with important veterans of their shows (Erica and Brooke). But then kind of suddenly they were not.  They just slowly phased them out completely.

 

These were not flash in the pan characters, but instead kind of discarded after relatively short periods of importance in the grand scheme of things on their shows.

 

Other examples?

 

What was said about Dimitri?

Robert found him in Hungary, and he has personal effects belonging to Alex that might provide a timeline they can use to determine that Peter’s birth and her sexual encounter with Faison are the memories that belong to Alex that were implanted in Anna.

The Lockhart family on DAYS!  They were literally everywhere for 3 or 4 years then they just all slowly faded away.  Except Bonnie, who we saw again.

Edited May 17, 20196 yr by titan1978

Dr Neil Curtis 

Edited May 17, 20196 yr by Dr Neil Curtis

Yeah, as far as we know, he's still on rounds at University Hospital.

Chelsea Lawson & Chloe Mitchell

AW: Reginald Love, Mary McKinnon, and Jason Frame ate up the show when they were on then gone. Only Mary made a couple more appearances. I don't think Reg or Jason were ever referred to in later years.