I’ve Heard This One Before: Stories Head Writers Did Over and Over (And Over)

[DramatistDreamer]

 

Yeah, I figured as much once I read about the previous storyline.  It was very on the nose and I don't mean that in a disparaging way, just that it was very obvious that the writing was somehow trying to present Roger in a valiant light in the 1993 scenes.  The only thing is that, in both incidents, Roger was ultimately the one who brought about both situations by setting up the circumstances for each confrontation.  Even though he saved Ed's life, it was still his fault that it all happened in the first place, LOL.

[kalbir]

Bill Bell reused storylines as mentioned earlier in the thread, but he also reused character elements. This was really evident during the first two years of B&B:

Stuart/Phillip/Eric

Jennifer/Katherine/Vanessa/Stephanie

Snapper/Lance/Ridge

Greg/Lucas/Thorne

Peggy/Kristen

Stuart/Bill Spencer

Chris/Caroline

Bill Foster/Stephen

Liz/Beth

Snapper/Greg/Storm

Jill/Brooke

 

On Y&R, Bill Bell took elements of the Jackson brothers and reused them a decade later with the Winters brothers. It also recently occurred to me that Bill Bell may have taken elements from the Reed sisters and reused them with the Barber sisters.

[dragonflies]

Ron also has done rapemance's on every show he writes too. 

 

I don't mind stories repeating, but with a lot of writer's, they're exactly the same as they did on another show. STOP REPEATING it, mix it up, make it different for each show

 

 

 

 

 

I think that's why Kevin and Lucy worked so well together, he balanced out her "eccentricities" 

 

[AbcNbc247]

And a gay villain who tries to blackmail a straight guy into bed, but then is redeemed. And if he can, a baby switch. Something tells me we’ll be getting one on Days soon. 

 

In terms of reusing plots and characters, Ron puts Bill Bell to shame. 

 

[Fevuh]

Thank you.  

[Faulkner]

I saw that Doug Marland did at least two major father/daughter sexual abuse stories, Lily Slater on LOVING and Angel Lange on ATWT.

[Bright Eyes]

 

I'd be interested in knowing if any of Bell's major story ideas from DAYS/YR/BB, had their first incarnations told when he was head writing ATWT.

[Sapounopera]

 

Isn't ATWT's Claire/Michael/Lisa triangle very similar to Kay/Phillip/Jill?

[Quent]

Wasn't the Rosanna/Mike story (and before that Rosanna/Hutch) an attempt to duplicate the success of Lily/Holden?

[Paul Raven]

Bill Bell's Days story of Julie giving David up for adoption and the getting involved with the adoptive parents,(the Bannings) having the wife (Janet)die and marrying the husband (Scott) definitely has shades of ATWT's Ellen and the Stewarts told a few years earlier...

[Fevuh]

Was he writing when Beth on GL was abused by her father Bradley Raines?  

[Khan]

 

No, that was Pam Long's story.

[Bill Bauer]

 

 

Irna loved to do the good family with a scandalous aunt who was having an affair with a married man (Edith Hughes ATWT, Janet Matthews AW), the young woman having a child out of wedlock (rare story back then, common now) and having the child die (Rose Kransky GL, Meta Bauer GL, Pat Matthews AW) or be given up for adoption and then reclaimed (Chuckie White GL, Dan Stewart ATWT) and then the mother shooting and killing the father of her baby (Ted White GL, Tom Baxter AW). The Susan/David/Dickie story on Days fits several of these categories which makes me think Irna had a hand in that storyline even though she’s listed as “Story Editor” during that time and not Headwriter. There’s also the same story of adoptive mothers dying and adoptive fathers marrying biological mothers (Ellen/David/Betty Stewart ATWT, Julie/Scott/Janet Banning DOOL). Again, makes me think Irna had a bigger hand in the early days of Days than she is credited for. 

[Paul Raven]

I think it was more a case of Bill Bell using elements of stories he had been heavily involved with while working alongside Irna.

 

Another Bell repeat story

 Days -  Phyllis,planning to shoot Julie, shot her daughter Mary instead

Y&R - Vanessa, planning to shoot Lorie, shoots her son Lance instead.