Which death of a character was totally unnecessary and damaging?

[titan1978]

An attractive, charismatic newbie (especially a male, these are soaps) can forgive a lot of sins.

 

Also, he was a bright spot when the show was becoming wildly uneven, and he got out before it fell off the rails.  He has a more special place in my heart than some others of the same type because the show was better then.

[Skin]

 

I still squeal like a school girl every time I see the scene where he and Greenlee reunite back in 2011, and he tells her to smell his cologne, and he kisses her cheek.

 

Leo and Greenlee Reunite

 

He is such a giant because he knew when to leave, and Greenlee was never the same after him.  

 

[FrenchBug82]

That's the beauty of movies, TV, soaps. The meeting between an actor that has "it" or some form of "it" in the right role at the right time.
Other more talented folks never found the right role for them to shine or didn't have that little extra or were sunk by bad writing. It is not always fair or rationally explainable but generally when we see it, we know it and that was the case here. That's why it was obvious he wasn't recastable.

[titan1978]

It’s the Vanessa Marcil thing too.  Right show, right time, some natural talent, beautiful to look at and a whole lot of charisma to cover their lack of craft at that point, and occasional spotty writing.  Mot that Josh had the same kind of star power she eventually had on GH.

 

@SkinI felt the same way about Ryan after they killed off Gillian.

[DemetriKane]

I definitely felt the same way and agree with you, but guess what, I still would have recast him LBVS. The endless killings of popular characters contributed to the wheels falling off AMC, going far back as to Jenny’s death. If I was the EP of this show Leo and Gillian would have new faces, you guys said it yourself Greenlee and Ryan wasn’t the same after these huge losses. These characters wasn’t day player’s  they were being groomed to lead! 

I wish more Writers were like Bill Bell, he wasn’t afraid to recast or get rid of entire families regardless of the circumstances and their popularity. He recast both Terry Lester and Brenda Dickson at the height of their popularity. The audience eventually accepted the new actors in the roles, and today can’t think of anyone else playing them. 
 

In situations like this one, story and the health of the show should come first. Eden Rigel is another I would’ve had to recast but that’s a different thread.

 

[FrenchBug82]

There is a major difference here. Jack Abbott and Bianca were legacy characters (and I wouldn't have recast Bianca personally but I get why they did and it worked out fine). Not recasting them would leave a huge hole in the canvas. Jill Abbott was a slightly different case: she could have technically been written out but Brenda Dickson was fired pretty abruptly and since it then worked out with Jess Walton it was fine that she stayed on.
 

But Leo and Gillian were isolated islands, not necessary to the fabric of the show.
Look at what happened when they recast Greenlee. Despite the fact the character had lots of ties on the canvas, the recast still didn't work and was ultimately unnecessary. Was it worth doing considering how much trouble it turned out to be? No. I am not a fan of Greenlee but let's be blunt: the only reason the character had staying power was because of RB. 

I can understand taking that recast chance with legacy characters.
I understand less taking that chance with characters with simply "lots of ties" (the Liza or Babe recasts) but sometimes writers roll the dice for better or for worse. It works once in a blue moon like it did with Y&R Jill or Janet.
But it is absolutely unnecessary (and almost always doomed to failure) to take that chance when 90% of the character is about who is playing them rather than anything fundamental to the show like family ties.

Edited February 27, 2021 by FrenchBug82

[StepBack]

Y&R: Ricky, Diane (despite Maura West awful portrayal), John Abbott (only because the story that followed was trash)

 

 Marla was fantastic as Dina, but I think her exit story, was mostly good because it was grounded in reality. 

[FrenchBug82]

I want to take a stand and say that of all the huge number of problems with her stint as Diane, Maura West herself was not the problem.
She was woefully miscast in that role but through no fault of her own and then the writing was just garbage and whatever the writers wrote for Diane was not Diane but instead a completely different character - the one they should have created for Maura in the first place instead.
 

[titan1978]

My gateway to soaps was mid 1980’s era GH, still under Monty.  They just didn’t recast on that show back then.  They did it earlier in her run for sure, and after.  But if a popular character left that show they just moved on.  So when I would watch a show and fall in love, and then a year later several key parts were being played by new actors it was not my favorite.  The only time it doesn’t bother me is when they are establishing a character and it is early days, or SORAS (which is another problem).

 

I think in the time I watched soaps actively, 

from around 1983ish to 2009, there were only a handful of recasts of fully established characters that were worth it, let alone exceeded the previous actor.  Jess as Jill was one for sure.  Sherry Stringfield as Blake, Hearst as Alan-Michael.  I prefer Kimberly Simms as Mindy too.  GL had a really exceptional run of recasts.

 

Sometimes I really like a recast- Brenda’s Ashley on Y&R, RKK’s Bo.  But I welcomed their originals, and preferred them.

[carolineg]

 

I almost think you don't realize how good a Marcil or Duhamel is until they leave and you watch Greenlee and Sonny/Jax struggle to find chemistry with anyone lol.  It's almost sad how good I thought MB and RB were and then I realized it might of been the people around them that were good, not them.  VM and JD were good on that awful show Las Vegas too.  They definitely (outside of James Caan) were the most charismatic members of the cast by far.  But even Marcil couldn't rise above 2010 GH writing, but I think she still had some charm.  She just looked very lost in her performance.

[DRW50]

 

Budig struggled with men before Duhamel, so I was not that surprised. I thought she worked well with J Eddie Peck too. 

Edited February 27, 2021 by DRW50

[titan1978]

They both shined in daytime and prime time roles, although no woman on 90210 could have had a good working experience with Tori and Jennie there from what I have read.

 

I hadn’t really see Josh in anything in years, and when he played the dad in Love, Simon I was really happy to see him and he still had that great presence.

[carolineg]

Vanessa's pretty vocal about how awful her experience was on 90210.  I kinda liked Gina.  I thought she was pretty good with Luke Perry, but I cannot fathom under any circumstance that she was Donna's sister.  I mean, c'mon lol.  To be real, Vanessa generally plays some form of Brenda in every role she plays.  I don't think she has a ton of range.  She is just very good at playing Brenda.

 

I feel like Josh works pretty steadily.  He just replaced Armie Hammer in a JLo movie.  He is not a great actor, but he is very good looking and has a great screen presence.

[DemetriKane]

@FrenchBug82I think it’s reasonable of you to only want to take the chances of recasting Legacy characters. Believe me I get it! That just wasn’t the case for AMC, sadly most of the legacy characters are the ones in need of the most character repair.

 

Leo and Gillian were very unique characters for this show,  popular and got more story play than Brooke kids, Angie and Jesse kids, etc. They had enough ties to the show, Gillian was Andrassy and was mixing it up with the martins, Leo was being rumored to be Erica’s baby brother.  they were all set to be future leads of this show, I bet my next paycheck if Gillian hadn’t left she and Greenlee would have become Erica/Brooke 2.0. I definitely agree with the statement that Greenlee only worked because of Josh, Sabine wasn’t given enough time to prove herself and came on during one of the worst years for the show. I honestly like her portrayal she was soulful, sympathetic and had chemistry with people Rebecca didn’t. 

[FrenchBug82]

I will be the one to say it because it is not meant in an aggressive way and I actually like her (although I dislike Brenda). But I think the plastic surgery kind of hurt her performance - the way it does another recent favorite of mine (Cynthia W.).
You lose a lot when your face is frozen and VM was always good at playing with her face to say more than her lines. 
And I did like Gina and Dylan but her role was Diet Valerie who was in turn Diet Brenda. It is not easy to be filling "a space" in the cast.