Marland and ATWT - the very limited number of partners with the Snyders. A number of the stories made sense individually. I appreciate, for instance, that Angel found her first love with Caleb, then got involved with Holden for protection, and finally found healing and peace with Seth. Still, one woman was with all three brothers. 

Then there was Holden/Caleb and Julie, and Holden/Caleb and Lily. I wonder if Marland had any regrets over Caleb/Lily as I don't remember it ever being revisited.

I can't give as much grace to the decisions made with the women in the Snyder family. Kirk going from Iva to Ellie. Iva and Emma dating the same man. If Marland had lived, I wouldn't be shocked if Iva had ended up with Ned Simon.

This led to a very sadistic place where Iva had to keep forgiving, accepting, apologizing...and worst of all, had to attend the wedding of her sister and her rapist. 

WJB made Ridge Massimo's son.

3 hours ago, Maxim said:

This topic is fascinating to me... and I'm here reading all the responses... researching things. So fascinating! Maybe the most shocking to me is the Luke and Laura stuff. Truly vile. 

One good thing came of it. Before she left Genie asked her if it was true. Monty allegedly went pale. They talked about it, and Monty asked her if she cleaned up the drugs on set would she be willing to come back? Genie said when she came back the first time the drugs were gone. And when she came back in 1993 it was a warm welcome by the actual show, which was a relief to her. But yes, ABC was shitty to her more than once.

Something has never clicked to me in Genie's return performances (she had much more of a life in her work during her first run). Knowing that she was so horribly treated and never wanted to return helped me understand why.

16 minutes ago, Soapsuds said:

WJB made Ridge Massimo's son.

I think Bradley did that.

3 minutes ago, YRfan23 said:

I think Bradley did that.

He sure has f ucked up his dad's show.

I don't think the twist itself was a bad idea. Doing it so that Ridge and Bridget could hook up is another matter...

8 minutes ago, DRW50 said:

I don't think the twist itself was a bad idea. Doing it so that Ridge and Bridget could hook up is another matter...

On Paper it wasn't bad, but I just hate how the show choose not to have the reveal have no lasting repercussions. Stephanie really should have been put on blast constantly for her role in this, even if she had only just learned Ridge wasn't Eric's when Massimo came on board. 

2 minutes ago, YRfan23 said:

On Paper it wasn't bad, but I just hate how the show choose not to have the reveal have no lasting repercussions. Stephanie really should have been put on blast constantly for her role in this, even if she had only just learned Ridge wasn't Eric's when Massimo came on board. 

Did Stephanie cheat on Eric, or was she with Massimo first?

7 hours ago, Contessa Donatella said:

Douglas Marland wrote this credo on How Not To Ruin a Soap that was only found after his death, when nothing is known about its context & which he did not even follow himself.

I do not believe this to be true. I think the original was published in SOD when Marland was alive.

2 hours ago, j swift said:

I think a classic bad move by Agnes Nixon on AMC, that was repeated elsewhere as well, was not setting up the next generation until it was way too late.

Erica not having a child earlier, rather than being saddled with a two insta-kids by later writers, was poor planning.  Similarly, AW's Felicia, and other leading female characters were burdened by these odd circumstances of forgetting that they had given birth decades earlier, and then those offspring magically appeared in town (often with a chip on their shoulder).  As a result, the multigenerational aspects of the stories never seemed organic, to me.

Not every female character needed a child, but a younger sister, or a niece, would've sufficed to set up a family tree before these women were middle-aged.

Wow! Good observation. They really didn't give Erica a child (that made it to term) until 18 years into her run!

1 hour ago, Antoyne said:

I always found it problematic that Bill Bell created a black maid character and named her Mamie of all things 🤦🏽‍♂️

Very problematic. I liked when Veronica Redd took over. She gave the character more backbone especially against Jill.

34 minutes ago, YRfan23 said:

I think Bradley did that.

Yeah. Brad took over by 1996, that story aired in 2001.

Bill Bell once said he felt his killing Dickie Martin on Days wasn't a very good story decision, mostly because of audience reaction. He wrote Susan giving birth to Dickie prematurely, spending weeks in the hospital as they both fought for their lives. Letters poured in from viewers wanting the baby to survive he said. He wrote Susan deciding she was going to raise her son after they got better, she bonded with him, then he died in a freak accident a few months later. While this led to the legendary story of Susan killing David Martin and her feud with Julie, which carried years of story, I can see his point. It must have been traumatising for viewers to feel relief that Dickie survived his birth only to die a few months later. 

9 minutes ago, cody_1990 said:

Bill Bell once said he felt his killing Dickie Martin on Days wasn't a very good story decision, mostly because of audience reaction. He wrote Susan giving birth to Dickie prematurely, spending weeks in the hospital as they both fought for their lives. Letters poured in from viewers wanting the baby to survive he said. He wrote Susan deciding she was going to raise her son after they got better, she bonded with him, then he died in a freak accident a few months later. While this led to the legendary story of Susan killing David Martin and her feud with Julie, which carried years of story, I can see his point. It must have been traumatising for viewers to feel relief that Dickie survived his birth only to die a few months later. 

That is the first story I have memory of seeing. I read he got so much negative mail about it and as you've indicated had regret, etc. 

40 minutes ago, Paul Raven said:

I do not believe this to be true. I think the original was published in SOD when Marland was alive.

I could be wrong. If so, thanks. 

1 hour ago, Franko said:

Agnes Nixon washed her hands of OLTL too soon.

I think many would say the same about Loving, too. If it wasn't All My Children, it came off at times that she didn't give a damn about her other shows. 

36 minutes ago, NothinButAttitude said:

I think many would say the same about Loving, too. If it wasn't All My Children, it came off at times that she didn't give a damn about her other shows. 

She went back to Loving repeatedly.