ATWT---James and Lucinda knew each other back in the day, and he tries to pass off his nameless bastard son David as her child.

ATWT---only to be followed a few years later with James trying to pass off another bastard son, Jordan, as a child Barbara didn't remember having. Although now I'm not sure if James actually tried to convince her, or if Barbara herself for some strange reason thought she may have.

GL--flippin' Maryanne Carruthers. It wasn't 66 years of history upended, but it was nearly 30. Trying to convince us that Alan, Billy, Josh, Ed and Buzz shared some horrible secret from their young adulthood was stupid, considering we'd seen them meet each other over the years. The Eli Simms/Fishing Picture mystery worked because only one of the men involved had been a major character on the show. History was tweaked, not burned, bulldozed, boondoggled and BS'd into existence. Any 5th grader could've crafted a better story, and it wouldn't have insulted our intelligence.

1 hour ago, DRW50 said:

James and Lucinda being lovers and having a dead child. 

That had actually crossed my mind as my first choice; however considering the utter preposterous  other retcon stories also had my attention, namely stuff like the backstory of Carly, Gwen, Iris, and I think his name was Cole…?? Or Dusty and Holden fighting over Molly in addition to Lily, Emily and Larry’s lost embryo, and Paul Ryan’s brain microchip that the existence of David Steinbeck became a lot more plausible than everything else. 

56 minutes ago, P.J. said:

ATWT---James and Lucinda knew each other back in the day, and he tries to pass off his nameless bastard son David as her child.

ATWT---only to be followed a few years later with James trying to pass off another bastard son, Jordan, as a child Barbara didn't remember having. Although now I'm not sure if James actually tried to convince her, or if Barbara herself for some strange reason thought she may have.

GL--flippin' Maryanne Carruthers. It wasn't 66 years of history upended, but it was nearly 30. Trying to convince us that Alan, Billy, Josh, Ed and Buzz shared some horrible secret from their young adulthood was stupid, considering we'd seen them meet each other over the years. The Eli Simms/Fishing Picture mystery worked because only one of the men involved had been a major character on the show. History was tweaked, not burned, bulldozed, boondoggled and BS'd into existence. Any 5th grader could've crafted a better story, and it wouldn't have insulted our intelligence.

Haha Great minds think alike!

The Jordan story was so strange, I don’t recall Jordan was supposed to be Barbara’s son but I do remember him being introduced as new love interest for Jennifer while also being very interested in Barbara. Idk whatever Sheffer was trying to do hit the fan once he came up with the forced pairing of Jordan and Rosanna immediately after Jordan was revealed to be James’ son what a freaking mess. 
 

And I mentioned 66 years because of the Reverend Rutledge mentions in the said episodes alongside with Brandon Spaulding. A major WTF indeed occurred on January 5 2004 and don’t ask me why I remember that date.

Also one more bad rewrite (I know we discussed this in-depth a long time ago @DRW50) was on GL when it was revealed that Rick wasn’t Kevin’s father after all. 
 

Absolutely nothing was gained from the rewrite and nothing was lost, except the jobs of the writing crew for this debacle.

24 minutes ago, soapfan770 said:

That had actually crossed my mind as my first choice; however considering the utter preposterous  other retcon stories also had my attention, namely stuff like the backstory of Carly, Gwen, Iris, and I think his name was Cole…?? Or Dusty and Holden fighting over Molly in addition to Lily, Emily and Larry’s lost embryo, and Paul Ryan’s brain microchip that the existence of David Steinbeck became a lot more plausible than everything else. 

I thought of it because it was so incredibly brazen (viewers had seen James and Lucinda meeting for the first time a decade earlier) and so incredibly pointless. And just a huge mess to watch, with Liz Hubbard going hogwild, maybe because she also knew how ridiculous the material was.

3 minutes ago, soapfan770 said:

Also one more bad rewrite (I know we discussed this in-depth a long time ago @DRW50) was on GL when it was revealed that Rick wasn’t Kevin’s father after all. 
 

Absolutely nothing was gained from the rewrite and nothing was lost, except the jobs of the writing crew for this debacle.

That was all strange, yes. I can only assume someone at GL or P&G hated the twins by different fathers story and decided to retcon.

AMC: The un-abortion.

I'll add the Claire rewrite on Y&R. Just to give Hayley Erin a job  and introduce a new Newman heroine who of course gets involved with an Abbott.

It brought back Cole, only to kill him off.

And let's not forget Nikki and Paul's son Dylan whose conception made no sense and who has now been forgotten.

OLTL: Victor Lord was alive in the 2000s, ruining 25 years of history and the "good retcon" of Viki being his killer. 

GH: Right now, Britt being a compassionate mother figure to Rocco.

Y&R: That Stuart (Brooks) and Dina had a secret child who then birthed Theo. I just felt that was stupid. After all the hell Dina put her family through from running off eons prior, she'd continue to lie and hide the fact that she had a secret child too? And with Stuart Brooks of all people? Had she had a child with a man abroad, OK, I'd buy that. But Stuart Brooks? C'mon...

ATWT: Rewriting Larry McDermott and making him an embryo snatching creep. Larry was a decent, upstanding guy and having him steal Emily's embryo for some stupid, pointless character was stupid. Emily didn't need another child as she had Daniel, who could've provided tons of story. They should've just SORASed Daniel and called it a day. 

ATWT: Adam Munson. Another character who was re-written to fit the plot and given a whole personality transplant. I thought it was disgusting how they turned this once, beloved character (with tons of ties across the canvas--a writer's dream) into a deviant who attacks women. I am sorry but the son of Hal and Margo (Tom, too) would NEVER to do that. Just one of the many unforgivable acts Jean Passanantate stupidly penned.  

Y&R: The "conception" of Dylan. I know it is before my time, but I feel like this is a story that played a pivtol role in my mom shutting off Y&R for good. My mom remembers the cult arc with Nikki and Paul, and ain't no way in h*ll they had a child that Nikki gave it. It was a stupid plot in an attempt to latch Steve Burton's dopey character to the Newmans. The easiest way they could've done that was to either tie him to Matt or Casey. 

Y&R: Phillip being brought back from the dead. Anything consisting of this entire arc (starting with Cane coming to town) was stupid and destroyed decades worth of foundation of this show. Yet another blow to the Jill/Kay rivalry that kept the lights on at Y&R. And I don't believe that Phillip would've skipped town b/c he was gay. Jill would've been elated that Phillip was gay and not latched to Nina outside of Chance. And Kay had a semi-homoerotic relationship. I doubt either of them would've cared. 

Y&R/B&B: Anything involving Sheila post-1998. Her having a baby with Massimo was stupid. They seemed to fix it when she went back to Y&R on 2005, but it was quickly undone with the Pheila arc. And then bringing her back on B&B without addressing anything really from her past is boggling. It's like Sheila is zero focused on Finn or Deacon, and we supposed to forget about Mary, Diana, and the terror twins? Also, do we seriously believe Sheila would not be trying to get a hope to Lucy, her grandchild. All the layers that made Sheila "Sheila" are gone. 

AW: Maggie Cory's paternity. It was already a big arc back in the 80s that the father was either Jamie or Sandy before it was discovered that Sandy was the dad. Then Maggie comes back to the show and is on the show already for about 2-3 years and in pops Cecile who then decides that Cass was Maggie's dad. Meanwhile, wasn't Cass not even really Cecile's orbit until after Maggie had been conceived? It just made no sense along with Cecile didn't need to trap Cass via a child. Cecile's natural temptress ability would bag Cass. All they had to do was a simple seduction story where Cecile seduced Cass as he grew anxious and bored about the marital life. I feel like this arc ruined Cecile and later Maggie, who had a personality transplant for the worse. 

One that crossed my mind earlier was from the German soap “GZSZ”:

Original characters Elke and Patrick went through a lot and when Patrick left the show after the first 900 episodes and died from a tumor he made Elke a gift: a Baby. She was pregnant! She even gave birth to the baby months later on screen. All good. Elke was such a sweetheart. The good soul of that show.. She left in 97 one year later after Patrick died. But thousands of episodes later Elke’s son Patrick Junior was brought back and they killed off Elke off-screen and made her look like a deadbeat mother which was so out of character for Elke that we saw for the first 5 years of the soap. Not only that. Patrick Sr. was the brother of Jo Gerner. Who is still there and the most well known character in Germany and the longest running character since 1993. 
The rewrite wasn’t just Elke being a deadbeat mom… Nooo it got worse: They revealed that Patrick Junior wasn’t Patrick Sr.’s son. It was Gerner’s son and Elke had slept with him.. Like what the hell? We kinda witnessed Patrick and Elke onscreen for hundreds of episodes with a heartbreaking end of him and the baby being the only thing left for her just thrown away for Gerner getting more family on screen after thousands of episodes?

That was just a slap in the face to the oldschool fans and Patrick Jr wasn’t even sticking around for long. Maybe 2 years and then left the show and was killed off. Technically it was all for nothing 

Edited November 6Nov 6 by AMCOLTLLover

Swamp Baby Georgia Brady - stillborn ON SCREEN - with Krista Allen's Billie even using the baby's remains as a way to blame Hope for the baby's death (with Billie having those remains IN A SUITCASE - who DOES THAT?!) suddenly shows up as a young adult named Chelsea. And no. She was dead.

But James Reilly and/or Tom Langan, who had some grudge against Bo/Hope and their family with Shawn (Douglas), had the need to even the playing field for Reilly's Bo/Billie.

Ridiculous and insulting.

Of course we can't forget the biggest one of all: The death and resurrection of Bobby Ewing.

To throw away an entire season by re-writing it as Pam's dream was ridiculous. Not that the dream season was particularly good, but the whole idea was stupid and insulting to the viewers. 

4 hours ago, NothinButAttitude said:

The easiest way they could've done that was to either tie him to Matt or Casey. 

During the cult story Paul had sex with another cult member and /or Sumiko the cult leader.

So they could have give Paul a son from that and found something else for Nikki to do.

Or Dylan could have been Nikki's half brother as it was quite possible Nick Reed would have had another child.

1 hour ago, Paul Raven said:

During the cult story Paul had sex with another cult member and /or Sumiko the cult leader.

So they could have give Paul a son from that and found something else for Nikki to do.

Or Dylan could have been Nikki's half brother as it was quite possible Nick Reed would have had another child.

Agreed. But again, this show was determined to tie Dylan to the Newmans somehow. I feel like they are throwing Paul a bone by making it his, too, as Paul was all but irrelevant at this time. I just think it was lazy overall. 

If this thread does anything, it shows how plot trumps character to many of these "writers" (and I use the term lightly).