I was very surprised Paul Gleason took this role as he was already an established film and primetime tv actor who would go on playing in blockbusters such as The Breakfast Club and Die Hard. Furthermore, the actual age difference between Him and Dorothy Stinnette was evident and it made me somewhat uncomfortable. He was 44, she was 55 and it just didn't seal the deal for me. Dorothy Stinnette was a class act actress, but she looked older than her real age even in her earlier soap roles. To be fair, Tom Urich was also 7 years younger than her in real life but there was much more baggage and conflict with 'Dave' while 'Lee' was basically a conniving double-crossing character in both his public and private life.
Amber starts off as glamorous, sophisticated and very business oriented, but pretty soon we see how patronizing, condescending and possessive she is, how cold blooded, manipulative and damaged she turns out to be. It's a loaded gun waiting to shoot a metaphoric bullet and while I don't want to give away much, it was so clever to have Amber and Stacey evolve in juxtaposed directions with far reaching consequences. This was the best story arc for me in terms of sibling rivalry gone wild in epic proportions involving Gil-Amber-Stacy-Kate-Lee-Sebastian-Dave. When it was over, I think the show wad basically over. When the new executive producer tried to upstage that with a huge new storyline which would capitalize on past character/s and a desire to ride on the success of the 'Raiders of the Lost Ark" film genre, the result was, shall we say...disturbing.
I do have to mention that the Philipps clan was created because the Prescotts didn't work out the way they should. The actor playing Jason Prescott, Read Morgan (who played supporting roles in many TV westerns) apparently didn't click with Mary Jean Feton or perhaps it was the other way around which is why Jason's indiscretion with his secretary became his exit storyline when it became clear he wasn't going to be Terry's designated leading man, so creating an entire new household with a new leading man had to be made from scratch and since Dave Philipps already made an appearance as a different actor almost a year earlier, the writers created this whole new background story. I honestly don't remember if the original Dave ever mentioned his family or alluded to him being responsible for his son's death. So as a viewer one has to accept that Dave's daughters are already living and working in Kingsley, that Gene and Stacey were already working together at The Chronicle and that Kate was 'galavanting' around the country...but I guess we as viewers are very easily willing and able to bridge the gaps, make sense of some inconsistancies and fill in the blanks.
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YTG ·
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