Phillip must have had a bunch of nannies in the years before the Spauldings arrived in Springfield. And Elizabeth said many times that Alan was never faithful to her. So it's not the WORST retcon on that level.
Maybe I'm remembering this wrong, but I think Alex was the one who knew at the time that Alan had fathered this child and kept it a secret from him because she thought Alan was a bad father.
Now THAT'S a retcon. Because they were estranged for years before Alex returned to Springfield. She came back determined to get revenge because she blamed Alan for helping Brandon take HER son away. (Now, if someone had remembered that detail, and she had done it in revenge for that, it would have made more sense.). Also, Alan was not a bad father, he geniunely loved Phillip, even Elizabeth admitted that.
I guess it's possible they bumped into each other in Europe at some point but as far as I can remember, I don't recall her talking as if she knew Alan's first three wives. (If she did, I bet she would have had a lot to say about them, LOL).
Anyway, the whole thing was stupid and ended up being pointless because they killed Gus off.
I suppose it's possible he could have still been following the Dobsons story bible, but the Staffords were never mentioned until Marland took over the show. I think he wasn't drawing from the Dobsons projections, because the vibe of the story he came up with didn't seem to fit where the Dobsons were going with it.
The only reference to Amanda's mother by the Dobsons that I can recall was the heavily veiled woman who showed up at Brandon's funeral. All they had revealed was that Brandon gave his ex-lover Lucille Alan's baby to raise. Brandon supposedly whispered the name of Amanda's mother to Lucille just before he "died."
Marland wrote some flashbacks later on--I think there was a scene where you hear Brandon tell Lucille the name Jane Marie Stafford. There was also a flashback scene between Jennifer and her husband where she was dressed in the veiled hat and he's giving her grief because she went to Brandon's funeral. But the character of Jennifer was NOTHING like I expected after that mysterious woman showed up.
I'm guessing the two sisters with one drowning was all Marland. IMO, he should have had the one sister who Alan was engaged to be Amanda's mother and have Brandon simply did not want Alan to marry her because he thought the Staffords weren't good enough. THEN I could believe that Alan had been tormented for years by the memory because he loved her enough to want to marry her at one point. Plus there wouldn't be the additional creepiness of him committing statutory rape. The whole thing about the drowning came to nothing except the "crazy Uncle Chet" bit that was not exactly thrilling.
Again, it's obvious Marland wasn't that into this storyline. If he hadn't come up with the idea to make Alan's babymama Morgan's mother, I doubt he would have given it even that much attention.
Yowza. So this must be the article that prompted Potter to come out and refute the rumors about mass cast changes, etc.
Mart predicting the Bauers would be virtually eliminated eventually did come true. "The Springfield Slaughter" did happen, but it was over a year off and under a different EP and HWs. One strange thing they claim would happen was that Ben would force himself on Amanda, leave town feeling guilty, and then return as a different actor. They never recast the character and I do not remember it even being implied that he forced himself on Amanda, something I just can't imagine Ben doing, especially while she was in the midst of a mental breakdown. So I don't know where that came from. Maybe they thought better of it and changed their minds.
Thanks for sharing that again @zanereed
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DeeVee ·
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