Thank you for sharing all these details (and if you don't think you should share any more I totally get that).
McTavish would, whether for PR or genuine belief, later claim the Kit story had been a mistake, although I think she framed it as being a mistake because it meant viewers hated the character. Some of her writing had such misogyny I could see her wanting to tell a "cry rape" story.
To be honest, if you had given Kelsey this story in 1996, I could have believed it. She was in a terrible place and could have lashed out at Bobby or Edmund. By 1998 she had grown more as a person. And giving someone this type of story just because viewers didn't like them just suggests you don't care about character-based storylines and the message of false rape is the paramount importance.
As for some of her other statements, they are an instance of (not for the first time with McTavish), right message, wrong messenger.
Even though the idea of Brooke finding a new Laura was poignant (in spite of her being named Laura being a little too on the nose) I don't really think viewers ever connected with the Brooke/Laura story. Laura was most popular as a character early on when she was close to Janet. It was all downhill from there. The show decided to make viewers choose between Janet and Brooke in that story and it didn't make Brooke come across all that well. When I would read some fan comments at this time, especially online, they were not very kind about Brooke. In some ways the character did feel aged out, not far off how McTavish viewed Tom (although killing Tom would have been depressing and pointless).
This was part of a very lengthy period of various regimes, and presumably Agnes, having no idea what to do with Brooke. Many failed love interests and questionable storylines. She did have chemistry with Roscoe Born but you saw where that ended up. McTavish did tease her with Dimitri, which I think had promise, and the material she wrote for her in her 98-99 return wasn't bad - enough so that I didn't realize until now and her memoir how much dislike she seemed to have for Brooke and Barr.
On paper, I disagree with her that Janet couldn't be redeemed. Yet when I look at the result onscreen, even with Lorraine Broderick, a talented writer who championed a redeemed Janet, they did not really do all that much with the character. The whole Jonathan Kinder "three witches" story was fun, but otherwise she mostly just yearned to be a mother and then dated Jack a few times before the Janet/Trevor pairing. I didn't mind the pairing but I do think it was a bridge too far for longtime viewers.
McTavish did, presumably because she had no choice, give Janet some material during her second run without regressing her - the whole comedy caper with Axel (who I liked, although he was another character who just vanished), her apology scenes with Natalie's ghost, and then Harold dying (a very happy story, Megan!) After she left, someone did decide to regress Janet and then write her out.
She was also right about Becca, one of the most pointless characters (although many were there with her in AMC's last decade) and a character I mostly remember for inflicting Greenlee on me and for various articles about how Kathie Lee got Abigail Spencer a job.
By
DRW50 ·
.thumb.png.5c728e3a5029e28d95defc3cf6a72cdb.png)
Create an account or sign in to comment