My theory is that the Phantom Trisha story was originally conceived as Robert Tyler's exit story. His contract expired in the summer of '94 but he ended up extending it for six months, ostensibly to "wrap up" Trucker's story, which I've always found somewhat odd since Trucker's actual exit just ends up being a variation on this story anyway and the show didn't really do anything interesting with Trucker once Dinah Lee was recast. There's literally an episode during the Gilbert saga where Trucker is tagging along with Alex and Charles and he's just... there, doing nothing.
I think the plan was going to be that Trucker would go off to Italy to chase after Trisha and Jeff, and Dinah Lee would get involved with Buck and there would be a brief Curtis/Dinah Lee/Buck/Stacey quad, then Dinah Lee would die in the plane crash. Part of the reason why I think so is that what plays out on screen is Trucker and Dinah Lee return from Italy, they immediately break up, Dinah Lee starts hanging out with Buck (and Philip Brown plays it like Buck is falling for Dinah Lee, and there's plenty of lingering looks between them), and then the crash happens. I don't think Janie was originally supposed to die because the show was doing a great job integrating the character into the cast and having her mix it up with various characters, and Dinah Lee's death would have meant a lot more to Ava (who predicted that someone would die). I think Tyler extending threw a wrench into things because it would have been brutal to have him not find Trisha and then have him lose Dinah Lee in the plane crash, hence the change to Janie being the one to die.
By
Kane ·
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.