Todd Vs Todd...who in YOUR opinion is the REAL Todd Manning?

[Chairperson Meow]

Roger Howarth....Trevor St John....one character...two actors. Who did you like more and why?

I think Roger captured the essence of Todd. TSJ, while good, was better as Victor II.

[MSquared]

Roger Howarth...hands down.  

 

TSJ was good for a short time there, but I have a feeling he was getting hamstrung with RH's interpretation of the role.  And then, RH showed an interest an coming back (though it took a few years) and TSJ was out of there mentally.  

 

RH played the mix of self-loathing, woobie, singleminded and ferocious that was needed for the role.  He always brought it with KdP, ES, FL (when it was called for to not be romantic) and KA.  He worked well with PJG and made AT tolerable to good.  With PP, I didn't even mind him with KM.  

 

I have always said, the difference between Todd and Victor was self-loathing sociopath vs. self-congratulatory sociopath.  RH got that Todd was a screwed up mess, but he tried to make him a better person.  TSJ seemed to revel in Victor screwed-upness.  Just watch the night the truth about the identical DNA was played out.  Todd was appalled at the very idea that his family would accept he'd do to Marty what Victor did.  Vic laughed it off and tried to play the "I thought if she loved me, she'd forgive me" card, which just pissed Todd off more.

 

They could have run a show for YEARS on Todd vs, Victor.  And we got a stupid murder mystery instead.  And then they tried to tie that into GH.

 

I will forever be grateful for PP, for saving OLTL from FrankenRon.  And I got a lot of fantastic Todd vs. Victor, head on, scenes with it! 

[Melgaypet]

They could have run a show for YEARS on Todd vs, Victor.  And we got a stupid murder mystery instead.  And then they tried to tie that into GH.

 

I will forever be grateful for PP, for saving OLTL from FrankenRon.  And I got a lot of fantastic Todd vs. Victor, head on, scenes with it! 

 

Word. I had tired of Trevor St. John's "interesting" acting choices even before the rapemance (e.g. his non-reaction to knocking Starr down the stairs), but after? I was DONE with Todd. I wanted him permanently killed off. But the thing was, when Roger Howarth came back, which was awesome itself, St. John's character became instantly more compelling and interesting than he had been in years. Who WAS this guy? What did this mean for all of his relationships? Who was this character going to be after the whole Todd's identity was established (I, for one, never doubted that Howarth was going to end up being the real Todd Manning)? I was riveted by his acting in a way I hadn't been since the Walker Lawrence days. It was awesome. Then he was killed off. I was not pleased.

[jsbt]

Roger Howarth, of course.

 

TSJ was very, very good when he wanted to show up - he played a very different Todd, and then he played a very different man altogether. The problem I had with the denouement of the Two Todds is Ron Carlivati didn't seem particularly interested in exploring who Victor was outside the previously established persona of just a snarkier, more demented and cerebral Todd. Victor Jr. has got to be a snakepit of a man - who knows what's going in that head? Is he a high-functioning autistic? How many personalities does he have? What does he really feel or think? How does he think? He should be able to take on a million identities, professions, passions. What does that mean for his marriage to Téa, who was committed to one type of Victor? How do they reconcile their relationship (and I think they would have to be each other's endgame, but you could've played them with other people)? And all they had him doing before his exit was hanging around the paper bitching at people like usual. There's so much more he could have done, can still do.

 

I do feel PP, though they had both Todds for very limited time, mismanaged a lot of that. TSJ didn't need to be dashing around with some arsenic. All I needed were some longer, meatier scenes exploring that character as he is today with his wife and his brother, etc. I liked the brief stuff we got of him just hanging out with her and Dani, and the boys at La Boulaie; I liked that he was posing as the 'victim' reclaiming his family while taking down Todd, but they did not have enough time with him in order to play that out well, so they shouldn't have done it. We needed a clearer look at him. There was no need for a pointless 5-day story where he poisons Todd and then reconsiders it. The stuff that was great was when they just let him rip with FL and RH. But his language, his mannerisms, everything should be breaking down, should have become different. The Victor character should have had a total psychotic break or disassociative event when he first exited - he needs to be shown as what he is beneath the usual persona.

Edited May 17, 2014 by jsbt

[MSquared]

Wasn't it though, that TSJ didn't really want to be a regular, just come in to finish cleaning up from the last ABC episode?  I can understand what we got from him if that was the case.  I actually didn't really mind the whole poisoning thing though.  It made sense in a way and kept up the theme the two of them at each other's throats (Todd "shooting" Victor, Victor poisoning Todd). Maybe they also hoped to entice him back from the brief return with more story..

 

And Jase, word, word, WORD! to all the questions you posed about who was Victor.  Throw in Todd and Viki to help him look into/explore those questions and again, years of story.

[LeftPhalange]

I don't know who I should go with. I started watching while TSJ was in the role and didn't even know about RH until sometime later. It wasn't too difficult for me to accept RH as the real Todd, but I think I'm in a unique position since most of my opinions and memories of Todd are really that of Victor. I guess I'll go with Todd since I found Victor annoying/hated him a lot of the time.

 

 

I thought the Tale of Two Todd's story was very poorly written and an extremely convoluted way to bring RH back, even by soap standards. Even with cancellation looming, I still think Ron could have done a way better job. And don't even get me started on whatever that was on PP's OLTL.