All Episodes Talk

[AndySmith]

I think the Buchanans and the Lords set a record for most Long Lost Bastard Children.

[eXiled]

Rex got something like four revisions on his backstory in an attempt to make him matter. While I'm sure he had his fans (every character has at least one :-) ) Rex's ascension to leading man status was one of the show's biggest blunders, in my opinion.

Edited December 10, 2016 by eXiled

[Melgaypet]

I agree that it was never necessary to make David a Buchanan, but I liked it, anyway. They leaned a little (all right, a lot) too much on the "PA PA PA!" stuff, but I thought it was sweet how much David idolized Bo. And I loved him and Matthew as brothers.

Rex as a Buchanan was ridiculous and I hated it. Each of his fifteen paternity retcons was more pointless than the last. I've decided Echo rigged the test somehow and his father was some random mark.

[dubbel zout]

1 minute ago, Melgaypet said:

I thought it was sweet how much David idolized Bo. And I loved him and Matthew as brothers.

They didn't have to be related to have those relationships, though. That was one reason I enjoyed Bo and Rex, because they chose to have a paternal relationship. Forcing them to be uncle/nephew ruined it, IMO. 

[Panopticon]

35 minutes ago, dubbel zout said:

They didn't have to be related to have those relationships, though. That was one reason I enjoyed Bo and Rex, because they chose to have a paternal relationship. Forcing them to be uncle/nephew ruined it, IMO. 

I really thought it cheapened Rex/Natalie to make them blood-related too.

I will forever love Clint's "if he's so great YOU can have him" reaction at the big reveal.

I like to pretend that he never changed his mind and then Rex turned out not to be his anyway.

[TeeVee329]

2 hours ago, Panopticon said:

I really thought it cheapened Rex/Natalie to make them blood-related too.

Rex/Natalie were ruined for me forever when she tearfully begged him to let Clint have Gigi's heart, he refused, and then he turned around and sold the heart to Clint for the money and power to finance his Frodd vendetta.  What bullshit.

[Melgaypet]

Yes! And then later, in that Kentucky strip joint, The Spotted Pony I think it was called, he straight up taunted her about Clint and Kim. Which, I know you and I are both all-in for Klimt, but here's Natalie genuinely worried about her cardiac patient father and Rex is just being an asshole. And why wasn't Joey allowed to hate him?

Grr, the Rex hate, it burns so hot.

[Melgaypet]

Y'all. I was skipping around in the old TWOP thread (via the Wayback Machine) and on April 29, 2005 (a dark time), I found this most excellent anti-McBain rant, courtesy of jsbt, and I, who loved Cris/Nat, after pumping my fist, had to share it:

Quote

The fact is that John McBain is an officer of the law and entered into a bargain with a mentally unfit prisoner to hide his identity and his months of torture and brainwashing from his wife and his family, a wife and family McBain is close to, so that the prisoner could go brood and hate himself during a life sentence he did not deserve, and could've dodged with even the most minimal representation (re:Evangeline), were the facts of the case, facts that McBain, Chief of Detectives, is privy to, brought to light. But John didn't bother to do that. He buried the evidence, and now, as Cris does his life sentence, John has the unmitigated fucking gall to "admit" to Natalie that it "bothers" him to see her with other men, and to fucking take her to task for pursuing him and to try and deflect her and talk down about her to Evangeline and Michael, while all the while he is letting her husband rot in jail. This is a situation which is all.about.John. It's all about manipulating things to make himself the center and getting all the adoration he has somehow missed. And it is incredibly illegal. So yes, make him a villain. If Easton doesn't want schmoopy romance, that's not a problem. Treat him as he is. Write the truth, and write him out.

[boes]

On 12/10/2016 at 3:09 PM, Melgaypet said:

Yes! And then later, in that Kentucky strip joint, The Spotted Pony I think it was called, he straight up taunted her about Clint and Kim. Which, I know you and I are both all-in for Klimt, but here's Natalie genuinely worried about her cardiac patient father and Rex is just being an asshole. And why wasn't Joey allowed to hate him?

Grr, the Rex hate, it burns so hot.

Oh it does, and it still warms and rejuvenates my heart.  He's currently stinking up DOOL with his plucked and roided body, hairdo by Veronica Lake, mugging by Ronald McDonald, even worse than he was.  

Edited December 14, 2016 by boes

[Melgaypet]

Alex arrives for her wedding to Asa! Tell me it's not delightful:

[TeeVee329]

Very fun!  I also loved this time they didn't get married:

"Someone else just became the ELEVENTH Mrs. Buchanan."

Oh Nigel, never change.

[Melgaypet]

Hee. Here's another of Alex's weddings that didn't take:

[AndySmith]

Alex was a lot of crazy fun.

[UYI]

On 12/16/2016 at 8:16 PM, TeeVee329 said:

Very fun!  I also loved this time they didn't get married:

 

"Someone else just became the ELEVENTH Mrs. Buchanan."

Oh Nigel, never change.

Without even mentioning that Gabrielle had just returned! How dare you! :P

You must have been waiting for me. :) I haven't on PTV as often since I've been hit by the forums constantly freezing up, which means typing out posts has been very slow and frustrating for me recently, but it seems to be mostly working now. 

ETA: I stand somewhat corrected. A lot of the GH threads are still giving me trouble, especially the News thread, and those are some of the threads I usually read the most. I miss my friends. Sigh. :'( 

Edited December 19, 2016 by UYI

[TeeVee329]

18 minutes ago, UYI said:

Without even mentioning that Gabrielle had just returned! How dare you! :P

It goes without saying lol!  As I've said before, this was my introduction to Gabrielle, and might have been to Alex as well.  So I have a lot of love for these scenes.

Edited December 19, 2016 by TeeVee329

[Melgaypet]

Stupid Drew. I never liked him, to be honest. He caused nothing but trouble. Still, this was decent drama for Bo and Nora. Their conversation has even more punch in retrospect.

[AndySmith]

Even worse, his death set off a chain of events that led to Nora and Bo breaking up, and her shacking up with Sam.

[TeeVee329]

Kyle and Fish fight, hotly:

[UYI]

Max and (Mia's) Blair meet, New Year's Eve 1991/New Year's Day 1992. 

These two dates also the marked the end of the 1984-1991 theme era and the beginning of the 1992-1995 one:

[Melgaypet]

Happy New Year's Eve! Be safe, you guys!

And to follow up TeeVee's post, Kyle and Fish make up. Hotly:

 

(...Is this the last appearance of Nick? I think it was. Poor guy, I felt for him a lot at this point.)

Edited January 1, 2017 by Melgaypet

[UYI]

Max convinces Gabrielle not to become a nun, hotly:

[Melgaypet]

Starr puts piranha in Max's bathtub, hilariously:

UYI, you know I tease because I love! And I also hated Max a lot during this period and this was awesome. Here's a scene where Max was likable. (Please to ignore those Aryan twits that show up.):

[TeeVee329]

On 12/31/2016 at 8:05 PM, Melgaypet said:

(...Is this the last appearance of Nick? I think it was. Poor guy, I felt for him a lot at this point.)

Yup, that's it for Nick.  Though we do hear later that he took a leave of absence from his teaching job and that's how Cris got a job at the HS just in time to be stalked by Teen!Jess.

[Melgaypet]

New discussion topic! Dream recast for Joey Buchanan (Nathan Fillion is implied, move on to #2)

I vote for Daniel Cosgrove. Handsome, charming, can act, I believe he could play a good guy without being milquetoast, like he did with Scott Chandler.  (His soap-killing ways are irrelevant here, sadly.) I'd want to see him play with Dan Gauthier. A friend of mine thinks Scott Holroyd would have been perfect. I never watched ATWT, but he sure is handsome.

Edited January 3, 2017 by Melgaypet

[TeeVee329]

I'd be cool with Daniel Cosgrove.  I liked him a lot that last year of AMC, Scott and Madison were the best.

I think adult Chris McKenna could work too.

[Panopticon]

2 hours ago, Melgaypet said:

New discussion topic! Dream recast for Joey Buchanan (Nathan Fillion is implied, move on to #2)

I vote for Daniel Cosgrove. Handsome, charming, can act, I believe he could play a good guy without being milquetoast, like he did with Scott Chandler.  

I think he did it on Days as Aiden, too, in that sweet spot after Aiden lost the chip on his shoulder but before he was revealed as an agent sent to seduce and kill Hope. 

Since I wasn't around for the Fillion years, it would be a new experience for me to have a Joey who held my attention. I enjoyed and rooted for all of Clint/Viki's other assorted kids, but Joey was just sort of... there.

[Melgaypet]

Poor Joey. After Fillion left, the show didn't give a damn about the character any more and it showed in the actors cast. Don Jeffcoat was blandness itself, Bruce Michael Hall was terrible (jsbt liked him for reasons that I confess I don't understand), Tom Degnan was...better, but still generally given nothing. I mean, Josh Kelly was cast as Joey, but TPTB (which, Ron and Frank, I guess) decided he was too good for that and created the character of Cutter Wentworth for him. Now, I'm glad they did; because I liked Cutter (and I was all in for Cutter and Natalie on OLTL 2.0) and I think Kelly, like Hall, is too young for Joey, anyway; but that speaks volumes about the show's lack of investment in the character.

Edited January 3, 2017 by Melgaypet
clarity

[TeeVee329]

Yeah, Bruce Michael Hall Priest!Joey was not for me, although it probably didn't help him that the writers a) had him make out with his cousin Flash Sarah and then b) stuck him with Jenn.

Tom Degnan was okay, but the show wasn't interested in the character at all except as a way to save Kelly's disastrous return and allow them to showcase Aubrey and then Cutter.

[TeeVee329]

Fish holds his guppy for the first time!

...oh, and Gigi almost drowns, pfft.

[RealFantasies]

Is the original OLTL TWOP thread still around and if so, can someone please drop me a link?

[TeeVee329]

Still on a Kish binge.  Kyle's soft smile when he learns Sierra's name from Schuyler is such a great little moment from Brett Claywell:

[Melgaypet]

On 2/15/2017 at 9:19 PM, RealFantasies said:

Is the original OLTL TWOP thread still around and if so, can someone please drop me a link?

The thread is archived on the Wayback machine, starting January 1, 2004 (all those before that was lost when TWOP changed servers or something, IIRC). I'm pretty sure most of the pages are there, or at least I haven't come across any missing on my browsing. Fun fact: the very first post is by jsbt! We were all talking about Gozer. Ah, memories.

http://web.archive.org/web/20130509055836/http://forums.televisionwithoutpity.com/topic/2932285-one-life-to-live/

Edited February 18, 2017 by Melgaypet

[Melgaypet]

6 hours ago, TeeVee329 said:

Still on a Kish binge.  Kyle's soft smile when he learns Sierra's name from Schuyler is such a great little moment from Brett Claywell:

It was! A pity that Oliver telling Kyle Stacy was dead was rushed on by for Sky's reaction. It felt like that should have been a bigger moment. Yeah, it's Stacy, who gives a fuck, but still, she screwed him over (literally), then Oliver was her bodyguard, then she just gave birth to their kid and now she's died right in front of him. Scott Evans did his best to play some complicated emotions but the show just glossed over it (I suppose to make sure we understood the real victim in the whole scenario was Rex). Makes you wonder if Oliver's denial over being Sierra's father had to do with her mother as well as his own internalized homophobia.

Edited February 18, 2017 by Melgaypet

[jsbt]

9 hours ago, Melgaypet said:

Fun fact: the very first post is by jsbt!

It sure fucking is

[RealFantasies]

10 hours ago, Melgaypet said:

The thread is archived on the Wayback machine, starting January 1, 2004 (all those before that was lost when TWOP changed servers or something, IIRC). I'm pretty sure most of the pages are there, or at least I haven't come across any missing on my browsing. Fun fact: the very first post is by jsbt! We were all talking about Gozer. Ah, memories.

http://web.archive.org/web/20130509055836/http://forums.televisionwithoutpity.com/topic/2932285-one-life-to-live/

Thank you so much! I'm having tons of fun dabbling through the past of my soap. Maybe someone remembers, and I'll probably find it eventually, but someone gave this amazing synopsis of the show in about Oct-Dec 2011 all about how the show was about reflections, mirror images, facing your demons and the like. They connected Todd and Victor's s/l with Viki's DID and whatnot, and it was absolutely stunning and why I loved the show so much. Does anyone remember what I'm talking about?

[UYI]

The Wayback Machine only takes it back to the beginning of April, though, rather than the end of May/beginning of June, which is when TWOP officially disappeared. Weird. 

[TeeVee329]

On 2/18/2017 at 5:16 PM, Melgaypet said:

Makes you wonder if Oliver's denial over being Sierra's father had to do with her mother as well as his own internalized homophobia.

I dunno.  In their scenes in the episode after that one, Oliver tries to rationalize that Stacy wouldn't have told Schuyler he was the dad if he wasn't and Kyle suggests that Stacy was a homophobe who wouldn't have wanted her child raised by a gay parent, a claim Oliver summarily rejects.  It's hard to tell because so much was being rewritten around this time, and Stacy became somewhat sanctified in death to make Gigi look like a saint/Schuyler look like a villain during their custody battle.

[Melgaypet]

On 2/20/2017 at 2:27 PM, TeeVee329 said:

I dunno.  In their scenes in the episode after that one, Oliver tries to rationalize that Stacy wouldn't have told Schuyler he was the dad if he wasn't and Kyle suggests that Stacy was a homophobe who wouldn't have wanted her child raised by a gay parent, a claim Oliver summarily rejects.  It's hard to tell because so much was being rewritten around this time, and Stacy became somewhat sanctified in death to make Gigi look like a saint/Schuyler look like a villain during their custody battle.

Yeah. I was thinking more what the circumstances of Sierra's conception represented to him - his lowest point - but that got lost in "I can't be a gay dad!" Which I got, because the kind of internalized homophobia Oliver had been dealing with all his life wouldn't disappear overnight just because he was with Kyle, even if it tried my patience. Fish really should have some very complicated feelings about Stacy, even after her death. (Can you imagine Oliver and Stacy - who went to her death still obsessed with Rex - trying to co-parent? It almost makes you wish...well, no. Nothing makes me wish Stacy alive.)

What I was really hoping for was a big, soapy custody battle: Kish vs. Gex vs. Klimt vs. Sky, which would drag in a bunch of the canvas to take sides (does Bo support surrogate son Rex or Officer Fish? How does his history with Matthew fit in? Who will Roxy stand by - Rex, Kyle or Sky? There needs to be more lawyers than Tea and Non-Evil Eli! Blair is not impressed that Eli is helping Rex at all, especially with a custody case!) and have all kinds of shenanigans (Natalie and Kyle scheme against Klimt! It blows up and Fish is mad! John McBain makes that stupid disapproving lemon-face since he has to be in there somewhere! Ma and Pa Fish come to town to see their grandkid and that's a thing! Clint tries to bribe the judge and Queen Victoria is appalled! Which Mayor Dorian leverages somehow!) and dramatic on-the-stand confessions (Kim admits there's no way Sky is the father! Gigi admits she tried to pay for Stacy to have an abortion! Schuyler admits stealing drugs from the hospital! Fish admits that Kyle told him confidential patient information, or doesn't and commits perjury! Gasp!) and also some emotional, human interactions (Oliver explains his ambivalence to Kyle! Kyle maybe discusses his mystery childhood! Clint explains why he's willing to raise another kid at his time of life, possibly to Natalie whose childhood he missed! Rachel tries to help Sky! Layla and Cris are very pretty and also awesome friends to Kish!) Etc.

It could have been great.

[drtslim]

Do any of y'all remember this gem of an article?

http://thewreckcenter.blogspot.com/2006/06/oltl-evangeline-man-without-fear-jase.html

[jsbt]

Oh, God. I was hoping people had forgot what we did.

[Pete Martell]

Someone who was an extra in two 1991 OLTL episodes put them up on YT. I think the first one may have already been around but I'd never seen the second one.

 

[UYI]

Oh my God, Hunter Guthrie and Brunette!Andy's wedding. I can't with that wedding dress. It looks so matronly. 

[jsbt]

This is very, very early Gottlieb and Malone, right? Wow.

[AndySmith]

Speaking of...here is an old article from 1992 about Megan's death. The interesting part?

Quote

And then it was over…right? Or is there a way, having become dead-dead-dead in full audience view, that Tuck could return?

”Mmmmm,” Gottlieb says slowly. ”Theoretically, I suppose Viki could have had twins that night long ago, and forgotten.”

Very interesting.

Edited March 2, 2017 by AndySmith

[UYI]

10 hours ago, jsbt said:

This is very, very early Gottlieb and Malone, right? Wow.

I could have sworn it was near the very end of Rauch's run, but maybe not. 

[jsbt]

Wikipedia claims she came on in June or July, IIRC. Malone August, I think. It's either the last of the Rauch team or it's him.

Edited March 2, 2017 by jsbt

[dwmckim]

10 hours ago, jsbt said:

This is very, very early Gottlieb and Malone, right? Wow.

Yes, these both would have been near the beginning of Gottlieb's tenure.

The earlier episode would be one of the last ones with Craig Carlson as a headwriter, and the later one, one of Malone's first.

The poster was an extra on three episodes so keep an eye on his channel as there should be another one coming.

[jsbt]

Yeah, that's Jason Webb on the Banner loading dock(!) with Kevin also working his own way up, and I know Gottlieb hired Mark Brettschneider.

[TeeVee329]

A couple of thoughts I had watching this again:

1) Obviously, Fish was rightly feeling guilty about keeping his fish lips shut about Sierra Rose for this long and that's at least partially what's motivating his approach here, but I still appreciate how gentle he is with Schuyler, how he acknowledges that Schuyler loved Sierra and took good care of her and went above and beyond to save her from Mitch and Allison, and how he offers to work something out so Schuyler can still be a part of her life (which, of course, was a knife to the gut given we all knew both actors had been fired at this point).  It was really so refreshing given what assholes Rex and Gigi were throughout this part of the storyline.

2) Scott Clifton got a little hammy once Sky took Gigi hostage, but he is so good in these scenes.  His heartbreak at this latest cruel twist at the end of an already world-class shitty day is palpable.  And the soft yet snarling way he says "Kim..." when Fish points out it was probably her doing really makes me wish Schuyler had gotten to confront Kim about her role in all of this, I feel like that would have been dynamite.

Edited April 1, 2017 by TeeVee329

[Melgaypet]

There was so much story left for these characters. The canvas felt noticeably lopsided after Kish, Sky, Rachel, and Kim were written off. (I know Amanda Setton chose to leave.) I mean, even setting aside the fact that I enjoyed all those characters - the show itself was off-balance afterwards. What did we have? Teen!Jess, Gex hunting for Rex's newest daddy (loving Aunt Gigi sure forgot about her precious niece pretty quick, huh?), VicTodd and Tea doing whatever they were doing, Suddenly Evil Eli, John McBain Triangle Part: 15837, about a million teenagers front and center and the Ford invasion. Yeah, that was great. *rolls eyes*