The "twist"........

JasonDíSpeech said:
You know, if they did that for us viewers who want Stefano dead, I'd love it. Reveal that Rolf is (bonus/extra/especially) crazy, thinks he IS Stefano, and HE was the one on that Bench in Europe...a little Easter egg for the fans.

The consensus (here and elsewhere) seems to be that the decision was made to kill/erase Stefan BEFORE anyone knew how fans would react to the recast/and Gabi pairing. (Given the show's insane tape delay, that's not a stretch.) These scenes would have been written 10-11 months ago and the negotiations with the actor...at least a month or so before that, I would guess?

So now you have a reborn character in a popular pairing, and you've tossed him in the dustbin, because you had to make a decision about what who'd be on contract in 10/2019 back in late summer 2018 based on how much we hated Stefan then. Not sustainable!
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That's infuriating. I know they have much more limited budgets these days, but it seems like the show isn't well run at times. I understand rotating characters in and out on a more regular basis. They don't maintain large casts with high-impact people on the back burner. They just move them out of town completely when they aren't central. I'm getting used to that.

But to bring in characters that are built to be mainstay characters (connected to an existing family and immediately interwoven into other primary stories) without enough of a long-term plan to invest in them is silly. The character of Stefan is a different kind of character to introduce than Serena or Madison or Ted. That has to be carefully thought out, and it seems they would give it more time to take root than they did. I know they've rotated writing staff and execs repeatedly, but my biggest problem with the show is the lack of continuity that allows you to invest in characters and stories. That's the only reason to watch a soap opera. You're so right. It's not sustainable once they start messing that up.

But I'll be glad if they bring Stefan back--even if they have to do a ridiculous backbend in storytelling to do it. He and Gabi were just starting to be interesting, and I was getting used to the new Stefan. As much as I liked the original Stefan, Tyler Christopher, on General Hospital when I used to watch that years ago, the new actor works better. Perhaps the first round of Stefan went so poorly that they recast just to bridge the story to where they could kill him. It still says that they didn't do a good job casting and writing and understanding the audience if they didn't realize the first one wouldn't work and that the second one would catch fire.
 
The actor has been interviewed, he was brought in very last minute recast, told it was to be very short term. (I think they thought the previous Stefan would be back...which did not happen). So he got surprised when the time was extended. As JasonD pointed out, there ridiculous filming schedule, 7-8 mos in advance, which mean scripts written 3 or 4 mos. before that..........this was evidently the original intention for the character when he first appeared.
The popularity of Brandon Barash as Stefan along with the pairing with Gabi working so well was unexpected, for sure. Evidently they figured what they might be able to do.
It is extremely difficult to change course in the middle. They already had to do that when Drake Hogestyn (John) was injured as he & Steve were breaking thru a thick oak door to rescue Kayla & Marlena......the door was supposed to be a breakaway, and wasn't. Drake was in hospital for a few months. They had to quickly reshoot the scene, so it was just Steve, and then change the scripts, giving all of John's lines/actions to someone else. That was hard to do, and expensive. We are lucky Drake pulled thru, but he was gone for several months.
In this case, the suits never expected what happened with Stefan & the viewers, so did the best they could.
 
Well if Lani and Eli have a baby soon as well as Ciara and Ben, with Sarah and Kristen's babies, we have the Teen Scene part 2 coming up.
 
Too bad almost all of those (still mostly hypothetical) babies are related and the only fresh blood is the Brady/Kristen offspring.

(Though I guess technically Sarah isn't a biological Horton, provided her baby daddy is, as I hope, Xander, her baby wouldn't be related to most of Salem by blood.)
 
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