This venerable soap opera hasn’t had a very good year. Despite having one of the best casts and most talented production teams working in daytime it has once again become a largely unsatisfying saga about violent mobsters and the ladies who love them above all else (including decency, humanity and the law). And a year-long story that served as a farewell saga for the legendary Anthony Geary, who had played tormented anti-hero Luke Spencer and, briefly, his manipulative look-alike cousin Bill Eckert for most of the last 36 years before exiting the show in July, dragged on entirely too long, stumbling over itself along the way.
But the episode that marked the show’s 52nd anniversary was a stunning marvel unlike anything ever seen in daytime drama. It was filled with newly produced flashback sequences that revealed fresh information about the Spencer and Eckert families that enhanced several stories from its rich history dating all the way back to the very first episode in April 1963, 16 years before Luke appeared on the canvas and 28 years before we first met Bill. It was an incredibly inventive narrative triumph pulled together by executive producer Frank Valentini and head writer Ron Carlivati (who has since left the show) and his team.