We watched over the years as Andrew fought local homophobes; lead the fight to establish the community center for Llanview's young and poor; proudly honored the memory of his gay brother taken by AIDS; rebuilt the shattered relationship with his stubborn father; committed himself to helping the smitten and deeply-troubled Marty Sayebrook, with whom he later forged a deep and lasting bond that sustained her through her recovery from gang rape and her emergence as a whole and healed character capable of great good; touched our souls with the mellow sounds of his saxophone; and counseled a raven-haired beauty who found herself married to an unwitting bigamist, only to fall deeply and passionately in love himself with the enchanting Cassie, tossed aside for her rival and former best friend.

Andrew...man of faith, man of conscience, man of conviction, man of passionate principle and deep, earthly longing...cerebral, soulful, spititual, forgiving, compassionate, warmly humorous....Andrew, devoted father, husband, friend, shepherd of his flock...the consumate Christian. Andrew, if all Christians were like you, the Christian church would have me. Perhaps it is best you leave us now, heartbreaking though it is to those who have loved you for so long. I think maybe you are too good for this world...the world of Llanview, at any rate.

I have to admit to being mesmerized by him. I find him a most chilling psycho, w/ just this edge of an animal kind of sexiness to him...a little predatory, making him all the more menacing, yet impossible not to keep an eye on.

I don't want to ask for FOC Troy MacIver because my gut tells me Troy is an imposter and is really Colin. Mostly, though, I don't know enough about Troy to care much. But if this really is Colin back from the dead, well then that's just too intriguing to pass up. It really does elevate him to official status as vampire. And I think he's a very cool, if extremely ghoulish, ghost/nightmare vision. How can I pass up such properties, I ask? I have to pay proper homage to such a fiend...you know?

10. She does a good enough Mel that we almost feel we have him back.
9. She's a snazzy dresser.
8. She's the perfect comic foil for the overly-serious Mrs. Lord-Hayes.
7. She's one of the few people who can scare Sophia.
6. She's not a size 3.
5. She has integrity enough to refuse RJ's bribe money.
4. Her visions are just vague enough to ensure that Dorian will do something really, really stupid, providing lots of whimsical fun for us viewers at home.
3. She does not have the same hairdresser who makes Nora, Lindsay, Viki, and Tea look like helmet-heads. Instead, she has a very bad hairstyle which is uniquely her own.
2. She's a good kisser.

1. "I've got that Hanson song running through my head!"

With one foot in the criminal underworld and the other in reformed citizen world, he seems at any moment to step either way...and has done both many times since we met him. His constant straddling of these two identities epitomizes the perpetual inner struggle of RJ Gannon himself, making him one of the most complex characters of Daytime.

He's surprised us with his tenderness and compassion at unexpected times. We've been stirred (some of us anyway) by those sharply focused midnight eyes and exotic smile that emote an intense passion and sensuality surging beneath the surface, ready to erupt in hot lava in an instant. We behold him now on the brink of finding lasting love and happiness, and are heartbreakingly aware of the sincerity behind his determination to make good his life and be worthy of this love...knowing the uphill battle he faces, with its unlikelihood of triumph. Like RJ himself, we are torn between rooting for his redemption and terrified of the destruction such a fate would mean for the complex soul we know as RJ Gannon.

Anyway, at one point, Tina spilled Patrick's ashes on the floor and Ursula was furious with her and told her to clean them up. While Ursula was out of the room, Tina literally swept Patrick's ashes under a rug, and replaced them with ashes from the fireplace, and said, "No one will ever know the difference."

Well, that was just too funny, and I had to keep watching. This was also around the time that Viki was just beginning to remember/discover that she'd been pregnant with Megan, and Gabrielle was an attraction also.

He's a convicted rapist who has spent a lifetime building walls around himself (and finding out that letting anyone inside those walls generally ends up causing him pain). He's cynical and sarcastic and blunt and not afraid of cutting someone to ribbons for personal gain. While these are not qualities I have myself, and certainly not qualities I'd want in an acquaintance (let alone a friend), they make for riveting storytelling.

There's no character on any canvas currently who can match Todd in complexity. The character of Todd started out with the designation "Frat Boy 1" or somesuch, so maybe TPTB will, one day, stumble on another day player to fill the void. Until then, Todd Manning remains one of the more welcome accidents of daytime drama.