It has gotten to the point where I cannot bear to look at Lucky or Liz on my TV screen. Not to mention that I haven't been able to stomach Jason in years (the line for stoning me starts at the left), or that NuMaxie is a pouty mall diva with little acting talent and Sarah, though pretty, is thoroughly blah. The whole Sarah/Lucky/Liz/Jason mess, with its tattered constituencies and exhausted actors, is a prime example of what happens when TPTB decide to arbitrarily rewrite not just the future of a once-hot couple, but the past as well.

The Demise of Permanent Lock was to some viewers a long overdue euthanasia, to others a harsh slap in the face. IMHO, even if you accept the fact that the greatest soap opera Super couples must sooner or later come to at least a temporary end (and that includes you, Lukeandlaura), Lucky and Liz were the victims of one of the worst crash-and-burn scenarios ever given to a truly popular romantic pairing. And to those of you who say, well, they were never as good after Jonathan Jackson left, I can only say that the characters themselves - not to mention the viewers - deserved respect, and respect was increasingly in short supply as this once-moving story played itself out.

As I have noted in other forums, the writing, when Rebecca Herbst came back from her maternity leave, was lame and unbelievable. Liz had previously placed everything – including her life – on the line to save Lucky from Helena’s mind control. Nothing swayed her belief that a love like theirs would not, could not die. And indeed, in Lucky’s hour of greatest conflict, it was Elizabeth’s spirit that appeared to him and inspired him to resist Helena’s mind tricks and turn the tables on her.  Their love was so great, that a disembodied vision of Liz was all he needed to reinforce his own crippled will.

It was an inspirational story to say the least. A love that had started as a sweet friendship, then grew into a deep, abiding passion, had proven stronger than the tragedy of rape, and then stronger than all the machinations of a rich, powerful madwoman and the psycho-science at her command. We eagerly waited for the promised reunion.

Liz returned, radiant and devoted. A wedding was planned. Only one problem – Lucky couldn’t ‘remember’ his love for Liz. Couldn’t remember the feelings that had been tearing at him at the depths of his hypnotic torment? Couldn’t remember the emotions that had fuelled him towards triumphant defiance? Couldn’t grasp the new feelings that had been growing between them over the past year? The beautiful romance of Lucky and Liz that had once seemed to defy death and madness now petered out in a series of clumsy, repetitive scenes, ending with Liz’s anger at discovering that Lucky was now letching after her ‘perfect’ sister, Sarah. They broke it off, just in time for Jason (my least favorite amnesiac ever) to roar back into town.

At which point the rewriting of history began in earnest. It wasn’t enough for the writers to break up the Permanent Lock; they had to pretend it never amounted to much. Liz now claims that Jason is the only real friend she’s ever had, and the only one who’s ever let her be herself. She has conveniently forgotten not only the romantic love she and Lucky shared, but the engaging friendship from which it sprung, and the stalwart way he helped her through the traumatic period following her rape. I don’t recall Jason being part of it at all.