Chris B

For those of us lasped Y&R viewers that Josh Griffith has driven away, Peter Bergman is starring in a new Apple TV series!

Claire Labine is one of my favorites and she definitely excelled at scenes like this. Very interesting to hear!

Danielle Paige's scripts feel so warm and P&G like to me. Everytime I see her name in the credits it reminds me of ATWT or GL at their best. I don't know if it's from her experience on GL or her books or both but she does romance and family scenes so well. Jazmen, on the other hand, gives a modern and youthful feel to his episodes and lots of Black cultural references. They don't always land but I love that he consistently tries.

Breakdown writers do pitch story so that isn't unusual or unique to him.

This I 100% agree with. She's one of the most fascinating characters on the show and one of their strongest actors. I'm not finding her likable right now but not in an Ashley/Derek/Tomas way. She's endlessly watchable just going down a dark path which of course is good for drama!

She's a complicated woman, that's for sure. I feel like Doug's death could've been a turning point to her but her actions since then have started to turn me off her. Especially the way she's dismissing Donnell, not to protect him but so she can go back to Joey. It's taking her more in a villainess direction in my mind. At this point I need them to go all in and make her a full on villain like Joey. If not, we need to start seeing some better judgement out of her.

I find a lot of the criticism that comes his way is unjustified and based on past things like his reputation at Daytime Confidential. I agree some of his Days work wasn't great but he had a HW and had to fit their vision. When he had the opportunity to write stuff like Bo and Hope's reunion or Doug's death, the material was excellent. I also feel like his work on Ambitions was excellent, along side the wonderful Michele Val Jean and it makes sense to have him here. I think his breakdowns for BTG have been great. There haven't been any short or choppy scenes and I think he's done a good job of bringing a level of depth like the discussion of how Black women are more at risk from lymphedema in yesterday's episode. That is a meaningful thing to add to a breakdown and something that only a Black writer would've caught. So far I'd say his episodes have been very memorable. I especially like when his breakdown is paired with Danielle Paige or Jazmen. Those are probably my three favorite writers on the staff. Overall, I have no complaints about any of the changes to the writing staff. I think the show has continued to get better and until I see signs of the opposite, I'm pretty happy with the writing. I just wish they had a better EP and set designer.

Thank you for saying this. It's unfortunate they aren't more forthcoming to prevent this speculation but we know they don't just focus on live ratings. Every now and then they give us insight on the true ratings in a press release. Hopefully we'll get one of those soon so we can have a better idea of how the show is really doing but I too think CBS is pleased.

For the actress to be so young I feel like she has to be Deanna. She can't be a Samantha recast because she's still taping. Happy to see the character making her way to town! I hope Deanna and Donnell become staples and I hope she's as good as he is.

Thanks for the heads up! I left off in mid-season 8 just because it's such a hassle to pull out my DVD player. I've watched one episode so far and it looks great. It's also nice that all of the episodes are there so I don't have to jump back and forth between streaming and DVDs.

Jacob is such a classic soap hero for me. He's a good guy to the point of being annoying at times and so damn sexy. I just hope he one day gets a story to go with his charm. I could see him killing a pairing like Carly and Jack from ATWT.

While I find the stories to be engaging, these set problems are driving me up the wall. Was it necessary to have Hayley and Randy meet in a public place to plot out their scheme? And the kicker for me was Bill laying on that funky couch with a blanket. Why don’t they have a bedroom set? Surely another bedroom set could’ve been re-dressed for them. And don’t even get me started on Naomi and Jacob in that bedroom set…

I didn't get to comment last week but I loved the episodes! The Hayley twist was great. I've seen lots of speculation on whether or not this was always planned and while I don't think it was planned from day one, I do think it's a great twist. Marquita is killing it performance wise and I think she'll be a great proper villain.

I wouldn't mind this actually. I loved Rita on the original series.

I feel like if they ever establish a second family she could head that family. The easiest way would be to introduce Leslie's father and she could be his wife. I find it so wild how close we came to getting her as Anita though. By "close" all I mean is that they reached out to her to audition. It's wild they'd ask such a big soap star to audition and not find something for her to do.

Yes! I hated that they couldn't remember the story Michelle was talking about. This was when Val had gone crazy and Anne was trying to bag Gary since she was struggling financially. She ended up becoming the twins sunday school teacher to get close to him. Regardless of how Ted may have treated her behind the scenes, they never should've put those characters together so I'm glad they put a stop to it. If Gary was going to be with anybody other than Val by that point, it should've been Pat.

I don't know that I buy that CBS would be fearful of re-hiring Victoria Rowell only because of how much she's worked with them in recent years. She was directing tv movies for them and also did that recurring role on Good Sam which they heavily promoted. I feel like they wouldn't have given her a role on one of their primetime series if they didn't want to work with her. As for when she'll return to soaps, I feel like it'll happen when the time is right. I think it's a blessing that she hasn't returned to Y&R considering how bad it is now. I do think Beyond the Gates is the place for her and I hope they come up with a major role for her one day. If they want to get Y&R viewers and to move the needle, she's the only person I can see doing that.

Every time I see Jan I wish it was Kassie DePaiva playing the character and I think of what could be with her in the role.

I thought this complimented who each women works for as well. I do think it's good that they're taking steps to deepen Leslie and help her settle in since she's going to be around long term. Hopefully they actually use this Jan development and we get to see her talking Leslie down when she gets going. It'll also be nice to get some insight into what Leslie is thinking when she's plotting these things.

I really loved her work on The Doctors. I went in expecting to hate it and to love Douglas Marland's tenure but it was the exact opposite. She took the show from a very simple hospital based show and expanded it to include families and transformed it more into a traditional show. She left the show in excellent shape and Marland came on and destroyed everything she created. Not only that but his writing was also painfully slow. Had they given her more time I think the show could've lasted longer.

I love that the first person they met with was not one of the obvious choices. We already have 3 of the shows biggest stars as hosts, so it'll be interesting hearing perspectives from people like Brian Austin Green and Tonya Crowe. I give them props because the podcast has come along way in a short time. Love that there is a video element now since I enjoy watching it in the background while I work. Looking forward to seeing what guests are coming up!

They announced in advance that there were 1000 bags for this initial launch. As for Meghan Markle, having a limited supply isn't to build hype but is common for smaller companies to reduce waste. I work for a similar company and that has always been our model. Especially when launching new products, it's the best way to gauge interest before expanding for future drops. As someone who has purchased from Meghan, it was much easier to get stuff with season two of her show because she obviously made adjustments based on demand.

Good news! Beyond The Gates' ChelseaKat Purses Sell Out in 24 Hours I saw people say here and there that the price was too high but clearly they knew what they were doing. It reminds me of peoples outrage when they saw the price of Mary J Blige's boot collection which also was a big success. Looking at the audience of a soap, I think they can afford a $100 bag. I didn't buy it because I didn't like the design but I love that they're going to continue to release bags. If they release one I like I'll definitely buy it.

Thank you for putting this together! Interesting that after a month with lots of complaints on Twitter that Leslie is dominating the show, she only appeared in 7 episodes.

Me too! They definitely didn't overhype it either because that is a true soap hunk. The timing of this is perfect as well since the show has been on for a while and we've gotten to know the new cast. Now is the perfect time to start sprinkling in more well known faces. Can't wait til we get an official announcement!