Chris B

He had a really good handle on how to do those self contained episodes. I feel they were more successful at it than Dallas or Dynasty. I'm sure his experience on Family helped there. He had another show called Married: The First Year (with Constance McCashin) which I'd love to see. It seems to be impossible to find though.

Paul was Sid's nephew. When it comes to Fairgate's, the biggest missed opportunity for me was not bringing back Annie at some point. Ginger did have 2 sisters, but I feel like both were duds. Perhaps an interesting story could've been if Ginger's mom died and she adopted her sisters. That may have been more interesting than her stuff with Kenny. One relative that I absolutely loved was Karen's brother Joe. I hated when he left. He had chemistry with everyone and had so much potential as a leading man.

Wasn't this a musical? Why not just do a live adaptation of that? This seems like a weird format.

I agree with you here. Megan was definitely the highlight of Second Chances. I just finished it and watched the first episode of Hotel Malibu. It felt like the original series was a pilot that should've been retooled before going to series. They had a good idea, but it didn't come together at all. It also needed to be heavily recast. The collection of characters felt so random and almost every role was miscast. Only one episode in I can't say that Hotel Malibu was thrilling, but I'll give it more time. Strange that they decided to go that route for a spin off though.

I didn't realize until talking to fans about this that she had planned to leave before the show was cancelled. The Toadie actor said he'd wanted to leave as well, but ultimately the show made the decision for him. My issue with this is that if you knew you weren't going to keep these characters long term, why center so much of the reboot around them? Mackenzie, Haz and Toadie have had more screentime than almost everybody. I wish for characters like that they'd treated it more like David and give them an arc, but not make them the leads of the show. For long term viewers I'm sure it'll be easier because they're used to the turnover and also got to enjoy these characters longer than I did. Now I'm left disappointed because they were what was keeping me tuned in. I'm going to stick around, but I'll definitely miss Mackenzie and Toadie in particular.

A big problem with the streaming shows is that they're locking actors into the same contracts you would have on a 22 episode network show, but for 6-10 episodes. That means you get a lot less pay and many actors have complained about being blocked from doing other jobs while under contract which is where the struggle comes in. Listening to Landon's interview on the previous page and also her one on The Locher Room, this makes more sense to me. She talks about how after ATWT she was told she would move to primetime and she couldn't get a job. Then the Y&R gig appeared to really affect her, being fired so soon. Yes she's on Yellowstone now, but she isn't one of the faces and she's not guaranteed to pick up work immediately after. For all she knows, it could be another post ATWT or post Y&R where she can't get work. If GH is offering her a good contract, why pass it up?

Mack is the only one I’m not sure of, but Toadie and Haz were definitely not the actors choice.

Yes: https://www.backtothebay.net/news/2024/09/04/ill-miss-everything-neighbours-confirms-haz-and-mackenzies-departure/ I'm really disappointed. First Toadie, now Haz and Mackenzie who were the biggest draws for me as a reboot viewer. It's crazy to me that these seem to be show dictated exits, but these characters drove so much story during the first year. Also a shame because I've been enjoying the show so much lately. Of course I will stick with it, but I don't understand these choices at all.

For me it's season 4, but I agree that season 4-6 is quite the run. In my current re-watch I'm at the beginning of season 3 and I have to give them props for how well they handled the self-contained period of the show and used it to still weave continuing stories in. Season one in particular allowed the characters to be completely vulnerable and they handled some serious stories. I'd argue that nobody in the Dallas/Knots universe had chemistry as strong with Larry Hagman as Joan Van Ark. She always played all of the backstory in all of their scenes.

I vaguely remember Palmetto Pointe. I wanna say Gabrielle Carteris was also on it. I finished Rich Man Poor Man Book 2 which had a very dark ending. It was definitely an interesting forgotten primetime soap. It deserved another year or two. I decided to jump into Second Chances next and I love it. It's a cute little cozy town and the characters are fun. I do think some of the casting could've been better, but overall I could see this show lasting longer than it did. It's a shame they didn't at least get a full season due to the Earthquake destroying their sets.

Luna has been dull as dishwater since she debuted. It took a crazy Brad Bell stunt like this to make her interesting. I wish they had thought of this before instead of making all the young female characters come in as saints. They should've done a Paris/RJ/Luna triangle from the jump with Luna as the vixen trying to steal RJ from Paris. It's a shame she's finally interesting and they'll likely have to write her off.

She really was. Eden Reigel was painfully miscast in the role and Vail Bloom is a classic Bill bell femme fatale, but I feel like Landon had the maturity for where the character was at that point. As you mentioned, her chemistry with Michael Graziadei was great and she was believable as a lawyer. I didn't understand why they quickly fired her. She mentioned on The Locher Room that her shock from that caused her to quit acting for quite a few years.

Jennifer Landon’s role on Yellowstone isn’t huge from what I’ve seen. I could see her jumping ship for a contract. Plus, that show kills people off left and right so for all we know her character could be dead. Jennifer Landon would be a huge casting coup if they got her. I couldn’t believe how Y&R wasted her. I’d hope they write to her strengths and let her be strong.

Her fans seem to think she was targeted for whatever reason. I even saw someone say shee was punished because Jarly failed. It seems like a lot of delusion when I don't recall anybody praising her performances for years.

While I am not upset about KeMo going, I do think that creatively the show has been a mess for so long that it's time for a complete change. The way the HW situation has been handled is another big reason Frank needs to go. Unfortunately, we seem past the point where they try to make big moves on soaps. Look at Y&R and how bad it's ratings and quality are yet JG seems safe. I'm stunned Ron left Days, but it's hard to tell what happened there. I don't expect them to make any big BTS moves at GH after the botched HW swap.

I don't think it's outrageous to compare this to Tyler Perry. He is the only one who has been launching anything close to a daytime soap in the past 20 years. The Have and The Have Not's was even shot just like a daytime soap in it's early seasons. I believe The Oval is mostly studio bound as well. With that said, I don't think the character descriptions sound similar to what we had on either of those shows. It's similar in that it involves politics and I'm sure there will be some have nots to mix with the wealthy characters, but that is also true of every US soap and most international ones as well.

I've always found that season 12 got high remarks from fans. That was when all of their changes really came together, especially with The Sumner Group.

Kelly Monaco has been phoning it in for around 10 years. Seeing her fans lose it on Twitter has been a sight to see. She's lucky she kept her job as long as she did when you consider there effort she put in on screen.

I purchased Rich Man, Poor Man a few months ago and recently started Book 2 which is the soap spin off. I loved the original mini-series, but I had taken some time to watch the spin off because reviews said it wasn't any good. In retrospect I do think it was very good and is a forgotten pre-curser to the big boom of primetime soaps. It also doesn't appear to have done bad in the ratings so I'm surprised they didn't keep it on the air longer. My guess is that it was the lack of confidence in the soap genre. The tv series jumps ahead in time so it has some new actors, but they do a good job of tying things up and launching the new stories. Susan Sullivan is playing another Maggie, as Peter Strauss' love interest/lawyer. They have a Bobby/JR rivalry at the center with cousins Wesley and Billy who Strauss' character takes in once their parents are dead. They're played by good actors but have the weakest story of the bunch. One works for the family business and the other is in the music industry which doesn't make much sense to me. If they wanted to pit the two against each other they both should've worked for the family business. I still have about half a season to go. Once I finish I'm going to either do Second Chances/Hotel Malibu or The Yellow Rose. Not sure which one I will do first. I'm also watching season two of Knots Landing but I'm trying to slow down to give them a chance to upload season 3 to streaming so I'm not left high and dry when I run out of episodes.

I would like something like the first four seasons if the show did return. The main focus on the cul-de-sac and domestic/family issues, but serialized. With that said, Knots is one show I never want to see return. I don't think the writing would be up to snuff. Whoever writes it would just view it as another primetime soap and we'd get a camp mess that doesn't represent Knots. Now a fantasy idea I've always had that would *never* happen is a one off limited series of 6-8 episodes with the original cast. I'd frame it around Mack dying which would be a way to bring everybody back. Paige, all of Karen's kids, Abby, Greg, etc. Instead of trying to build a next generation, I'd use it as a send off and show how Karen deals with losing another husband and you could also die an off screen Eric death to further highlight the depth of loss Karen has had. The only person I'd have still living in the cul-de-sac that we know would be Val. Since she was a writer I'd have her now being a podcaster and investigate what happened to Mack. You could tie a mystery in to Greg due to his past with Mack. Because of the ages of the cast this would never happen, but I love when tv/film takes changes on older actors. This is one aspect of life we rarely get as the main focus, but when they do (Grace & Frankie/Thelma) it tends to be very good.

The scream I let out when I read this! I will say, I usually skip her episode of Knots, but I listened to it with the commentary from Ted and Joan and it made me appreciate it more. I do think she came back as a cooler Lucy during her second run of Dallas. Of course they still did nothing with her lol. I'm glad we got to see Gary, Val and Lucy back together again on the Dallas reboot.

I was sad to see Laura go, but I enjoyed how they wrote her off. The only thing I would've done differently is to let us see her go drop Daniel off with Richard so we could get a closure scene for them. I think if you look at the evolution of what Laura went through and how strong she had become, I do believe she would've wanted to go off and die alone. She finally found happiness and was having to leave a good husband and a newborn. I could see how that could be hard to face with them around her, like she failed in the end. Overall I did love season 8. I thought it was a nice refresh. I know it's super controversial, but I loved Karen's kidnapping and how it tied into Mack and Greg's past. I also loved the Jean Hackney plot. It was different for Knots to do a spy story, but I found it believable for Ben and I loved how it brought us back to the Val/Laura friendship. When it comes to exits, the one that I really struggled with was Lilimae. Couldn't they have just dropped her to recurring? It was especially hard when they brought on Aunt Ginny who was clearly a carbon copy of Lilimae. I wish we had more of her, but I'm happy she got a happy send off. Another missed opportunity I feel is in the final season. With Val "dead" and Dallas off the air, I think this would've been the perfect time to bring Lucy on. I would've slotted her into the Vanessa role instead of that horrendous actress they got. I think Lucy would've made sense as a schemer getting involved with the wrong man and not knowing. She could've also provided support and tension for Gary.

Thank you so much! I didn't expect to get to see a clip of it. Would be lovely if she could upload the full thing. Do you know if the script is available online or is it a situation where you have to visit to view those papers?

I was sitting here searching the net to see if I could find anything related to the daytime spin-off (which is a dream of mine to see) and I found out something even more interesting. It looks like a pilot was filmed for a one hour late night version of the show in 1979. At first glance I thought it was talking about Murder In Peyton Place, but this is completely different. Here is what it says on the Return To Peyton Place wikipedia page:

From a writing standpoint, everything we've heard seems like it's on the right track. I like the location, that politics are involved and the diversity of the characters. I still find it unbelievable a US soap is going to have so many Black characters lead a show. Not one of the existing ones treat their minority characters like anything more than supporting tokens. Not to mention that they plan on having gay characters. If the production model is modernized, that coupled with the stories could definitely bring in new eyeballs. I wonder if at any point we're going to start to see the other soaps fight for the spotlight. We don't know the timeslot and for all we know they could move either of the Bell soaps to give it the best timeslot/lead in. When you watch Y&R and B&B, it's business as usual, if not worse this year. GH is a total disaster and has been in a ratings freefall for months. This could easily be the soap up against GH, but they aren't using their diverse characters and overall the show just isn't very good. I'm surprised that at least at CBS they don't seem to be pushing their soaps to do better just so ratings are in a good spot when this launches. Neither show has even one stand out story to draw viewers in.