Chris B

Considering how convoluted their stories are, is it any surprise their story for Jason’s return was turned down? I can only imagine how insane and over the top (not to mention, dragged out) it would’ve been. In general, i think Jason is a character they really struggled with. I don’t think the show wanted to waste such a big return on a bad story.

Jada Rowland was hard to take because her introduction was so slow an repetitive. Overtime I grew to enjoy her as an entirely new character, but she had nothing in commn with Carolee Campbell's Carolee. One frustrating thing was when they'd do re-created flashbacks with her, she *still* felt like a new character. The made no effort to make them similar besides both having short black hair.

I am surprised EW did an article on Generations of all things. I've always said I think soaps are more valuable to streamers than they admit and I'd love to see Generations make a return on Peacock. It could either be a good low cost primetime reboot or even a daytime companion to Days. The original had such a short run it would be easy to add for people to binge and if you get back Vivica, Jonelle, Debbi Morgan and Kelly Rutheford you'd have strong enough names for people to sample it. Would definitely be a smart move for Peacock, but it all depends on if Sussman can get in the room and pitch it.

It’s shocking to me that the show was so popular when they wrote because like you said, the repetition and flashbacks drove me crazy. At one point I took a year off just to catch my breathe. I’ll never forget Carolee’s year long pregnancy. Personally I’d say it was good through 1970 then when the Pollocks took over until 1975 they had their highs but it is very slow and one dimensional as Khan said. After that they started the revamp and I loved what Margaret DePriest did with the show. She only wrote 1976 and set the show up perfectly only for Douglas Marland to take over which was another mixed bag. It took him a long time to get a handle on the show and once he did he was fine.

I love the idea of GL's Peapack reboot, but they should've put an EP in place with experience with the format. The camera work and music was just dreadful. Also, there would be random scenes of people standing in the woods and on the side of the road. It was like they felt it was so special being outside but didn't understand how to make sense of it and tell a compelling story. I also wonder why no US soap builds a standing outside set. That's why the UK soaps are able to seamlessly film outdoors because they have outdoor town square type sets they can regularly use.

Homewreckers on soaps are pretty common. I wouldn't say it's even close to the worst thing a character did on this show. In fact, what's to come for Karen is *much* worse, but I won't go into details because of spoilers. The quality dips when Rita Lakin leaves the show, but it's still watchable. The Pollocks wrote the show I think 71-75 and this was a very popular time for the show. They did some good work but the stories tended to go on for a long time with lots of repetition. Once they left and the show began looking into transitioning to an hour they expanded the cast, sets and storylines and while some didn't work, I do like the overall change to the show as they began to expand things.

I was going back and reading this thread and saw this. Personally I think Kirsten Alderson has the spark and experience to make Summer interesting with the writing being the way it is on Y&R. I'm shocked they auditioned experienced soap actors, two Emmy winners and went with a newcomer. The actress in the role is fine, but incredibly bland and as a result the character has gone from a lead to an expendable supporting character.

There are things that didn't work but I really love the later years of Knots. Full transparency, the first time I watched, I originally started watching with the season 6 finale, so the later years are what made me a fan. Since then, I've seen the complete series several times and they still hold up for me. On my most recent re-watch I had a newfound love for season 8, which is Latham and Lechowick's first season. I know reviews are mixed on that season, but I loved the overall look and style of the show, especially after the excess of the previous season. Those regular revamps kept the show fresh as opposed to a show like Dallas which felt so dated in its later years. I loved Karen's kidnapping, the backstory surrounding it and the introduction of Paige.

I really loved Karen. She was wrong to seduce Matt although I loved the storyline. To me, that's the only bad thing she did. I loved her beyond that and always wanted her to find happiness.

Debbi Morgan did some amazing work when she returned to AMC! You can take any scene of Victoria Rowell on Y&R. She truly embodied that character and I'd say Dru was one of the greatest soap characters of all time. Now while I don't have a specific clip, I've been watching ATWT from 1998 and I just finished 1999 and Cassandra Creech was such a strong addition to the show that I'm shocked she didn't stay until it ended and become a big star. She was heavy in story in 99 and more than held her own. As I continue watching Im reall curious how she ends up being written off because her performances are so strong and her character is connected to the core families.

Right before GH announced the HW change, I saw an article about the drastic revamp of UK soap Hollyoaks and that made me so excited for what might happen here. Hollyoaks was DEAD. Ratings were down, the quality was awful, it lost it's timeslot and was moved to a smaller channel. I truly thought it would be cancelled and then these new writers came in and in just a couple of months, the show is better than it has been in over a decade. What makes the GH move so exciting is because it seems well thought out and planned. We know this was in the works for months and I'm curious who else was looked at for the job. I feel like they actually handled this the right way instead of what we typically see were the just rotate the same names in with no plan. The best example was Sally Sussman who Y&R interviewed and made start working less than a week later with no storylines mapped out. With no soap doing a HW shift in so many years I'd given up on any real improvement. It felt like they'd each just ride out into the sunset. The fact that GH is not only making this change, but hired someone known for quality is impressive. I'm going to fully support them and hope for the best. If this works out I hope it motivates the other shows to make changes. The current state of US soaps is pretty shameful and it doesn't have to be that way. The numbers are still good compared to primetime and cable. You just need people who have talent and care. Hopeully Frank and the network let this team cook and don't shoot all of their ideas down.

Oh he was awful in those stints as the town lawyer but in that initial stint with Lila, they had potential as real full time characters.

For ATWT I thought the AW crossovers were awful. I’ve started a rewatch with 1998 and I’m now at the beginning of 2000 and these crossovers were awful. The focus was on Jake and to a lesser extent Vicky, but I don’t think Jenson fit on ATWT at all (I also didn’t like her on AW). With that said, they could’ve broken them up and send her back to Bay City. I imagine the purpose of the crossover was to bring in AW viewers but a disrespectful move like that would never help achieve that. I’ll admit that Jake fit in better than Vicky, but the real stars were Cass and Lila. I’m surprised they weren’t the ones to cross over full time.

I’d put that more on Ron but I also don’t think Jamey is a bad writer. I think his talents are wasted at Days though.

I know people are excited by her but I can’t say that I am. It’s more wait and see. I’m definitely happy the behind the scenes toxicity is over but it’s hard to know if she’ll have much of a vision. The show needs so much work in terms of writing and the overall look of the show. I hope she’s up for the challenge.

I thought the way Mary Frances was handled was awful. Even with the way they changed her character, I don't understand why they didn't just keep her around instead of the bland look-a-like. I also wasn't fond on Kathleen Noone's character who I feel they didn't know what to do with. I think the show would've been better served making Robin Strasser a regular and moving her into the cul-de-sac. Another missed opportunity I felt was Sid's daughter Annie. She could've come back around season 8 or 9 and since she was now an adult, they could've taken her anywhere they wanted to. She also could've been a contender to replace Abby and would've likely had a similar relationship with Karen. The ultimate missed opportunity has to be Lucy. I get Charlene Tilton wasn't the greatest actress, but when she returned for her second run she had greatly improved and the way they wrote Lucy was much better but it never went anywhere. My ideal fancasting for her would've been in Vanessa Hunt's role in season 14. It would've made sense for her to move back once Val died to help Gary with the twins and the Vanessa aspect would've been easy to slot her into since she was a globetrotter and we didn't have much info on what she did when out of Dallas. I also think it would be interesting how she handled being around Gary and Kate considering she always had a contentious relationship with him.

I don’t think that would’ve mattered. I feel like this show just didn’t get long enough to develop. I’ve read it got better throughout its run and the ratings weren’t bad. I feel like if the show had another year or two it would’ve cemented itself in the NBC lineup. It shocks me they gave up so quick considering it was a name show. I always hold out hood at least one episode will pop up. We’ve had shows considered lost pop up in recent years so I keep my fingers crossed for this. I do believe the run is likely saved but nobody will be looking for it.

I decided to check the vault and found an episode from 1980 I’d never seen. It has Bond Gideon as Jill and lots of great scenes with Jill/Liz and the Williams family. It was nice seeing a full episode with Bond so I can get a better feel for her Jill. I feel like Deborah Adair makes perfect sense following Bond in the role. They have a similar look, voice and feel but Adair has more of a leading lady spark. Also stunned at just how good the quality of this episode is. I wonder where this was sourced from.

@soapfan770Fans tend to hate season 8 but I enjoyed it. The show has such wild shifts in style throughout the years so I just went with it and judged it on how entertained I was. Seasons 6-7 were very 80s and action packed and I appreciated the more simple pace. Michael Filerman admitted he didn’t watch the show after he left in season 3 so when he took over he just went back to the show he left. It didn’t totally work but I liked them re-directing the story to focus on the vineyards and as an Emma fan I loved her romance with Daniel. I also thought Pilar was a strong addition.

Happy Holidays to you as well!

This is something else that made no sense to me. I’ve mentioned before, but I never bought MH, MH because I hate knowing the continuation wasn’t released and I’d like to see the full story.

I thought that episode was a lot of fun! Of course we need to see more to truly judge since it’s just a random episode of a show that I believe aired 5 episodes a week. I was surprised that they played it completely straight. I would love to see at least a full week to see how the story progresses. It’s a shame this hasn’t made if to DVD as they were releasing so many Lear shows. Seems like it would be easy to do. I didn’t notice any pop music in the show.

I will say, I’m really impressed Lifetime invested so much into promoting this. They probably have over 10-20 Christmas movies that premiere each year and you don’t see this type of promo campaign around them typically. It’s nice they decided to devote this time to women who are primarily in their 70s and 80s.

I get that, but the reason I connected with this is because in real life this is likely what would happen. In real life it’s common for men to get off when accused of rape and since his family is in the same small community, it’s likely that she would have to deal with him again. Now I’ll admit you didn’t need this and could’ve settled on just the 5 other women for this story, but I like that they included her and dug into a past story to make it work.

I saw lots of criticism for Linda denying her rape, but u found those scenes powerful. This recent arc with Dean has helped me become invested in her character. I feel like the writers were very clear that he did rape her and this is simply him further victimizing her. If anything, it just made me hate Dean more.