Chris B

Such sad news! I was a big fan of hers from ATWT and have continued that love with The Doctors reruns. I actually just reached her 1977 exit yesterday during my Easter binge. She truly was one of the greats and could make any story work, until the end. I think it’s a shame that there were times when her talent wasn’t appreciated which I know happened on both The Doctors and ATWT. She was one of the main reasons I was able to stay invested in ATWT until the end. My condolences go out to the cast and crew, as well as her family and fans.

This is part of why I found The Pollocks tenure so draining. They did continue to do stories involving outside patients, but they were usually awful stories. Then the main cast, it seemed like they constantly had some medical issue. It was as a joke how many times Althea had brain surgery, as an example.

I love that reboot idea, but I’d swap Valerie with Claire. One, because I loved Claire and her chemistry with David and two because Jennie Garth wouldn’t allow Tiffani to do the show lol.

Ryan's Hope had to endure a lot of recasts, but I found the ones I saw mostly worked. Mary Ryan - Of course Kate Mulgrew was a star in the role, but I feel like had they stuck with Mary Carney, they would've been fine. I guess the pressure of recasting such an important character got to them which is what led to Kathleen Tolan who was dreadful and probably killed any interest in the character. Nicolette Goulet was fine, but I was over Mary at that point. Siobhan Ryan - Sarah Felder was EXCELLENT and should've never been fired for such stupid reasons, but I loved Ann Gillespie in the role. Marg Helgenberger was loved in the role (although not a personal favorite). I also though the last Siobhan (Barbara Blackburn) was good she just needed more time. Frank Ryan - This was probably their most successfully recast role. I always liked Frank regardless of who played him. Daniel Hugh Kelly was my favorite, but they were all good. I know the original gets mixed reviews, but I didn't mind him either. The only Ryan kid they absolutely could not recast was Pat. None of the recasts felt like the same character to me. It wasn't that they were bad actors, but they weren't Pat.

Sorry to hear Rita Lakin passed. I know many view The Pollocks tenure as the golden period but I found her writing to be the best I’ve seen on this show. It felt very adult and she knew how to balance hospital stuff with the character drama and her pacing was better. I’ve loved pretty much everything I’ve seen that she wrote.

This is correct. SOD just confirmed he’ll appear in the summer when school is over. Right now I’m trying to get caught up so I can watch the Sonya Eddy tribute, but my god the show is so bad right now. I feel like they create these stories and are doing what Y&R does where they drain the drama out of it. Willow looks FINE but they’ve stretched this cancer story out for so long and continue to do so. Wasn’t she on her death bed a month ago? Why is she acting normally and where is the sense of urgency? It’s ridiculous. Then you have Lucy and Anna dead but aren’t actually playing those beats. I feel like these writers can only deliver if it’s a big climax but the day to day writing is so bad as they try to stretch these stories out beyond the point of believability.

It’s hard to complain about a soap getting a Primetime special, but I wish it as an episode like they did for the 25th anniversary. I think I’ve seen all of their Primetime episodes and thought they were strong. I’d love a well written Primetime episode that was treated like a sweeps event in terms of content and gave us something major like a Dru return.

Doug is back on one of his twitter rampages now that he heard about this lol. Now he’s saying he’s looking for a major publication to tell his story. He really needs to move on.

This is very tempting. This same venue did something similar with Joan, Donna Mills and Michele Lee and once I saw pics I regretted not going. This is a strong lineup too.

This looks cheap and dated. They should’ve kept it simple and do what B&B did and just go back to the old school opening. White background, keep the actors names and keep it simple. I don’t understand how this even got approved. I also feel like the graphics don’t match the music and it feels slow. How does CBS micro manage the show but allow this?

Sharon Case said there are more exciting returns that haven’t been announced. I wouldn’t be surprised if this is one of them if they’re name dropping JT.

This is not surprising to me. Soaps never get the credit, but the surge in subscribers came after Days was added. People like to say soaps are too expensive for streaming, but Days is likely one of the cheapest shows on Peacock and still, they get year round episodes for the same or less than they spend on an 8-10 episode limited series. I honestly wouldn’t be surprised if they lean into soaps more.

I’m enjoying Douglas Marland’s tenure. I see why people didn’t like it, but at least in the first couple months it’s not bad. Yes, it’s a lot slower, but since I enjoy the storylines it doesn’t bother me. I know I’ll likely feel differently as time goes on because I looked ahead and it looks like there’s very little movement to these stories months later. I think the scripts are better and he’s doing a good job of defining the new characters and he’s doing a good job with the vets as well. The biggest misstep is the misuse of Penny and Althea. Both appeared maybe once his first month and their roles have been dramatically scaled back. I’ve been enjoying James Pritchett’s performances as Matt’s life falls apart. I also think the Dancy family is one of the most successful I’ve seen. I know there are many recasts layer, but so far every role is cast well and the characters are well defined. Usually with a new family there is something that doesn’t work, but I haven’t seen that here. I hope the recasts of the kids are good because I love all of them so far. I’ve also been enjoying Jason Aldrich. I always hear about him, so it’s nice to see him back as a regular character with his signature actor. They’ve aired some new flashbacks with Jada Rowland and it highlights how different she is from Carolee Campbell. Campbell was a unique talent so I didn’t expect them to top that. Rowland is more of a traditional soap heroine which is fine, but the character doesn’t stand out like before. I’m curious how she’ll be when she’s in the thick of things.

RJ was expected, but I'm more excited to see who else Brad is bringing on for this next gen reboot he teased. I would love if they brought back Dino and Rosie as well.

That final cast photo is beautiful. I think it's such a shame we didn't get just one more season. I would've loved to have seen how the show would've been without Rodney and Betty and the new cast was excellent. It's rare that a reboot is as seamless as it was here. Especially a fairly successful introduction of a Black family in the 60s. Judy Pace was amazing on this show and deserved more time to shine.

The only return I can think of at this point that would cause major buzz would be Victoria Rowell. Speaking of her, Dru and Y&R are going viral on twitter right now. Someone posted clips from the Dru/Lillie Belle confrontation and in three days it's already at 1.5 million views which is pretty insane for a soap clip on Twitter. It's led to people posting more stuff about Dru. I imagine they'll probably be able to get Tonya Lee Williams and Shemar Moore back, which would be nice as well. All three should be back, but we'll have to settle for what we get with this show.

I’m in August of 1976 which is the last full month for DePriest. Nick just made his exit which was incredibly sad because the writing for both him and Althea was better than it had been in YEARS. I’m also loving the fallout of Stacey pulling the plug on Joan Dancy. I had assumed her brother would do it, but this was a nice soapy development. I know Marland continues most of these stories, but I don’t know how it went wrong because these stories are working. It seems like the perfect point to take over. I also love this actress playing Nola. I’m only familiar with Kathleen Turner and Kim Zimmer from their other roles, so I expected her to look more like them. That doesn’t really matter though, she’s a great addition and has hit the ground running. Another person I’ve been loving is Billy. I couldn’t put my finger on why, but he’s the first person to hold Steve accountable for anything. I’ve been waiting years to see that and it has made me like Steve more. It was so tiring to watch him be a jerk for years but be portrayed as this upstanding good guy. As much as I’m enjoying what I’m seeing now, I am dreading the exits of Althea, Toni and Penny and I know Billy is recast soon which I’m not looking forward to. I’m keeping my fingers crossed I can stomach Carolee’s return. For one, it’s a major recast and I know it takes them around 6 months for her to reunite with her family.

This Margaret DePriest stint is fantastic! Whenever I've heard her name it's always mentioned negatively, but she knew what she was doing here. I like the nuances she's added to characters like Matt and Ann. They're different, but I find it believable and I think she wrote it in a way that you can see how they've changed. Paul Summers is also a great new character. Fantastic actor, charming and very devious. I'm loving Nick's return and Althea has stabilized and isn't as pathetic as she'd become. Nola's introduction was also very memorable, I can tell she's going to be fun and I see why she became so important. I also like that they've mentioned the remaining members of the Dancy family and I know they all end up coming on. Many times when soaps start mentioning off screen family members, people's name change or people removed/forgotten, so it's nice to see they stuck to their plan here. I feel like her stint keeps getting better and better, but I know she's almost gone which I find very strange.

Omg! I just remembered that!

I just had a lovely conversation with Patricia Mauceri who played Carlotta. She had emailed my job and requested a call back and when I saw the name I jumped at it. She was impressed I remembered her from OLTL and said she loved being a part of the Vega family. She also told me to check her out on Manifest. She said she’s on season three and the upcoming final season. She said she plays an evil character who is very different from Carlotta! So far she’s the second soap star I’ve been able to help Lisa LoCicero was the other.

I've never watched Neighbours, but so far I've done the first two episodes and am going to work my way through the iconic episodes. If it holds my interest, I'll jump into 2012. I hope they plan on uploading the years after 2012, because if I like it, I'd like to keep going until I reach the current episodes.

This is pretty insane and not sustainable. Days already attempted this and it didn't work. There is no way he can handle being sole EP, HW and do the job of 5 seasoned breakdown writers when he couldn't do the job of HW. I also find it shocking when you think about the budget. How poorly are you managing your budget that you consider something like this? OR, if the overall budget is being cut, this could be a sign of things to come with actor exits coming next. No matter how you look at it, this is a bad thing. The show is already not good, moves slow and most of the action happens off screen. That is only going to increase now. This makes them look so bad as well. Just shocking all around.

It’s amazing to see how successful Donna Mills has been with her comeback! This is a big film to be cast in. She also recently guest starred on The Rookie: Feds. I know Joan wants to do more acting so I hope we see her pop up somewhere this year.

I agree with this. I feel like Heather's return in particular, could've given them quite a bit of story. They've established Daniel was neglectful of his family to the point he ran them off. That should be your story! Have them move back to town and we should be watching him fight to get them back. We should also see the impact it has on Lucy having her father pretty much abandon her. Just saying Heather found someone new off screen is a cop out. Why not bring her back with the new beau to create more tension for them? Although the show isn't well written, I love how Days does short term returns for legacy characters. It gives you a chance to enjoy them again, even if it's in small chunks. I'd prefer a short term story to these walk on appearances that Y&R prefers.