Chris B

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.

Truth Be Told had Michael Muhney in a recurring role during season two and now in the currently airing third season, Reign Edwards from B&B is recurring as a girl being sex trafficked. It’s wild watching her go toe to toe with Octavia Spencer. She’s grown soooo much as an actress.

I know it’s the Sony element, but it amazes me they still won’t bring her back yet she works year round for them directing and acting in their streaming movies. Hell, they put her on one of their prime time shows, but they still wanna be petty about Y&R? They’ve be lucky to have her.

I hate how the article reduces Mamie to the Abbott’s surrogate mother, which is true, but her return should lead to story for her actual family.

All of these returns are fantastic, but I never thought I’d see Veronica Redd as Mamie again so that is stunning! I hope and pray we get a scene with Jill! The only thing is that I wish they’d finally buckle down and bring back Dru or at least Olivia. With all the media stories, Leanna should’ve been a regular pop up here and there. It’ll be nice to see Gina back with Danny and I’ll always root for Nina, one of the greatest Y&R characters of all time. She deserves a contract!

I noticed Margaret DePriest's name in the credits and decided to backtrack and see she's been HW for about two months. Bob Cenedella's stint flew by! The one thing I've noticed with DePriest is while Cenedella reestablished the show as a family soap with a variety of sets, more characters and more family drama outside of the hospital, DePriest kicked the action into high gear. She was responsible for Steve and Ann having an affair while led to Carolee's explosive exit, Althea's accident which led to Nick's return, Stacy's issues with sex, Matt and Maggie's relationship problems, etc. I also see she's bringing on the Dancy's. It's so interesting to me that the show had two good HWs who infused new life into the show and both got replaced after six months. Then Douglas Marland comes on and from what yall have said, the show becomes very slow and boring and of course he writes of Althea, a core character, but he got a full year. I can't believe I'm so excited for his tenure, I just find it so interesting that he failed here when I've only heard (or seen in the case of ATWT) good things about his work.

I’ve heard about these development deals and it just sounds like a trap to lure in a rival soap star or keep someone around. While some did manage to get a TV movie or two, I don’t recall many (if any) getting a successful prime time show on the air. I recall Terry Lester had a similar deal when he left Y&R. I’m not sure if his was tied to a daytime role as well though.

I’m happy for Sasha. I hope the rumors aren’t true that she’s being replaced due to all the crazy DC changes. Hopefully the film does well and she’s well received enough they decide to keep her for the Supergirl movie.

I’m in March 1976 and I finally reached Carolee Campbell’s exit as well as the special 90 minute episode which saw Nick return. First, I must say, both of these returns are huge, huge losses for the show. I know they recast Carolee fairly successfully, but Carolee Campbell had such spunk and was a unique actress for soaps, so recasts tend to be difficult in these cases. It looks like her replacement is good, but more of your typical soap heroine. With Nick, he slipped back in like he’d never left and instantly he makes everything better. From his energy with Matt (who is now acting more like Nick) to the chemistry with Althea, he is just brilliant. They should’ve offered him anything to stay. He has a way of being frustratingly angry but so tender at the same time. I’ll be sad when he leaves again. Now on the subject of 90 minute episode, I thought it was successful. The show has already expanded the canvas enough that if they decided to make the show longer, it would’ve been the perfect time. It’s a shame they didn’t expand to 60 minutes which might’ve saved the show.

I agree. I'm getting impatient for those additional episodes. The way I'm running through the series, I'll be caught up before I know it. I need to slow down in case they don't upload those episodes anytime soon. I know at one point they accidently uploaded some episodes from 1980 and fans were able to watch them before it was discovered. That was over a year ago so it's pretty crazy to think they had new episodes ready to go so long ago but still haven't done anything with them.

I mentioned this recently in The Doctors thread the Mike Powers back from the dead story is one of the worst I've ever seen. The funny thing is they had two BFTD stories at the same time and the other one was played out much better. Karen had "died" in a plane crash, but they had revealed in an episode shortly after her death that she was alive but lost her memory. They waited until they were ready to properly bring her back before really diving into the storyline and it was paced well. With Mike, they revealed he was back, recast him and had his recast on the frontburner for EIGHT MONTHS in another country, before they revealed he was alive to his family. It was so insane that one recast didn't even make it to town to interact with the characters who knew him before he was replaced with another actor. For months he would have the most repetitive scenes with his love interest and I cannot imagine how difficult it was to watch in real time. When you have a character in a different location from the main action, you can only tell that story for so long without it getting boring. Either you need to have a good amount of characters for them to interact with, or you need to limit the amount of screentime it gets.

Neil's death and the memorial to Kristoff was the last thing to have me bawling. Prior to that was Storm's death on B&B. I still re-watch those episodes every now and then on YouTube. I strongly feel those are possibly the best episodes this show ever had. Everybody came to play and were committed to those scenes. MVP's were Katherine Kelly Lang and Jennifer Garies (who I didn't expect to be able to carry her own). Of course Heather Tom was the most heartbreaking and she really cemented herself as a character Brad had to keep with her performances. The moment she learned she had Storm's heart and her eulogy at his memorial service was some of the best acting I've seen across any platform.

I'm still really enjoying the Bob Cenedella tenure. You can tell they're taking the first steps to turn The Doctors more into a family soap and I think the changes have mostly worked. One thing that doesn't work and helps explain why she got written off is Althea's storyline. She was in a great relationship with Tom and they had strong chemistry and that was suddenly ended and they've put her with this boring older man named Scott. I don't know if this relationship will be long term, but I now see why Marland thought she was expendable if this is the type of dull writing she had when he arrived.

I see a lot of fans excited that they made Fen gay, but that just cements the fact that they'll never use that character lol. If he couldn't get screentime straight, he's definitely done now.

My grandparents were CBS loyalists and my grandma would record the lineup for me and deliver it to me, which is how I kept up with those soaps. I didn't realize any other soaps existed until I discovered Knots Landing and Falcon Crest on SOAPnet and that is what got me into the genre overall. The CBS soaps aren't even soaps, they're "our stories" and are just a thing in many Black households. Once I realized what the genre was, I got two VCRs and would use one to record NBC and one to record CBS (taking over duties from my grandma) and then I would use SOAPnet to watch the ABC soaps.

I started watching Y&R again for Danny and Daniel's return and it always shocks me when I tune in these past couple years and everybody is running around town so tense and there's always this sense of dread like something big is about to happen, but it never does. It's such an odd way of telling a story. They often set up the right types of stories that could have big dramatic pay offs, but the pay off is either off camera or just doesn't happen.

It's an opinion show, but there should still be more professionalism when interviewing someone. Hell, even when Sally suggested Brad could get a story consultant, the co-host said "Michele Van Jean is there!" That is not her job and now you're shifting the blame to someone you know Sally is close with? I get opinions, but you can't listen to that interview and tell me they executed what they were trying to say well.