Chris B

Beverly Hills is getting tiring. The Brandi aspect of the Denise drama isn’t fun for me. I don’t care about the affair or focus on it. Also, as Denise said, when is enough enough? They keep saying she’s running away or shutting stuff down, but they’ve talked about Denise to death! What more is there to say?! Then next weeks promo looked terrible with Teddi’s baby shower, Brandi back and no sign of Garcelle and Denise. I’m ready for the reunion so we can move on.

Its nice to see Denise holding Rinna accountable! Hell, let’s not forget she also defended Rinna against Kim which may be part of why Brandi is doing this to her, since she’s besties with Kim. It’s nice to see Denise not just giving up.

I love how nobody doubts Gizelle did this. She’s been so jealous of Monique from day one and unfortunately Monique fell for her trap hence the fight with Candiace. I wonder what this means specifically for Candiace and Monique. Considering they fought Candiace doesn’t HAVE to be revealing this, but she is. Really they both were victims here because it looks like they had patched things up and then this stuff came up. All I know is that the upcoming reunion for Potomac is about put every reunion to shame. This is going to be insane!

Ive never seen any of AW in the 90s so I was wondering if y’all could explain why they brought him back as a new character? Did they kill off Sam Fowler? It just seems weird that he played that role for 3 years and they brought him on as someone new.

@Markjeh I loved Jade too! Elena Goode I think was the first Jade. The only problem I had was not doing more with her. She was great! Also I know it’s unpopular, but I loved Hunt Block as Craig. He was my original Craig and why I started watching because I liked him on Knots Landing. When I saw her was on ATWT I started watching. Previously I only watched Y&R. I do love Scott Bryce though and was so disappointed with his return and firing. I’m glad Dansby mentioned how poor the writing was for his return.

I will say, I loved Jean Passanante as HW after Hogan left. I thought the show was pretty good. Now her GH? AMC? No ma’am. I will not defend that, but I do think she did fine at ATWT. I also was happy they mentioned that it was Goutman who stopped them from bringing people back. We all knew that was the case. Hell, he wouldn’t even allow Martha Byrne to come back for one damn episode. Overall I did enjoy this episode. I was especially happy to hear from Charlotte Gibson who I haven’t heard from before. Both she and Susan Dansby are rare for black writers in soaps so I’d love to hear just from them on how they broke through. We know it isn’t easy.

My bad! Idk how I missed that when I read this thread religiously lol! Honestly seeing Jersey I may have just skimmed over it because I have such little interest in New Jersey!

Real Housewives of Cheshire is getting a spin off! Real Housewives of Jersey starts filming next week: https://www.itv.com/news/channel/2020-08-03/jersey-sees-reality-tv-show-the-real-housewives-arrive-on-its-shores Link says it premieres this year so hopefully it’s decent and helps with our winter HWs drought. I have no knowledge of the location so I just have to hope they picked some place fabulous.

Giselle’s clothes look like an early 2000’s Destiny’s Child wannabe.

Gizelle is one of the most beautiful women to appear on ANY Real Housewives series, but her style is hideous. I get your first season, but she still looks a fool all these years later. I wasn’t surprised to see how bad her house looked considering. I thought it was a beautiful and unique property, but she cheapens it with her design aesthetic.

@Cheap21 Yep! Next week they’re airing episode 2 again lol. I don’t get it either.

I feel like Potomac ladies probably don’t get paid much of anything, but this show is so damn good! This is how you do an ensemble! Each season has different dynamics and focuses and I don’t feel like one person ever takes too much of the responsibility for carrying the season. They always deliver and it feels effortless! Monique has become my favorite. There is just something so likable about her for me. I’ve always found her beautiful and I love her hair and style choices and SHADE. The budding friendship with Gizelle made me sad because I know how that heifer is! Sure enough, she’s sowing the tension in her relationship with Candiace! The Grande Dame is as fabulous as ever. Ashley is oversharing. Candiace is whining. Gizelle is being messy. Robyn is still there. It just felt so good to be back in Potomac! Wendy seems like she’ll be a great addition as well! Also I hate that they have us episode 2 because now I cannot wait for episode 3 and we have to wait two weeks! You already know this season is going to be a page turner. In other news, RHONY wraps the day after RHOBH with 20 regular episodes. I love how they filmed less and with less women and still gave us 20 episodes and Beverly Hills is giving us 16 episodes lol. I hope they launch Salt Lake in October. It’s going to be sad to only have Potomac after the reunions are over in September.

No idea why, but they’ll be live streaming episode two tomorrow as a preview. I still haven’t watched the premiere yet but I’m going to get on it now. I know the Potomac ladies always deliver! I hope the fans deliver good ratings to them.

Maria Arena Bell was the queen of that. It was sad bc she knew the history so well and did bring back so many wonderful characters, but she’d put them into stories that were just insane or waste them. Like you said, Patty had potential to be an interesting long term character but they went too far. I feel the same for Adam. I will never like that character based on how much story he burned through with the first two actors. Justin Hartley and Mark Gorssman are good actors, but the history is too toxic for me to care about him. The biggest disappointment for me though had to be Olivia’s non story, even when Malcolm was recast and Nina. Sticking Nina with Paul was a bizarre choice given her friendship with Christine (which they neglected) and their severe lack of chemistry. I liked that both of her sons were back and Tricia Cast was giving POWERHOUSE performances but the material wasn’t to her level. It never made sense not to put her in Restless Style or use her writing career.

I think the difference is that with the Abbott’s you didn’t have a breakout like Lorie to overshadow everybody. Each character worked and when they recast Ashley it was seamless. Then with Peter Bergman a year later it was well received so it was easy to keep them going. With the Williams, Paul was the breakout star of that family so I think with him around they were okay with that. I do think it would’ve benefited him in the 90s to have another sibling around though.

@chrisml Oh I agree with you about Nene lol. She created most of the problems for herself, but I do think Bravo messed up going back and forth with her lawyers therefore creating a case for her. IMO, Nene could’ve slid by the past two seasons well liked by the cast and audience and collected her huge check. The fights she picked were just so petty and she turned everybody against her. If I was Nene I wouldn’t even entertain these girls like that. Just be fun and keep it moving. She had an easy job and messed it up by being difficult.

Seeing Nene’s Instagram live video I will say I understood her side more than I did before. Basically, it seems like Bravo offered Nene a pay cut similar to what they did to Vicki and Tamra. Tamara Tattles has it at $1 million for 8 episodes which will either be to wrap up her story or extended to a full season depending on how it goes. Nene wants a contract for a full season with a guarantee she’s paid regardless of if they edit her out of episodes. Where production messed up is in what they said to her lawyers in negotiations about why they won’t go for her demands. They said they dislike her calling herself “Queen,” “HBIC” and “The One.” She counters that by saying Porsha has worn a crown to two reunions and she wonders if she’s getting similar critiques. Then they bring up the closet incident, but Nene’s team has countered that with Teresa pushing Andy and Kim and Kroy attacking the camera men in season 5. Lastly they are upset she left the reunion early which she counters with Kim quitting mid season and LVP skipping a reunion and half season of a show yet LVP has Vanderpump Rules and the Dogs spin-off and Kim got a long running spin off which started at $1 million a year. They’re offering Nene $100,000 for a development contract. Based on all this I do see her point. They should’ve given her a take it or leave it deal instead of going back and forth with these specifics since we know things aren’t uniform across the board. I feel like if her legal team is good at the very least they may have to settle out of court.

Slightly off topic, but Kathy Hilton’s husband is being implicated in some of the Ghislaine documents released tonight. Now that I think about it, this isn’t off topic. Knowing how these ladies love to hit below the belt, I can’t imagine how Kyle would react if this comes up next season...

That’s a shame! It’s crazy she lasted so long if they could never find use for her. It seems like she’d be ripe to really invest in a recast and transform the role. Another question for people who watched at the time, I know when the Brooks sisters returned in 1984, the actress who played Chris had aged a lot and also gained a lot of weight. I know her recast was a slim brunette (which threw me off). Did she gain that weight while in the role? Did that have anything to do with her leaving the show or did she leave on her own accord? I only ask because I know soaps have a history of being difficult if women gain weight. Especially with Snapper being such a valuable character to them I could see that being an issue.

Before I get to Beverly Hills, I wanted to speak on ATL. I know we wonder every season, but I think this might be the year Marlo snags a peach. Currently Marlo, Kenya, Kandi and Cynthia have been filming for about two weeks. Porsha is about to join them and then Drew and Latoya will start filming. Tanya made it seem like she’d just be a guest. Based on numbers I wonder if Marlo could slide through if Latoya or Drew don’t give what they want in terms of content. Now onto RHOBH, I thought this was a lot sadder than I expected. We’ve heard about it, but in execution it came off horribly. Garcelle and Denise were so excited and the girls were salivating to have an issue. They couldn’t WAIT to destroy Denise at dinner. By contrast, Sutton and Garcelle had a small issue, Garcelle apologized and now they’ve become good friends. I loved that Dorit and Sutton spoke up for Denise. Teddi came off like a total [!@#$%^&*]. Your issue is that Denise was allegedly talking [!@#$%^&*]. The build up to something “soooo bad” honestly felt homophobic and the way they framed it was to make it worse than it was IMO. That was done for maximum impact. And to do it when y’all are in another country and the girl has no support system? I’m very curious how the rest of the episodes will unfold. I presume that the trip will be around 3 episodes and they’ll have a couple episodes back in BH to wrap up. I wonder how much we will see Denise going forward.

People are speculating since they’re filming. We still don’t have a firm return date though.

I just watched the first two episodes or hour long clips in the vault from 1982. I always zero in on the Brooks family since they’re a mystery to me. Watching I find the Lucas actor to be so captivating when we see them and he is so handsome. It seems like trying to keep him was never in the cards, but I wish they did. With the Brooks sisters I do get it. It seems Jaime Lyn Bauer truly was their biggest female star, so I can understand not wanting her memory lingering over had her sisters stayed. I like the one episode of the recast Chris that I saw (Although she seemed very different), but I feel her being a recast is what ended that. What ever happened with the red head sister? She never was recast, but it never seems like they tried to develop her. She could’ve been the perfect sister to redevelop the family around since she hadn’t been featured as much as the others.

I’ll give it to them, that’s a solid week of episodes, as is this week, but this is definitely better. I appreciate the mix of old and new they do. I feel that allows them to squeeze in more older episodes because they can argue balance. They certainly handled that better than B&B and GH.

With New York, I don’t know that I’d trust anything Ramona says. If they test prior to filming the reunion and do separate seating instead of couches they should be fine. Either way they need to figure it out since they’ll be filming a new season soon.

By chance do you have any 2004 episodes with Joan Van Ark as Gloria? I’ve been dying to see her again and can’t find anything.