Chris B

I’m continuing my Y&R viewing, currently on March 29 1993. I had stopped due to the classics we were getting, but I’m back into them now. One thing I love are the unique combinations of characters interacting that we no longer have. On paper Bill Bell stories took a long time to reach their climax, but the shows zoom by because he doesn’t focus just on the story. It isn’t scene after scene of the same people talking about the same thing. For example, Nina is involved in a love triangle with Ryan and Victoria and Christine is married to Danny and she just went through the stuff with Michael, but by pairing Nina/Cricket into regular scenes together it breaks up the repetitiveness of just placing the couple together all the time. Having friendships and utilizing them is *vital* to the community feel and also to keep the shows from being so damn boring. I wish they still realized this. Douglas/Victor, Lynn/Paul, Cricket/Nina, Brad/Neil, Nikki/Katherine are just as important as their romantic pairings. I love tuning in and not knowing who is going to interact with whom. For a studio based show they do such a great job of creating a world. Even these older episodes are produced more like a prime time show IMO. The irony is that now they WANT to look Primetime , but it just looks cheap.

SON posts ratings every week. It’s always at the top of this forum: https://www.soapoperanetwork.com/2020/05/ratings-report-for-the-week-of-may-4-8-2020

I was worried that the 1981 episode would do badly and it would scare them away from airing such old episodes, but it tied GH for #1 and had 2.2 million viewers! Hopefully they take some of the half hour episodes and show them.

This reminds me of a Sutton interview while filming after they announced her and Garcelle as the new HWs. The interviewer asked who brought her on and she said “Well I was brought on as a friend of Lisa Rinna, but she probably doesn’t want to call me her friend right now.” I just hope Sutton, Denise and these other girls see what’s going on and don’t let these girls run over them.

Maura West would’ve fit in *perfectly* as Grace. Her best chemistry was with Joshua Morrow as well, but that obviously makes too much sense so of course they’d make her Diane.

This looks juicy! Considering Rinna is her friend I’m having a hard time buying what Dorit is trying to sell. I’ll wait until watching to really judge, but u can’t convince me Sutton would somehow try to insult Rinna’s daughters or try to ruin their event when she’s closest with Rinna. Hopefully Sutton is vindicated!

That’s more a B&B problem. Y&R can do a wedding that’s interesting, but I watched B&B’s wedding week and it’s the typical boring ass wedding you expect. Ridge and Brooke’s first wedding spent a segment just of characters taking photos. I couldn’t believe how drama free it was lol.

Oh I'd absolutely show Neil and Dru's Japanese wedding. That wasn't boring IMO. I hope the overall choices are strong. I can't wait to see what they'll air for that. It's a shame they can't do a week for Olivia because I'd love to see the episode where she confronts Keesha again.

That could've been it as well! And I'm not sure if she completely stopped filming, but we do know Tinsley didn't to on the cast trip and apparently missed lots of events towards the end. I'm okay with her story wrapping though so I'm happy she's moving to another city.

Article explaining Elyse’s odd presence on RHONY: http://www.irealhousewives.com/2020/05/elyse-slaine-reveals-how-she-became.html?m=1 Basically it looks like she is just someone they picked up off the street so to speak lol. She was just a real life friend of Ramona the producers seemed to like and mid season they signed her as a friend. That explains why she is just there but not always mic’ed up and also silent. On Twitter she said you’ll end up seeing more of her once they reach the point where her contract was signed. I will say, they have a bizarre way of doing things at New York. They seem to have an odd way of casting. It’s still entertaining, but they were caught so off guard by Bethenny leaving it isn’t even funny. By that I mean, had Bethenny told them she was leaving sooner you can’t convince me they would’ve gone more hardcore on casting. Leah was young filler who would’ve been fine with Bethenny eating up the screen as the main attraction. With notice I feel they would’ve possibly kept Barbara, brought back Jill or truly dive deep to cast multiple new wives. For them to add Elyse’s boring ass during filming they clearly thought something was missing. I just hope next season we get some much needed new blood, dynamics and storylines.

I had Emerald Point on DVD and I remember struggling to watch it. It was incredibly boring from what I remember. I know some of if is on YouTube so I've been considering giving it another go to see how it feels for me now.

Nene getting tore up was the highlight for me! I love her but she brings it on herself. She talked herself up so much before the reunion and they were ready! I loved every second of that tbh.

I bought the season and thats actually how I watch Atlanta so I got to watch the reunion when they posted it last night. It was good, but my favorite moment was Nene telling Kenya and Eva to focus on somebody else and they basically told her they were gonna keep digging in her ass so she turned her camera off lol. It was high comedy! Andy also had some good moments with Nene. I feel like she is his favorite by far. Also a strong showing from Porsha. I think Eva came off the worst. Even Kenya and Andy had to get her together for her "Nappy head" comment and other inconsistencies. She felt desperate and unwilling to accept any fault for anything.

I was watching one of the Locher Room As the World Turns reunions and it featured Jennifer Landon who of course was our final Heather Stevens. She didn’t mention Y&R by name, but talked about when she retired from acting for 2 years because she felt like a failure and like she just wasn’t confident in her ability to do a good job. She mentioned her age when she did it and I realized it was when she got fired from Y&R! Thankfully she did eventually go back to acting, but it’s a shame she felt the need retire on the back of that. I thought she was great as Heather, particularly after Eden Riegel and I hated when they fired her. There was so much more story for Heather and Daniel, not to mention the potential for Heather with Adam. Random story, but I thought it was interesting! 3 Emmys and she couldn’t even keep a soap gig, nor find an agent. These stories always shock me, particularly for someone as talented as her.

@Paul Raven Her stand up was fine, but underwhelming to me. Her fashion is the typical new young queen look that bores me. It's put together yes, but week after week I feel it's predictable. For Gigi it's more the previous weeks I feel she's done poorly, not so much stand up week. And the difference between Jaida and Gigi for me is that Jaida has personality and is likable. So was Heidi, despite not having a polished look. Gigi just comes off like a vacant Miss Game/Aquaria to me. I feel like had she been in a more competitive season she wouldn't have made it as far.

Queen Camille is filming confessionals which hopefully means she gets decent screentime later this season. I am curious how much we’ll see if Brandi and Camille during their mid season return.

My question is, regardless of who the finale makes up, how will they film it? I haven’t seen anything and it’s typically a live finale with two lipsyncs that help decide the winner. How will they do that if California is shut down? Also I just wanna way Gigi is so underwhelming. No personality and all of her looks blend into each other. She is a look queen so I expect her to get praised for that, but she gets a pass for everything else. How has she managed to survive being in the bottom the past few week?! It’s insane.

I hadn’t mentioned this weeks RHOBH, but this was a pivotal episode to setting up the overall arc. It’s obvious now that Kyle is instrumental to this Denise story, which explains why Kyle and Rinna were so giddy in the trailer when talking about it. My guess is that Kyle brought Brandi in to stir this up since she was upset with Denise. Kyle never does her own dirty work and she’s proven time and time again that she’s exactly what she accuses LVP of being. I just hope in the end she gets called out and we don’t load Denise over this. Now in weirder news, it looks like RHOC and RHOD are filming, which I don’t understand. RHOC got lots of press by posting how they were filming with iPhones. Not sure how Dallas is doing it. Texas is open so they could have a camera crew. I hope that if they are all filming with iPhones that it’s just for a special episode to bridge the gap until filming truly starts. I can’t deal with more than that of this low budget mess. I’d rather wait to be honest.

I think this upcoming week is a good mix of episodes. I’m glad 3 are from before 2000. I don’t mind the two later episodes because they’re giving us a good balance. I think that’s fair. If they keeep peppering in older episodes I’ll settle for two modern episodes a week. Also, Toups posted the ratings and I was stunned that Y&R is still#1 with a week of repeats that are so old. If this doesn’t tell them this stuff should be streaming then they simply don’t care. The value and demand is clearly there.

I’d love to see Danny and Daniel again. I much preferred Christine with him to this boring mess with Paul. When you had Devon’s label and Jett, Ana, Fen, Tessa AND Reed all singing it is crazy he never was brought on.

Lorie was the shows most popular character and Bill Bell hated losing her, but Jaime Lyn Bauer felt overworked and wanted to go. Side note, she was also offered Stephanie Forrester on B&B but turned that down. Victor and Lorie were paired and almost married, but obviously she didn’t stick around. I do wonder how things would’ve been had she stayed. They wrote her entire family out because she didn’t stay. That’s pretty big IMO. I can’t see them doing that for another family just because one person left, but she truly was the anchor.

This is shocking to me. I wonder how widespread this is as shows continue to be unable to resume for so long. It amazes me networks keep picking up and announcing new shows and casting when they have no way of knowing when they can film. I also feel like by doing this, that means they must expect this to last longer than some fans are anticipating.

Honestly I haven’t seen too many people being upset about the older episodes although I have seen some of those couple shippers wanting to see Skyle again. Todays Classic was fantastic! I didn’t expect to see a 1981 episode either and it was truly a classic. It was mostly characters who aren’t connected to the show now and it was nice getting a sense of Y&R in that time period. Anytime I can see more of Lorie is a good thing. Jaime Lyn Bauer was just flawless in that role and even with Dennis Cole she still carried those scenes with him. I’d love an entire week dedicated to her. I know that’s a fantasy but it would be heaven. In the end though I do hope this inspires them to put collections on All Access. B&B has the first 25 episodes. I’d love something similar for Y&R. Of course continuous episodes would be ideal but I’ll take anything. I hope the coming weeks continue to be a nice balance.

On the Hunt Block subject I’d say I loved him. I was a fan of his from Knots Landing which I watched on SOAPnet and he is the only reason I started watching As the World Turns. Growing up I was a Bell soap viewer and through SOAPnet I watched the ABC soaps. When I found out Hunt was on ATWT I started watching that and GL so I am thankful to him for introducing me. Now Scott Bryce I did see his second run and parts of his earlier stuff and I do love his Craig. I hated when they wrote him off. Both of his replacements were horrible including Jon Lindstrom. As for Doug Marland, I wonder if Hubbard’s dislike for him was mainly due to him firing her at The Doctors and just carried over in her view of him. I’m pretty sure I recall an interview with him where he said he wrote her off due to a lack of family on the show.

I must say that looks HILARIOUS! I screamed when Nene shut her webcam off lol! Leave it to the ATL girls to save a wack season with a virtual reunion! I don’t think any show could’ve done this as well as they did.