All My Shadows

Phoebe's outfit from when she married Langley on AMC is one of my favorites. I love those muted 70s colors as well as the hat.

Can you imagine the disappointment of people tuning in only to find a bunch of people running around a farm?

I hated ABC's "Everybody's Got Their Somethin'" promos, in which we were supposed to believe that Vincent Pastore was a General Hospital viewer.

I absolutely adore Carey Gold's rendition of the Secret Storm theme. It has a very soft, sweet quality to it, and the music used throughout the episode has the same feeling. It's a great contrast to the harsh organ music that was just about on its way out with the P&G soaps. How can you not love those delicious little rising sixteenth (I think) notes at the end of the closing theme?

Tori Spelling is just one big EW. Nobody asked for this sht! They would've done better just filming it for their own personal enjoyment.

GOD, I am so happy with all of the little TSS gems popping up these days. Can't wait to turn that up and listen to it as soon as I can. It sounds so crisp and clear, too. Of course, we'd like to see the actual video that goes with it, but if we must make do with just audio, then I'm glad it's in such great quality.

I'm not as well-versed on GL's history and character as I am on some of the other soaps. In fact, it was only recently that I'd really spent a substantial amount of time studying it, which is funny because it was one of the first soaps I ever watched. I'd echo vetsoapfan and say the show's two biggest eras of change were the late 1940s with the arrival of the Bauers and then the early/mid 1980s with the arrival of the Shaynes and Lewises (and, later, the Coopers). GL was strictly about the Bauer family in its various forms throughout the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s: originally Papa Bauer's children Bill and Meta with their spouses then Bill's wife Bert and their sons Ed and Mike, who had wives and dramas of their own. Bert wasn't your classic soap matriarch, serving cookies and coffee and sage advice to everyone. She was pushy and bossy, and Bill cheated on her, and her voice was shrill, and she didn't take any sh!t from anyone, but she was beloved until the day she died and continues to be. The Spauldings were introduced in the late 1970s but did not take over the show, partly because it was going through an expansion from 30-minute episodes to 60-minute episodes. It wasn't until the Shaynes and Lewises joined that the Bauers began to be sidelined. By the 1990s, it was clear that they were no longer the main family as most of them were gone and not many attempts were made to bring any back. It's hard for me to compare GL with ATWT since they've always been a package deal in my mind. You just don't think of one without thinking of the other, but if I had to make a statement, I'd say ATWT was more consistent in its focus. Its characters also seemed to be more straight-laced, its families more functional than dysfunctional, which is what you saw on GL. The Bauers, from the earliest days, yelled at each other. When the sons grew up, they fought each other and wanted to fight their dad. Bill and Bert had recurring marital problems for years. Meta always seemed like a sad woman. Meanwhile, on ATWT, the Hughes family had all of the warmth and good feelings that you'd expect from a nuclear family. There were conflicts, and Nancy wasn't easy to deal with, but she and Chris were solid. The siblings got along for the most part. At the end of the day, you could say ATWT was the Hughes family vs. the world whereas GL was the Bauer family vs. themselves. DAYS is a completely different type of soap. Same general set-up with the family focus, but the word I've seen used often to describe its first 10-15 years is "psychosexual." You had Tom and Alice the parents, but most of the characters were younger, and their romances were more intimately portrayed. Then, of course, in the 1980s, it became a children's show. I'm personally not surprised because each soap is the marquee soap of its respective network and has been for at least 30 years. B&B benefits from being so closely linked to Y&R and its reputation for being popular around the world (and from being a half-hour soap). At any given moment since the 1990s, if you asked a person what soaps would be the last one standing on each of the networks, they would've told you GH, DAYS, and Y&R. I just don't think many people figured the rest would all leave the airwaves in just a four-year time frame.

For the most part, yes. When the Bauers became the central focus in 1948, a few odd characters from before still existed, but they mostly gave way to the Bauers and their acquaintances. When they moved to TV, all things pre-Bauer were gone. Yikes, that article is hideous! I always laugh when people say the 80s was the best decade of any long-running soap that obviously had its highest levels of popularity way before the 80s.

I almost didn’t post because I figured you guys had already seen it. Glad to bring it to everyone’s attention. Lori March has been one of my favorite soap matriarchs for a long time just by virtue of her style, so seeing more of her here solidifies her as one of the most memorable. Also love Judy and Jada in this - they just all feel so comfortable in their roles while still doing the show justice. It almost feels like a primetime show from the same era. I would kill to see a Love of Life from the same time period. It looks like the closing credits and mid-show bumpers were set against a sky visual, something I’ve never seen or read about in regards to Secret Storm.

I think it’s because they had Belle and wanted to play the heroine/villainess dynamic with the two of them while also moving away from the Ames family as much as they could. I really like what seems to be the main premise of TSS through the 60s: three siblings struggle to find happiness while receiving guidance from their gentle father, strong stepmother, wicked aunt, and wise grandmother (assuming Grace was wise - seeing Marjorie Gateson’s name in the credits had me hoping she’d appear here, but she did not). The introduction of other families when the show expanded didn’t really screw with that formula until later.

Yes, I really enjoyed it, and I hope we get to see more of the CBS soaps from around this time. The era really seems to be a time of transition for them, with the more stilted 50s style of acting and scripting loosening up and becoming more natural, no doubt in response to what was already going on at ABC and NBC.

The Gaga post seems about as fake and try-hard as she is most of the time. I've only ever really listened to the version of "Do What U Want" with Christina Aguilera, so I tend to forget that the more well-known version has RK (nor have I seen the video). I'm not understanding her attributing the song to repressed sexual abuse when it is quite obviously about sensational journalism.

Most of a 1968 episode

I can think of loads more scenes from the series that are better than that one. How could you not choose the infamous first meeting of Alexis and Dominique?

Thanks for that, Carl! I’ve grown to really like her/Katie through watching that era of GL. You can tell she had big hopes to be in Springfield for the long haul, and I wish she would’ve ended up somewhere else. Soaps need champions like that.

Please tell me y'all have been watching this craziness! I've looked at R. Kelly sideways since I was like 12 when all the infamous video was released and never understood how people continued to support him without calling out the very obvious and blatant abuse going on in his circle. At this point, I'm turning up to Ignition whenever it comes on, but that's the beginning and end of any reverence or respect I pay him. Outside of the very disturbing stories the various women have been sharing, the most interesting parts for me have been seeing how certain career points were very carefully plotted with an agenda in mind, namely how "I Believe I Can Fly" was partially meant to solicit support and praise when people were starting to get hip to his sh!t. I was in elementary school when Space Jam and the song came out, and of course, I had to hear it literally everywhere, including about a week or two when they played it in the cafeteria at lunch time every single day. I hated it then, but now it just grosses me out. In the midst of delving into all of this, I listened to his "song" I Admit from last year in which he spends 20 minutes offering excuse after excuse for everything before exploding at the end. It's actually pretty terrifying, and he really sounds like a man who doesn't have long for this world.

Currently watching... Dynasty - Season 6 Greek - Season 2 That Girl - Season 2 Yellowstone - Season 1 Dark Shadows - July 1966 All My Children - making my way through episodes/compilations from 1985 Also watched the pilot of Freeform's Good Trouble on demand and eagerly waiting for it to regularly air.

I don't know, I think the critical success of ODAAT has shown that you can go out on a limb with a traditional aesthetic and do well. Long scenes with no background music is classic Lear, and that's what we get with the new ODAAT. A visually stunning videotaped drama series at 30 minutes per episode - with decent storylines and decent enough acting - could be a hit as long as they were to go into it knowing that this isn't a mainstream product. Target soap fans and see how well it does.

Aw, I loved him so much! I seem to recall reading that he is gay, but I can’t remember where or if it was a solid source. Markko and Langston were a sweet couple, so of course, they were wasted.

Thanks! You know I had to mute it and play Lluvia de Primavera over it instead.

You’re right. I have noooo idea why he was one of the first to come to mind. Maybe I really do have a hard time separating him from his character. Look, here’s my chance to do the same. I know for a fact that MLM was married with a daughter, but of course there could be more to the story.

To be clear, are we talking just LGBT soap stars in general or just ones who were for sure closet while on the soaps? I don't care either way, just want to make sure I'm sticking to the topic at hand. I'm curious to see more from the UK soaps. I don't think Corrie's Bruno Langley has been mentioned. Back in the states, Bobby Steggert, who was terribly underused as Sam Grey on AMC in the early/mid 2000s, has been out for years.

AMC's Brent Weber is very openly gay on Instagram and shares photos with his boyfriend all the time. IDK if the soap press paid enough attention to him when he was on AMC for us to know if he was closeted or not at the time.

Obsessed with this version of this song

Yep, he inhaled too much smoke as Donna rescued him from the fire. IIRC, though, wasn't he biologically Chuck's son?