All My Shadows

I think Holly's appeal was that she was able to make fun of herself and didn't mind being the awkward "kid" who was constantly botching the prize presentations. The first few times, it might have been a little nerve-wracking, but once it became an endearing part of her role on the show, her getting stuck with a refrigerator that kept popping open or crashing a moped into the set was just as good as, if not better than, everything going according to plan. Janice and Dian (and Anitra) were more polished as models, but Holly leaned slightly into being an entertainer, and the others followed her lead and loosened up a little as time went on. Any time we get some new early 70s Password is worth celebrating, but I always have to remind myself that they were still playing the game in its original, basic format. In my mind, once the 60s series ends, the puzzle is added as a permanent part of the game. I think even the more recent revival just stuck to the original format, which is silly to me. It's like debuting a new TPIR and going back to the Bill Cullen format of just having the contestants bidding on various prizes.

They've had one or two off episodes, the rest of the series has been pretty good and refreshing. There's a certain candidness about it on the part of the guests that I've rarely seen them exhibit anywhere else, and you have to credit Greg and Rebecca for making them comfortable. It's definitely a mistake to write this off based on who the hosts are, IMO. My first thought re: Morgan was also of how much healthier she looks now. For a while, she just looked so physically tired all the time while still being very open on social media. She's perked up a lot in the last year or so, though. I just absolutely love that she, Donna Mills, Susan Lucci, and Joan Collins are so active online all the time. They really are the grand dames we've always believed them to be, in all the biggest and smallest ways.

Guhhhh, not Su doing all that cussin!! Can’t wait!

I always enjoy the clips that I see on Instagram, but I do get frustrated with the fact that the people who have such ready access to so many important people don't really know much about the soap genre/history outside their own experiences because LIAMST should have been a major part of the conversation with Donna. If they ever interview Clifton Davis, sure they can talk about his career in music, but I also expect a soap podcast to ask him what it was like to be a young black actor in daytime on "A World Apart" over 50 years ago, working with Susan Sarandon, and being part of a storyline that was controversial for the time.

So sad! I love Frank and Janie in the early episodes, especially Frank. I wish the show had invested more in the non-Sugden characters so that they could have been around a lot longer. I know, it’s insane to think that this show was once too focused on the Sugdens.

I might’ve watched the first night of these back in 2006 and never tuned in again lol it was enough trying to juggle the daytime soaps I was watching at the time. I always thought these shows would have been interesting as Saturday afternoon dramas, but this was a few years after that daypart really ceased to exist.

I thought St. Elsewhere was a permanent fixture on Hulu? I'd check, but once they merged with Disney Plus and the subscription fee went up, I bounced out. A lot of people share the opinion that MTM was great all the way through, but I think there was a huge shift after Rhoda (and to a less extent, Phyllis) left. Mary had no real friends, and the newsroom no longer had the apartment to really balance it out.

I was actually rewatching some of the 1975-1976 stuff with Matt/Dorian a week ago, and it's funny, I've always beat up on OLTL for going in and out various identities over its run, but it really dawned on me how that "street urchins trying to make good" current stayed present in some form or another all the way through the end. In a very vague way, Matt and Dorian hanging around, plotting schemes, and rolling eyes at one another low-key reminded me of Dorian and David decades later. It's almost a riff on the haves/have-nots trope. When you're lucky enough to come across AMC from the late 70s or early 80s, the episode almost always starts off with a sense of warmth, happiness, comfort, etc. Myrtle's dusting fixtures at the Boutique, Kate's drying her hands in the middle of cooking, etc. OLTL starts right off with the drama, tension, characters who look like they're about to sht themselves because they're a breath away from getting caught up. And both shows worked beautifully. When soaps really leaned into their individual vibes, there was truly nothing better.

I'm glad it's on YouTube. I still have basically two whole box sets to go with the DVDs (just finished the first disc of Part 4), so hopefully it's still there when I finish those. On the one hand, it sucks to just have the crappy quality TV rips, but on the other hand, I'll be glad to not have to constantly change discs lol

For a while there, I really felt like it was only a matter of time before Shout! Factory announced a complete series release, much like they did with Mary Hartman Mary Hartman. PP, to me, is a show that you just bite the bullet and release all at once in one big set. It'll either sell well or it won't, but you're giving the people who are dying to own it the chance to do just that. Putting out a little bit at a time and watching the profits just whet our appetites while knowing that the chances of the whole series coming out that way were slim. I've picked back up with watching the show, currently just a bit past the 100th episode. Stella's just appeared, and Leslie Nielsen's guest arc is just about done. Everything is great, but what's pulling me in the most at the moment is how far the show is willing to go with David Schuster creeping on Alison.

I wouldn’t think it’s anywhere else as this is an official avenue through which the show is streaming, so they’re working with what they have and not just repurposing YouTube videos/clips and charging people a fee for it (saying absolutely no names but donna’cha someone was doing that via a poorly put together Roku channel). Every time someone on their Instagram page asks about the US, they reply that they’re working on it. Hopefully it’s soon.

I don't want to say that Bob was a complicated man, because it's really not hard to understand (as in comprehend, not empathize) his different facets, but it's easy for me to separate "Bob" (the host) from "Barker" (the BTS figure). Being able to regularly watch the classic episodes from the mid-80s has really solidified how incredible of a host he was. It feels like there were never any "off" episodes for him where he was in a mood or disinterested or anything. He kept the show moving, knew where to find the fun side moments to have, knew how to draw out the suspense, hyped up all the prizes no matter what they were, etc. I view his work on TPIR as the greatest daytime game show hosting of all time because it did exactly what I believe daytime game shows should do - offer a warm, comfortable, familiar, carefree place for viewers to spend part of their morning. Of course, you have to give just as much credit to Johnny, Janice, Dian, and Holly. Together, they were a great unit. That being said, he was also gross in soooooo many different ways, and I've had to turn it off sometimes because of the truly cringe-worthy comments he would make in regards to women's bodies and immigrant contestants (never racist, just completely tone-deaf). Forcing women to dig into his pocket for the $500 exact-bid bonus was weird, especially because he just handed it to men. If it wasn't meant to be a weird sexual thing, then why did women have to reach in but men did not? At the same time, you have Richard Dawson doing his thing on Feud. With that being said, I'm curious as to if the Barker Era channel plans to rotate more 70s episodes in. I know the demand for Rod Roddy + grey-hair Bob was high from day one, and so they wisely jumped ahead and added 1988-1989 into the regular rotation, but the allure of a classic TPIR channel for me has always been the chance to see late 70s episodes.

Thanks @DRW50 . I feel like it's very rarely, if ever, happened where a the US remakes a UK series that's already been established here (and vice versa). If the audience already knows and accepted the original series, what's the point of trying to do it all over again in a form that you know will fall short? Filming it rather than taping might have actually saved it by welcoming less comparison and allowing it to have a different vibe/style. Side note, it's pretty amazing that "Musical Chairs" has been mostly recovered and preserved. Gives me so much hope for other games/soaps.

This is so random bc she’s in the episodes of Peyton Place that I’m currently watching, playing a deaf girl named Kim.

Yes, it’s commonly referred to as the Hughes Family theme or Nancy & Chris’s theme, which is how it’s labeled on Charles Paul’s album of his themes and character themes from various soaps. It originated on the organ in the 50s and was still heard, in orchestrated form, as late as 1979. I would imagine it was scrapped when the show was “modernized.” It starts here at 2:14.