DRW50

Like you both said, I am glad they showed some of the more intense scenes of Phil and Rainie. I was afraid we'd just get another ha ha moment. The panic attack scenes were very searing to watch. Steve McFadden did a fantastic job, and Tanya Franks, who has the less showy role, was also excellent. I still don't think Ryan and Janine work as a couple. Perhaps that's the idea of their stories but their stories have been like this for months. The casual loss of their jobs at the bookies confuses me -- was the bookies idea Santer's and Kirkwood didn't like it? Whitney is annoying as hell. Bianca seems lost, and so does Carol, although I'm hoping that will change. I loved the scenes with Janine at the Vic, both with the kids and with Peggy and Pat. I agree that Janine and Tiffany work well together. I'm also glad they have gone back to Pat's old protective feelings towards Janine. And for some reason Charlie is one of the few women who look good with bleach blonde hair. Surprisingly I thought the scenes with the Branning brothers and Ronnie were great. Max and Jack are very believable as stubborn, tough men who don't like to admit they care about each other. This, not a rivalry, is where they are at their best. The dance about asking Max to be his best men, complete with Max grudgingly agreeing, then the awkward hand slap -- PRICELESS. So was Ronnie's reaction. I liked the brief moment of bonding with Glenda and Ronnie too, although it had kind of an abrupt cut. We seem to be back to Heather being annoying and stupid and childish. I was hoping the baby might help her grow up. I just don't have any time for her. The stuff with Kim going to work at Roxy's was fun but they also didn't go TOO over the top. It makes sense that Roxy would be impressed by her. I'm glad they didn't take the easy route of having them fight. There were a lot of little slice-of-life scenes I enjoyed, such as the priceless moment where Carol and Bianca would basically force the kids to talk to them ("I'll turn the TV off," "I'll give you a quid,"), or Tracey and Shirley working on a crossword puzzle, or Ronnie and Glenda sunbathing. Glynis Barber looks fantastic!

They just think they can't make any money off this...look at something like Doctor Who. I think one of the reasons there was such an effort to track down lost episodes was they decided this was money.

I agree with you both -- I don't see the shows as being very similar, especially since DH went so off the rails early on. I think they are compared because, as mentioned, they're set in neighborhoods, and then the Knots ladies, some of them, kept saying they were the original Desperate Housewives. I think Brothers & Sisters, at least in the first year, did have a lot in common with Knots, especially the Lotus Point era of Knots (which I enjoyed -- I loved the Sumner Group storylines but I think Lotus Point was a much better use of the entire cast, minus Val, who was isolated). Unfortunately B&S lost a lot of that soapy power relatively early. One of the reasons I enjoyed the early episodes was that they were pure family drama.

You're right it would be better without backup. Lillimae got on my nerves...I still crack up at the scene where Ben put her in a headlock. No one really knows what character development means now. People are afraid to write serials because they assume viewers are idiots. These days the idea of a serial is Desperate Housewives. Every time I hear that compared to Knots Landing I cringe.

You know the first time I watched that I didn't know it was her corpse. She looked so different with the wet hair. Then of course it was obviously her. They did a great job going from her poster to that scene on the beach. Poor Kim Lankford. I've heard a lot of ribbing over that singing but I think she would have sounded better without the backing track or whatever that was. Her voice fits the "earnest" female singer era which was winding down around that time and would kind of pop back up in a different form at the end of the decade. But I always had a soft spot for Ginger. I wish they could have kept her around, I felt like Kenny dragged her down. When I watched these episodes originally I was surprised they mentioned lesbianism and also surprised and happy with Laura's reaction. Sometimes 80s TV is a lot more progressive than it gets credit for, especially compared to today. I wish the episode about Abby giving Diana one of her kidneys was online. That is perhaps my all time favorite episode, especially the scene where Abby looks out over the beach at that gorgeous house of hers, and then the last scene where Karen, all attempts at gratitude rejected by Abby, goes into Abby's room while she's sleeping and kisses her on the forehead.

Ciji was an odd character, in that she was not unsympathetic, but she was very aggressive in what she wanted. There hadn't really been a character like that on the show before, which is probably why they brought Lisa Hartman back after Ciji died (they never quite seemed to know what to do with Cathy). The part of Ciji I enjoyed most was her friendship with Laura, it was a real breath of fresh air, especially since by that time Laura had no strong friendships with anyone else (Karen always seemed to take Richard's side). There was a great soapy scene in that season where Ciji was singing and Karen, who had told Mack she couldn't be in a relationship with him, began weeping and weeping as she heard the lyrics.

Night is late season 3. It's a very strong episode, another showcase for John Pleshette, who played the hell out of Richard. Laura and Richard had a fascinating relationship, as Laura became stronger and stronger and felt Richard was a burden to her, but often had no choice but to stay with him. Richard I believe did genuinely love Laura, but was a screwed up, desperately insecure man who had no idea how to express love. One of the most powerful moments ever on a KL season finale was season 4 when he quietly said goodnight to his children and left, never to return, because he had decided he was a burden to them and to Laura.

Yeah I heard that too. I'm glad...I tend to go hot and cold on Eastenders but I think the show has improved these past few months, while it's certainly far from perfect and the complaints are valid, I feel like some things are being fixed and the show has more of the feel of the Eastenders I knew, less of the glossiness. I haven't seen tonight's show yet but I've heard that the Phil drug scenes are kind of harrowing. I hope that's true -- drug addiction isn't funny and this is something which Eastenders showed very starkly in the 80s. That was the peak era of the show for me and if they are going back to that type of grit then it's a great idea. Oh and Perry Fenwick celebrate 1000 episodes apparently. Good for him. Even after all this I still think Billy has some potential, if they bothered. I kind of wonder why they didn't have him in this Phil story. Imagine if he ended up buying drugs for Phil. His relationship with the Mitchells would never be the same again.

I was about to post that too, it was a good interview. She's a very good actress. There are rumors that

WOW!!! That is just unbelievable. I can't thank you enough for posting these priceless pages. I knew some of the stories, but not all of them, and not all of the actors either. I had no idea Lee Grant or Constance Ford were ever on the show. And those anecdotes were priceless, from the squirrel line to cover up a noise, to the touching scene of Mary Stuart and Lyn Loring singing and dancing to help fill a short episode. That type of thing just reinforces how much more entertaining live TV could be. I also never knew about this friend of Jo's named Nathan. I wonder what happened to him after he came back from the drowning. Were Hazel/Sue the first twins on soaps (even if Hazel was already dead)? It seems like SFT was a very special show when they had that formula of Jo and her friends fighting against wickedness. Once they started killing off kids and having miscarriages and having so much about Jo's husband cheating over and over it sounds like the show lost some of its core identity.

I'm so glad you got to see them. Imagine how this must have felt to viewers at the time, especially since you knew no one was going to come back from the dead a year later. That would be very nice of you to give a copy to Don Hastings, I'm sure he'd love it.

They seem to have decided not to give a date.

The first season is good, and I appreciate that they weren't locked into easy patterns of later years (like the Val/Karen friendship which stifled character development and became a crutch more than an actual friendship -- it's nice to get to see Val spend more time with Laura, or just on her own). You can tell they were still feeling their way around, mostly trying to tackle what they saw as important topics. The episodes seem very all over the place. You have some which are good but which are also tough to watch and would have been better if they weren't self-contained (Laura's rape, Karen's pregnancy and miscarriage), and others which are just pure camp (the biker gang) or came a bit too early in the show's lifespan (the teacher and Karen almost having an affair). There's also a certain falseness at times, mostly in episodes like the one about JR's visit. I think the episodes which worked best were the ones which managed to use the self-contained format in its best way, like Lucy coming to Knots Landing (although I could have done without the stuff at Kenny's house), the episode with Lillimae where everyone thinks about their mother, or the episode where Ginger was harassed because of her abortion. The one about Richard's money problems I haven't seen in a long time, I should watch that again, it just isn't one I wanted to see again. I think that the third season was best at self-contained episodes. One of my favorite things in the early seasons was the Olivia/Val friendship, which was kind of forgotten later on, and would have been useful when Olivia became such a bitch in her last few years.

Wow, and to think at this time Secret Storm was seen as having poor ratings.

Either one. Do you think they could recast Martha? H&A seems to do a lot to try to keep their past still part of the present...unlike some other soaps.

Are they saying Carolee's real mother is playing Carolee's mother on the show too? Did they do that back then? That "real life widow" sounds kind of crass. Wow Liz Hubbard looks so different, I think she looked better later on. Thanks for sharing this with us. I sure wish I could see this era, this was when the show was still very popular wasn't it. And I love Nancy Barrett.

Looks like original character Roo is back, played by Georgie Parker. Do you think it's a wise decision? I wonder why they didn't bring her back while her daughter was in town. http://www.backtothebay.net/news/2010/08/09/roo-return.shtml

It's Kim Tate:

From Schemering's book (cutting out some of what has already been said): Then it goes into the timeslot changes and meddling already mentioned. This talks about the ending:

I hope my blathering didn't put you off Y&RWT. I'm still trying with the show but I can't say these new characters have impressed me at all. Every time some of them open their mouths...

Season 3 mostly, which is one of my favorite seasons. Seasons 13-14 weren't great, they were just kind of there, although she had a horrible job to do.

I thought Ann was pretty decent on Knots Landing.

Yeah I love watching that, mostly because it's a document of the classic soaps of that era, like Brookside, which are now gone. Those days are gone, but some of the Corrie cast did film a scene behind the Rovers for EE's 25th, cheering EE for their anniversary. I wish that clip were still online where a lot of the EE cast is singing in different languages in the pub, and Ross Kemp steps out of character to talk about how popular EE is in so many places.

Finished the week's episodes. The climax to the racism story was blah. I think they spent too many days over the week treading water. Probably the high point was the scene between Zak and Tariq on Tuesday's show, as well as Claire Cooper's performance, as she was brilliant, she genuinely made you question whether Jacqui was going to give Des another chance. They were probably right in leaving Ravi as an afterthought in the story. Stephen Uppal tends to not do well when he has to speak, as he proved in that confrontation with Des. So I guess Gaz is just going to be left in prison... I can't complain about the rushed exit for Zak/Jake/Kris because I wasn't bothered by a rushed exit on Eastenders Thursday, but I will say that Jake acting like this was his one chance for London was bizarre, since his sister Debbie lives in London. And I don't understand why a man who tried to kill a baby would be able to work with children, even if he has turned over a new leaf. I think a character of 8 years deserved a better exit, and don't get me started on that awful "Time of Your Life" song that is so overplayed on these occasions. At least he looked good in his tight white tee shirt. I don't understand why Nancy wasn't in the episode, given her friendship with Kris and her history with Jake. I don't know why Myra wasn't in the episode when Jacqui exposed Des. Or why Carmel has no idea that Evissa is going up for sale. Too many scenes of Michaela wailing and sobbing -- this actress was not suited for that. No wonder she got tired of the story. I hope when she leaves they will say she left to be with Zak. Was anyone confused as to why they kept having reaction shots of Cheryl during the racism reveal? What the hell did it have to do with her? I actually liked her last scenes with Kris, when she gave him the money. So that's a nice word for her. Her brother, so far he seems dull, and the actor makes those weird faces like a junkyard dog. He reminds me of Paddy Maguire from Shameless. Can we have a Shameless/Hollyoaks crossover??