Dion

Shorty '93 premiering in a few hours. Apparently they'll be uploading five episodes every friday. And Angela Bloomfield and Sam Bunkall react to Rachel's first episode:

Toadie and Terese are two characters who I never would have thought to put together (and never would have been put together were it not for the cancellation, revival and time-skip) but work surprisingly well. Unfortunately it's hard to get invested because it's clear that their marriage is doomed.

They even had that arc on season 1 of Nightshift with the mysterious burns victim - it was hinted strongly that she was Brenda, with the burns being a way to set up a recast.

Just so happens the Luke and Laura Roseanne "crossover" came up on my Youtube. The Roseanne/Sandra Bernhard scene is interesting for it being very GH 1993 specific - e.g. the joke about Jason going to take off his shirt for Brenda at the docks (an exaggeration of course) would have dated pretty quickly as she became involved with (and her airtime totally consumed by) Sonny soon after this would have originally aired (and also wasn't Steve Burton rumoured to have had a no shirtless clause in later years?).

Yeah and after the Phil Brewer murder was resolved, Diana wasn't really a lead for the remaining 5 - 6 years of the character's run. She was of course involved in the Steven-Lars mess but mainly in a supporting role. Her reign as the drama queen of GH was relatively short-lived.

The closure was announced in September which was where I got up to...I don't think I saw the actual closure but talk of it basically came about as a result of...well I'll let you find that out Yeah at this point it's basically the Luke and Laura Ice Princess show and the Joe and Heather Diana Taylor murder mystery show. With only a sprinkling of Monica/Alan/Susan and a side dash of Hutch. And speaking of... Oh gosh that went on for months! I hated that Laura and Anna's long awaited - by me at least lol - first interaction was Laura seeing Anna kiss Luke.

I remember that for years and years Sonny would always seem to have Wednesdays off...no such luck with Jason though lol Thanks @jcar03

I haven't been watching tbh, seen bits and bobs but it hasn't really attracted my attention. I'll likely watch the last week or so before the show returns in February. That's nice to hear. I'm glad you have a chance to see them. Just a warning though, episodes 135 and 136 and the following few weeks may be a bit of a hard watch. I won't say why, though its possible you already know or could guess.

A particularly grim UK one: On Coronation Street Martin Platt entered into a relationship with 16 year old Katy Harris, who was roughly the same age as his (adopted) daughter Sarah. They'd gotten close as Martin, a nurse, helped Katy deal with her diabetes diagnosis (which these days would probably rightfully considered grooming, though not illegal then or now since Katy was above the age of consent in the UK). As you would expect, Katy's parents - Tommy and Angela - weren't happy about this, particularly Tommy. After about a year or so, Katy fell pregnant by Martin, which angered Tommy even more. Meanwhile, Sally Webster was cheating on her husband Kevin with her boss. Tommy grew suspicious about her behaviour and after Angela overheard Gail (Martin's ex wife) and Sally talking about the affair, she and Tommy came to the erroneous conclusion that Sally was having an affair with Martin since Martin and Sally had previously been in a relationship before Sally had gotten back together with Kevin. After being told of the false news, Katy broke up with Martin and was convinced by her parents to have an abortion. When Gail learned of the rumour that Sally and Martin were having an affair, she immediately went around to Tommy and Angela to set them straight. Angela was regretful but Tommy didn't care. Angela later told Katy who was upset that she'd had an abortion for nothing. Katy went to the garage to confront her father but Tommy was unapologetic and taunted her about the abortion. An enraged Katy hit Tommy on the head with a wrench just as Angela walked in. Tommy was dead. In the weeks that followed, Angela and Katy tried to cover up their involvement in Tommy's murder by making it look like it was the result of a break in. Angela even hid the wrench in the coffin and Katy had to stay silent as Martin was suspected of the crime. But eventually, forensic evidence tied Angela to the crime and she was arrested. Katy and her brother were sent off to stay with their grandad but Katy later returned to the street on her own. Feeling guilty, Katy wrote a confession note then destroyed her insulin before overdosing on water mixed with sugar. Katy was in a diabetic coma for a while but eventually died. Angela was cleared of murder but was still sent down for a few years for perverting the course of justice.

Those bring back memories, I read all of them in my High School library a year or so after they were released. Now in other news, I have no idea if it is geoblocked outside of Aotearoa New Zealand or not...I really hope not...but all 159 episodes of 1992 were released onto the official Shortland Street Youtube page last night, from Episode 1 (Monday, May 25, 1992) until Episode 159 (Thursday December 31, 1992) Here is the playlist below: (I am a bit surprised they are using Rene Naufahu in the thumbnail for episode 1 though)

Nearly three years ago when they revealed that Cyrus and Martin were Gordon and Florence's children, I pointed out (I think in this thread) that the writers got it wrong when they had Cyrus say that Gordon was behind switching Laura at birth. And this confirms that Gordon didn't know. It was Lesley's father who arranged for Laura to be switched with the Vining's deceased baby. Ah well its a minor quibble on a show where they expect us to believe Heather got pregnant by Scotty and gave birth in the short time between when Scotty left Laura and Heather started being released from the mental institution. And of course that later Heather helped Susan give birth to twins and took one of them even though she was actually trapped in the ice princess blizzard in Port Charles with everyone else while Susan was in New York lol!

Charles Mesure, born in England, raised in Australia but much of his early career was actually in New Zealand. Was also Vanessa Williams' love interest in the final season of Desperate Housewives.

They were actually going to let her go but Tracy (surprise surprise!) actually demanded that Sasha stay.

Yeah they've even given TJ a motive. I actually like that it was the kidnapping from over three years ago

Teenage pregnancy rates in the UK are amongst the highest in the developed world but the rate has actually fallen by more than half in the 2010s so these days its increasingly becoming more of a soap exaggeration thing just like the number of murders, divorces or people returning from the dead lol. That said, Walford is supposed to be a socially deprived area so teenage pregnancy rates would be higher than the UK norms. Sarah Platt's pregnancy on Coronation Street (back in 2000 when she was 13, she's 36 in the soap now!) seems to have kicked off the trend of really young teenagers and even pre-teens having babies on soaps though. And EastEnders ended up writing in a surprise baby (Bex Fowler) for Martin and Sonia (who were 15 at the time) as a response to Sarah's pregnancy.

Also CC: @Joseph @Marco Dane I'm a couple of days late to this but isn't the image you posted from the south side? In the plaza area between the old and new buildings? They used the north side ( N State Street & Zonal Ave) for the iconic Autumn Breeze opening and the establishing shot that Joseph posted. (And yeah even though I've never been to LA, I'm such a google maps and soap nerd that I familiarized myself with the layout of that complex years ago lol) Still looks mostly the same from Streetview (admittedly June 2022)

As you may have already noticed, part of the way they juggle all the characters is to use block storytelling - that is, a particular set of storylines and characters might be featured in each episode for a few weeks before being rested for a while and picking up later. When well written it is usually quite effective and goes unnoticed with the storyline blocks overlapping with others and being rested when they reach a natural pause. However in periods of weaker writing it can be quite noticeable with characters just up and vanishing for weeks in the middle of a huge storyline There are also definite tiers of characters with some of the more high-profile characters being rotated through at more regular rates than others who may end up being merely background characters most of the time with a token storyline once or twice a year. I wasn't actually watching at the time either but wasn't it the other way round? That it was actually Eve (whose remaining family are homophobes) who needed a stable address in order to be released on probation so she and Stacey married in order to make it seem plausible that she would live long term with the Slaters?

After months of suffering from fugue states - during which she would commit acts of vandalism such as torching Franco's studio, attacking Chase and moving a portrait around the house. After a short stretch in Shadybrook, Liz returned to work and began to remember seeing a woman who'd been pushed down a flight of stairs. The fugue states and memory flashes had apparently been triggered by the sight of Peter August at the bottom of a stairwell at GH (after being pushed down by Finn) the year before as Liz would continue to have flashbacks of both incidents - eg she'd have a flashback of Peter which would then trigger the older flashback of the woman. The mystery deepened when Liz drew a portrait of the woman she kept seeing in her flashbacks, and then saw pictures of Finn's late wife Reiko on his phone, who looked exactly like the woman in the portrait 🙄 (I mean you'd think she would've already seen pictures of her 🙄). Finn revealed to Liz that he and Reiko had been working in the Mariana Islands during the 90s and Liz remembered that she'd gone with her family there just prior to her arrival in Port Charles 🙄. Liz began to suspect that her father Jeff Webber had pushed Reiko down the stairs. Having been estranged from her parents for 25 years, she broke into their house only to be confronted by them. Jeff (now being played by William R Moses) and Carolyn (Denise Crosby) eventually admitted that Liz had pushed Reiko down the stairs after finding Jeff and Reiko in bed together 🙄. Reiko survived the fall, but needed a blood transfusion that led to her contracting the fatal disease that eventually killed her years later 🙄 (this retconed the earlier explanation that Finn had unwittingly exposed her to the disease while looking for a cure). Jeff and Carolyn then sedated and brainwashed their daughter to forget all about the incident 🙄. Liz eventually told Finn about what happened and he was shocked as while he knew that Reiko had fallen down some stairs he didn't know she'd been having an affair and had never heard of Jeff Webber prior to coming to Port Charles.

Episode 866: 28 November, 1988 🙂 https://www.neighboursepisodes.com/index.php?year=1988&episode=0866

We have talked extensively about Lesley's first husband and their child so it is finally nice to learn that their child was named Jeremy.

At one point Brooke was getting married every year (2001 - 2006 IIRC or the Forrester Jones Forrester Forrester Forrester Marone bit lol)

Olivia has basically been Carly's number one apologist for nearly 15 years, even more so than Jason.

Turns out...

And Mark Hamil has arrived as Kent! Thanks as always @depboy