Soaplovers

I think the show retcon it that Blake was her middle name when it was discovered she was Christina in late 1988. To this day, I wish we knew what the original plan for Blake was when Long created the character and approved the casting of Elizabeth Dennehy as Blake just before the writer strike started.

Dani is a typical individual that thinks they deserve more, but actually need to be knocked down a few notches. I love that the Dupree women are all about empowerment and making their own decisions, yet are always quick to blame a man when a choice they make blows up in their face. The amount of blame that Andre is getting from the Dupree women is laughable when Dani deserves just as much blame since she's supposed to be a grown 40+ year old woman. I also like that the show decided to bring on Donnell since the show is too female heavy and I liked that he instantly stepped up to Joey. He definitely is acting like he could be the son of Doug and Vanessa... and based on his comment about his sister (Deanna).. it sounds like he's the stronger willed of the two. I would have preferred if Doug and Vanessa had two sons instead of one son.. and not have any daughter. I just hope Donnell would be subjected to 30+ year old Samantha

Shame they're only back for the wedding of the Nepo-baby

I actually think Hart should have been Billy, and the story could have still went the way it did (except for the family farm).

I call it the Douglas Marland effect because any soap opera he was head-writing had that type of dialogue... which was very unrealistic.

Apparently Cady looked to be filming in the studio per her instagram.. but I do agree that Pamela has been a miss because of the lack of airtime and playing a character that acts and talks as though she came from 1920s upper crust New England with a Transatlantic accent. Dani's drinking is the one plotline that I can accept when it's 'dropped' and then bought up because in real life.. people grapple with issues with alcohol for years. While Dani doesn't drink daily, her problem is that she over-drinks to the point of black out.. which is more of a concern than if she had one or two drinks per day at night. Anita does talk to Dani like she's a teenager, but Dani does seem to act more like she's younger than her own daughters. Chelsea and Naomi have more sense and maturity than Dani does.. and I hope that this dynamic is explored more. And Donnel referring to Jan as 'Aunt Jan' checks out because she probably was more of a parental unit to him and his sister Deanna than either Doug or Vanessa were. And I do wonder when sister Deanna will be showing up.. perhaps at Christmas? And Derek's journey into being a grey character is continuing.. and I think this adjustment is also probably due to feedback.. and I wonder if it's a way to try to save Andre/Ashley.. which seems to be end game in MVJ's mind. I still don't know if Hayley was faking the pregnancy because she did go to that doctor appointment after her 'miscarriage'.. and Bill went with her. I have a feeling that it will come up again, but perhaps closer to the 'Season 1 finale'.

ROSLC: Bronwyn's incessant need to be liked is kind of draining, and her husband did give some good feedback on that. He's probably sick and tired of hearing her vent about it.. yet won't find a solution to her venting (because I think she gets off on being a professional victim). Listen.. I get that Angie seems to hold onto being Greek because she doesn't seem to know herself...but even her daughter is kind of over the Greek thing. Which tracks. Lisa is delusional.. but I notice that her delusional is amped up. Whitney is still a whore and annoying. Though I understand her reasoning for being a redhead this season (for her daughter).

Eva/Kat/Tomas = Modern day Steve/Alice/Rachel Today was a perfect example and I wonder what the next twist/milestone will be in this story.

Was Eva wrong to go for Tomas? Yes Was it satisfying seeing Eva verbally hand Kat some hard truths? Yes, because Kat is a stuck up entitled individual that needs to do a lot of growing up before she can have a relationship. In regards to Smitty and Martin....let's not forget that Martin is also an entitled stuck up individual.. and I was happy when Smitty hit it and quick it a few weeks ago. Naomi and Jacob are so cute together.

Agree We shall see if there is chemistry if they interact.

In 1981, the show did to try to strengthen the Matthews family by bringing back both Sally (played by Jennifer Runyon) and Alice (a recast).. and having them interacting with Jim, Liz, Pat, and Marianne. While Sally seemed accepted and focused on, Alice struggled with being played by two lackluster recasts over an 18 month period before being written off again in the fall of 1982. However.. Pat and Marianne were written off in early 1982, the actor that played Jim either passed away or was going to pass away so he stopped airing, and in their place was the arrival of an adopted grand-daughter of Liz (Julia). While Julia/Sally had some interactions as 2nd cousins.. their mom's weren't on the canvas for very long (Alice leaving again in the fall of 1982 and Susan only coming back for a brief visit in late 1982). The last attempt at saving the Matthews was in 1984 with OG Alice coming back in May 1984... but due to the cluelessness of the writers.. she was basically a talk to for Sally/Caitlin, had a backburner romance with a guy, and hardly interacted with Mac/Rachel until she was close to being written off. So by the time 1986 rolled around and Depriest was bought in to refocus the show... I couldn't blame her for focusing the show around the Mckinnons, Cory's, and Love's because those were three families being featured with only Liz and Sally left. And with Sally being played by a recast that fans didn't like and Liz being supporting... I understood why Depriest opted to just de-emphasize them totally (though killing Sally off was not a smart idea in retrospect). While I don't think it was a network mandate to get rid of the Matthews, I think it was due to a constant rotation of writers that didn't understand the family's place on the show and the attempts in the first half of the 80s didn't result in any big impact on the canvas nor ratings.

Positives from today's episode: Some actual movement in the Kat/Tomas/Eva triangle with Eva/Tomas doing the deed and Kat witnessing Tomas coming out of the bedroom shirtless. Good cliffhanger. Vanessa feeling guilt/remorse.. and I kind of think she's partly right to blame herself for Doug's death and the potential fake out cliff hanger involving her walking in on Joey's conversation was old school soap. Allison is still in the picture, but I don't think Chelsea is as ok as she was making herself out to be to Kat/Samantha. Negatives from today's episode: Randy is back on Joey's payroll... not sure if this will be a hamster wheel.. or what the plan is for Randy long term or if we will get more about his possible association with Hayley. SPS/Ted... rinse/lather/repeat.

I agree about Elizabeth, but there was one episode in season 4 that I thought could have been an interesting springboard to fleshing out her character. It was the episode where Willie decided to run for Prom Queen as a protest and after the toxicity of Mary and Susan's reactions (Mary was such a Karen)...and Nancy being Nancy, Elizabeth got a bit of focus with her speech to the feminist group at her high school. She rightly pointed out that mocking Willie for trying out for a female dominated event was just as bad as mocking a woman for trying out for a male dominated event.. and she gave a rational and calm speech about that... even pointing out that they were no better than men. To me, she came across as rational and logical.. the pragmatic Bradford child. It was harder to come up with stories for that characterization.. but good writers could have continued to flesh out Elizabeth as a true blue feminist instead of the toxic ones that her sisters were.

It seemed as though when the new head-writers came on in 1997, once the Annie trial was over... the show quickly reunited Josh/Reva and Annie was kept almost in a hamster wheel of obsessing over Josh/Reva instead of trying to rebuild her life and get her sanity back. The work Long did with Sonni post Josh/Reva proved that a character that wasn't well could function on the canvas in a different orbit so I never understood why the show didn't try to do that with Annie (unless the show knew by mid 1997 that Watros was going to be leaving in a matter of months). The Vanessa stuff in early 1998 showed to me that the writers didn't really didn't know of her connections/history... or else Ross/Nola/Billy would have had scenes with Van recalling their history and urging her to fight with a jealous Matt left out. Much had been made about Vanessa feeling insecure because of the age difference.. but I don't recall a lot of focus on Matt feeling insecure/left out/jealous over her connections with both Ross and Billy. And having Nola there with Buzz/Jenna would have been smart and caused tension between them. And I remember watching when Cassie first came on in mid 1997 played by Laura Wright (Sisk) and I had to admit I was intrigued to see what she would do with the role, especially after Maura West had supposedly been offered the role and turned it down. At first, I liked Cassie when she was written as a bit rough around the edges and trying to figure out why Alan/Annie had a thing against Reva/Josh. Cassie and Billy were tested against one another and I thought they had better chemistry than she did with Hart. I eventually grew to dislike Cassie once she was pushed onto Hart by the writers and became Saint Reva's sister (when Roxie was a much better and closer sister to Reva back in the day). Fans didn't like Cassie and thought she was a way for the show to erase Roxie's existence and felt Dinah was trashed/ruined to prop Cassie.

I think the SPS money story just started and I have a feeling her spending habits will come back to haunt her down the road. And her daughter Eva has cautioned her a few times to be careful about the spending even saying wealthy people are wealthy because they know to spend and invest their money. I think Jan's job is the same as Mona's... being the household manager for the house.. and @TaoboiI was also happy to see Mona/Jan having breakfast and gossiping about the going on's with the wealthy. I have a feeling that if Jan and Joey know one another, it will be revealed in a later episode. With the aura of Doug's passing, you could assume that both Jan and Joey were distracted by Vanessa's grief to have any sort of reaction to seeing one another. If Joey is truly someone from Jan's past, it would totally explain her conversations with Ashley and why she was so alarmed by Ashley's interest in Andre vs Derek. To Jan, she views Derek as a steady and stable guy that had a good job and seems like he would value the person he is with. Now rather Joey is the father of Ashley, or was a man from Jan's past pre or post Ashley's dad will be revealed. If Joey is the father of Ashley, it also would explain why Jan kept Ashley so sheltered and protected.. and why Ashley seemed a bit awkward and lacking in social/romantic skills. Comments on this board, and other boards, have made mention that Ashley asks immature in her interactions with Derek.. but it's possible that she was so sheltered/protected by Jan that it stunted Ashley in both social and emotional ways.

From what I can recall Jennifer was still playing Sally during the start of the Sally/Peter relationship with Donna not approving of her. Her last few months laid the groundwork of Sally/Peter becoming a couple with Cass as a potential spoiler... while she was friends with Cecile. Donna's first few weeks on the show was the last few weeks of Jennifer's stint as Sally, but once Jennifer left the show and the recast that replaced her didn't work... the story seemed to shift from Sally/Peter/Cass to Cecile/Peter/Cass because Mary Paige Keller had a different vibe and take on the character of Sally that didn't seem to work with what had been set up previously. With Taylor Miller coming on as Sally, it could have worked if the show had decided to make a clean break from Sally/Caitlin and tried to position Sally in a different orbit. With that said, I saw a few episodes with Taylor Miller playing Sally and she wasn't a bad Sally.. it just seemed as though she became too mature and matronly without the eagerness of Mary Page Keller or the craftiness of Jennifer Runyon to make the character stand out by 1986.

It's a very small town. My mom laughed when we drove by it on our way to Lake Geneva when I was growing up because she tried to envision Chancellor Enterprises, Newman Enterises, and Jabot headquartered in this little town (which is about population 3000 nowadays). And it's around 70 to 80 miles between Chicago and Genoa City (so people could drive to Chicago from there in about two hours or so). Oakdale... there is an actual Oakdale in Illinois.. but it's in the southern part of Illinois.... however, I always thought that Oakdale Illinois was more like a Peoria Illinois (a 3 hour or so car ride from Chicago) with a population of a 100,000 with surrounding towns being smaller (like Milltown and Luther's Corner). Springfield... if it ended up taking place in Illinois, than it would have been the capital of the state. It had 100K living there and had state government as the largest employer so I assumed Springfield of GL was not the same as Springfield of Illinois.. but I could be wrong.

If I recall Gatti's Dinah had more of an edge and was a protective foster sister to Dory when she first came on. There were scenes where her Dinah lashed out at Vanessa for abandoning her and I even recall a scene where Dinah even told off her cousin Phillip while played by Gatti. I even recall a scene where Vanessa comes home to Dinah having friends over and they're drinking with the two later having a fight. The Cam/Dinah coupling was a way to soften her character and to bond them together for both not growing up in healthy family environments. I noticed once she was let go and replaced with Turco, the character became more of a good girl and totally not like the version of Dinah that came into town raised in a carnival. She and Cam became the goodie goodies while Alan Michael and Harley took on the personas of original Dinah/Cam. So when Moniz came on... her version was much closer to the Gatti version that started out.

Talk about an odd coupling.... a pilot I had heard about, but didn't ever think I would see.

Kate Jackson as a police chief in a small town.. a CBS pilot from the mid 90s. It reminded me of those cozy mystery movies that Allison Sweeney did for Hallmark.. and I believe this was based on a mystery book series.

I said awhile ago that Krista Allen (sp?) is a now a local in Atlanta and could have easily played the role of Jan. She has the soap opera experience. Has it been established what role Jan has in Vanessa's life? Is she the housekeeper or is she like Mona and is the property manager/office manager?

I remember when Cynthia Watros was leaving, the magazines were raving about how GL was preparing for the next generation of female Annie types and named Dinah and Beth as the next heirs. I knew when I read that.. it confirmed that the magazines were sucking up to the soaps and not calling them out for BS such as the character assignations of Dinah and Beth all so Saint Harley and Cassie could be loved and adored.

Brownyn is one of the few women that needs to be kept in check by her husband... she's a 6 that thinks she's a 10.... and what she's wearing isn't fashion, but tacky nourve riche attire. Her fall is going to be epic

I knew on Wednesday when Doug heard Joey and went off on Vanessa before hanging up... I knew that the biggest tragic thing would happen. Doug would die hurt by Vanessa's deceit while Vanessa will forever be haunted by her guilt over the last conversation with Doug ending on a very bad note. So seeing Vanessa today is a combination of guilt, grief, and regret rolled into one. While others are gaga over the Dani/Bill/Hayley story.. my fav stories are the Joey/Vanessa story arc and the Tomas/Kat/Eva triangle. I think there is enough for everyone to enjoy... the show just needs to work on balance a bit better.

This show has more than enough female characters... we need some more male characters on the canvas.