Soaplovers

I had to wait a 10+page paper as one of my requirements to get my bachelors in psychology/sociology.. and I wrote it on The Baby... talking about child abuse, sexual abuse, male ego, and feminist fears gone wild ( saying that this movie showcased the fears men had of feminists in the same way The Stepford Wives showcased the deep ceded fears feminists had of male dominance.).

Is anyone really surprised by Andy and his about face? He's as deep as a puddle... actually that's being mean to puddles because sometimes puddles have hidden depths and Andy doesn't have that. Ever since he wrote about Joyce and exclaiming she talked too much (i.e. she was logical and basically broke the 4th wall left and right about season 4 by exposing the takedown attempt on LVP happening at the start of the season).. I knew his likes were toward vile people and/or train wrecks with a sad side (Shannon). I'm actually surprised he has expressed liking Teddi since she is usually the complete opposite of what he prefers in a housewife. And I love that Meghan McCain keeps saying Teddi is boring, talks about her father too much, etc... then says that Teddi won't engage her (probably because Teddi has an actual job, husband, and kids). If Teddi does come back for a second season.. I'd love an individual segment of Teddi and her hubby/kids visiting John Mellancamp and Meg Ryan.. even if it is left in the secrets revealed pile. @Cat delayed reply to your RHONY thoughts.. but I do think Carole is not a meek little bird (she worked in broadcasting as a producer.. one can not be meek and work in news). I'm not sure if it was you, or someone else, that said that Carole usually has a bull dog attack those she is after. I tend to agree with that.. but the problem is that Carole keeps downgrading the bull dog (Heather was a legit bull dog that was ride or die for Carole, Bethenny was also a legit bull dog but wanted a piece of Luann herself, and now Tinsley.. the vacant void that can barely put a sentence together without effort? Carole would have been better off getting Ramona as her bull dog lol)

I still think of her as the ditzy blonde from 'The Girl Most likely to' that dies by doing backward gymnastics out of the 2nd floor window of her dorm and as a off balanced older sister of an overgrown baby in the movie 'The Baby'

I guess I should confess something very unpopular.. but I never liked Brooke. I thought she was smug, arrogant and judgmental. I was always team Erica and I think Brooke was secretly jealous of Erica because she always took Erica's hand me downs. In regards to Tom, I actually liked him with Livia.. and liked that he kept friendships with both Brooke and Erica post divorce.

I think Lorie (had JLB opted not to quit) would have fit in nicely on Y & R in the 80s... she had a lot of ties to the show and she had an interesting look and character that was hard to replace when she departed. Leslie and Chris were easy to replace (Patty Williams filled the fragile ingenure part quite nicely), but Lorie was a unique character... and I could have seen some good Lorie vs Jill.. or even some Lorie vs Nikki stories and scenes for years to come.' Who played Claire Laurence? She looks familiar.

Laurie was kind of written into a corner. The second she married Hank, the show stopped actually writing for her as anything more then a stepford wife to Hank. I think she stopped appearing when the Pollock's were still writing.. and at least the reason given by the next writers made sense since she had left him before when the chance to resume singing came up. The one thing I've noticed about soaps are that the second a female character is married off, she loses all sense of a personality.. or it is slowly drained away. It happened to Carolee, Toni, Lauri, and don't get me started on Althea during her marriages to Nick and John. I can't wait till Nola Dancy shows up.. from what I hear, she never loses her fire/spirit no matter who she is paired with.

I will say that the new headwriter has been good with removing the dead weight that the Pollocks created (Andy, Joe, and Tom).. but he's added more dead weight (Scott/Eleanor/Wendy) that has taken up so much airtime without any true connection to the hospital (I would have had Wendy being a student nurse and/or candy striper.. or Scott working at the hospital as their attorney, etc). The Tom dying story went too quickly.. and it is a shame that the Pollocks didn't think to test him with other characters when the Althea/Tom relationship didn't pan out. If they had, they would have seen he had great work chemistry with Martha.. and even possible chemistry with Toni. Plus, Toni could have had something to do with interacting with Tom while Mike was off screen and Alan was starting up with MJ.

Ok.. I don't hate this... it has potential. It all depends on the chemistry between the three actresses. Hopefully, the actresses in real life aren't divas like SD, AM, and HMC were.

I'm thinking less reliance on p olitics might be a good idea for next season the more I think about it. While I think it is important to be realistic and reflect the real world, I also think that sometimes they crammed too much into each episode so that nothing got too much focus/development. With that said, I'm hoping for a Halloween episode (those were always the best).. and maybe a Thanksgiving episode (where the fur always flew LOL)

I miss the days when Heather was on.. and her and Carole had an actual friendship. yet viewers preferred the toxic viper known as Bethenny.

I much preferred the Reardon's on GL to the Snyders... it seemed like the Reardon family had more distinctive personalities and having the boarding house allowed it to be a santuary for a lot of characters (Like Mrytle's boarding house was on AMC). I never understood why princess Lily would prefer a farm to being in a town. She was so spoiled that realistically she wouldn't have adjusted so quickly to the country. And I never bought having Rosanna, Debbie, etc staying at the farm... too isolated for me. It was why I loved Carly when she first arrived.. and she was trying to get Rosanna to move into town. I remember thinking 'I like this girl, she knows that country living is vastly over-rated'.

Maybe not good things.. but more like they saw what Upton was trying to do and thought that Upton had good intentions. By the time I started watching soaps.. Upton was not head-writing shows and I've never seen any of Upton's work so I can't judge for myself... so I'm curious about Upton.. is all Some of what Cenedella's done on the Doctors so far isn't too bad.. he's actually good with character driven scenes... and showing the staff behaving and interacting like a family.. but his big weakness is plot/pacing (the Eleanor story has promise.. but it's happening too lightening fast... and he resolved the Karen/Steve/Carole custody story nicely and made Karen human instead of a cold hearted monster that the Pollock's wrote.. but that story dominated for two weeks straight.. and once it was over.. there wasn't anything else to take it over.. so he jump started a doctor's illness story as well as the Eleanor story quickly over the last few weeks of episodes aired). I've heard the Corrington's were good on SFT (never seen their work on there)... but based on their stints on Texas and Capitol..I don't know if they're type of writing is my stint.

I think it's ironic that Crystal is retiring with full benefits especially when through out the original show both Roseanne and Jackie (but her to a lesser extent) would always looks down on her. I even remember during the second season after Roseanne lost the job opportunity due to not knowing about computers that everyone from the factory that quit with her had a job.. ending with 'heck even Crystal has a job'. Irony at it's finest.

Now that I've seen Cenedella in action on The Doctors.. I can see why some @vetsoapfan isn't too keen on him, but he certainly isn't the worst of writers... more like the middle of the pack. I can't wait to see pre GH Depriest on The Doctors (I liked her brief stint on AMC and her first stint on AW wasn't that bad.. but everything after...no comment). I see a lot of Gabrielle Upton mentioned as a headwriter of the 70s... I've heard good and bad things about that writer.

There have been a few moments where Nicholette can play serious, but I think it is good that Alexis is different in this show. Cristal is different (and so inferior to the superior Krystle).. and Sam is inferior to the perfection that was Sammy Jo... so of course, Alexis will be different (so far I'm rooting for her against Fallon and Cristal).

I don't know.. I thought Laiman wrote some good stuff on Days of our Lives in the late 80s. She created Justin/Adrienne, made Patch/Kayla a memorable couple (their first wedding was beautful), and had the idea to put Shane/Kimberly/Eve in a house together.. and years of story was generated by Kimberly and Eve's attempts to get along. And I will say that her storyline on AW about who shot/'killed' Grant made perfect sense in a weird way.. because Paulina took the rap to protect the person she thought was her child. It was the only story that really made sense on the show (though I will credit the Lumina story for restoring Rachel back to her old self again.. that was the only bright spot of that story).

I actually saw Kimberly McArthur in a highway to heaven rerun (pre-SB) where she played the popular girl that was nice underneath. She had a guarded, yet a certain sweetness underneath. I always think that had the writer strike never happened, Kelly/TJ wouldn't have happened because up till the strike episodes aired.. Kelly was anti TJ, and was in love with Jeffery yet trying to adjust to being married and adjusting to the reality of marriage vs the fairytale fantasy she always had. Kelly always seemed to be written to be the princess that viewed love as a fairy tale... and Joe died shortly after they were married.. so she never got to see the reality of what marriage was truly like. She and Jeffery were married several months before the writer strike so we got to see them as newlyweds trying to adjust to marital life vs the fairytale courtship/love on the run story they had lived. I think KM played Kelly as guarded.. and after all the hell the character had been through.. it was too be expected. She was the transition Kelly between RW and Carrington... who played Kelly as a mature adult and less like the sheltered princess that RW/Kimberly played Kelly. As much as I love Eileen.. she wasn't Kelly. She would have worked better as an Eden type character then Kelly...imho.

Catherine Hickland not being valued as an actor? Man, JFP loves to rewrite history doesn't she. Considering that CH played a dual role successfully on Capital in the 80s (an ingenue and a emotionally unbalanced woman.. that weren't long lost twins).. and played Tess Wilder to perfection... I think Lindsay was a step down for her...imho. OLTL was a more gritty show so I understood why JFP turned the show darker... but even in the gritty era of the 70s on OLTL.. there was light to balance out the dark. I liked Dorian/Mel getting married at the Banner, a community of reporters at the Banner...and Lindsay wasn't one note back then. I think once Pam Long quit as head-writer.. whatever balance there was went out the window..imho.

There aren't a lot of soap operas to go to.. and B & B seems to have more stability in terms of job security, I guess. I wish his vision of Michelle taking over Spaulding had occurred. Revenge of the Bauers

Apparently Kelly from RHOC got in trouble for spilling the beans about season 13 too early LOL https://allaboutthetea.com/2018/05/13/bravo-fines-kelly/

I'm more of an OC person myself (my first show I picked up).. and that show is the only show I know of that has successfully been able to rotate in and out cast members. It will be interesting to see season 13 when it debuts later this year.. but it has to be loads better then season 12 (I think they kept 4 and added 2). And that's why I'm glad Dallas didn't take any away.. just added a 7th person in a part time role to add something new/different without taking away from what worked last season.

I'm not a big fan of keeping the same cast for more then one season... so I'm glad they're adding D'andria's friend to film with them.. to add something different to the mix. Even though Brandi caused a lot of trouble in season 2.. I don't like it when it's one person vs five or six people even if that particular person caused trouble.. because it will illicit a little sympathy from viewers that don't like the whole 'gang up on someone' routine that catty women do. I'm more interested to see what is going on with the OG of the housewives OC.. a lot of life changes going on for three of the four returning housewives.. and I much prefer that then manufactured group gatherings and contrived fights.

I'll always be team Alexis.. no matter if it's Joan Collins or Nicholette Sheridan. At least when Linda Evans was Krystle.. it was evenly matched (JC's Alexis had the smart aleck remarks, but Linda Evans' Krystle had the ability to throw a good punch). The current Cristal is just dreadful. And I agree that the actor playing Sam is hot.. but Heather Locklear was superior as Sammy Jo.

I figure on this show... we have to fill in the blanks and come up with our own conclusions as to what has happened over the last twenty plus years on the show. I assume The Lunchbox went out of business due to the recession in the late 2000s. I assume Andy has cut Jackie out of his life for being a hovering/helicopter mother hence why she never mentions him (cause it's so painful), I'm going to assume Crystal probably has retired since she always seemed to land on her feet even with her back luck in husbands (I always assumed she got a pretty big pay out after her first husband died on a job site.. and she wisely spent/saved that money.. and still worked at the factory because needed the insurance for herself and her son.... and a lot of women make good money selling cosmetics so she probably was able to buy her own insurance as well).

I give Cenedella props for actually writing for Tom and making him a character in his own right. His character wasn't harsh nor grumpy whatsoever... and I liked the rapport between him/Martha/Toni.. and made me wonder why we never really saw the three interact all that much pre Cenedella. Cenedella wrote Tom as more meloncholy and a little more quirky then what Nick was..imho.