Soaplovers

Brandi may bring it at reunion time...but like what Taylor Armstrong said on wwhl...if she picked. Housewife to fire for being boring..I'd also pick Brandi. Her whole shtick is boring and played out.

I heard Eileen goes at it with Brandi more then with Kim.. but that Eileen tears Brandi down without batting an eye lash.

I don't like.Brandi getting the seat closest to Andy...that usually means job security. Perhaps Andy Cohen needs to be fired as executive producer

This Kim and Kyle fight all stems over some house that Kim thinks Kyle 'stole' from her. Since this conflict has existed on and off since since season 1.. it is becoming like Bass Lake.. imho. I think Kim needs to go only because played out conflict can mar a show.. scripted or non scripted. With that said, this past episode of RHOBH was kind of a recap and build up to next weeks finale. http://www.chicagonow.com/confessions-coffeeholic/2015/03/rhobh-recap-confessions-housewife/

I can understand the recast of Sally not taking off but why not just have Sally leave town when Taylor Miller quit. Have Sally be tired of having the whole Brittany drama to contend with.. and just leave town. Then when THomas Ian Griffith left, had him go after Sally and reunite off screen. I do think having Sharlene, Russ, and Iris returning in 1988 provided some great story that played out into the mid 90s. It's a shame that the show stopped having characters from the past come back when it warranted it. WIth that said, I never understood why the show thought Vicky was the more interesting twin to focus on vs. Marley. Did the show ever really delve into how Marley truly felt about the fact that the woman she thought was her big sister was really her mother? To me, that should have given the show plenty of material to work with and made Marley more complex and seen as more then just the good twin. I do think the last year of the show kind of started to do that.. but I don't recall Marley being given that much attention beforehand other then the rape story and being put on trial for Jake's shooting.

It's interesting the changes that the character of Mary Matthews went through based on the writers. It does sound like the actress was more in tune with playing Mary as written by Agnes Nixon. It's difficult being an actor and having a new writer come in and alter a way a character is written/acting without any context. It sounds like she wasn't opposed to the character being a buffer between Steven and Alice being together.. consider the way he kept leading Rachel on as well as her daughter.. but she was opposed to how the character went about keeping them apart.. sounds like Lemay wanted to write Mary more like Liz.. when the original concept was the contrast between Liz and Mary. I do wonder how different the show would have been if they hadn't killed Mary Matthews off.. would the focus have remained on the Matthews family past the early 80s?

Overall I like Rebel Heart.. I like there are more ballads on this particular CD then on MDNA and Hard Candy combined. Best songs: Ghosttown, Messiah, Rebel Heart (loved the acoustic demo, the dance demo, and the final version), Inside Out, Addicted, Iconic, and Wash all over me. Decent songs songs: Body Shop, Veni Vidi Vici, Joan of Arc, Unapolgetic Bitch, Heartbreak City The rest of eh for me. Looking over the above list.. that's my 12 track makeshift album

Nicole was a good actress just wasn't Cassie. I would think losing two men shed love via death would've made anyone hard as nails. Let alone the hardships she went through pre show. Cassie should've stayed the hardened anti heroine.. imho

Eileen was made of win in this episode. Lisa and Kyle.. please observe how a true master deals with delusional fools like Kim and Brandi. http://www.chicagonow.com/confessions-coffeeholic/2015/03/rhobh-recap-amster-damn-slap/

I actually have found myself liking Lydia much better this season thus far. When evil influences are taken away, one can become nicer. I actually much prefer seeing the women in their day to day lives...I thought they Chyka and Lydia scenes on their own were great.. and Pettifleur's scene just shows how mean and clueless she truly is. At least Janet is owning that she is a gossip queen and she's very hilarious as is Gamble. The one thing I like about Gamble thus far is that she will say what she thinks to the person's face and I think her reaction was unscripted. I think the show needs to better balance the group interaction and the day to day aspects of the women. Most of them have careers, i want to have scenes focused on that and their families.

I'm not sure how Laura Wright would have played Tammy's death. Certainly differently for sure. Laura Wright seemed perfect as Cassie.. chip on her shoulder, thought the world owed her something,e tc. I could buy her playing a hardened stripper with a heart of gold buried deep within... I disliked that the show made Cassie into a heroine.. just didn't fit with the essence of Cassie at all nor how Laura Wright played the part. I could never buy Nicole Forster playing the hardened stripper whatsoever.. she seemed much too contained and controlled to play Cassie.. imho. It was like two different characters.

Too much gossiping too soon. I'd much rather the first few episodes of the season show the women in their lives.. and then start to interact them again. Best of both worlds.

Rhoa needs a revamp for.season 8. Bye porsha, Phaedra, and Cynthia. Keep kandi, Kenya, Claudia, nene, and add two new.housewives. Rhony: 8 women is a lot...I would have cut Carole or Kristen from the cast. 7 is pushing it already, 8 is too many to focus on. Too many contrived gatherings and less day to day in a life of a housewife.

I'd forgotten that another actress played Angie pre-Maeve Kincaid. I wonder what she was like as Angie.

last night's RHOBH was mostly drama free.. and actually kind of fun till the end of the episode. Welcome to Amsterdam never sounded so onimous LOL http://www.chicagonow.com/confessions-coffeeholic/2015/02/rhobh-recap-welcome-to-amsterdam/

I agree it's a shame there isn't any early Alice stuff available any longer. I'd love to seen perky teenybopper Alice, and beatnik/artistic Alice as well. It just seems like Irna Phillips and the following writers loved Pat and Missy as the main girls while Alice was just a b-character. Thank gosh Agnes Nixon rescued her.

I actually thought that the first episode nicely caught us up with the veterans.. and nicely introduced both housewives effortlessly. I even liked that Gamble and pettifleur knew each other pre-show.. and that if rumours have been swirling around about Gamble pre-show.. then it makes sense she would defend Gina and be her supporter.. but time will tell. Janet: Such a little gossip and I like that she admitted she and Gina are frenimies. I always got that vibe about them last season. They will bicker, apoligize, and bicker again. Her talking heads were hilarious especially when talking to the cake designer LOL Jackie/Chyka/Lydia: I liked their lunch.. it was a good balance of gossip and actually talking about their private lives. I think when RHOBH films for season 6, they look at this first episode on how to balance the gossip with day to day lives of the women. Lydia: I do think she is partly trying to make amends with Gina due to the backlash she got last season, but I also think they were actually friends.. hence why Gina was more guarded and hurt by her then by Janet/Andrea. Gamble: She seems very eccentric.. kind of like an Australian Shannon Beador.. kinda of. Pettifeur: She seems very in your face and very militant. I'd love for her to appear on some of the american housewife shows. I think she could shade the heck out of all the Atlanta housewives Gina: So far, so good.

I was hoping for the reunion not to be so stressful and toxic, I hope that some fun moments were filmed and will be shown to balance out the toxicity. I was afraid with Andy there that Brandi and Kim would be protected to some degree.. but I'm hearing differently, so that might be good.

The music was too old fashion and the leaves had nothing to do with a light house. I think the opening music during the late 70s should have been more dark and intense.. to signal the more psychological undertones of GL that happened circa 1975 to 1980. Still that leaf opening with the soft music was loads above the disco opening that Marland and co. opted for. I much liked the 1983 to 1986 theme with the sweeping orchestra and even the more sync version.

I do think Swajeski did well with what she was given once Lemay left again. Considering she was a program director at NBC daytime when she took over, I think she did pretty well carrying out the outlines Lemay left (if rumors were true). In fact, I think she did well with Rachel's character considering that a lot of whatever Lemay would have planned for her had to be changed given the unexpected death of Douglass Watson. In fact, she was smart to interact Mitch/Rachel after Mac's death at the same time as Felicia's first love Lucas returned.. and how the Felicia/Mitch marriage ended was very realistic because the two had grown apart and traveled different paths. And I think Iris' character was handled very well under Swajeski as well. Did she write Iris' romance with blue collar Hank, or was that her successor Peggy S?

From what I heard, P & G didn't like Marland's story projections for ATWT long-term and thought that the Dobson's could help revamp the show the same way they helped revamp GL in 1975. Marland said that this was the only time he took over a show that was in such great shape that he didn't really have to do too much to fix it.. He just carried on for a long time with the stories set out by the Dobsons. I can say that I enjoyed watching the 1980 episodes.. but 1981 and 1982 episodes that he wrote were a chore for me. I read an interview once that the Dobson's would write out the outline/treatment of where they wanted the plot to go.. and had the writers write out the scripts. It was more a team effort, and the Dobson's always watched how the actors performed the scripts and would have the writers modify future scripts if an actor or actress were playing it differently (which I suspect is why Holly was eventually redeemed with the recast in the mid 70s). Marland was more the type that was more hands on and less a team effort.. from what I've read. I just don't think GL was the right fit for him and it was probably a blessing he only last 2 1/2 years on the show before he quit in a huff leaving all these byzantine stories with no resolution.

I think once Marland died, no one could really write the Snyders properly and the family should have been phased out. Unlike the Reardons on GL, I never got the sense that the Snyders were a nice family and seemed more toxic then loving to me. I actually liked the Reardon's kitchen and the bar/boarding house setting. It was a better way to connect the family to GL and keep them connected. I think the Snyder's living on a farm with that ugly set (which survived till the end sadly) isolated them in a way from the rest of the show. I just couldn't see characters just popping by for a cup of coffee.. nor could I see them just popping by the other houses for a cup of coffee/gossip.. etc. It would have been better to have them live in a working class part of Oakdale.. and Marland could have still had the whole haves vs the have nots. Perhaps have Emma being a single mother living in the family home, struggling to keep up with payments because of hard times.. and maybe have a greasy spoon type of diner, or bar, for the Snyders to run.. maybe by the hospital perhaps. Maybe where the doctors/nurses go when off their shift. Maybe they would have always gone there.. just wasn't seen or mentioned much. Just my two cents.

I always thought perhaps the Snyders had a diner, with them living in a house in the working class part of Oakdale. Would have kept them more connected to the canvas. I didn't like that people went to the Snyder's for Christmas, everyone should have gone to the Hughes house.. the actual anchor of the show.

I always thought that the Snyders were too isolated from the rest of the show especially in the later years. The first few years they were on the show, they seemed connected to the rest of the show.. but as time went on, that changed. Perhaps they should have burned the farm down and moved the family into a house in town.

I think Aunt Mary was introduced near the end of Douglas Marland's outlines, and I don't his successors knew quite how to write for all the characters so they started to be eased out.. starting with Hutch/Debbie/Woody/Aunt Mary.. and I think Emma's fiance Ned shortly thereafter.