Soaplovers

I feel for anyone that feels they have no other option than to end their life, but I also found her to be very selfish and superficial. Still... one of the best soap opera esque books I've ever read. I might have to resume reading classics and/or books written before the 2010s because here in the states, the quality of books has declined. I prefer female and male written books from the 2000s and earlier because story came before message back in the day. That being said, I can't help but always look forward to Riley Sager's newest release (the one for 2026 sounds promising) and I do like Emily Henry books though her last book wasn't as good as her previous books (i.e. Book Lovers, People you meet on Vacation, etc).

Bill Spencer Sr on B & B was basically a Alan Spaulding type so Jim Storm could have worked as an Alan Spaulding type. Ed Bauer in the 1970s and thereafter never seemed like he should have been played by someone with leading man looks. The reason Mart, and to a lesser extent Peter, worked as Ed was because they didn't have leading man looks and played up certain parts of Ed's personality that weren't perfect. The Mid 80s Ed (Chuck Tyler AMC) was all wrong for the part and seemed too much of a generic good guy instead of the more tortured Ed Bauer of the other Ed's. When watching Peter Simon's Ed (the one I grew up with), I saw that his Ed was written a bit more balanced and with a bit of humor when Long was in charge. He had good chemistry with both Ellen Dolan and Ellen Parker as Maureen...and it helped make Ed and Mo a tentpole couple.. and I also admit he had decent chemistry with Hilard Edson as Eve as well. His chemistry with MG as Holly was more of a friendship chemistry than romantic. When Long and Curlee were head-writing, Ed/Mo were end game with even Holly telling Ed that he belonged to Mo and even telling Mo the same thing. The scenes I've seen of Mart's Ed show that he had good chemistry with Lenore's Rita and MG's Holly. I know that Ed and Vanessa had a brief relationship post-Rita and pre-Maureen.. but was that when Mart was still playing Ed or was that when Peter Simon was playing Ed? @DRW50 In regards to Peggy, I think had Fran Myers opted not to leave GL when she did.. that the whole Roger story would have been different since Peggy represented the good/light that Roger was striving to be like and be with. Once she had had enough and left him (due to the actress leaving the show), any hope of redemption in Roger was lost and it lead to the toxic/stormy marriage with Holly and the affair he had with a young Hilary Bauer and the flirtation he had with Diane. When she came back in 1979, I'm sure the show had her at the nurses station and trying to figure out where to place her next.. but the writer change happened so she got lost in the shuffle.

I have a feeling that the Ashley/Derek/Grayson thing will tie into whatever Jacob is going undercover for. And I wonder if the twist will be that Grayson is the one we should keep our eye on and not Derek.

@DeeVee The actress that played Peggy was on a Locher Room interview and she was asked if her leaving the show was her choice, or the show's choice. She said the first time she left in 1977 was her choice because she and her hubby moved out west.. but when things didn't work out, she was bought back full time in 1979 and given next to nothing to do before she was let go the second time. I think had Fran M opted to stay beyond 1977, the whole Roger story would have gone in a totally different direction because the Roger/Peggy connection and marriage seemed to still have a lot more mileage left in it that probably would have been explored in 1978 especially with the whole Ed/Rita/Holly situation ongoing. When she came back in 1979, it was an odd time on the show where new stories had developed since she had left in late 1977 (The Phillip story, The Amanda story, etc) that there wasn't a place to fit her in. Had the Dobson's stayed beyond December 1979.. maybe they would have figured out where to place her.. but who knows.

Rewatching the Friday episode, some interesting little things stuck out to me. Ashley/Derek/Grayson: The show made a good decision nixing the Andre/Ashley thing, but it hasn't resolved the main issue with this situation... how isolated it still is from the rest of the show. Just make Ashley Joey's daughter and that would connect her even more to the main plotline. Mona/Jan: I like that the Have Not's have upgraded from breakfast at Orphey Jeans to Uptown (I think that's the name of it). Kial: I'm wondering if we were led to believe he was being bought on for Nicole.. and the date with Nicole with just a red herring. What if the show is intending him to be for Vanessa long term? Izaiah: Unpopular opinion, but I think his job at the university is more fulfilling than something superficial like modeling. Eva/SPS: Interesting parallels that the writers were trying to make between the two women. Eva stating her giving up on a relationship with Tomas has resulted in her meeting a new guy and encouraging her mother to give up on Ted and focus on Marcel. Interesting that SPS seems to think the Tomas and Ted situations are different when they seem to be similar.

SPS/Leslie must be crazy, because she's getting in Shanice's face when Shanice has seem her in the past posing as a nurse in disguise. She be tempting fate stepping up to Shanice like that.

Sounds like she was being quiet fired and so she decided to quit instead of waiting to be fired...to leave on her own terms. In her defense, she isn't off base especially since the character of Jennifer seemed to replace Elizabeth in Mike's orbit while Jackie and Hope seemed to be handling the Phillip parenting. So I guess Elizabeth spent a lot of 1980 in a trance trying to find herself so she could be a good parent to Phillip... and than decides on a whim to leave Phillip with Justin/Jackie without even telling Phillip that they were his real parents.

It's called Ladies of London and a man is in the cast? Um.... well it's Bravo and intelligence and depth wasn't something Bravo has been known to have for at least twenty years or so

Hayley was in a fine form at the end of the episode. About time she start stepping up LOL If Vanessa wants to make it possible for men/women to have affairs.. she needs to deal with the fallback. Can't pretend to be a girl boss and than not deal with the risk of getting pushback. Can we all agree that Bill is Dani's addiction? If it isn't alcohol or sex with Andre... it's Bill that's on her mind.

Linda Dano as Elizabeth Spaulding? The same Elizabeth Spaulding that was almost in a zombie like trance during her time on the show? Yeah, no. Unpopular opinion, but Dano was kind of over-rated. Her only good character was Felicia and the character had to be changed because she couldn't play Felicia in the way she was intended to be. @DeeVee I'm kind of glad that Marland didn't have the opportunity to write Roger long term.. he probably would have done the whole therapy BS like he did with Josh on ATWT.. and have Holly & Rita having to face their rapist on a daily basis. I don't recall how he wrote Rita vs how the Dobson's wrote her... but I think the Dobson's did a good job with writing someone that was insecure at her core and made mistakes out of that insecurity and having to live with the consequences with her actions. It's why Evie was a good counterpart for her to interact with.. someone that loved her and accepted her. Marland didn't seem to write Rita in that same way. .but I could be mistaken.

I didn't read too much into Vanessa and Kial except that it was a chemistry test. I truly think Shanice/Ted were a chemistry test as well especially once the current actor took over playing the role and he didn't have chemistry with Daphnee so whatever plans the show had for Nicole/Ted/SPS had to be changed since he had chemistry with neither actress unlike the individual playing him beforehand. Naomi is going to keep this news to herself as long as possible and Jacob is going to keep his work to himself.. and this is going to lead to more miscommunications between the two. If they truly wanted to push the envelope, the show should have Naomi discover she's pregnant and because she fears passing the gene on and not wanting to be a parent.. she has an abortion without telling Jacob. If ATWT could do a story like in the early 90s with Kirk/Ellie, certainly that can be adapted and done in 2026. Ted and Kat are both right and both wrong. Ted's right that he shouldn't turn his back on his newly discovered daughter because she shouldn't be blamed for having a very misguided mother and Kat's right that she shouldn't be expected to warmly welcome a new sister.. especially one that set out to hurt her family and also slept with his boyfriend. It's best that they agree to disagree. Carleton kind of gives me Pick me vibes... but not sure if that is due to the writing or the actor's take on the role.

The thing about modern day soaps are that it's difficult for them to create and develop a true blue couple like in the old days. I'm not sure if viewers are different nowadays vs in the past.. or if modern day writers are unsure of how to create and nurture a new couple with decent level stakes. Perhaps the five remaining soap operas and their writing team should go purchase a few modern day romance novels by writers like Emily Henry or Jasmine Guillory to see how to create a couple and pace their story with stakes added. Just to get the idea of how to pace and foster a new couple.

In defense of Long, she wasn't the one to introduce Johnny nor his annoying kid sister.. those characters were created during her time away from the show. She at least knew to write off the kid sister and change Frank D's character into Frank Cooper and replace the annoying kid sister with Harley. And she did try to liven Johnny up by pairing him with Roxie, or were they paired before she came back as head-writer? I don't think the cancer did him, nor that relationship any favors. @DeeVee In defense of Marland and the Phillip story.. when he took over, he probably had to focus on the Roger story right away most likely because Michael Z was leaving (I think I read somewhere Marland was bummed because he really wanted to write Roger). And by the time he probably would have been ready to start focusing back on the Phillip story, Cindy Pickett was pretty much ready to leave the show so he probably thought he needed to find a new Jackie and get the audience to accept her first so he pushed back that story and decided to build on the Amanda story first. @DRW50 In regards to Barbara, I think having her run the restaurant that her son Andy bought for her was an effective way of keeping her in the mix and giving her purpose outside of worrying about her kids... but once MG quit and the character of Andy was written in a corner, her character became expendable. A question I had was that in reading write-ups of Vanessa in 1980, it said that she remembered Andy because of how he up and left Trish Lewis so am I to believe that she knew of Billy Lewis long before 1983? Another thing I never understood was once Jackie officially was killed off in mid 1982.. why the show didn't think to have Sara and Justin interact with one another since the two had a past with one another and Jackie had sabotaged both of their attempts at being together in the past. It certainly would have given Justin something more to do in the first half of 1983 other than trying to date Helena with Evie accidentally coming between them due to her own lonliness after Ben had left town.

I'm intrigued by Anthony Lucente, not because of their previous writing credits.. but their previous career as a casting director. They were a casting director on the RHO Dallas in the first two seasons, and other reality shows in addition to the Hulu version of AMC as a writer.

I had a feeling either Joey or Marcel would have something on SPS/Leslie.. I'm going to assume it's that, but now that Joey has blackmailed her.. the gloves are off. Vanessa was acting more like Vanessa of the Guza era today. Chelsea... I had heard a rumor that the bible had mentioned her character was going to be into the snow and other party favors... but it was smart of the show to hold off on that until having two traumatic situations (kidnapping and the gene scare) happened. Her manic energy today is one way that PTSD can manifest and it looks as though she's having an episode of that today. Nicole taking her time in regards to romance/men is so Nicole. Her facial expressions at finding out about Vanessa's new business were priceless. SPS/Leslie has Hayley's # and if Hayley were smart... she'd want her as an ally instead of as an enemy. Greg Vaughn was on... and he's still dreamy :) I wonder how Naomi will navigate things going forward.

I think Sara was done for as a character once she was saddled with Adam and none of the actors playing TJ stayed on long term. Had TJ been properly written for, I think she might have survived past Christmas 1982. I think Barbara's days were numbered the moment that MG quit as Holly since it looked like Marland was slowly rebuilding the Norris family with Andy coming back to town in mid 1980 with Barbara and Holly a bit at odds over his intentions. I understood why Andy was chosen instead of Ken since he was a clean slate.. but the character became too one note and irredeemable too quickly by mid 1981 and was written out. With that said, when looking at 1979/1980 episodes... Barbara seemed almost not needed especially with Bert there.

Honestly, I always thought Mike should have been the main Bauer family line that carried on... and it seemed as though that was the original intent with him and Leslie until Lynne Adams opted to leave the role. Based on what I've seen of Mike with other contenders, I always assumed that Mike and Elizabeth would have probably made a go of it as a married couple had the Dobson's remained... but given how emotionally detached she was and in her own world.. I think the marriage would have been doomed. Which of Mike's love interests would have served as his partner as tentpole character after Leslie? I'm curious what others think. Mart's Ed was going through the ringer with Holly and Rita, but it did seem as though Marland was slanting it where Ed and Holly were going to be end game until MG quit in late 1980. He had chemistry with both Rita and Holly that was romantic... while I thought Simon's had good chemistry with Dolan and Parker and had great friendship chemistry with Holly (though I have to admit I did enjoy him and Eve as a couple though). Also, the hunky Ed (Chuck Tyler of AMC fame) wasn't Ed at all... and I have a feeling that if Simon had remained as Ed that the whole Ed/Claire thing wouldn't have happened.

I think the interaction between Vanessa and SPS would have worked better if that meeting to discuss properties had been in Vanessa's office. That way, when SPS threatened to tell people that Vanessa was being a bigot against her for not being the 'right black'.... it would have carried more weight had this meeting been in Vanessa's office 1:1 without people being around them.

It's a cute living room set, perhaps the other sets can be redressed to reflect other locations that would require a set such as: Vanessa's real estate office that can also serve as a meeting place for Joey/Randy and also serve as a place for Vanessa/Joey to conduct 'business'. They could redress either Nicole or Bill's office for that. Boo on Dani/Bill kissing. While the performers have chemistry, we also have to remember that this man treated her like dirt with his various affairs and then ditched her.

I remember seeing that episode online, but I guess the show figured that she was either too 'old' or too 'smart' to fall for his charms. I think another thing that helped humanize Jackie was her friendship/mentorship of Evie Stapleton. If a sweet individual like Evie could see the good in Jackie.. than so could the audience. A character like Evie doesn't really exist on soaps nowadays. She was sweet and saw the best in everyone, but she also had a quiet strength and spirit that made her a unique presence in the Dobson/Marland era. It's a shame that she was phased out at the start of the Long/Ryder era especially since she'd been the only positive motherly influence in Phillip's life. As you've said, Long really set the template for Phillip's character and direction in life when he found out who his real parents were. I think the fact that he found out after Jackie was died added to the Greek tragic element that was his character and direction. His overly controlling and domineering personality when it came to his marriages and children made perfect sense because he had no control in his formative years and once he found out the truth about himself.. he was determined never to lose that control ever again. And I agree that maybe Marland was less invested in the Phillip story because there was nothing he could add to the story so he pushed the reveal down the road while he figured that he could do something about the Amanda story because the mom hadn't been introduced (other than the woman in the veil) by the Dobson's before he took over. And in regards to the Holly situation, his first order had to be to end the Roger story in his first few months and than sidelined Holly until he could figure out where to go with her... and I think had MG had another year left on her contract.. he probably would have had an idea of where Holly would have gone in 1981.

I love that even though the book is called Anna Karenina, that the book is about so much more than her. She is but a victim of 19th Century Russian society while the other story involving Kitty has a different outcome than what befalls Anna.

As I had said before, I had wished to see the whole Stephanie/Pamela/Nicole story from the late 60s because it sounded like an interesting twisted story of resentment and revenge. Plus, it would have been interesting to see Alice Hirson and Ms. Dailey playing different types of characters than what they were better known to play in later roles. When I viewed the Sheldon era, I think his first story (ISIS) was a wonderful umbrella that affected the whole canvas.. and utilized every character in one way or another. Maybe it wasn't as good as Slesar would have written, but I think it worked for 1983. The problem for the first half of 1984 was that there were multiple stories with little to no overlap. The Standing Oak story had potential, but let's face it.. .a story like that will never play well even if it offered some hard truths about the states and it's past. The campus story relied on a newbie actress carrying it which had little connection to the rest of the show. The Chris stalking story that climaxed with a Wait Until Dark climax was the best of those stories and did seem to tie more of the show together. The two week break because of the Olympics seemed to soft reset the show and it returned with the locked room murder mystery of Logan Swift with Raven on trial, Alicia playing her hand to keep Sky/Raven apart, Chris being the main person to solve the case, and a good resolution that made sense. Even the mysterious Liz Coral with the skull seemed random at first until it played out in a satisfying way with the return of Laurie and the Karrs being involved in the story. The Raven story was cut short due to the show cancellation which led SG to come back early from her maternity leave to finish the story out and conclude it. To this day, the Wonderland Ave story and the hint that Laurie was going to find her son that were introduced in the final week made me love that mysteries would continue to develop in Monticello even though we wouldn't get to see it for ourselves. If P & G was serious about reviving a soap.. this one would be the one to revive.

Just think, had the show not been expanded to an hour.. we most likely wouldn't have gotten the Spauldings nor the Phillip story. I liked that we met both Justin and Jackie long before the Phillip element came into play. Justin was on a good five to six months before Jackie came into the picture.. and Jackie was on for several months before mention of the Spauldings and her 'aborted/lost' child came to the forefront. Had the show stayed a half hour, the Dobsons probably would have just focused on either a Justin/Mike/Jackie triangle or a Justin/Mike/Sara/Jackie quadangle. Sara lost her place in that story with the Spaulding additions while she was spun off onto another bad man pairing before being made a talk to character.

My late mom was watching the show during the early 1970s through the early 1990s so she remembered the Phillip story quite well and even said that even if he'd been raised by Justin and/or Jackie.. he still would have had darker traits based on how bad both Justin/Jackie were in their early years. Being raised by Alan just bought those negative traits out into the open. Based on what my mom had told me about early Jackie... she was a highly spirited and manipulative daughter of a well known and wealthy doctor that spoiled her. She was known to take whatever she wanted no matter if it belonged to her or not and she did so with Justin when she stole him away from Sara. When she saw Justin doing to her what she'd done to Sara, she decided to make him pay by keeping his child away from him and decided to basically sell her child to Alan, who wanted to not burden his wife Elizabeth with the news their own baby had been still born. I think Alan did it mostly to keep Elizabeth distracted while he played around.... that type of behavior seemed to repeat itself during his marriage to Hope and how A-M kept her occupied and out of his hair. Jackie realized she'd made a mistake and befriended Elizabeth and kept in Phillip's life throughout his childhood. It was she knew she'd be staying in Springfield long term is when she insisted Alan/Elizabeth come to Springfield so she could remain in their lives on a more consistent basis. I think Jackie's character changed/evolved partly based on Cindy's take on the character and also because she'd realized her mistakes plus also being married to Alan changed her.

IMHO, Derek turning to the dark side has most likely been in the plans since day 1 of the show. I know someone in this board mentioned there was an interview they saw where it was mentioned that the first six months were mapped out when production started and that the show pretty much followed those plan. So when I looked at episodes 120/121 (the six month mark), I saw that the plan was still for Andre/Ashley to be end game with the implication being that he was sticking with Dani because she needed him after Chelsea's kidnapping and she was sticking with Derek because he couldn't walk. The scene was presented/acted as if they were being kept apart due to obligations and misunderstandings.. not because they weren't interested in one another. I think had Andre/Ashley been popular with viewers, the whole Derek faking his recovery angle would have played out a lot longer, but because he and Dani were so popular together, the story ended suddenly. Now the show is regrouping by establishing Ashley as a single woman slowly getting back out into the dating field while a jealous Derek is looking to sabotage it. Let's see if the writers actually follow through on this new set up, or if they'll drop it like they've dropped so many promising threads when it comes to Ashley thus far.