Soaplovers

It's called being pro-active.. something that soap operas have failed to do in the last twenty to twenty five years. The Duprees are not a compelling family.. .a lot of telling and not showing. I'm actually more invested in the non-Dupree characters then the Duprees right now.

That's been an issue with me... the lack of a cohesive 'Have Not' crowd that has focus other than Leslie/Eva. I would beef up Jan, Mona, Laura, Joey, and few other male characters.. and not just be out to overthrow the Duprees.. but co-existing and broadening the scope of the show since the show is called Beyond the Gates. I think the set up the show has with everything revolving around the Duprees will become predictable especially if they always win. It would be like Victor Newman on Y & R for 40+ years.. always winning, hardly ever losing. With MVJ/Guza.. both trained under that mindset... I fear that will happen. I've always heard from a performer that is playing a character like Leslie/Dana that you have to find the victim/hurt beneath the surface in order to play a villain/villainess... and I think that's why I enjoy watching her.. because she brings so much more to the part than what the writers put on the page.

Brooke was a commercial mainstay back in the day.. she probably made more money and treated better doing that then how she was sort of treated by the show during her time on the show. Ironically.. Kelly was born and raised in the Chicago suburbs

Perhaps Lujack/Beth should have been the other couple involved in that location story with Tony/Annabelle instead of Claire/Fletcher or Jim. Since Lujack was a Spaulding, the whole fallout could have caused him to further distance himself from having anything to do with Spaulding and Alexandra and as a result, pushes Beth away and potentially back in Phillip's direction. Out of the three Pam Long major mystery/action stories in her first stint.. the fishing mystery story was probably the best... although I did kind of enjoy parts of Infinity and the cabin mystery stories as well.

Word of advice... you have to view the show without the 2025 lenses.. which means you need to 86 the misandry.

That's because India, or the India MKA ended up playing, was created due to the fact that both she and Kristi Farrell were liked by TPTB, but the part they both read for didn't exactly fit either one of them so the show created two brand new characters for both actresses to play (India and Roxie) and opted not to cast the character they were intending to cast (A cousin of Beth's). I think that's why the show seemed to struggle at first with how to write both India and Roxie in their first months on the show because the characters weren't ever intended to exist. And yes.. Grant A had a great body... but I didn't find him hot when he was playing Phillip.. only when he was playing Alec on AMC which baffles me since it was the same actor in both parts LOL

I know that Secret Storm had moved back to the 4/3 PM timeslot in the final months on air, so it's possible that they were trying to employ new techniques/elements to lure the teen demographic. If that episode was around November/December 1973, I do wonder if the owners (AHS) were still trying to shop the show to other networks still.. or if they had accepted that the show was going to officially go off the air in Feb 1974 at the time of this episode airing.

The penthouse was my favorite set... and it changed hands from Margo to Draper/April to Miles/Nicole then to just Miles... before he opted to give that beautiful place for that drab house with the even more drab Beth. That was a jump the shark moment for me LOL

So Cat wasn't a creation of Ron C.. but something that the strike writers generated? Perhaps the new writers will give her some layers and purpose on the show that doesn't revolve around Chad since isn't he on his way out next year?

Anita should have saved the mother speech considering the dismal job she did raising Dani... but compared to Silk Press Sheila, I guess she would be mother of the year. For me, I would preferred longer scenes of Nicole/Ted, Smitty/Martin, & Eva/Kat... and not done the whole Dupree Mafia scenes. The only Dupree I only really care about is Nicole... and having their reactions diluted from Nicole finally being center stage. Unpopular opinion: Anita singing was kinda cheesy and cringe LOL

What Kat's dress reminds me of

A talented soap opera writing team would accept the challenge of keeping Eva as Ted and Silk Press Dana's daughter... and having her co-exist amongst the classist Duprees. However, the writing team seems pre-disposed to the easy way out so Eva will end up being Nicole's daughter... when we have far too many Dupree women in that generation and no hetero Dupree men in that generation. I'm tuning in now to watch the episode since I anticipate it being a stellar episode... but I'm hoping that May sweeps will start to move away from the B & B tendency of focusing on only one main tale at a time and also start beefing up the non-Dupree cast members and their stories. It's kind of why I don't mind Derek and Ashley since at least they're not connected to the Duprees... plus I find myself liking Vanessa/Doug also for that same reason.

A degree does not make one an expert at their job, it just shows that you can follow directions from a technical standpoint. It doesn't mean that they're creative. JFP was all about the look of a show without considering that technical beauty can only carry a show so far if there is nothing interesting to go along with it. Equality means calling out flaws equally in both genders.

I did notice a decline in the quality of the performers being cast once Betty R vacated/retired from her position. We would have been spared from the nightmares of some of the castings that dominated the show in the last decade or so of the soap. JFP was an example of someone, no matter the gender, who had no business being in the position they were in.

Within the Dupree family, I predict Vernon/Anita will be conflicted about what to do about Bill and his role in the whole Ted/Silk Press Sheila situation... especially since Bill knows where the particular bone about Martin is buried. Dani, Chelsea, and Naomi's reactions to what Bill possibly did isn't hard to guess.. but Hayley's reactions will be interesting to hear. Especially given her recent pregnancy scare.. she might not be so much on Bill's side, or she'll totally surprise us and be totally on Bill's side. Either way, I think Martin's secret will be the main focus in May sweeps.. with the fall out of the Eva secret playing out in the background... while the Joey/Vanessa/Doug thing continues to boil/develop.

Beth #1 being recast right before she and Eric come face to face was jarring. We spent the first 50 episodes or so getting to know Beth and see her rapport with her kids, co worker, and even her mother in law. Her Beth seemed content with her kids and job as caterer, but you could tell she also had a faraway look that you just knew meant that she dreamed of what life would have been like had she and Eric gotten together. Plus, she came across as someone that you could see eventually moving into more wealthy circles based on her demeanor. Seeing Beth always looking off into space probably helped fuel Brooke's dreams of wealth because she saw how unfulfilled her mother was. Once Beth was recast starting in episode 52, that whole vibe completely changed and Beth #2 seemed to almost like living the middle class life.. and that her Beth would feel ill at ease around wealth, etc.

I know there was one brief scene in the summer of 1989 where Lillian did mention Calla.. but in relation to her past relationship to Ross and it was to Roger while he was a patient at Cedars. I think he was trying to pump her for information on Ross.. and for some reason, Calla's name came up. I could see perhaps Beth mentioning that her mother Lillian was visiting Calla.. but not exactly giving any sort of details as to the going ons in Calla's life off screen.

I was bummed that 2.0 ended because Mcpherson (headwriter) had really set up some interesting stories and we never got to find out where the stories would go once they resumed production on 'season 2'. I remembered the EP (Ginger Smith) and a lot of the stars gave a lot of credit to McPherson being able to come in on very short notice and come up with stories/plots (I think it was a very short turnaround time of a few weeks). It was nice that she got to redeem herself after her year long Days stint was not well reviewed/liked.

I do agree that a revival of EON would work, if it doesn't fall into doing all of the typical soap opera tropes... which it became guilty of in the final few years of the show with the over abundance of Raven/Sky at the expense of the actual detectives, police, etc. And I know it was mentioned earlier that Raven had lost any true connections on the show with the death of her on screen mother, and the loss of April/Draper/Deborah.. and I do agree with that. I actually thought the show would have done something with the Shelley character that could have connected her to the Raven character. There were a few scenes where the two would have scenes and size one another up before they would go their separate ways.. so I assumed perhaps they would have been revealed as half-siblings and/or perhaps cousins. Alas.. not to be.

Part of the reason that Courtney worked at OLTL was because the show had an actual character for her to play. One that was somewhat different than her character on AW, and after the way she was treated over at AW.. it had to have been nice to be courted onto a new soap that actually valued your contributions.

The show has finally figured out the correct scene to have at the end of the episode. The one thing I loved about the show today was that we got a pretty decent length scene of Silk Press Sheila at the celebration without any cutaways. It reminded me of an old school soap opera scene that would run several moments (i.e. Renee's long speech going after the upstanding citizens of Salem on Days in 1983 before her murder). I think Anita and Silk Press Sheila would be evenly matched.. she would be the one person that Anita would have to work to get the best of. I do agree that Derek/Ashley were probably cut from the episode.. and maybe their scenes will be used in a different episode. The scenes that were included (Bill/Hayley and Vanessa/Doug) had something to do with the scenes going on at the party. Unpopular opinion: I actually prefer Bill with Hayley.. .they make a good couple.

My late mom remembered Jordan Clarke as Tim Ryan.. and she said he was vastly different than Billy. She also said she remembered that Rita and Evie were more tangled up with Tim when both came on the show.. while he ended up leaving with another character. Then Rita was moved into the Ed/Holly orbit taking on the scheming traits of Holly (this was around the time of the original Holly leaving), and Evie got pulled into Ben's orbit.. but not sure if this was during his brief relationship with Hope or not.

Team Silk Press Sheila! I hope she topples the mighty Duprees because that family has it coming. The spoilers that were posted last week for today's episode had Ashley/Derek mentioned, but as we saw, they weren't featured at all. Was that part of the spoiler a mistake, or did the show edit them out. Nice to see a bit of Vanessa/Doug.. and I'm fascinated by Vanessa's perspective in regards to Dani/Bill's marriage vs Nicole/Ted's marriage. While this was a good episode, it does highlight that the show is lacking non-Dupree related characters.

The last scene of the final episode did show that life on Wisteria Lane would continue on once the toxic housewives moved away. It won't be as good as the original, but I'm intrigued to see what these new people do with the concept.

This underscores the biggest issue that the show needs to work on. The majority of the characters on the show are all related to one another, which is why we have that B&B esque Dani/Andre hook up situation