Soaplovers

I enjoyed that other stories/characters were focused on that weren't tied to the cancer story. And Friday's episode had a new breakdown writer.. one of the long term veterans of breakdown writing that was on Y & R during the Bill Bell era. The one thing I wish this soap would fix would be to stop having just Dupree only gatherings. When people say that this show has P & G elements, I can't totally agree because most of the gatherings seem be Dupree only events when the great soaps like GL & AT& T were all about the community gatherings/events. Also, I see Derek looks to be resuming his gradual path to being a darker character. It's been in the works on and off going all the way back to the first time he had a frantic/jealous look on his face the second he laid eyes on Ashley/Andre interacting with one another. His scenes with Jan told me that he's playing the remorseful guy that is telling Jan about Ashley's new man out of 'concern', but I think it was done in order to cause a bit of trouble for Ashley post break up. I have to say I find this gender reversal to be refreshing since this type of play is usually reserved for the third party female character as seen from infamous 3rd party female characters like Kristen Dimera, Sami Brady, Annie Dutton, etc.

To me, Tangie should have been Ken Norris and Janet Mason's daughter.. which would have made her Holly's niece and Blake's cousin. MW actually fit in well in the Springfield Journal orbit.. and had she been Emily Norris, she could have still had the interaction/conversations with Roger without the weird foster father backstory. I think Lucy's mother not being anyone that was in Springfield was probably for the best. I liked that some of the families didn't totally mix and were kept separate. In regards to Blake/A-M, I think once Rick Hearst took over as A-M.. it became less believable that she was taking advantage of him because he looked more mature than the actor that he was replacing. When SS was playing Blake, I liked the friends with benefits with the hope of more element that went on between Blake & A-M. When Liz K took over as Blake, the whole dynamic between Blake/A-M changed and they became friends with no hang ups on his end nor her end toward one another. I recall a scene where A-M was pouring his heart out to Blake about Eleni and it made her realize in that moment that she wasn't jealous nor resentful that he didn't feel the same way about her that he did for Eleni. She also understood where he was coming from because he was in the same position with Eleni as she had been with him a year or so earlier. Blake and her friendships with Frank & A-M were abandoned by 1995. It was as if the second she married Ross, her whole orbit had changed and she hardly interacted with either Frank nor A-M after 1995 until the show finally wised up and paired her with Frank near the end. I had no idea that Blake/Frank had been friends and had also hooked up going all the way back to when SS played Blake. However, there were scenes with Blake/Frank hanging out, going for a dip, listening to one another,.. and it really gave SS's Blake more layers. I also remember one significant friendship scene between the two when in early 1994 when Blake came over to be a shoulder for Frank to lay on after the whole Eleni/Julie situation blew up. She said she had no judgment for whatever he was going to tell her... listed to him, and than asked a very valid question after he was done venting to her. She asked if he enjoyed the attention Julie was paying him and if perhaps he felt something for her back in return. I don't recall how Frank answered it, but I think it did make him do a little soul searching about how things went south between him and Eleni. @alwaysAMC Reading your write-ups of 1998 and the whole Blake/Ben/Ross situation made me remember being a young teen during that era and having a few of my friends coming over to hang out. The moment Blake was on screen in the wheelchair, my friends took notice and watched her for a few moments before turning to me and asking 'what's her story?'. And they sat down and watched that story in particular because they were fascinated by Blake. It's interesting to me that when I was in college in the early 00s that I got several people to switch to watching Guiding Light... and it was all because of the Blake/Ross/Tory story that was going on. The show never really understood the appeal she and Ross had.

I remember Passions & Sunset Beach would do special pre-emption episodes during their briefs runs. Sometimes it would be two characters recapping all the plotlines as a way to catch potential new viewers up, or it was a recap episode based on particular stories per day (Sunset Beach did that). It's good promotion and any promotion is good promotion in my book.

I had heard Ron C and Chris Dunn were leaving the breakdown writer team. I'm intrigued to see if another new breakdown writer will be joining Ms. Slater or if Mike Montgomery is the other new breakdown writer.

The upside is that people are actually talking about Ashley now LOL As someone that understands old school traditional soap opera 101, I think MVJ was trying to show with Ashley someone that was a latchkey kid that spent most of her time alone because her single mother was working constantly. So she didn't get exposure to other peers nor had the benefit of having a healthy male role model for her to look up to. So when she became a young adult, she decided to become a nurse because she wanted to help people and also decided that Derek was someone that she should settle with. Because she never really dated much pre-Derek nor had many friends growing up.. she came across a bit awkward and Mary Sue. Now that she's been working as a nurse for several months, had the brief dating situation with Andre, and realized Derek wasn't her end game long after Andre moved, she's become a bit more mature and has her priorities straight. Hence this sudden glow up that we're seeing with Ashley and her suddenly being more forward with this new guy. MVJ and co seem to be operating more on the show and not telling aspect with Ashley so I'm only guessing on the thought process with this character over the past 200+ episodes.

The Holly/Olivia thing could have worked if it was the town assuming they were becoming a couple with Holly questioning if perhaps she was drawn to women due to her bad luck/choices with men... and finally coming to terms that she let a good man (Ed) go due to choices she herself made. However, I don't think doing the Children's Hour set up would have worked because it would have either diminished Holly or Olivia. In regards to Labine, all I'm going to say is that you can be a good and talented head writer... but sometimes your style doesn't always fit onto a particular show. She was too New York/East coast for a show like GL.. which was more of a Midwest type of show. It's just like how Long worked as a head-writer on soaps like Texas, SFT, and GL.. but she struggled on Santa Barbara and OLTL. Talented headwriter, but the tones of both SB and OLTL were not a fit for what was strong in.

I actually kind of understood it. Hayley managed to get the love of her life Bill to leave her, so in a weird way... Hayley lives rent free in her head.

SPS/Marcel give me Intolerable Cruelty vibes (the 2003 George Clooney & Catherine Zeta Jones movie) in their scenes with one another. Curious to see if they'll find out the others secrets and try to one up each other in this... me hopes so :) Pamela was written like an actual character today and Cady was able to find a good balance between the more outlandish elements and the supportive friend elements... and her transatlantic accent has settled in nicely. Nice to see Vanessa/Nicole being honest with one another. Bill... you do understand SPS doesn't like you... right?

Slesar wasn't as good in his final year or so and it was time for a change. Sheldon wasn't too bad and he got better as time went on.

I remember rumors in 1999/2000 when Edmund was coming onto the show was that he was supposed to be tied to India... and with her money troubles, it would have tracked if he was the person responsible for her money troubles due to bad investments, etc. Shame the show didn't think to tie him to India... or even to have India interact with people outside of Blake, Ben, and Ross.

To me, I wish the show would stop trying to make Chelsea/Madison happen because they do not have chemistry and they seem like an after thought to the writers.

Wow! I didn't see this coming. Usually shows are cutting their older veteran characters, not the next generation of characters. I'm sure we'll be seeing their last episodes right as the holiday season commences in October/November 2026.

Ashley and Greyson aren't exactly super-couple material, but I will say that for a first day.. the two do seem to have a rapport and we'll see if this will lead to anything or not. Carlton/Nicole... I don't see the chemistry. When's dreamy Mr Vaughn coming back onto the show again?

If I recall, Dinah was mentioned during the custody story in 1993/1994. There was a small arc where Dinah was preparing to come for a visit to see Ross while Blake was nervous to meet Dinah, but at the last second, Dinah wasn't on the plane. As it later turned out, Vanessa had asked Dinah not to come because she feared that if Dinah came to visit while she was in the custody battle with Bridget.. that it would reflect poorly on her. I recall Ross was upset with Vanessa for doing that... but it would explain why Dinah seemed to have a chip on her shoulder about Vanessa when she did finally blow into town in early 1995.

Finally... the show has confirmed my initial theory as to why Naomi has been a moody bitch for so long. Her listing all the traumas of 2025 confirmed that she's repressed her true feelings and it has caused her to explode. Ashley continues to work in supportive friend mode. Hayley and Tomas had a good interaction.. perhaps he smartens up and realizes the scheming that Hayley is doing and gets himself hurt/killed for being smart for once.

Part of the reason was because Laken was played by a subpar actress when the show debuted. The show did try to revive the Laken/Ted thing when she was recast later on, but the actress wasn't able to make much head-way with the various 180's her character was written.

Like you said @Khan Kathleen Noone preferred playing parts like Claudia... but like you said, her strength was playing mother/daughter scenes. Not only was she at her best opposite Galina as Kate... but on Sunset Beach, her wacky/over the top man eater character Bette lacke depth/purpose until the show created her daughter for her.. and then her character took off. If you have a gift, why fight it. In regards to Strasser, she was of a certain age and wasn't going to be getting roles with depth and range like she did on daytime even though she proved she was more than capable in the mini series Baby M. To a part like Dianne on Knots Landing, you have to infuse it with layers.. and I don't think she was able to successfully do so.. but she at least did come out on top at the end. Maybe she should have been the one to play Claudia on KL instead.

Fletcher/Vanessa seemed designed as a rebound of sorts for the two of them.. and also to wake Billy up to the fact that he still cared/loved his ex-wife. Had Ross not been entangled with Blake/Holly during that period, I would have preferred that Ross/Vanessa make another go of it.... alas.. not to be.

The Chelsea/Frank/Fletcher 2nd half 1990 story was basically the writers not having any sort of plan for those three characters so they just put them together in a story to buy time and/or figure out where to put them later on was my theory. By 1991, Chelsea was written out.. Frank was put with Eleni.. and Fletcher went back to being the single dad that watched all the kids while also briefly flirting with a relationship with Alex (who was blinded by her hatred of Roger/Mindy and obsessed with her newfound son Nick). The Nick McHenry character is a prime example of why you don't kill off a popular character (Lujack) because he could have been bought back as Lujack in 1991 and had the same story with Alex/Mindy without diminishing either Alex or Mindy. Mindy wouldn't have needed to switch paternity test results nor would Alex have become obsessed with trying to claim another possible son.

How Teri Austin opted to play the scenes at Laura's funeral/wake is rumored to be the element that inspired LML to make Jill crazy. Before the funeral, her annoyance/anger is focused mostly at Gary and less on Val or Abby... but after the funeral, her anger starts to focus on Val instead of Gary.

I think the addition of Eleni in 1991 was the start of the character of Sam not being needed as much since Eleni seemed to be in the same age bracket as Sam/Harley while becoming the woman that Frank/AM end up fighting over... and that was after Eleni and Dylan briefly dated in mid 1991. Also, moving Dylan into the Bridget/Julie/Hart/Kat grouping in mid to late 1991 also didn't help Sam's place on the show. I also think the change-over in head-writers and EP in 1991 caused a shift in focusing on new characters/situations.. and once the St John story was wrapped up in early 1992.. there wasn't really any other story/coupling in place for Sam at that time and with her most likely 3 year contract coming up for renewal in early 1992... she was phased out.

You really want Tomas gone LOL In regards to Kat/Eva.. a secret to good feud is allowing both sides to cool off and not engage with one another.. or else it becomes either too stale or too over the top (I.e. Jill/Katherine on Y & R). Right now, Kat is dealing with family issues while Eva is trying to start over with a new guy that's single. If the plan was to make Derek a psycho/bad guy... than the writers were so off base. There have been hints about him being obsessive over Ashley going all the way back to episode 1 where his whole existence seemed to revolve around her. He also had the head injury, also used Shanice to make Ashley jealous, held off telling Ashley he was getting feeling his legs, basically blackmailed Shanice into not telling Ashley about his progress, threw shade at Jacob about being honest with Naomi, and then after he was found out and hanging out with Jacob.. he said he still believed he could get Ashley back. Lastly, his NYE awkwardness was him still trying to determine if he should make a move on her, but was doing the boy scout thing. Maybe they just dropped Derek when season 2 started, but the way he was acting wasn't the way someone with closure would act. Time will tell.

I could see the show going in the direction of Naomi finding out she's pregnant when she's doing the tests for the gene. I also could see an Ellie Synder (ATWT) situation where she could possibly get an abortion because of this fear and also not wanting to put her career on hold for a baby without telling Jacob. Except we don't have the conflict/stakes of Izaiah and Eva being a couple like there was when Tomas/Eva were teased. Which is why I think either his family will disapprove of her, Tomas comes back into the picture, or Kat will make trouble. You didn't like when Ashley was being all vanilla spice? LOL

One of my friends was bummed that Dani was positive and Nicole was negative because that seemed to be the predictable route... but Nicole is more like Anita in terms of how she handles crisis so it would make more sense from a dramatic standpoint to have the emotional fire plug be the one to get the positive results. Chelsea already was mature and pragmatic about the possibility of her needing to get tested herself so now we see if she or Naomi get a positive results. I think Naomi getting the positive result will cause more tensions with Jacob and make her decide not to have children even more final while Chelsea having a positive reading might not cause as much dramatic weight. Previews for next week look good.

Had the writers bothered to do their research, they could have had Holly say that she remember her own situation with Blake and Ed/Roger.. and that was why she was talking to Jenna.. and felt bad about being the accidental cause of Jenna's death. I'd forgotten this Michelle had visited Holly during Christmas with Holly being looney tunes about Meg coming home with Fletcher.