Soaplovers

It's such a shame that the conflict couldn't be resolved in a mature way between the two actors.. especially since Albee was a bigger asset for the show in terms of character and his popular will they/won't they pairing with Deborah Saxon. One of the things about Edge was that it was just as popular with male viewers as it was with women. It's one of things I think the show forgot in the final year or two with the deemphasis on the male characters.

I don't really care about what the men are wearing, or not wearing. What I care about is focusing on the writing and character development for each of the male characters. Andre really doesn't have a lot of character development that sets him apart from the other male characters except that he seems content to be degraded and mistreated by the elitist Dani. I would like to know why a good looking younger guy like Andre would willingly be at the mercy of an emotional vampire such as Dani. Martin, on the other hand, seems to have decent character development.. and it is partly due to how the actor chooses to recite his lines. Martin was raised in a very privileged household and probably went to the best schools... so it makes sense that he would come across as thinking he was above everyone else. Most people raised in a upper class situation as the Duprees would view themselves as better than others (it's the same trait Dani seems to employ on those she feels superior to). It makes me wonder how Nicole came out of that family being so warm and nurturing when her family dynamics seemed very appearance oriented.

Marland was long gone by this point. He quit in either August/September 1982. I think it was due to letting the actress play out her contract and use her for party scenes and/or scenes with Phillip/Justin. I was surprised she was still on in June 1983 myself, because I figured she had been written out before Pam Long joined the writing staff. Thankfully, having episodes uploaded during this period on Spauldingfield YT site has helped to connect some of the dots. It looks as though Pam Long starts the first week or so of May 1983.. and in those first few weeks: Morgan and Evie were both written off and Lillian/Mindy/Billy/Beth/Annabelle all come onto the show.

Also, the lawsuit story was not the right story to bring Naomi and Bill into a court battle since those types of lawsuits are usually resolved via settlements.

I know that Sara did eventually become Carrie's therapist, but I was curious if the show had her make comments regarding Carrie's stunts of making it seem as though Justin was cheating on Jackie. Given that Justin cheated on Sara with both Jackie and Brandy, I wondered if it was wise of her to counsel Carrie given the conflict of interest involved. @DRW50I think once Adam/Sara end up married.. Marland didn't see any reason to explore Sara's personal life after the actor playing Adam was released. I know that Sara lasts until at least Christmas 1982 on the show.. but I don't think she ended up staying on for very long into 1983. The period between Marland quitting and Pam Long starting was the perfect time to clean house on characters that had outgrown their usefulness (i.e. Ben, Evie, Sara, Jennifer, Morgan).. and tying up stories started by Marland that were too complex (Mona Enright, Mark/Jennifer/Amanda triangle).

Unpopular opinion: The focus on the soap opera tropes over the mysteries and crimes was partly what did the show in. Also, featuring characters not involved in the legal, police, and criminal elements also hurt the show and took away what made it unique. Featuring characters like Jody, Raven, Sky, etc hurt the show long term. The show ABCified starting in 1976/1977 and then went through a youthification period starting in 1981.

I think the arrival of the Spauldings (Alan/Elizabeth/Phillip) caused the erosion of Sara's character on the show since Elizabeth took over Sara's place in the whole Justin/Jackie story. Sara's brief marriage to another deceptive man sounded like it paled in comparison to the previous deceptive man story that she had played the decade beforehand.. and it was probably done because of the whole Alan/Jackie/Mike/Elizabeth cluster that took off story wise. I know the show had introduced Brandy, the woman Justin cheated on Jackie with... but I don't believe she lasted more than a year.. and didn't make much of an impression. While the Dobson's were good at writing/juggling multiple characters/stories.. they weren't perfect though they did manage to make use of characters not in the front burner like Sara, Ann, etc. I do know that Sara/Adam looked to be starting up at the end of the Dobson era with a jealous/regretful Barbara looking on.. which played out during the Roger/Holly rape story and Hollys prison story. I don't know if Marland was as inspired by that story when he took over

I always get the vibe that Martin/Smitty have an emotional abusive relationship set up... but I doubt the show will really go there with that element given that Martin is a Dupree (and we can't have the Duprees be portrayed in a negative light), and because it's a gay male relationship. Even though abuse in the physical or emotional sense is a huge thing in a lot of gay and lesbian relationships. The Ashley/Naomi scene reads off to me for one reason.... Ashley was talking about the new scandal without any sort of mention and/or subtext.. considering she knew both Silk Press Sheila and Eva. I'm not sure if the writers have forgotten, if Jen Jacobs isn't able to play subtext, or what. It's just apparent the writers do not know how to write a young white millennial couple.. and perhaps they need to get a younger white script writer to be on staff... or let the actors play around with the lines to make them more natural/realistic.

Hopefully Alan has learned to not interrupt or interject with pointless information while someone is in the middle of telling a story. I almost think it would be better if Alan was a producer behind the scenes.. and he just had the actors on screen talking and asking one another questions. Those interviews tend to work better.

Yeah, Ben and Evie don't start interacting in a 'we're going to pair them together as a couple' way until Feb/March 1977 when she recommends Ben paint a portrait for Jackie. And Evie's working for Jackie so she and Ben interact and start to become friends. That happens after Tim breaks up with her and she's forgiven her sister.. and he and Hope break up after he covers for his younger brother for a crime that he had committed. Jackie does come onto the canvas in December 1976 and the first months are her trying to snag Mike while she and Justin seem to play a cat and mouse game with one another as he's trying to restart things with Sara again. I often wonder if the Phillip story only came about because the show was going to be expanded to an hour.. and the Dobson's deciding that some of the new characters they were introducing could be tied to Justin/Jackie's back story.

I think the difference between the head writer change at Days vs GH is that the day to day episode quality at GH was still lacking while the day to day episode quality has improved. And now that there appears to be some depth to the episode content... the limitations of some of the performers on Days is more apparent (i.e. Leo, Alex, Sophia, Cat). However, Rome wasn't built/rebuilt in a day so I'm waiting to see how things are in three to four months once some of the threads/stories from Ron's era are tied up/resolved.. and Ford/Cwikly's long term content kicks off

Friday Thoughts: June and Hayley are going to turn out to be related, or else why the casting on June's character if not for that. Their voices and mannerisms are similar and Marquita had mentioned in an interview that we would be finding out more about Hayley's backstory. Tomas/Eva/Kat is for sure going to be moving full steam ahead.. and I can't wait Dani/Bill = yawn Bill/Smitty = Interest reeved up and we all know that means the secret involving Martin/Smitty/Anita is kicking into high gear for May sweeps. Vanessa/Nicole = A satisfying friendship scene.. and Nicole's statement about Vanessa's outside interests.. I did not see that coming Nicole/Andre = I noticed that Andre volunteered knowing about the affair, but managed to withhold the nugget of information where he had convinced Ted not to confess to Nicole. Dani/Ted = This perked my interest Nicole/Silk Press Sheila = A great way to end a Friday episode. Sometimes grandma's soaps shouldn't be discarded, but followed. Martin/Smitty = Kat is right that Smitty is too good for Martin.. and Martin did act as though he missed his afternoon nap. Ashley/Derek = Unpopular opinion.. I actually kind of missed them. I view their scenes as a great way to kickstart a drinking game... take a shot anytime you wonder to yourself what is the point to their characters and/or either one of them says something cringey. You'll be guaranteed to be buzzing by the end of the episode Previews for next week: Looks like Nicole has found out about Dani/Andre's FWB set up? Kat vs Silk Press Sheila looks promising.

It's so jarring seeing the changeover from Sherry Mathis to Louan Gideon. The vibe, mannerisms, and overall personality of Liza changes instantly. The chemistry Sherry has with both David F and Joe Lambie is gone the second the recast happens. I wonder how viewers took the news of the recast since you didn't have time in between airings before the change happened. Quinn/Sarah... One overacts (Quinn) and one under acts (Sarah). Wendy of 1985 is a good mix of the 1982 sweet Wendy and the 1983/84 vixenish Wendy.

I would put Felicia in the 'small dose' auntie category because she means well, but comes on too strongly at times. In small doses, she would be a blast to hang out with.. but in anything larger than a small... she would be exhausting. I tend to prefer lower key people than people that are always 'on' all the time. Those people can veer off into energy vampire status pretty quickly.

So I think I figured based on the end credits who is the script writer for each episode. Thursday's episode looked to have been script written by David Kreizman, and it was a well written episode that flowed well. Today's episode looked to have been script written by Henry Newman (son of Fran Myers and the late Roger Newman). Right now, I've noticed improvements on the day to day scripts and that's a good sign that eventually the long term outlines that we will see in the coming weeks and months will be good. Fingers crossed.

Felicia becomes more layered/balanced in the early 90s (circa 1991/1992/1993). She leans more into the more down to earth element that you like, while still being Felicia of the 80s. The process starts in 1989.. but doesn't really become apparent until the early 90s. Iris was the rare connector character with her having a role at the hospital (I think she's on the board), working at Cory Publishing, and having romantic flirtations/connections with a lot of the male characters between 1988 and 1994. Which resulted in her having interactions with the other female contemporaries (Donna, Felicia, Rachel) even if the three didn't always interact with one another. Writing her off in the fall of 1994 severed one of the main connections/bridges with the different orbits. Irony that the show didn't see her value.

Greg and Paige were an interesting choice for a couple. I do think the lack of focusing on the generational differences hindered their long term potential. I think Laura had learned to keep her feelings close to her vest, especially after the hell she went through in her early years on the show. The last scene of her trying to keep her tears inside as she drove away was the first time we had seen Laura really express what she was feeling after two or three seasons of her keeping her true self hidden from everyone.. even Greg.

Mid 1979 to mid 1981 was A+ quality for the show. I even found things to like about the show in the final year or so when the quality had somewhat declined.

From what I heard, the actress playing Leslie opted to leave so instead of recasting again.. they killed her off. Holly brought it on herself by lying and pretending Christina was Ed's child. Although I do think that Rita's actions with withholding that message from Ed weighed upon her. Even though she won Ed in 1976, she realized over time that she never truly had him. There was no Rita/Tim/Evie triangle. Tim and Evie dated after Rita broke up with him (which happened before Evie and her mother came to Springfield). Ironically Tim did to Evie what Rita previously did to him... leading someone on that you're not interested in.

And for all we know, there might be other siblings that Jacob has that haven't been mentioned yet. It wouldn't be the first time a prodigal son and/or daughter is not mentioned by the family. A middle class family that's involved with the police force and police force adjacent would be a nice contrast with the more wealthy Duprees. There is a lot of story material to mine from that dynamic.

I think that the problem with Laura was that she had grown to love herself and saw her value in both herself, her career, and her marriage. She had this inner strength and confidence that Lynn/Bernard didn't know how to harness/write for because they were more interested in generating conflict amongst emotionally immature people. Karen/Mac and Gary/Val were all immature/stubborn to a fault even though they all had grown/evolved. So the Latham's could key into their essence/history to generate the standard soap opera tropes and stories for them. Even the season 8 conflict with Laura's pregnancy and Greg not being cool with it didn't diminish Laura's fire and strength. You saw how she was able to move on and live her life as a single mother because she'd already done that after Richard took off. I saw her response to Greg's kissing Paige as 'that's my husband and I can't change him.. but once I find something better, I'll toss himself'. She wasn't emotionally tied to him nor his money.. and I think that was partly why she was such a unique and interesting character in the nighttime soap world in the 80s.

As usual, Dani makes everything all about herself. Sweetie.. this isn't about you. I think deep down, the Dupree would be relieved if Dani wasn't around.

Ron C breakdowns usually involve quick snip scenes.. and so far, it is apparent in spades. I wish we had the longer scenes like we had in the previous few episodes. And I see Febreeze appeared again today. More airtime/purpose than Ashley/Derek LOL

I know French Fan had released monthly summaries for all the soaps from 1975/1976/1978 that helped to put focus on who wrote what. It's somewhere in the message boards (not sure if in archives or not). From what I recall, Labine did start the Ben/Betsy/Arlene triangle, the Jamie/Diana story, the Felicia story, and Rick/Cal/Meg stories. When Depriest came on, she kept the ball rolling with all of those tales by having Arlene's mom starting to work for Meg as there was blackmail from Arlene to Ben, Felicia's story became more psychological where she was being stalked.. but you couldn't tell if she was truly being stalked or if it was in her head, and I think Arlene also had an admirer that ended up dying in a struggle. The months she was writing sounded interesting and full of tension. Once the Schneiders came on... it seemed as though what had been started by Labine and built on by Depriest was reversed by this team. Looking at the imdb for at least Margaret Schneider.. it appears as though she had no soap experience and was more experience writing self-contained stories. That could have contributed to their inability to keep the momentum going. I wonder if perhaps Upton had to partially rebuild the canvas because of decisions made by them.

Breaking in to report a new development and event is fine... it's the massive amount of time where the newscasters will talk and analyze it is what I have a problem with. People have brains and can work out for themselves what this event/development means to them. @DemetriKaneI remember Jacob mentioning he had a brother.. and I believe he, or his dad, mentioned the mom and her name. To me, I would have made Andre his brother since the two actors do look like they could be related. And having Andre sleeping with Dani would have more potential for conflict since it would affect Jacob/Naomi's marriage, Jacob's relationship with his brother.. and possibly the parents relationship with Anita/Vernon. Alas... not to be.