Soaplovers

Let's face it, the only reason Marland was good at Guiding Light was because he had a strong foundation to work from... but his weaknesses became apparent eventually on the show. Not to say he wasn't talented, but there was a noticeable difference between how the Dobson's wrote vs the Marland's that became apparent once the Roger story was wrapped up. 1) The Dobson's had a diverse mix of female characters that weren't interchangeable. Elizabeth, Holly, Rita, Jackie, Diane, and Amanda were so uniquely different from one another... and they have positive and not so positive traits. Even the newer characters that debuted/returned in 1979 like Hope and Lanie seemed to have distinct personality traits (Hope in 1979 had confidence and drive while Lanie was warm and optimistic). Marland had trouble with most of those characters rendering Holly a zombie, not understanding what made Rita tick, turning Amanda & Hope into weaker characters, and Diane into a one note villainess. Even his female creations didn't seem any better (Nola, Vanessa, and Morgan weren't written very well... but thanks to Lisa Brown, Vigard, and Maeve Kinkaid.. they became interesting characters). 2) When watching a 1979 episode, there are long scenes of conversations that were realistic and allowed the actor to shine. When watching a 1980 episode, the conversations were mostly exposition with too much detail and unrealistic. 3) The Dobson's Guiding Light seemed to have story bubbles where certain character groups hardly interacted. It seemed more like Bill Bell's Y & R where characters existed in their own orbits. I didn't see a lot of overlap between the Jackie/Alan/Elizabeth/Justin crew or the Ed/Holly/Rita crew in the 1979 episodes unless it was a social gathering.. and even then it was more of a passing hello and not long drawn out conversations. Marland's Guiding Light.. he seemed intent on everyone interacting and knowing one another's business (he did this less so on GL than on ATWT where it was basically a gossip session most of the time.. unrealistic in real life). With that said, I would have been interested to see how the Dobson's would have resolved the Roger story since I don't think it would have involved falling off the cliff. If anything.. they probably would have either killed him on screen or carted him off to jail. The other story I wondered about would have been the Amanda story.. since Lucille was scarier in the 1979 episodes than she was in the 1980 episodes. I suspect how that story would have ended would have been more sinister/darker than how Marland resolved the Lucille aspect of the story.

- I happen to like Joey, he provides a nice contrast to the overly privileged Duprees. - BTG does have the wardrobe person from B & B on staff so it tracks. - Martin is acting just like Martin. An overly spoiled and pampered individual that probably was overly spoiled because of the stresses in Nicole/Ted's marriage when he was young. - Kat being the miracle baby is why she acts like such an entitled princess. - Therapist tend to have mal-adjusted children moreso than not so it's realistic that Nicole's kids lack of her more mature perspective.

And dare I say it... but I think deep down, Jan has a thing for Derek.. but can't admit it since he's with her daughter. Hence another reason why she's so pro Derek and trying to push him to stay with Ashley. I like that Jan didn't condone what Derek did, but also low key called out her daughter for lying to herself about where her true feelings lie. I'm truly hoping that this hasty reveal will now keep Derek/Ashley broken up.. and perhaps testing Derek with other people and also place Ashley at the hospital where she works best (plus, there are some handsome doctors that she could be looking at).

In regards to the conversations about Joey (white guy) being the villain against the mostly black characters... isn't that the point of a soap opera? To hate the villain and root for the other characters to defeat him? So the fact that all of you feel this way tells me that MVJ and co are doing their jobs well. I'm sure that eventually something will turn and Joey will be taken down (and I hope to god it isn't Vanessa that takes him down).

GL: Blake/Josh (they were tested after Reva/Jeffery were well received as a couple) Holly/Billy Holy/Buzz ATWT: Lily/Mike (they were supposed to be paired in 1996 until Shawn Christian opted to leave since Holden/Damian were no longer there and Rosanna/Carly were no longer there).

Could Ashley finding out about Derek slowly regaining use of his legs be a tweak by the showrunners and/or Tracy T's interference? It does feel like there has been some resets and tweaks going on in the last few weeks since the departure of Guza as co-headwriter.

I think Runyon settled more into the role in her last months as Sally once she was acting opposite Peter and Cass. I thought she had a vulnerable vibe mixed with an impulsive streak. Her Sally benefited from interacting with Liz, Jim, Pat, and Russ that helped establish her as a member of the Matthews clan.

Not to defend Derek, but Ashley shares some of the blame for this whole situation. Ashley is the definition of mixed signals and low key deceit. - She flip flops on whether she wants to be with Derek on a daily basis. When he dares to question her and/or ask her to set a wedding date.. she reacts in an abusive and dismissive way instead of being honest - She only agreed to go back with Derek because he was unable to walk and because she got the wrong idea when she saw Andre and Dani together. Had she waited to talk to Andre instead of throwing a tantrum, she wouldn't be in the situation she is in. - And while on the surface, Derek's explanation for surprising Ashley could be viewed as sweet... it also could be taken as being deceitful and lying to Ashley. She certainly would know all about lying considering she's lying to herself and to Derek. - I wish that more light could be shed on why Jan is so pro-Derek and why she holds him to a high standard of perfection (that even he says he doesn't deserve). I figure that it has to do with her past association with whomever is Ashley's dad.. but I would like to see more of her viewpoint/perspective when she's brunching with either SPS or Mona.

True, I don't see Lainie and Floyd being some hugely popular couple. We also don't know what the Dobson's were ultimately planning for either character since they came on during the last months of their stint as head-writers and were being developed/intergrated onto the show. With the Roger/Holly/Eve/Ed story, Alan/Hope, Jackie/Alan/Elizabeth/Justin stories were in full bloom in 1979... I have a feeling whatever was going to happen with those characters probably wouldn't have become apparent until 1980 at least.

Derek.. you can do so much better than Ashley. Ashley.. you can continue to pine over Andre.. but I think he's happy with Dani for the time being. I like seeing the supporting characters pop up from time to time like Laura and Jan.

BH needs to do some fine-tuning on the casting.. and cut some of the deadweight like Ericka, Dorit, and Kyle. Kyle is the Robyn Dixon of BH and her being an OG is exhibit A as to why this particular show is dying/stale. SLC always is delivering because it's season 6... but they're going to have to be careful not to fall into the same trap as other shows. I would start finetuning some of the cast starting with Lisa. Once Lisa is gone, the women will turn on one another.

I think the Dobson's were setting up Floyd/Lanie as a couple.. probably a slow burn couple with him being a screw-up/annoyance to Katie and Lanie was developing a crush on Ed. Not sure how close she was to Ross/Justin.. but she seemed a lot younger than both of them and not sure if their parents were alive or not. Perhaps the Dobson's were going to reveal Lanie had a daddy complex from losing her dad at a young age hence the crush on Ed. Whatever the reason, Marland dropped the Lanie/Floyd connection and move Floyd into the Nola/Kelly story while Lanie was move to a supporting role working in Mike's office and eventually had a low key relationship before being written off.

I think the Santos family could have worked if they were written differently because they were at least stationed in Springfield... the show did try to connect them to the rest of Springfield with Danny being married to Michelle, Pilar briefly dating Bill and interacting with his mother Vanessa, and Carmen having scenes with Alex/Vanessa/Michelle/Ben... while Mick was blackmailing Blake over the tape of her with Ben. Instead of building on that start, the show insisted on keeping the Santos family islanded and never really establishing true roots/connections to the rest of Springfield. San Cristobel, on the other hand, never should have been featured past the initial 2000 story.

Vanessa trying to take Joey down is such a 'girl boss' story trope... yawn.. do better show. I don't condone cheating, but seeing Dani makes me understand why Bill kept cheating on her. Naomi is a fail as a character.. not sure if it's due to the actress, writing, or a combination of the two. Pamela's different accents never fails to amuse me, but I think she should be directing her concerns toward her emotionally stunted bestie Dani and less on Andre (curious why he's camera shy). Nice to see the country club gossip make another appearance Hayley needs to reign in the emotions because that will be her undoing. I mentioned before that Santa Barbara had a similar story with CC/Sophia and her younger hubby that was slowly poisoning her along with his female accomplice. So I hope to see what the full extent of the story will be on here (since the story on Santa Barbara had to end early due to cancellation).

The only upsides of the whole Judy/Gary affair were as follows: 1) Val forgave him for the last time, even though she didn't say it.. the way the scenes were played showed that this was Gary's last chance. 2) Abby's craftiness was on full display. She bonded further with Val and casually ended up at the same restaurant where Gary/Judy were at so she looked to be an ally/friend and not someone to watch over. Abby spent over a year planning her move.. and made subtle inroads while still maintaining Val's trust, friendship, and free childcare services. By the time Val walked in on Abby/Gary in bed.. it was after weeks of her being wary of Abby/Gary together.. and deciding at that moment that Gary blew it and dumped his ass. Val remarrying Gary in season 12 was another character regression and a further loss of dignity.

I think Vernon is planning a surprise for Anita and that's why he's meeting with Sharon. Naomi is such a bitch I think TMG is approaching how to play SPS based on who she's interacting with. She came across more sincere and a bit more subtle with Jan because they're peers and both have been in the same boat in regards to single parenthood while she plays her emotions more intense with Eva because that's her daughter and wants her to have a father (hopefully her real life father). Ashley/Derek - MVJ.. break them up. The tweaking should be keeping the two apart and move them into different orbits.. or have them go off into the sunset (I would love to see what the show bible proposed for both of these characters since they were heavily featured the first week of the show... they were the secondary focus of that week after Hayley/Dani/Bill with just hints of SPS plot with Ted and Vanessa/Doug/Randy were briefly touched on).

I remember that Milan episode only because when I was a kid and would watch with my parents, my dad was so excited that he guessed not only the murder victim, but the killer and I believe the murder weapon. He tended to always never guess right, or only guessed who would be the one killed (and sometimes when he was wrong about who the person that would be murdered was, the one he guessed would end up being the killer).

Given the fact that MVJ wrote for Santa Barbara in it's final days (the final episode was script written by her), I do think that the whole Hayley/Bill/Dani story is very much like a story that played out in the final months of Santa Barbara. That story involved Sophia getting with a younger man in order to stick it to CC, who was known to be with the younger women. However, what she didn't know was that her boy toy (later husband) Ken was working with an unhinged female named Andie.. who did cons to bilk women out of their money. There was even a subplot where Sophia was slowly being poisoned by her new hubby and his partner. The story got wrapped up quickly because the soap got canceled so I'll be intrigued to see how it would have ended on BTG with Hayley/Bill/Dani.

For a show that is very anti-male, I was happy to see that Martin/Smitty were up in arms over walking in on their 16 year old daughter getting it on with a guy in their living room. Now if it had been Tyrrell and Jessica in that position and Martin/Smitty were still upset, but then having a heart to heart with their son about practicing safe sex, etc... then I could see the uproar over how unfair they were acting. Also, the whole teen story with Samantha and Tyrell and are they/aren't they going to have sex is kind of outdated. Both of them are the younger side of Gen Z.. and studies have come out saying that Gen Z teens are having way less sex than previous generations of teens. And Gen Z actually are less likely to even want to see sex in their movies/books/tv shows.

All of you mentioning Mr Lindsay (Dietrich) in terms of romantic/rival potential for Holly, etc... yet the #1 reason I wanted to meet Mr Lindsay was only because he would have been the missing piece of the puzzle for how Blake turned out. The few mentions of Mr Lindsay by Blake indicated he wasn't a warm and paternal influence in her life, and that his presence made Holly/Blake at odds made me wish he was bought on in order to give us more insight into the years that Holly/Blake were not on the canvas.

I kind of low key love the OC finale music, and I miss the finale parties (season 4 was my favorite when all the previous housewives and families came to it.. and it was a happy reunion with just a bit of drama mixed in). My instincts are so on the fence over this whole Katie vs cast situation. I think Katie made some rookie mistakes that caused the cast to want to ice her out, but I also think the rest of the cast over-reacted to her rookie mistakes... especially when vile trash like Tamra is allowed to come back season after season. And the first minutes of part 1 of the reunion, makes me really question if producers/Andy are in on the plot to keep Katie iced out and not back for season 20.

Anita is only mentioning Barbara to ease her guilt over the horrible way she treated her, and that she best listen to someone that is objective (Laura) and keep Barbara's name out of it. Kat needs to back off in terms of Tomas and his issue... his body, his choice. Joey/Hayley was a brief scene.. but I'm intrigued to see a longer scene between the two of them. SPS/Jan had a nice friendship scene... but Jan, you have your work cut out for you in regards to SPS. Next week's teaser looks interesting to me with a lot of Vanessa/Joey, and surprised to see the Derek story moving forward quicker than I thought it would.

Danielle was on a few of the Locher Room interviews, and she said Claire Labine mentored her and that her first assignment was writing the filler scene (i.e. anytime a script needed an extra scene to fill time).. so she would write a friendship scene and/or a family scene.

Interesting Halloween episode with Nicole/Vernon hanging out... I wonder if TT wasn't available to film so instead of an Anita/Vernon scene.. it was a father/daughter scene. Samantha trying to manipulate 'granny' Nicole with that whole patriarchy BS made me roll my eyes... but good on Nicole for being smart enough not to fall for it. The Derek/Ashley scenes were filler except for that one brief statement from Andre where he basically said unless Derek takes a very dark turn into villain territory.. nothing would change if his marriage to Dani doesn't work out. @Taoboithe Kristen Dimera/Billie Reed turn is coming along nicely for our Derek.

At the time that Roger had married Peggy, he was just misguided and was more of a grey character... and Peggy was his best chance at redemption. Maureen, on the other hand, saw the shred of good in him... and also decided to stick it to Ed/Holly by always siding with him. It's a shame that focus groups didn't recognize that was a flaw worth exploring... or she might have been spared.