DramatistDreamer

Nikki didn’t even flinch when Jordan referred to Nick as her “idiot son”, which admittedly, made me giggle. For the longest time, when I looked at ZS as Audra, I had the feeling that she reminded me of someone. Now I know who…Jocelyn Seagrave as Julie Camaletti on GL when she became embittered after Dylan dumped her when she got caught cheating on him with Hart Jessup.

Thanks @soapfan770. This Christmas is tough for me but I sincerely hope you and all fellow board mates have a really nice Christmas Day, Boxing Day and holiday.

P&G, even in their heydays as soap producers was only ever about promoting their stars during a brief window of time in the 1980s when they were chasing the youth demographic. Otherwise, it was the Nixon soaps, the Bell soaps that promoted the hell out of their stars. Even Days made some effort. It’s probably the reason why so many talented ATWT actresses were repeatedly passed over for Daytime Emmy awards while Erika Slezak has like more than a half dozen of those trophies.

OJ trial is an excuse many people use to mask poor choices and indifference by many of these production companies. Look, the reality is that, as bad as ATWT and GL were in their final years, Y&R (I don’t watch the others) is every bit as bad now as those shows were in the final years but Sony has a measure of giving a damn about these shows continuing to exist, P&G began to care less and less as they no longer could use them as cash cows. P&G began to starve their shows’ budgets way before other soaps did but they obviously began their exit strategy years before AW got cancelled. It just happened to coincide with the aftermath of the Simpson trial.

And Iva served as the redheaded herring in the piece, because at first Margo suspected Iva, who had admitted to doing some nude modeling when she was younger in order to make ends meet years after she had run away from the farm. Denise became a different person once she went to prison for Channing’s murder (despite Lucinda and a whole host of other Oakdale residents suggesting that Denise be thrown a ticker tape parade instead of prison). I liked the fact that we saw the character two years later, hardened and bitter when Barbara spent time in the women’s prison after falsely being accused of murder. And the added complication of Barbara now in a relationship with the man who was the love of Denise’s life. I had always wanted the character to return to Oakdale, on a mission to repair her life and make amends to those she had wronged (like Barbara) and perhaps find forgiveness from Hal but skepticism from Barbara. Maybe even begin to renew a relationship with Hal before Hal was killed or even after the character was killed due to Hendrickson’s untimely death, have the character of Denise return with the revelation that she and Hal found each other while Hal was on reassignment in D.C. and renewed their romance, only to have things cut short by Hal’s murder while on duty. Perhaps she returns with a surprise. Alas, the things that could have been!

On As The World Turns, Oakdale police detective Hal Munson is dating Denise Darcy, an aspiring fashion model who is doing some runway work for designer Barbara Ryan. A greasy Trump-like real estate developer named Tad Channing, after terrorizing half of Oakdale goes missing and is eventually found dead. To make a long story short, Hal discovers that Tad is involved in some dark mechanisms like pornography. Hal, finding evidence is forced to watch evidence, which includes a porn film featuring his girlfriend Denise. Hal, obtaining a search warrant, has to go through Denise’s belongings and finds a key piece of evidence, as Denise, unsuspecting, enters her apartment. At first, she’s happy to see Hal, but sees Hal with the incriminating evidence and proceeds to tell Hal her grim tale of being lured into doing porn as a young woman and being blackmailed by Tad and not being able to take it anymore when he taunted her that final time and tells Hal how she ended up killing him. Seeing Hal’s reaction and facial expressions as she tearfully tells him everything and breaks down is so compelling. It’s not obviously violent but hearing her tell the man she loves a grim tale what she endured is heartbreaking.

Since I have the Black Friday special for HULU, I decided to finally read the book, so that I could watch and compare it with the limited series. I have done a bit of writing an adapted screenplay from a novel, I know the compromises that have to be made to heighten the drama. The limited series made some interesting choices in scripting the story. Still, the book, tells a better, more fluid story overall. There are some elements from the novel that I wished the screen adaptation had kept. The casting is great though.

In about 2011, when people were actually able to post good quality Y&R episodes and clips and leave them on YouTube and Dailymotion for awhile before being pulled down, I was able to watch some of Ronan’s time on Y&R because I had stopped watching Y&R when those episodes originally aired. I have to agree with you that, the way Nina was written, the way Ronan was written, I don’t understand why the character of Ronan was brought on. It also seemed as if, after that, Nina was written differently, she was written as a generic mom to an adult son, the only times since then that I saw that spark that Nina was known for was when she slapped the taste out of Phyllis’ mouth and oddly enough, during that clusterf*ck storyline with Phillip’s resurfacing as an “out” man, and I only think that any part of that was the least bit interesting because I genuinely think that TC was happy to see TB and for her it was like slipping into a comfortable pair of slippers, and perhaps because everything else about the story was so much worse. But yeah, from what I managed to see of Ronan, it wasn’t interesting to me and as someone who got into Y&R during those years during childhood, Ronan really should have been more interesting to me.

Just recently finished streaming The Offer on Paramount+, which seems as if it was mostly based on a book I read some time ago called “Leave The Gun, Take The Cannoli” which told the BTS story behind the making of The Godfather movie.

IKR? Meow!

I’d settle for episodes before ‘92 at this point. I wonder if Patricia Bruder has anymore episodes that can be uploaded to YouTube or the Interwebs? She had (or someone else on her behalf) uploaded a set of episodes to her YouTube channel. Those were from the early 80s through. I wonder if other actors have episodes in their archives, has anyone asked Don Hastings or Scott Bryce, or Martha Byrne if they have any episodes among their belongings? Still wondering though, if a genuine worldwide search were mounted, would there be at least a few BETAMAX videos out there that have episodes that haven’t been seen in decades out there? Technology can do wonders for restoration these days.

Is this a recent photo? They both look great! Wish a competent interviewer could interview both of them together even remotely would be great.

Oops, wrong thread. How in the heck did that happen?🤪

Look at that Twitter (I’m still gonna call it Twitter) post above with the Canadian spoiler. There is a hashtag over the video. One of many reasons why I ignore portmanteaus, because anyone can just come up with anything and most of them sound raggedy to me, lol.

Who is #Craniel? I know that’s not supposed to be some type of portmanteau for Cricket and Danny. Daniel is Phyllis’ son because nobody calls Danny Romalotti Daniel.🙄 As much as I detest portmanteaus, if you’re going to try to make one up, don’t be lazy, create one that’s actually true to the characters’ names.

Seeing those students leaping out of windows reminded me of Columbine where students were jumping and windows and crawling up outside walls to escape the gunfire. It was a December morning, a little over a week before Christmas when a gunman shot all those first graders and teachers in a school in Newtown Connecticut- in that case, the gunman, shot and killed his parent, his mother, before heading to the school. Very chilling how this killer obviously took ideas from other mass shooters. Hopefully the Czech government does not sit on their hands, as the U.S. Congress has.

As Chance and Summer were at Crimson Lights laughing and talking, with Phyllis looking on in the background, a brief “flashback” was shown. I cackled. What must AL think of them putting her in these CGI clips, first the rollercoaster, now this. It was awkward dancing in front of a superimposed CGI background that looked ghastly and absurd. MS is back to her repeating words tic. I guess I knew it would be back sometime, at least she kept it to a minimum this time. Sorry, I’m still cackling at that concert snippet.

OMG @ that awful CGI for the concert that Chance and Summer supposedly attended!🤣

Well, this is odd. Polish state TVP Info channel off air as Tusk reforms kick in Not surprising that Polish TV news had been accused of airing manipulated clips and propaganda, given their previous leadership but that news anchor just walking off like that just seemed abrupt and a bit jarring.

🤣😂 With James Stenbeck as his dad, he was either the safest or the most imperiled little boy in Oakdale.

One of the dissenting justices in the Colorado disqualification case claims that his dissent has not so much to do with the criteria and content of the actual ruling but the fact that apparently, it sends a precedent for a chaotic, ad-hoc decision on a state by state basis. Um, isn’t that how U.S. gun laws and abortion laws are adjudicated? In any case, we know there will be some sort of appeal by the defendant. 2024 presidential election is looking like a mess so far.

Wow, I might have to go back and check those episodes. Watching Audra now, I would never have thought she would allow anything that could be a possible vulnerability. Speaking of losing a child, was I the only one who found that outcome with Cole and Victoria kind of anticlimactic? Maybe there’s more to it than what was revealed in yesterday’s episode? Taken in isolation, Jason Thompson did a good job with his monologue in those scenes between Billy and Jack but overall, there were no raised stakes for him and we could all figure out that he was going to leave when he chose to be at the coffeehouse with Chelsea when that big meeting at the Abbott house was going on. There’s not much story, other than a lot of talking about strategy. Tucker’s intellectual theft strategy seems like a rehash of something Victor might have done a decade ago to give Brash & Sassy the edge in a product release, except back then we might actually be told what product.

Thanks for filling me in, as I missed any interactions they had.

Oh, I agree, I thought I would lead with saying something positive.😇 I gave up on B&B years ago, an I was never a faithful viewer of the two other remaining soaps, tbh). Most of the drama seems to be left out of the show entirely now. Once upon a time, seeing a character wrestle with these issues was what kept us tuned in, I mean, even to hear an inner voice exclaiming how much of a rush it is, while another somber voice warning how destruction is usually just on the horizon once this adrenaline rush appears. I mean, it doesn’t have to be more than a few scenes scattered over a few episodes, they could have sandwiched it in when Billy is having yet another meeting with Chelsea at the coffeehouse, his thoughts could drift, while Chelsea yammers on about some work project. I remember when soaps used to do this, sure, movies like Airplane! took up the device and used it for comedic effect but they did it because it’s an effective device to express a character’s feelings about something. These shows could have a lot of life in the right hands but these guys are tanking these shows’ prospects. On a separate note, is Audra’s weakness young scions from prominent families? Will she have any interaction with Noah when he visits? It would be interesting if somehow Noah were still able to summon some deeper feeling. I think they’re trying to do that with Audra’s conflicting feelings about Kyle but it’s too mixed in with the scheming and double-dealing with Tucker. Noah would be a true litmus test as to whether Audra is more than a superficial person, whether there is any depth.

Was there ever any doubt that Billy would go over to Chancellor-Winters after Jill asked him to join her? I think JG tried to create suspense or some type of mini-reversal but the beats were played too quickly, there wasn’t a hint of suspense and it wasn’t a proper reversal. I did like the dialogue between Billy and Jack when Billy explained his reasons why he thought it was a healthier decision for him to leave Jabot and move over to work at Chancellor-Winters, where he likened all the plotting and scheming to undo Tucker to the rush of gambling, which threatened to unravel his sobriety— too bad we didn’t see any hints of this playing out onscreen, that’s why this turnaround isn’t a proper reversal, which I hope JG wasn’t trying to write it as much.