carolineg

John was an idiot post-1996 Paris, but in his defense, I want to think we were supposed to believe he was so distracted over Marlena/Stefano/danger stuff he wasn't fully paying attention. Austin has no excuse lol. Did MA ever speak out against JER? I thought JER just didn't like or understand Matt's version of Jack and wanted someone more conventional. TP seems grating even now on Social Media, so I could understand him not being JER's cup of tea. His castmates seem to love him though.

Got it. From what I was getting from what Johnny was saying, he wanted it to be a true story. So I wonder if Johnny would just fill in the details himself if he didn't have any consent? It's definitely not the nicest thing to do to his grandparents lol.

Johnny is kind of a douche but I like him! Realistically, even with funding, how does Johnny expect to make this film? It's documented I guess, but how does he plan to make a movie without John/Marlena's consent? He can't find Kristen, get ahold of Sami, main players are dead, and everyone else in town doesn't have much info. Also, I am offended on Marlena's behalf that Johnny thinks Abby could play her and I am offended for Abby that Johnny thinks Abby looks old enough to be Allie's mother lol.

I would think the evolution of Kristen was always planned. I think ED said she did want to play a villainess as well. There were anvils all over the place about Kristen not being able to escape her father's evil for most of her run and they are a ton at the end of the Possession where the Devil tells Kristen she is evil at heart. Maybe if John/Kristen or John/Kristen/Tony really, really took off things might have changed, but it was clear JER's vision was always John/Marlena so Kristen had to be dark to be the third wheel, as JER was incapable of writing a triangle with 3 rootable people. I can't help you with the Sami stuff. She blackmailed Kate about being a hooker as well but all were different years. Lol.

Thanks! You just explained Eric's story and I watched it and I still don't remember it. Usually with a reminder I can recall at least part of it, but, nope, nothing. I do remember being 'that's it'? And early Eric was super annoying with his pro-Roman/family stuff. He was never around for his family either and it's something to expect from Sami, but they were adults. It was just selfish when John/Marlena had their own young kids and it made Eric seem like a whiny manchild, but Jensen was hot and grew on me. And now that you mention it, Carrie/Austin did have the same conversation for that entire year. Austin/Carrie probably had only 5 or 6 different conversations their entire 90's relationship tbh. Austin/Carrie had more careers than shared interests really, but I loved them anyway.

I totally got sick of the Possession and quit my re-watch too. The dialogue isn't awful yet, but it gets progressively worse. I find Kristen so obnoxious during the Possession. I know she's right, but I was at the point where I wanted the Devil to seduce John just so he would win and Kristen would shut up lol. Poor Kristen, if she just would have let it go her life in the future probably would have been easier because Marlena would have been dead. I think I just loathe good Kristen. I liked the Lady in a Cage Paris stuff. Just because it was so glamorous. This is where the dialogue starts really stalling though. Carrie/Austin/Sami have the same conversations over and over again. The show probably went a little too far with the guillotine and the people of the night and the hypnotizing mirror but I liked it. I know it was just as ridiculous as the Possession, but I liked it better. I also liked that all of Salem ended up in Paris lol. I assume NBC/Corday looked at the ratings and made JER drag things out so long to the detriment to the show. Carrie/Austin/Sami could have ended much sooner and I think the Bo/Billie/Hope stuff could have as well. I think the John/Marlena/Kristen et al lasted probably the right amount of time because there were a lot of twists, but most of these stories literally could have been cleared up with two parties having 1 conversation to fix misunderstandings.

This is the direct Drake quote, but I can't find the OG article lol: James loved John and Marlena … DH: But you know what? Dee and I were smart to never address him as actors but as characters. I remember when John Aniston yelled at him during the Emmy Awards complaining about how these snot-nosed kids were thwarting him after he outsmarted the CIA, etc.. Aniston was like, “Victor is smarter than that — something needs to change.” James’s response? “It will.” Well, literally the next day, a rewrite came in and Victor ended up in a coma after a heart attack! James was very passionate about the show. This is a testament to James’s power at NBC — the network was furious because John is Jennifer Aniston’s father, but all he said was, “You keep him happy. He’s off my show.” And as we know, James won that battle. But when James went to Passions, Victor miraculously came out of his coma. When it came to James, if he saw you out of character, you were done. What a strange man. Could you imagine having to talk to your boss/writer in character? How awkward. So JA was complaining about his writing not lack of. Who was outsmarting him at the time? Wasn't there rumors that JER used to play out scenes with dolls as well?

I believe it's an interview with Drake that he tells the story about JER/John Aniston. He basically says that JER was very particular about viewing actors as their characters and that's why he wrote for Dee and Drake. He says John Aniston confronted JER about his lack of airtime and went "out of character" at the Daytime Emmys and JER put Victor in a coma the next day lol. I will try to find that interview. So I guess JA was pissed about his lack of airtime, but he definitely made it worse. Plus, I don't think JER liked Jennifer Aniston going on talk shows asking people to write in to bring her father back on the show, which honestly would have only helped Days. I think Eric was going to be gay and that backed out for sure. To me it was pretty obvious with the male gloved hand following him around when it turned out to be no big deal at all (an ex-girlfriend or something?). It really seemed like that's wear it was heading and the show just backed out last minute because the end of that was so anti-climatic I can't even recall it.

Thanks! Interesting stuff. Isn't it common knowledge that JER had a falling out with JA and that's why Victor didn't appear? I have a hard time believing there was no story for him, but the show was pretty packed with stuff going on I guess. I don't really get the narrative that you can't have two villians the same age either since they are really two different types of villians I appreciate his ideas and him bringing back threads like the Tale of 2 Romans stuff, but I wouldn't agree Marlena was just like "oopsie, my bad" after it all. There were some mitigating circumstances. I don't know why it was so hard to find an Eric. Jensen was good and obviously capitalized on his success, but it's not like he brought that much to Eric lol. I am sure there were a lot of guys in Hollywood that could bring something similar to the table, but I know his story was dropped or interfered with. The drama was drained because the Tale of 2 Romans stuff dragged on forever! Even if it didn't in actuality it seemed like forever and there didn't seem to be a real way to get out of it except the way they did with Isabella pregnant, which I always thought was too much extra drama on top since they obviously knew Wayne was coming back.

But that's pretty boring. Fighting over one's grandkid zzzzzzzzzz........... I do think we will get Jason/Britt some point too, but this whole story has just shifted weirdly so many times who knows? Maybe they will be like Liz and Jason and hook up a million years after the initial hints of romance. Or maybe Carly/Jason will have a one night stand, they both go back to their respective partners, and it comes out explosively later.

For sure. So if Sonny didn't catch Jason/Carly initially Carly overhears Sonny/Nina and falls into bed with Jason. I keep thinking (hoping) there is a greater, soapy plan here but I am not seeing it.

Maybe Ingo was getting vaxxed that day 🤣 It would have been better if Jax told her, but I wonder if Carly would have just taken her wrath out on him instead because he didn't tell her immediately. And Jax just thought it wasn't worth it to hear her screeching more than he has to.

I think it was probably more interesting for DH to play these stories and it showed. I assume the DH's get bored of playing similar stories year after year. I think John/Kristen and even John/Kate were something different, but I found the John/Gina stuff entirely awful. It really felt like something that has been pushed and pushed on us for years even up to last year. It's not going to happen. The audience hates it. Let it die. The best Drake stuff was probably the post-Roman into the Isabella death story IMO. I do think Drake is an actor that tends to have good chemistry with most of his female love interests though and that's pretty rare.

You know, thinking about it Kristian and Drake did have chemistry and really always have even when he was playing Roman. Their love scene was pretty hot. I think it's just a case of two characters that really don't belong together ala Shane/Kayla. I think there was a brief window of time post Maison Blanche/Gina/Hope confusion where it could have worked but John was a priest. I never knew anything about that interview and I didn't think JER was particularly pro-John/Hope. I thought it was more of a Langan thing, but the seeds were planted all the way back at MB when John found Gina/Hope which I always thought was strange and meant something. And of course the Jungle stuff. So JER's reasoning would be Jarlena need to pay for their affair etc before being together so John gets punished by hooking up with Hope while Marlena gets to repent for her sins alone for the next 4 more years? Sounds fair. Oh JER.......

Well, Sonny has met Carly and I think he knows she would go nuts over this. And Carly is clearly not going to agree with you about that lol. I would be frustrated too if I had to hear it from someone else, even though Sonny may have decent reasons to keep it a secret. I thought maybe I missed a reason why Maxie would be the one who felt Carly needed this info immediately or that they were better friends than I remembered. The Maxie I know wouldn't give a crap about this. She has her own problems and she would consider those more important.

LW's facial expressions were pretty epic when she found out the truth and that was some "interesting" eye shadow Maxie had on, but that's all I got from the scene. Honestly, Carly should be mad Sonny didn't tell her this info and she had to find out from Maxie of all people. The only thing I got out of the Willow/Michael/Nina scenes is even the kid that plays Wylie is bored of them. That little kid couldn't look more disinterested if he tried. He wanted to color and for them to shut up and I get his feelings lol.

I actually think it would have been a good idea to do the Possession on Beyond Salem only and it happens and no one speaks of it again lol. But it's getting press and it hasn't been awful yet so we will see. It's basically the only interesting thing on the show so I can only imagine how awful it would be if we had to see the characters today EVERYDAY.

That's a funny story about the actors. I never knew that lol. I can't say I am the biggest fan of Tony's breakdown, but it was an interesting move for the Tony character and good material for BM. Too bad the character never recovered from it. SOD is so dramatic with those taglines......."somehow Sonny sees Brenda..." because the show clearly would have MB back for a few weeks to NOT see Brenda. And did Deidre really almost not re-sign with Days? I have a hard time believing it was touch and go but maybe?

My biggest takeaway is that I am shocked Ava/Rafe/Nicole interest 16% of the people....and were mildly close to Chloe/Brady/Phillip

I don't want to speak for SJB and I can't remember the details but she did say she was dropped from Cold Case and it had to do with Les Moonves and issues with her ex. I want to say there is a thread archived on here about it. I think Guza tried a lot more early on to show Jason's "moral" center with his interactions with with Lila and Emily and they would show Jason had some memories with his medical training popping up time to time. This was also a time where the Q's were wacky and slightly evil and Ned had to fix problems or whatever and really never helped and I think we were supposed to want Jason to hate his family. It would have been interesting seeing Jason get his memories back and turn his back on Sonny only to be drawn to that life again. But oh well. SBu is what he is, but he does humor and comedy well and does have chemistry with most of his love interests, family, friends. It will always be just a missed opportunity. On the other hand, if they never changed Jason at all Steve probably would eventually been recast a bunch of times and ended up more bland like Kevin/Joey on OLTL through the years.

At the time, I thought the Jason Morgan stuff was pretty genius. Jason Q was boring. The whole idea was really good EVEN tying him to Sonny and then Robin. And the silliness of hating his family, Keesha and Brenda. It put Jason in new group of people like Carly, Sonny, Robin, Brenda, Mike, etc that he normally wouldn't have interacted much with and gave SBu a lot more to work with and he tried back then. It was a good idea that ostensibly had an ending of sorts, but Guza just gets so happy when things take off that he milks them to the end of time. I would imagine the set up would have always been Jason getting his memories back and pitting him against AJ in Q family drama for years to come. I doubt he was meant to be a hired killer 26 years later lol! I also would venture to guess SBu was very vocal about not going back to Jason Q as well.

I believe it was Labine but it could be Guza. It happened not long after Stone's death. Like honestly a month or so later. I think it actually occurred at the tail end of 1995 if I am not mistaken. I would just assume the connection to Sonny started with Guza but Idk.

The reason I liked Jason is the way they played his brain damage back then. I obviously hated what he did with the Q's and Sonny, but I liked the way SBu played Jason's overall confusion, having a blank slate, some actual mental limitations and the believable coldness of his early personality as Jason M. My brain always assumed he would get his memories back and at least meld the two personalities, but it is what it is. I don't know if I found Carly even quasi-rootable, but I did find her watchable and interesting which is more than I can say for most characters.

It did sort of fall into the ignorance of the disease at the time and Carly's own ignorance, but Carly did have a medical background, so it just felt like a low blow for the sake of a low blow. Overall, not anywhere near the worst of Carly's action in the scheme of things lol

I always liked that way Robin handled her-she clearly felt she was above Carly. But a lot of the Carly mocking her HIV status does not hold up. It was cringey at the time and worse now.