KMan101

Exactly. I'd still take her back though, LOL But sadly most competent producers and writers have no interest anymore, due to years of interference, etc. They've basically all been driven out. Hence the recycling of hacks. 1997 was ... not good but like you said ... I'd take it back anyday over whatever this is now ... hell 2018 was better than 2019 has been. It's not even offensive or destructive, really, it's just ... not good. It feels like it's on autopilot. I LIVED for Garcia and Taggert's hatred of Sonny and Jason.

Brad's listed in the credits (even way back in 1988)! So he should have been paying attention ...

+1 All of this

Such a waste! IMHO But I love seeing them together. ( RIP Luke ) And Jennie and Shannen holding hands!? https://ew.com/tv/2019/05/08/beverly-hills-90210-revival-bh90210-tori-spelling-jennie-garth-exclusive/ Interview with Tori and Jennie. I love what Jennie has to say about perceiving things in your 20s vs in your 40s. I think we all can relate on looking back on things and realizing you interpreted the situation wrong or that you'd handle the same situation so differently with maturity. It sheds light on the series. They're playing fictionalized versions of themselves (no Dean McDermott!!! But "Tori" is married with a bunch of kids) while trying to get a reboot off. They suggest the second season (if there is one) will focus on the reboot aspect. I like what they had to say and I'm slightly more intrigued and willing to give it a shot. Sounds also like Luke was involved initially and supportive of it (I imagine he would have ultimately found a way to participate, so I was wrong there). LOL! @ this: As a fan I must know, will there be a Peach Pit, or will it be Peach Pit After Dark? Something else? GARTH: What would be next after Peach Pit: After Dark? SPELLING: It would be Senior Community Center. [laughs] Peach Pit Senior Center. GARTH: We’re working on a location right now for our new version of the Peach Pit. You’ll be seeing the Peach Pit. SPELLING: There’s definitely going to be for the die-hard fans, there’s going to be moments where they’ll get to see us play Kelly and Donna and all the other characters.

That's good to know about Kristen.

Ah, puts it in better perspective ... Bill never knew what to do with her either. I think he finds the idea of a character more interesting than the actual execution and he swiftly loses interest. He lost interest in Kristen fairly quick too, didn't he? You can see a lot of comparisons in casting on B&B to that of Y&R and how maybe he wanted to emulate some of them (Ashley/Kristen spring to mind, but I don't think Kristen was ever on par with Ashley but I haven't seen enough of OG Kristen yet to form an opinion)

Interesting. It's pretty sad to see Donna virtually wasted. Katie's always been a non-entity. Not that they'd ever fire Tom, but I'd have killed Katie and kept Storm .... lol

God it's sad I'd take non-entity Julie Carruthers over Frank at this point (I don't think Wendy is an option but I'd love to dream, unfortunately, lightning doesn't always strike twice, either ...)

It did fall apart after the first year.

Ah! My mistake! I should have known better sorry!

Hogan was the Ron before Ron Carlivati LOL. Just randomly pulling out a son for Cricket who hadn't, if at all, been mentioned or referred to prior. I liked Hogan (he still had his many many flaws) before he was saddled with Jean.

Thanks for the playlist. I've been watching a private playlist. But I really enjoy 1994. I loved how JER brought back Laura, Bill and Mike. I too thought Bill was just around for the reveal but it was nice he stuck around longer. And yeah around 2010 they seemed invested in Nathan. Bill gave him the medical bag, I believe. Would have been nicer if Nathan were Jeremy at the time ... (and Trevor Donovan's Jeremy never stood a chance with the awful writing, I was turned off instantly, and I like Donovan now a lot). I also thought it was a missed opportunity not to use Nick Fallon to re-introduce Marie (at least we saw Jessica for a hot minute in 2012!) Now it feels like almost too much time has passed and it would feel weird to just plop, say Marie, back onto the show. And I know the show has literally no budget but I also always thought it was a mistake not to try and bring a few back every year at least for the Ornament hanging at Christmas ... Sony blows

Yeah. Daytime is very disconnected (probably an understatement ...) and unable to evolve. It's just a retread of basic "soap tropes" ... it has been since the late 90s. At least in the early 2000s shows still had an OK budget. Now? Ooof. But I digress ... I mean, look at how sexless the gay couples we have are. At least back in the early Wilson days they were allowed to roll around on the bed, take a shower together ... now they don't even touch lips when they kiss ... and Will in in his grandpa professor sweaters and Sonny with his greased back hair, as unsexy as you can get ... and then you have "Teriah" who make watching paint dry sound fun ... and Mariah's been slowly zapped over her personality over the years ... And then you have Leo living up to every cliche in the book ... it's either boring and basic or cliched extreme ... And then you had Luke, a hot mess, tied to the most boring man on the planet in Noah ... I appreciated the time they had Lucinda's younger man (Brian? Laurence Lau) make a pass at Luke but Daytime is soooo afraid. Could you imagine if Will Horton and EJ DiMera had a side thing instead of Abby and EJ and Sami found out? We'd never get that, but a UK soap would milk it to the heavens ... the pearl clutchers would die on the spot Other places are still a "bit" behind. Australia last year I believe only just had the first same sex male marriage on a soap ... Meanwhile, HollyOaks has a bunch of very different gay men (but I imagine the younger audience accepts it better) while EastEnders turns theirs into child traffickers ... so ... lol

to all of this! I'm in Florida so not a huge leap from 'Bama Glad to hear it about Huntsville! I've personally never desired to visit Alabama for a number of reasons, but I feel like I've always heard good things about Huntsville. I have a lot to say on the matter of folks who seem so bothered by who is doing who in their own private bedroom ... but I'm in a pretty good mood today so I'll sip my coffee and check back in a little later

LOL we would!

His dialogue was AWFUL AWFUL AWFUL. Characters come off SO dumb. Just really stupid. How actors got through that with a straight face ... lol. I do agree on your take on him and you're right, I can also find something good, usually, in any writer. For example I adored Mal dumping Kevin and Chelsea from Y&R yet I think he's trash ... lol. I find it kind of fun to dissect, I guess :/ 1994 was a good year. He had it in him to plot well ... and yep he knew the value of having A/B/C/D stories. There was *always* something going on or happening, even if you hated it you were probably entertained on some level. John and Austin were dumb as stumps during his run. Dim bulb model Austin was nothing like crying, sensitive boxer Austin. John, a smart man, was sooooooooooo dumb. And I hated how Reilly did Victor, "Tony" and Jack dirty in the writing (Jack's initial return under Valley wasn't too bad but it didn't last long ...). But I do agree he was ultimately damaging to the genre and we never recovered from it. I usually agree with you so no surprise I agree with you here again, lol. I was a kid too at the time of Reilly and I was pretty pulled in. Re-watching as an adult I see the awful dialogue, etc. lol. The day to day stuff was often tedious but I'll be damned if he didn't compell me to watch. But as a whole I can see why he's seen as so damaging to the genre. But it's sad because he kind of had it in him (he also benefited I believe from working with well known and better scribes who also knew how to plot a story and how to structure a soap opera). Again, all well said. Looking back at the posession, a lot of it was dark, gothic and sort of enthralling. I can get how audiences were pulled in (and also turned off) but then you have the demon mask thing and morphing into a panther .... lol I think it would generate a lot of buzz. I have no doubts Ron has thought of it. He loves referring to the possession. Other writers never acknowledged it (and I can understand why). I kinda like how DAYS is able to poke fun at itself a bit when referring to their history.

I think what's sad with Reilly is, like Ron Carlivati, I thought Reilly could craft a soap story with beginnings, middles and ends, but then somewhere it all went to hell and I don't quite get what happened. I'm not saying it was perfect but his 1999-2002 Passions is very different (even with Hell in a Closet!) than what followed. DAYS from 1993-1995 was very different than 1996/1997+ and especially his disastrous backpeddling 2003-2006 stint (where Lucas and Sami regressed into splitting up Carrie and Austin again, Billie's swamp baby was suddenly alive, half the town is murdered yet not really, but they drag it out for a year with Melaswen, a castle, etc. Lawd .... not to mention Sami as a man (sort of clever I suppose), Iraq ... lawd again). I feel more disappointed than angry, honestly. But there's no question he was ... damaging lol (not to mention all the soaps who piggybacked off of him, you had voodoo on AMC, Lumina on AW, Dolly the Reva clone on GL ...) but like the 80s, you had a lot of dumb [!@#$%^&*] too (Eterna on OLTL, etc.) ... so it's interesting to see how the soaps went from psychological dramas (mostly ...) to wacky sci-fi [!@#$%^&*] in the 80s that fans lapped up (the college kids, mostly), to back to more emotional character driven material in the early 90s and then back to ridiculous [!@#$%^&*]. The soaps haven't been the same since around 1997/1998, IMHO. And the slide started before that ... (since then they've been stuck in a rotating rotgut of producers and soap tropes that are vastly overplayed; soaps stopped evolving around 1995/1996 and now any "social issue story" basically flops ...) But it's weird, in the 80s, a lot of it gets praise now but I can only imagine the pearl clutchers as Luke was saving Port Charles from freezing ... were folks just more into that kind of stuff then? Was it because there were better production values? More heart? Better writing overall that could mask the ridiculous [!@#$%^&*]?

Yeah, those were the two I was referring to but I've never seen them for myself, personally. I think those were the only two, the rest all feel like shock value. Days seemed to love raping their leading ladies and it was really all about plot and not at all how it affected said character. I mean, I know Maggie was raped by Ian (right? Melissa's older probation officer who disappeared for a while then suddenly came back and was revealed as the rapist, but I could be mixing things up) the hospital rapist, and she had a gun for a while but it all just seemed like a plot device to keep her and Mickey apart a little longer. I also thought it was damaging when you had Don forcing himself on Marlena (though it was a different time and it was spousal rape, it was still a rape as far as I'm concerned, but it was basically treated like nothing, unless I'm wrong) and then not too long after, Kellam was raping her. Overall, I've never been a fan of rape stories because I see them for what they are ... not what they could and should be ... JER went bonkers with them on Passions ... but I think it just sadly speaks to his mental state at the time. He truly became very bizarre ... Anyway, on daytime royalty, Jason47 has been posting recaps and it's been a lot of fun to read the 80s stuff (and I'm watching what I can as well ... and there are some VERY detailed recaps that just suck you in, even a recap can suck me in but today the soaps do such a poor job of "drawing you in"), you can easily see the transitional periods where things would get dropped, characters in and out, and then around 85/86 you could clearly see them losing interest in Don, Liz, Neil, Marie (who basically was used as fill-in for Maggie while Suzanne Rogers was out for a year) ... I tended to get slightly disappointed in certain directions they took things. As much as I love the Bradys and Johnsons, I think they ultimately ended up taking a lot of focus away from the Hortons. Mickey and Maggie were finally reunited and only had the Neil/Sarah stuff a little later before no one had any interest in them. Marie sort of became forgotten about and then never brought back for long stints after that. Don disappeared mailing a letter (and they gave him no followup to Sonia's death, which I found odd, but they were clearly checked out on him, he was becoming the Mickey of Days before Mickey became that ... lol if that makes sense!). I thought Don filled a nice role but I'm glad Jed Allan went onto Santa Barbara (I've always loved Jed Allan but often have mixed feelings on Don) I have to admit I liked how they tied the DiMera's to the core players like Liz (through Tony and Stefano), and they involved Doug and Julie (before it became about Bo and Hope), Mickey ... but if you didn't watch at the time or read up like I do, you'd never know most of it ... and it seems "Stefano had plans for Julie" ... fascinating she could have been his obsession before it became about Marlena and Roman. Anyway, kind of random but it's fun, and interesting, to really see the transitions. I thought they gave couples a lot of ridiculous, stupid obstacles to overcome, LOL (which JER doubled down on in the 90s). Especially Melissa and Pete, lawd ...

I agree. I mean, Hogan Sheffer also played male rape for laughs on ATWT. It's repulsive and offensive. It's not kinky or hot or sexy. I wonder what place Ron gets in where he thinks a rapemance is sexy. Is that his fantasy? I mean ... I don't get it. I've never really liked soaps using rape, because it was often never about the actual victim and what they go through, it was always just a plot device for shock value, or punishing a character. It's often always rubbed me the wrong way. I think probably only one or two soaps really played it the way they should have.

PREACH! You are not wrong at all. Nothing to add (yet; I'm still working on my coffee ), your post perfectly summarizes him for me.

She's been off on-screen for a while, I see it too. She's very much checked out. I often feel like she plays Hope "lost" (since losing Bo) but of course it doesn't get written that way but that's how I'm choosing to look at it, lol. I think she probably enjoys working with Galen but she HAS to know this pairing has really sunk her and Hope is such a shell of who she used to be. But I guess loss can do that, except they don't play it out on-screen so either Kristian is making a choice or she's just truly checked out. She's so full of life off-screen ... LOL that dog wedding! Calliope and Eugene were SO bizarre. I like them at times but then I cringe all at the same time. Lawd. And absolutely it started going downhill before he arrived. And LOL at the list of Ron's tropes and it's order. But it's 100% accurate now that you listed it out. Sooooo true. I always thought he could fit DAYS and when he honors history in a good way, it works. He has it in him somewhere (I think a stronger co-hw would go a looong way) but he resorts to tropes or he starts writing petty garbage because he's checked out. I often wonder if writers pitch better stuff but then resort to more outlandish [!@#$%^&*] in order to get it approved ... And yep, we're at the mask phase Just wait folks ... Oddly though it works better on DAYS than on GH ... LOL, but it's still so ridiculous. But JER would be proud. (And I'm willing to buy it in this case, oddly enough ...) He tried the rapemance with "Gabby" and Stefan and it fell entirely flat so he lost interest and next thing you know Mansi is back to wrap it up (I wasn't her biggest fan but a part of me thinks, and it's just an assumption, that Miller bolted because she saw the writing on the wall with the rapemance with Stefan, but I'm probably wrong, LOL) and Chabby are shipped off (their exit was nice though ... I do think Ron has it in him ... but man he's beyond frustrating ... I'm not saying he's great but I've always thought he had it in him somewhere ... I know ... wishful thinking ... his runs on OLTL and GH all sort of repeated stuff ... and he loves his villain of the month ...)

I wasn't necessarily trying to imply the cast don't. I feel DAYS actors do try. A lot of actors are checked out (on all four soaps) and it's just so blatant. The conditions are much worse than they used to be, but back in the day, soaps would also work their actor 14-16+ days ... they're at a breakneck pace now and there's no time for rehearsals or re-shoots, etc. It's just become "it is what it is". But at the end of the day, like the commercials on TV say "just OK is not OK" Like GH fans have remarked that with Oscar's death the show proves it can still put in effort. Like Y&R fans have remarked that with the handling of Neil's memorial, the show can still put in effort, but they just don't the majority of the time. Not saying you're saying "just ok is ok" trust me I think daytime actors are extremely underrated and very hard working and don't get their just dues because soaps are looked down upon (and at times I fully understand why they are ...) I just think there was more care overall. They aren't given the time or budget now to care as much. And we just don't have quality producers or directors or even script writers like we used to. I can name a handful of those who are still good and I can see the effort when their names are on the credits ...

lol no worries I was like "Khan knows I know all this ..." lol but I know where you were coming from

SO dumb at times, LOL!!! And +1! You felt they cared and were committed to putting on a compelling and interesting show. I can be instantly drawn in yet nowadays I'm turned *off* ...

I know all this. I've seen Knots Landing multiple times LOL it's one of my absolute favorite shows ever. And I didn't like LML's tenure on Knots. She didn't have a clue what to do with Val. I liked some things, I suppose. She has very specific ideas for her shows but doesn't always quite fit the shows she's producing ...