BetterForgotten

Lucy Benjamin has slotted back in quite nicely as Lisa this week too. The writing for Bianca and Tiffany’s scenes felt off. It’s like they’re struggling to explain why Bianca’s been an absent/terrible mother.

Granted, Mel’s return has been an overall flop and she’s leaving soon (and I was never a big fan anyway during her first stint). However, Tamzin is a damn good actress and was very good this week (especially today).

Why did CBS dominate in the summer of '84 during such a hot time for ABD Daytime? Did ATWT feel any of that momentum as well?

I didn't realize that the BBC had started doing promo materials again for the show. Here's one with Patsy Palmer and Maisie Smith. As for the show, it is HIGHLY plot driven. Though I can see why some see this as a step-up given the years of really poorly executed, regressive, and just boring material. The day to day writing is a bit better and there does seem to more momentum than usual again. There's also a bit more character interaction that we've not really seen much of - the story is trash, but who would have thought Steve McFadden and Jessie Wallace would be sharing so much screentime together? For years, it was said those two hated each other and the show went out of its way to make sure Phil and Kat only shared limited scenes. Oates and Sen are very much in Santer's vein though - they seem very good at publicity and sensationalist plots, but piss poor at character development. But none of this seems to be paying off in the ratings yet

Yeah, I really wish she would stop with the dancing - she's not a theatrical performer and has no damn rhythm in her body. She's at home when she's in singer-songwriter mode and needs to stick to that more. She's not a conventional pop star and needs to embrace it.

The fact that P&G likely knew about his behavior for years and never did anything about it until MANY years later is sad and sickening.

I remember hearing Martha Byrne especially campaigned to get him fired after that "incident."

Until the Patrick Swayze documentary that aired the other night, I didn't realize how much Claire Labine and Wendy Riche jacked/was influenced by the final scene in Ghost for Stone's death. Don't know how I missed that after all these years.

Whoever thought Drew Barrymore has a digestible personality that could carry an hour-long talk show needs to be shot.

For whatever reason, Tori and Jennie are under the impression that they were always meant to be comedic actresses when the fact is neither is much of an actress to begin with...

That's because Tori enlisted Chris Alberghini and Mike Chessler as showrunners, who worked in the same capacity on So Notorious.

20 years a few days ago since the release of Destiny's Child breakthrough album The Writing's On the Wall.

It seemed like P&G and CBS panicked when ATWT lost its dominance in the ratings by the late 70's/early 80's. On the surface, they probably felt like the "old formula" wasn't working anymore and couldn't compete with ABC. I guess that was true to an extent, but MEB didn't really seem to go about it in the right way...

What about season 7? 😋

Texas, in the end, didn't seem worth the effort. McKinsey left after a year and hated how they wrote Iris, and the show never found its footing. Though, had McKinsey not been on Texas she probably wouldn't have gotten the chance to play Alexandra on GL (and thus creating another popular soap character) as that's where she met Gail Kobe and Pam Long. You have to question why NBC/P&G thought a new spin-off starring a popular character/actress from a now struggling soap was a good idea. That, or Texas should have been designed as a standalone soap with no direct ties to AW.

I wonder if Kimberlin will devote the next year to campaigning for Trump.

No surprise, but Tamzin Outhwaite is leaving. Mel's return has been one big bomb - John Yoke only brought her back because she was his friend but had no idea what to do with her, and it's clear that Oakes/Sen had little interest in her as well https://www.hellomagazine.com/film/2019071175224/eastenders-tamzin-outhwaite-leaving-soap-details/

Devon having sex with "Aunt Tyra" after he found out she wasn't his aunt anymore was disgusting a really bizarre writing choice.

Tammin Suresucks was awful as Colleen, but killing off the character in general was very shortsighted and cruel. They should have written her out and recast a few years later. MAB and her cronies were terrible for doing that, especially since Traci never had other kids.

I do think it was very strange the show never had or tackled any LGBTQ issues or characters. For a show set in a college, that was a big miss. Especially the African American LGBTQ existence. I know it was the late 80's/early 90's, but still...

Maybe @vetsoapfan or someone actively following the soaps at this time can comment on the competition between them and how difficult in the pre-internet and even pre-VCR days it was to keep up with all of them, especially when major developments and stories were unfolding. In a week where AW expanded to 90 minutes, Roger's rape of Holly on GL, the Wade Meecham murder on EON, and Karen Wolek's testimony on OLTL - how the heck could you keep up if you followed all these shows, lol? Were some of these stories looked upon fondly only years later but weren't at the time (obviously AW's 90 minute expansion seemed to be a bomb from the start)?

Apparently due to her erratic behavior and showing up late to tapings. Her relationship with Cosby had deteriorate by that point, but looking back and knowing what we know about Cosby now, I do wonder what the dynamics of their relationship was like. Bonet has refused to particulate in just about every reunion of TCS.