BetterForgotten

Laura is awful. It kinda makes me glad she’s basically been reduced to a B-tiered character and an afterthought, for the most part, these days. If being a Sonny apologist is all they care for her to do, then keep writing her as an irrelevant spare part. Even with Lulu back and Lucky’s recent botched return and exit, Laura has felt so irrelevant and inconsistent as a character for such a long time. I wonder if this is all by design by FV though.

Peacock Bumps Off Murder, She Wrote

I don' think this is 100% true - For example, I can watch multiple GL episodes from the 70's (the stuff written by the Dobson's at least) and feel some sort of stakes at various degrees with multiple stories running together. I do not get a similar feeling with BTG. BTG, by contrast, feel very muted. You can argue its faster paced than other soaps, but the payoff for a lot of key scenes and storylines feels rather lackluster. It feels very aimless at times. There is no fire to most of these stories that makes me feel like I need to watch every episode. As I said before, I want this show to succeed, but almost 6 months in, I do need them to analyze some things and pivot in new directions.

It's coming up on 6 months, it's time for the show to reassess some things and pivot. If they can't admit that some things just aren't working, then they'll be following the other soaps and produce a show in denial. I am interested in seeing how this summer pans out. I do think they need to work on making sure the momentum is kept up and ensuring some of these stories have better and higher stakes. The story execution issues are what is really hampering my viewing experience with this show at the moment. It took a year for Generations to feel like it was going anywhere. That was because former AMC EP, Jorn Winther, came in and totally revitalized the show. There was some promise form the start, but Sally Sussman Morina (as proven multiple times) is just not a good/exciting writer. When Winther came in, suddenly the show had some fire, there was some recastings, and Sussman Morina was forced to up her game (as much as she could at least). NBC canceled the show just when it felt like things had started to really gel.

Beyond the predominantly black cast, BTG seems to share a lot more in common with Generations than I initially thought. Both start off with some promise, but the execution left a lot to be desired and there was very little heat to any of the stories that should be more exciting than they actually are. Generations didn’t start to ignite into something interesting until Jorn Winther joined as Senior Executive Producer and brought some recasts and forced Sally Sussman Morina to step her writing up (for her standards at least). By the time things truly started to gel, NBC was ready to cancel it. I hope the same doesn’t happen to BTG, but it’s clear they need someone with a stronger vision to steward the overall production and story execution into a better place like Winther did for Generations. I realize BTG had only been on the air for like 5 months, so I’m really hoping they’ve started to retool some things as they gear up for the second half of the year.

“Enjoy the burn” when your ratings stagnate and trend downward.

I think BTG has some structural issues that makes it very hard to invest over time. The show has done a poor job of properly building or maintaining momentum for a lot of its stories. The stakes to most sorties often feel incredibly low and muted. The start/stop nature of some things also isn’t helpful.

Ouch for BTG, the Bell soaps had a good week (despite awful writing) and it didn’t benefit BTG.

It’s kind of grotesque that they’re doing a story about someone who is clearly not authorized or the parent handling/touching Sasha’s baby just to gaslight her. Is no one at the show paying attention to the nasty optics of this story?

The flashback to Gio destroying the violin is hilarious in isolation.

If Ashley doesn’t get written out by the end of summer then I’ll know no one at the show is paying attention. It’s almost universal that this character has not worked since the very first episode. She’s sabotaging herself too because isn’t she supposed to be training Eva and setting her up for success?

Dani’s hypocrite ass has some nerve talking about Nicole projecting her anger on other people when that’s all she does.

I don't know if its by design or not, but this show has a problem with maintaining momentum, IMO. Again, I don't need the same conversations over and over again, but the big stories need a more consistent throughline that builds to a payoff that makes sense. There's a start/stop functionality on the show that I don't think they've fully mastered at this point. I feel like that may account for the erratic ratings trends.

After Dani held her at gunpoint at her wedding and casually feels entitled to show her way into Haley’s house whenever she feels like it, I won’t feel bad for Dani if Haley fakes a miscarriage and frames her for it ala Annie/Reva on GL.

Final trailer:

I guess crap like this is why Josh Griffith doesn’t get fired despite how creatively bankrupt he is?

It’s time to recast or write out Tomas. This guy cannot act or string together a believable sentence. It’s been long established that Bill is a serial cheater. Why does Haley think she can tame that, and why does Dani want to keep putting up with a man that was never loyal to her in the first place?

Minus the bulky ass earrings, Haley looks great today in the green ensemble.

I don’t know how upset Dani or her kids would be if Andre had another side piece - especially given his supposed reputation as a “playboy.” From the writing, Dani doesn’t see Andre as more than sex as she’s still emotionally entangled with Bill.

I just haven’t cared for anything that’s been dished out for like a decade + at this point. I’ve seen both good and bad eras of the show, and Chris Clenshaw’s run (which some folks seem to really like) left me a bit cold from what I saw. The show still seems as short sighted and and hastily produced as possible to me. Also, because Corrie and Emmerdale suck, it doesn’t give EE a pass for mediocrity. I’ve seen a lot of that behaviour on other forums and I think it’s stupid as hell. There’s a segment of fans that are so desperate to cling to anything after the very loooooooooong dull period EE experienced (which tbh, I don’t think it’s really recovered from based on what I see).

Behind the scenes of Michelle Ryan’s first day back as Zoe. Ben Wadey talks a bit about the Slater era being his era of the show. Jessie seems elated as well. I’m not watching as I feel disconnected from the show in its current state, but hope it works out, even if Zoe was damn annoying outside of her relationship with Kat.

I think an issue I’m having with the show right now is that the stakes to all these stories feel so muted. The pacing moves fast, yes, but the stories don’t feel gripping or as if we’re building to something interestingly explosive. The stories need more fire, for the lack of a better word. I want to see if this continues as we approach the 6 month mark, or if they’ll use that as an opportunity to pivot some things.