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Eric is really making up for lost time and living that baby making machine lifestyle. In one year he's gotten Nicole, Jada, and Sloan pregnant! At this rate, he's going to quickly catch up with Stefano as Salem's most prolific father.

Do Chad, Stephanie, Alex, Chloe, and Xander all live in the same building? If so, that's sort of cute. It is amusing on these tiny sets when someone pulls another person aside to talk, as if everyone in the room can't hear them. I mean, it's Salem, and if everyone can hear each other conversations in the Kiriakis Mansion, I think they can hear each other in their tiny kitchenette. BTW, are people ordering Chinese food and pizza because their kitchens are too small to cook? I assume that we'll see the fall out of Lani and Abe on Friday, but today's dialogue indicated that it is now almost 8pm in Salem, so Whitley must have a huge supply of drugs at her place in order to keep injecting them every few hours. Unpopular opinion, Li grew on me today. Although Trask having drinks with the defendant in an upcoming case that she's prosecuting is just as unethical as Rafe and Jada dating (maybe that's the point?), Li felt much more natural today and charming.

EJ and Stefan live in the same house, but they didn't discuss Megan's assassination attempt until a week later? 🗓️ Is Harris gone for good? 🤞 And now Gabi has a gun? I will never understand why Peacock censors sex, but not gun violence. Personally, I'm less offended by a tush and some oral sex double entendres than showing people threatening each other with guns on a semi-weekly basis. 🦚 Finally, character reformation is one thing, but Li's involved in a wacky romance plot one week after being responsible for people getting shot in the same bar as his blind date? 📯

May I ask for a refresher? Did the McCleary's live in Henderson or did they move there after Hogan? I just recall them popping up all over the place, but I don't remember if it was a Quartermaine/Frame thing where an entire family just immigrates to a new town, or if they were established there, but we just met more and more of them over time. Unpopular opinion, but I prefer Maeve McGuire over Mary Stuart because she was a more natural actress with less quirks. I know fans always prefer nostalgia, but I was an EON fan, so Maeve was nostalgic to me.

From Edge of Night, my favorite monologue from Raven as she is leaving Monticello and "giving" Jamie to April and Draper. "I want to fly, but not on a plane. No, No, I want wings of my own. That's why I call myself Raven. See, I was the one that took that name when I was a little girl. My real name is Charlotte. Can you imagine? But, one day I was sitting on the lawn and I saw this beautiful black bird with shiny wings fly by. I wanted to be that bird. So beautiful. So free. With beautiful black wings..." Then she turns around and flies off to London, presumably to seduce her stepfather Ansel for money, leaving April and Draper stupefied in their living room.

Oy, Marjorie Taylor Green and her ex-friends at the House Freedom Caucus can't understand Twitter, and they were already warned about AI from the creator of ChatGPT, imagine them trying to hold a hearing on AI and its effects on employment? Even ChatGPT's own servers couldn't write a script more absurd than those fools trying to figure out regulations.

Here's the NYT article on the flood https://www.nytimes.com/1986/02/23/arts/search-for-tomorrow-rating-are-down-and-flood-waters-are-in.html?searchResultPosition=9 For the TL:DR crowd: The serial's executive producer, John Whitesell, who joined the staff last November, hopes that the flood disaster will stave off an even worse disaster: cancellation. ''We need to shake up the situation. 'Search' is in desperate need of refocusing,'' acknowledged Mr. Whitesell, who at 32 is considered something of a wunderkind in the daytime soap-opera field. He began his career directing ''Texas'' in 1981, then joined ''The Guiding Light,'' where last season he won an Emmy Award for best director. 'There's something about a flood that's universal,'' he added, pointing out that he had considered several disaster options before resorting to rainfall. ''It's cleansing. A hurricane or tornado would make it hard to pick up. With a flood it's not impossible to rebuild a town, and that's what the people of Henderson will be striving to do.'' Meanwhile, Mr. Whitesell is striving to rebuild ''Search for Tomorrow'' with more ''character-based scenes.'' He and Gary Tomlin will eschew the hairpin plot turns of some of the hourlong daytime serials that over the past few years have included international crime syndicates, drug-smuggling rings and buried treasure. Instead, the show's new format will deal with what is affecting the lives of its characters at home. ''There won't be many office scenes. But this is not to say people won't have jobs,'' said Mr. Whitesell, who explained that he plans to have more contiguous sets with kitchens attached to dining rooms attached to living rooms, ''so that it will be easier to follow the characters around.'' ''I've been in two fires on the show, which were awfully scary,'' says Mary Stuart, who has played Jo Tourneur, the much-married co-owner of a boardinghouse in town, and has been on ''Search for Tomorrow'' since its inception. ''What's nice about the flood is that everyone is in it. We like the reason for the flood: to turn the show around. ''When you have a story with a lot of plot you have to do a lot of explaining,'' said Mr. Whitesell, who plans to cut back from 15 scenes per episode to eight or 10. ''That way we'll have a better chance of going into more depth - showing the audience how these characters feel about things. It's all about relatability.'' ''I don't think the half-hour problem is insurmountable - we're just going to concentrate on fewer plots and fewer people,'' said Mr. Tomlin, who wants to tackle racial issues and other themes generally not addressed by daytime soap operas. ''We're going to be feeling our way for a while. We're trying to get the characters to be identified with as strongly as audiences identified with the characters on the 'Mary Tyler Moore Show.' It's all about people.'' ''If people don't like the flood, obviously we can't pretend it didn't happen,'' Mr. Whitesell said. ''But I'm not anticipating they won't like it. I think it will be very beneficial to the show.'' ''When I took over as head writer in early 1983,'' Mr. Tomlin said, ''I was told the show would be lucky to last until September.'' A pause. ''But we're still here.'' The day after the flood, when they all move to Liberty House, Jo is given a hardhat and told that she will manage the place at the behest of the owner (that image was later incorporated into the opening sequence). This sets up a mystery about the identity of the owner and why they chose Jo, but those issues are never resolved.

I mentioned this earlier. The whole rhetoric about "privileged" actors striking is an attempt to distract from the issue that the AI concerns that they are fighting for will have an effect on all areas of employment. Why will we need human lawyers, if ChatGPT can write a C&D letter. But, should I pay my lawyer for something that they can derive from AI? However, by framing it as an issue that only effects the elites, the media is doing a disservice.

So, the obvious question that comes up over and over is why don't soap cops call for backup before they enter a suspect's dwelling? If Lani had called Shawn and either he screwed up due to drinking, or redeemed himself by not drinking, it would have been an interesting way to integrate him into the story. All that aside, I hate that Brady has a gun and the audience is supposed to understand that violent threats are a reasonable result when a grown man feels threatened. I hope John yells at Brady for taking his gun out of the safe. Like, dude, just because you're a 50-year-old man living with parents, doesn't mean you can use their gun!

An amusing (but unfounded) note about the recasting of Ava BTW - speaking of Ava recasts, a small piece of gossip that may have been forgotten, Lisa Peluso and Perry Stephens dated briefly according to the soap magazines.

My immediate response to reading your well considered post was that part of the difference in reactions to the two time periods may be reflected in the changing soap press. Soap Opera Weekly was launched in November 1989, coinciding with the end of the Rauch era. In my experience as a soap watcher, the magazine revolutionized (hyperbole) the fandom by taking on a critical review of soaps, as opposed to digest's recaps, and other fan magazines more fawning interview style. The prefect example is when Victor Lord's hologram appears in Eterna, SOD played along with the bombastic storyline, but years later when it was suggested that Victor may have been killed by his daughter, SOW points out the lack of logic in the plot. Both ideas are equally ridiculous, but the different reactions assume a growing maturity of how people are consuming soaps. So, perhaps each era was well suited to the sophistication of the audience at the time. The juvenile audience coming of age in the Rauch era was drawn to adventure stories. Whereas the audience of the Gottlieb and Malone era valued melodrama. Finally, your post inspired me to think about how I've underestimated the skill of the actors who straddled both eras. They were able to play all of those different notes and maintain a consistent character. I mean, name another actor beside Erika Slezak who could go from an Eterna jumpsuit to an Armani two piece and portray everything from sorrow over a forgotten child to an adult's reaction to suppressed childhood sexual trauma.

Lani is strong! She must've been working out in the prison yard. But, if she gets a get-out-of-jail-free card while Lucas is still rotting behind bars, then he's got to get a better lawyer.

Just a reminder, Retro TV, which owns the app, filed for bankruptcy in 2021 after being dropped from 120 affiliates to 80, so be careful what you call a success

I appreciate the consistency that the character of Phillip has an awful haircut no matter who plays the part.

Random thought, inspired by the number of responses to this thread, as well as the social media popularity of DAYS, it really was the perfect soap to move to streaming, because regardless of where it airs, it is still a part of the zeitgeist. On these boards alone, it has double the number of responses of the Y&R thread for the past two months, despite Y&R being the number one rated soap. I know someone will misinterpret my thoughts as defending Peacock, and counter that they don't watch, or NBC was stupid, or other rigmarole, but it is an interesting trend.

There's some humorous irony in the fact that earlier in the week there was so much criticism online about Ms. Drescher's presidency, then one great speech later everyone is like, president for life! Actors love a good performance. I think her later answer about being pictured with Kim Kardashian was equally great. Kim K has become a code word for entitled privilege (for good reason), but it is interesting to see how the media uses her image to discredit those in her presence. Fran's point was that professional women have to juggle many priorities, and just because her work is glamorous, doesn't invalidate the fact that it is a job.

I wish someone would remind Nicole how much Sydney and Tate once meant to her, now that she's got a miracle pregnancy and seems to have forgotten about them. Talk about out of sight, out of mind. It's only slightly worse than the fact that EJ hasn't visited his daughter in months.

@Joseph Perhaps it would be wise to be more thoughtful about the wording of your responses? Because I know you're not suggesting that there is something abnormal about being a lesbian.

In terms of cancelling subscriptions to streaming, I'm through with the idea that consumers should force corporations to do what is right. I get that people outside the entertainment industry want to support the creatives. But, it is not the moral burden of the consumer to ensure that employees are given their fair share of the profits made from the products that they create. That is the job of the federal government. I think a smarter response, is to urge fans to vote for representatives who value worker's rights over the growth of big business. Remember when we were told that unemployment rates would skyrocket if private companies had to provide medical insurance? Remember when we were told the same thing about minimum wage increases, safety regulations, and equity and inclusion? They were wrong, and they tried to frighten people not to vote in their best interest. The rhetoric around "rich" strikers is the same idea. They are trying to deceive people that only the leisure class has the privilege of time or money to strike for fair compensation. Meanwhile, if congress would regulate AI, rather than holding bogus hearings pretending not to know the racist implications of nationalism, we would all be protected. Don't get fooled that this strike is about people being able to buy a bigger pool. These are issues that will have an effect on most jobs in the next decade.

I hadn't thought of that, you're exactly correct

Variety's review of the first three episodes of RHoNY (ouch) Its first three episodes struck this viewer as outlet-store fare — a flashy garment with amateurish tailoring. This viewer had long since walked away from the show, as its depiction of substance use in particular had gone from “Grey Gardens” kooky to Aronofsky-movie dark. Time will tell if this franchise has the juice to go the 13 seasons like “RHONY” did before its reboot, or if it only has a couple of years left

@DramatistDreamer Iger's narrative only gains traction because of uninformed people like this that don't value the collective bargaining power of the American worker to get their fair share of corporate profits. I thought Fran Drescher made this point very clear at today's press conference.

I assume that is a reference to Foxy's, the bar that Opal made Jenny work at when they lived in Center City.

Also, note that the average family of four spends $6,320 on a Disneyland vacation, and there are 51,000 visitors to Disneyland every day, but the costumed cast member is only paid an average salary of $34,916. The average adult ticket price is $150.00 this year, or 7.6 million per day. So, I think priorities are a little screwed up if we are only worried about whether some kid will get their picture taken with Snow White this summer. Especially because 80% of them were furloughed without pay during COVID, so they couldn't qualify for unemployment insurance because their employment was not terminated.

On the other hand, the fact that Brady hasn't stuck an airtag on that kid is a real "fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me" scenario. I mean, this is hardly the first time that one of his children, girlfriends, or family members has been kidnapped. You'd think he would spend the 20 bucks to track them on his phone.