j swift

I think Dante's motivation is much more interesting than Michael's and I wish he was more of the center of the story. I appreciated that scene with Sam where he admitted that he hadn't done anything wrong, but he often looked the other way at Sonny's criminal "activities". So, if Dante was manipulating Michael to finance a scheme to bring justice to Sonny that would be a better twist, in my opinion. That being said, I am always hung up on what part of Sonny's business is actually against the law. I know he is to blame for many other crimes, but in terms of business, he resists selling drugs, he doesn't use extortion which is the usual modus operandi of the syndicate. I doubt he cheats on his taxes, since he was a shareholder in ELQ and donated to GH, so he would have had to disclose his IRS forms. He imports coffee, but is that illegal? It feels like @Vee's concerns about network interference in the writing has had a major influence in censoring the plot so that Sonny never seems culpable for any federal crimes.

It has been on my mind lately so, I am going to nominate Reva's Slut of Springfield baptism as historic but overrrated. Now, don't get me wrong I think the actual dialogue and performance are well crafted, it's just that the motivation, production, and setup are all off. (1) Reva strips off her dress to give the speech in the fountain of the country club. But, she's wearing this odd one-piece teddy, perhaps to appease the censors. If she was really a slut, would she be wearing multiple layers of undergarments? (2) She's responding to Josh(ua)'s supposed judgement of her, but who was Josh to judge Reva? He came to town and immediately started that creepy relationship with Morgan. (3) People on this board would have ripped Josh to pieces at that time on GL because he was the symbol of sidelining the Bauers. Not only did he supplant their sibling rivalry and screentime, but his recovery from paralysis story stole Bert from the rest of her family (4) Reva's whole relationship with HB never seemed organic. At no point did I ever think that HB was going to keep Reva and Josh apart, and for years nobody ever referenced that they were married. So, it's a good idea, but was unearned in terms of plot (and a bit histrionic). BTW, my runner up would Santa Barbara's Dinner from Hell. Also, well performed and written, but unearned in terms of story. It marks the return of the Dobson's but ignores the prior year of story. Mason is suddenly antagonistic toward CC, when they had reconciled at his wedding. He brings back Pamela, despite knowing that she was a threat to Kelly. And the whole thing gets a one paragraph summary in SOD, indicating that at the time nobody thought it was consequential.

I think @Paul Raven's suggestion of Hope Lange as Miss Ellie would've been an inspired choice. The only lasting memory I have of Dorothy Malone was the hair. For me, the weak link is Priscilla Pointer as Rebecca Wentworth. In the story Rebecca was counterpart to Miss Ellie, the beautiful wife of Digger and mother to three charismatic kids in Cliff, Pam, and Katherine. But, while Miss Ellie was written as both sweet and a little snarky at times, Rebecca was just a wet noodle of a character. She cries for forgiveness, then instantly gives over her husband's company to Pam and Cliff. She seems to still be the traumatized wife of Digger rather than the rich and powerful head of the Wentworth dynasty, and she's oblivious to Katherine's deviance. I think Rebecca, much like her namesake in the revival, had the opportunity to be a great protagonist to Ewing Oil's success, especially because they controlled the method of extraction, but Pointer's portrayal was too benign and weak.

LOL, @I Am A Swede but don't you think a first time viewer would find the pre-1993 stuff to be too slow paced for modern viewing?

Inspired by a discussion here a few years ago about a fan who used a reel-to-reel audiotape to record the soaps I want to know your stories of what you did to watch specific episodes of soaps, back before streaming, DVRs, and even VCRs. For me it was May 8, 1984. I had saved $120.00 to buy a Sony Watchman in order to sneak it into school and watch Roman save Marlena at the concert hall before Stefano blew it up. Unfortunately, that same day the USSR decided to announce that they were going to boycott the Summer Olympics in Los Angeles. I remember hiding in my school's library conference room at noon ready to watch Liz Chandler and Al Jarreau sing their hearts out when my brilliant plan was spoiled by the Russians. But, much like the Brady brothers, I persisted and eventually got to see Larry Welch announce his engagement to Hope

Whenever I encourage someone to watch Emmerdale, I usually compare it to Falcon Crest. They're both agrarian based stories that explore the lives of families from different social classes. And they both have killer opening themes. That being said, I would never recommend that a first time viewer watches anything before the plane crash re-set in 1993. Tune into YouTube and watch the history of Kim Tate, the love story of Aaron and Robert, the murder of Tom King, or any of the families who've lived at Home Farm (my favorites were the Sinclairs). Just stay away from the Dingles, until you're really hooked into the plot.

This is the stuff that fascinates me when we look back at the history of the soaps. I didn't mean to start a discussion about the choice to kill off Maureen, (with predictably regurgitated opinions of JFP). What I am interested in is the context of how the history played out for the audience at home. Because when I see one of those "this day in soap history" articles I am constantly amazed at how many crucial events occurred on some random Friday in March. And, it always entices me to search for what the other soaps were doing at the same time, and how they were either copying each other, or trying to steal away viewers. Like Alan Spaulding escaping to Tenerife on the day of Luke & Laura's wedding or Reva's introduction happening around the time of Laura's return (and the subsequent exit of Luke and Laura) in 1983. It's so fun to know which stories were being programmed against each other.

When the Chris Atkins season takes a detour into Peter and Lucy's modeling career it struck me that sometimes there were just too many episodes per season in the primetime soaps. Also, 40 years later, the blueprint of Southfork continues always distracts me. JR, Bobby, and Lucy all seem to sleep in adult decorated bedrooms. Were these the same rooms that the boys slept in as kids? Did Miss Ellie redecorate when they got married? Did Pam and Sue Ellen have to share bathrooms? Is Lucy in Gary's old room? It all made more sense in the pilot when Southfork looked like a series of integrated casitas, and everyone had their own space.

Meanwhile, I still want to know what that angry tweet over the summer was all about when he was mad at GH and Jackie Zeeman seconded the emotion about the vets being disrespected. (I looked back to August and it seems to have been deleted).

I'm just saying Maureen's death wouldn't have been the first time that GL hypothetically counter programmed against SB. Reva's "Slut of Springfield" speech was broadcast on 7/30/1984, the same day as the premiere of Santa Barbara (while GH was on a shortened schedule due to the '84 Summer Olympics). These may be coincidences, but I just wanted to highlight the correlation of events. And, in retrospect, it is always interesting to me when a soap chooses to schedule a big event outside of sweeps, because my mind instantly goes to thinking about what else was happening on that day.

It's like an SAT analogy - L&F is to Palmolive as FRFP is to Dawn - the promise of something new, but really just the same old soap packaged differently

It is definitely an odd artifact of supercouples that often times one is better able to carry on than the other. Much like DAYS Bo & Hope, he had a successful coupling with Carly, but she struggled on her own. Of the many variables I think we'd have to consider if one of them was really the "main" character and the other part of the supercouple was therefore replaceable. As well as which was one was capable of non-romantic plots to cover the transition. Which one had more character traits to be explored in other relationships. And, most importantly, whether the soap had a writing staff that was capable of creating a new character to pair them with that could become a fan favorite.

Lucy was using Victor's lust for her to spy on him for Anna who is investigating Victor for Luke's 'fatal' accident and the Ice Princess, so setting up Anna as a murderer killed to two birds with one stone (proverbially and literally).

Did I hear it wrong or are people starting to call him Joe rather than Joey? Also, I guess we have to give DAYS credit, it looks like Jada is the first female character in decades of soaps to have an abortion without the catastrophic retribution of either being barren or the victim of a serial killer (although being paired with Rafe may be its own punishment). The Kristen/Patch stuff made me wish she was more frequently written in the John and Patch gen rather than easily manipulating dopes like Brady and Eric. I mean Brady's moping after Chloe, and Eric's out there trying to kidnap a child, while Patch gets an attempted murder confession (albeit probably inadmissible) within a single confrontation, Although it is a puzzlement why anyone in Salem would care about legal consequences when they have a corrupt DA?

I'm calling it right now, if we get an Esme/Willow baby switch I am going to scream. Michael has already had a baby switch story and if it happens again then he only has himself to blame for not being more vigilant when his kids are born. Also, where does Victor get the cash to have multiple European villas fully staffed in his absence? He wasn't in Helena's will, and the Cassadines were cash poor just a few years ago.

I am not worried about the profit margins at Sony or Bell Productions, but it would be important to add the cost of COVID testing. Variety noted that it added 5% to the cost of an average TV production https://variety.com/2021/film/news/covid-costs-film-tv-production-1235113051/ About 40% of those costs go to labor — COVID safety officers, testers, drivers, location assistants, and medical personnel. The remaining 60% goes to “materials,” which includes outside testing vendors and stipends for quarantining, as well as things like masks, face shields and sanitation materials. “Amid all the disruption and uncertainty caused by the pandemic, today’s report affirms that California’s Film & TV Tax Credit Program has continued to work as intended to create jobs and opportunity across our state,” Colleen Bell, the commission’s executive director, said in a statement. Which makes me wonder if he was conflating the financial cost of extras with the cost in terms of risk? Either way, it always amuses me when we make a full meal out of a single throwaway comment from an actor in an interview, as if they are knowledgeable about the annual production budget for a soap.

I get @Errol's point about the production and contracts, but it seems surprising in terms of the writing because Allie is featured in this week's promo about Marlena's illness, and Chanel's civil trial with Sloan is upcoming. Also, structurally, I think it was a huge mistake to attach another young character to a baby so quickly.

To be fair, as a woman in her 30s, who in the past two years lost her mother, miscarried a baby, was recently divorced, raising another dead woman's child, and was pregnant again while sick, - I don't think finding out that she was adopted would be a big deal. Although, I don't understand @AbcNbc247 how it establishes her as being older than Michael? I don't doubt it, but I don't get the connection.

In a prior discussion I opined how odd it was that Iris was chosen for the spinoff. Reading the synopsis, Iris and Brian divorce rather quickly, after months of squabbles, and she suddenly flies off to Houston. It was as if Iris was randomly chosen, rather than being a part of the original plan. Although, most of the Texas characters who were featured on AW before the spinoff were in Iris's orbit, I agree that she was a poor fit, and her character was in many ways unrecognizable on Texas. In my opinion, Blaine would have been the ideal center of the spinoff. She had been the center of the story for a couple of years. She was established as coming from a ranching background. In the story, she was single at the time of the spinoff. And her backstory was unexplored enough that there was story to be mined from her history (I don't know where the Alma stuff comes in the sequentially in the context of Texas).

Spoiler Alert: The sudden death was Maureen Bauer And while it is sacrilege to defend this plot point, I thought it was interesting to think of it in the context of counter programming. We've all heard the story about audience research and other characters that may have been axed. However, I found it intriguing that the death occurred outside of sweeps (1/11/93) and on the same week as the finale of Santa Barbara. Which led me to suspect that GL was trying to both protect against viewer drift to those curious about watching the end of a soap, and lure SB fans over to CBS by creating an event - just a theory, feel free to disagree, because I already know that someone is going to react that it should have been another character. Thanks for Facebook group Daytime Soaps No Longer on the Air for the photo

I nominate Karen Wexler She brought us Brenda. She was the first of Scotty's insta-kids. And, the entire spin-off of Port Charles was built around her. Too bad they couldn't get the casting nor the characterization correct

From today's TCAs. There's something interesting about DAYS frequently using these two as the face of DAYS, not because they aren't the lead actors, but because, I feel, RSW is not very charismatic in interviews. Especially in comparison to Eric Martsolf, Greg Vaughn, or Ari Zucker.

IIRC Peter was shown on screen around the time of Todd's trial and again during the Powell Lord III serial rapist story. So, I guess, it makes sense to write him as Tina's first cousin once removed because it skirts the issue of why Irene asked Vicky, (and not Peter and Bitsy) to care for Tina after her death. Either way, I always thought it was awfully nice of Victoria to be so welcoming and supportive of the Mannings and their children. I appreciate the ongoing character trait that on the heels of her Vicky/Niki mess she didn't stand in judgement of Todd and Tina.

For me with Alyssa, (and many of the women who've been stuck in that chair), it is the predictability of their responses that makes them uninteresting and easy to combat. They reduce conservatism to culture wars, cancel culture, and anti-woke-ness without espousing true republican values like reduction of federal government and constitutional original-ism. So, any topic from gun control to TikTok dances is always going to get a reply that corresponds with her morality that individual expression is never as important as the judgement of the culture. Because her perceived membership in the majority means that she's part of the team that always get to set the rules, and any force that might disturb that privilege is the enemy.