j swift

@chrisml I agree One of the ice-breakers that I use annually is having people tell the story of how they were named. At least 2-3 people usually mention that their parents were inspired by a character's name on a soap. While I've never met a Cass, (or a Catlin), there have been plenty of Rachel, Erica, and Marleys. So, maybe this fictional Salem City Counsel member's parents were just AW fans, and it was never meant to be the actual Cass.

Rory was such a pretty corpse. The Hooker must be short, because none of the victims ever have any facial scarring. Also, are Nikolas and Ava the only couple to ever negotiate a divorce settlement in Port Charles since Alan and Lucy (I think Scotty handled that one as well)? Carly seems to have been divorced many times without ever consulting an attorney. I'm still betting Nikolas dies before the papers are signed. Especially with Spencer talking about "splitting town" (I guess none of the GH writers know how Gen Z'ers speak? Next week Cam is going to "groove on down" to Kelly's Diner), and Trina reminding us that Spencer's original motive was wanting to cause trouble for Ava. It seems like a set up for the next obstacle in the Trina/Spencer relationship.

This one took a bit longer to calculate but my count Esme, Cody, Trina, and Willow all have maternity/paternity secret stories at moment involving Ryan, Heather, Mac, Felicia, Nina, and Curtis.

Technically, Britt's diagnosis is terminal and Willow is just being cautious about treatment for a potentially non-fatal illness due to her pregnancy. To be fair, the story is set in a hospital where terminal illnesses are more commonplace; although IRL Huntington's Disease and Leukemia might not cause as much fainting as seems to happen to Britt and Willow.

@KaneThat makes sense. I hadn't considered how old Laura was when she died, as evidenced by the fact that Tom was already involved with Barbara; and Laura was either old enough to walk around the neighborhood by herself at night, or Barbara had supremely poor judgement. But, TIL, Gil was Tom's old friend who encouraged his drinking back when Laura was conceived and Josh was the guy who actually hit her.

My prediction (without knowing any spoilers) is that the climax is all going to come out at the wedding, Trina's going to get hurt, she'll need blood, they'll need a relative and her father will be revealed Just as Carly is going to find out that Willow's sick and she'll need to reveal who Willow's mother is in order to save her life. It will be an obstacle in Carly's romance, because Drew will be mad that she kept the secret, and lead to a quad with Nina, Sonny, Carly and Drew, because somehow Nina and Drew will be drawn to each other in the crisis, and for whatever reason Sonny will understand Carly's predicament. Because in Port Charles a man can keep his identity, past marriages, and career a secret for years without consequence, but god forbid a woman holds an innocent confidence from her partner, then he will never trust her again.

But, to bring it back to the other topic at hand, did Michael Kruse unfollow his co-stars on Twitter? 😉 (again, not that I know how or why to tell if a person unfollowed someone)

I love that detail - thanks @danfling, I appreciate your expert memory. I recall Ross arriving before Adam, and Adam was a bit of a mystery. It's funny in retrospect that this huge multi-national company would send one of its top executives to oversee the acquisition of a bistro, but everyone needed a reason to come to Pine Valley. Do you have anything to add on the Gil vs Josh as the drunk driver that killed Laura?

This all brought up a ton of Tom Cudahy questions Was Josh a friend of Tom? And why didn't Tom recognize him (maybe Tom was too far backburnered to be part of that story?) Because I thought it was Tom's neer-do-well friend Gil who killed Laura. Is this timeline correct? Brooke left Tom, while pregnant with Laura's because Tom slept with Erica, moved to New York, began a relationship with Mark, then returned to Pine Valley, had an affair with Giles, then Laura died? At what point did Ellen Dalton take over The Chateau and did Tom only own the Goalpost and The Disco (were they in the same building)? Also, I guess the Goalpost was never re-built after the bomb that killed Laurel?

Yes Lena. @robbwolff Do you recall if Elliott as the drunk driver turned reverend was a retcon? Because I recall a friend of Tom, (possibly from AA?), was the driver who killed Laura. And Tom's conflict between his friend and Brooke as being the cause of their divorce. Or maybe Elliott didn't kill Laura but he just had a prior history of drunk driving? I don't remember all of the sorted details of the poor romantic choices Brooke made.

Brooke's daughter Laura was killed by a drunk driver while playing in their front yard (later in an odd turn of events Brooke briefly dated Elliot, the man who drove the car that killed Laura). Years later, Janet encountered a young woman named Laura Kirk, whom Brooke took in as a sort of foster daughter. Laura had been s.a.-ed by Jim (who Brooke also briefly dated). Laura later needed an organ transplant (supplied by Ryan's dead wife Gillian) and Brooke begged Leo to break up with Greenlee in order to give Laura the will to live. Leo and Greenlee were both supposed to be slightly older than Laura, (they didn't go to school together, she went to high school with Scott) although she was recast and her age became more amorphous. Laura was exclusively in romantic relationships with men, and part of her character was that she was obsessed with certain men, so I don't think she would have been paired with Bianca. In terms of Bianca's lovers, I can't recall them all, but some highlights would have been Zarf, the trans musician, and an Easter European scientist whose name escapes me, but someone will surely remember.

So, I've been racking my brain to think of retcons that I liked. I went back and the re-read the thread from when this topic was discussed 10 years ago and there seemed to be two main categories of retcons (1) long lost children & (2) returns from the dead. Although, I would not categorize all long lost kids and resurrections as retcons, unless they actually conflict with pre-established on-screen cannon (like Victor Newman's UN-vasectomy). However, of those retcons, I would approved of Greenlee as Jack's daughter on AMC, just because of the conflict that arose between Greenlee, Erica, and Kendall. It didn't make a lot of sense, but it grounded the Greenlee vs Erica feud which I enjoyed. I also approve of DAYS Rex as Roman's son, because it resolved the whole issue of whether or not Rex and Cassie were space aliens, which would have never been an acceptable backstory. In the same vein, I appreciated when Jack and Lexi on DAYS were brought back from the dead. We've all noted how Jack has been disrespected as a character over the years (as well as the number of times that reports of his death have been premature). But, in my mind, he still holds enormous story potential within the community of Salem. In short, I can appreciate a retcon as a course correction that resolves issues that should no longer define a long term character, (like AJ's first death on GH).

As I mentioned a few days ago, Nikolas's death could be good storywise for Ava and Spencer, because they would both be wealthy and it would motivate a further adversarial relationship with Victor. Plus, having Spencer as the head of Wyndemere, while fighting Esme about the rightful heir, could be very Gossip Girl-esque. But, it would be sad for the character of Laura to have lost two out of three of her kids (I know Lulu's not dead, but...)

Sorry if I distracted from your epic 587 page threads with a little factual information.

Memes are so often attributed incorrectly that I had thought the quote about words becoming destiny was written by Ralph Waldo Emerson. But, here's an interesting read on the etymology of the quote @slick jones https://quoteinvestigator.com/2013/01/10/watch-your-thoughts/ In conclusion, based on current evidence it is reasonable to attribute the words of the modern saying to Frank Outlaw; however, QI has not yet located direct confirmation in the form of a book or interview with remarks by Outlaw. Also, the expression probably evolved over a long period of time from precursors such as the 1885 cite and the 1897 cite that shared multiple attributes. Ascriptions to other figures such as Emerson or the Buddha have no known substantive support at this time.

Come to think of it, shouldn't Nicholas Alamain sue John to get his part of the inheritance back?

The Ny Post has an "exclusive" about the breakup of Presley Gerber (son of Cindy Crawford) and Lexi Wood (daughter of nobody famous). The post knows that these two wacky kids broke up because Lexi posted on Instagram : “She could have anyone in the world, but she still chose you every time. All you are now is a crease in her past, a scar on her chest, a memory that fades faster than a photograph of you in a sealed box, hidden.” My question is, (given that she's an Instagram model - a career that seems to only exist in tabloids), does she really keep photos in a box? Why not keep them in cloud storage, or even a usb key? And why do young people caption their Instagram as if they are submitting a proposal to write Hallmark cards? I blame teachers who decorate their classrooms with those inspirational posters from the mall, rather than actual art.

My vote for worst is the de-plastic surgerizing of Max Holden on One Life to Live. James DePaiva played Max for three years, then the character was killed in a fiery explosion on his way to his wedding to Gabrielle. Nicolas Walker came on as Matt, but he was obviously Max, with the explanation that the most amazing surgeon in the world not only removed all traces of Max's burnt flesh, but they made him incredibly handsome, just like Trey Clegg. Then, James DePaiva came back to OLTL, there was a full Max is Back promo (he was the real-Greenlee, before the real-Greenlee) and now he had a half-sister Andy that we'd never heard of in his first iteration, who magically recognized him because his plastic surgery wore off and he looked like the original Max. My second worst are all of the retconned children of Heather Webber on GH. Stephen Lars would be more than thirty years older than Esme, nobody is fertile that long. And given her literal insane devotion to Stephen Lars, why would she have abandoned her other two kids?

I just finished Scruples the Novel in order to understand all of the interest in the original tome (that's the beauty of Kindle, everything is on immediate demand). It's a fun read, rather long, and oddly paced for a proposed soap. There's a long backstory, then nothing happens except for a lot details about clothes, then the end of the book turns into a whole other story. Meanwhile, I still don't understand why anyone would name a store Scruples. It's clearly inspired by the old Beverly Hills Store called Giorgio (where we used to go as kids because they gave out free candy), so you'd think she'd name it after Billy's husband Ellis or her first love Edouard. The number of times that Krantz and Jacqueline Susann casually drop the "f" word as a homosexual slur is shocking by modern standards, considering their gay icon status. Just as her constant use of rape as a plot device that women need to overcome in order to find love sticks out like a sour thumb. Thanks @Paul Raven I confused Krantz's Scruples with Secrets, the European TV series that Conboy produced (I also went back to read that thread on here). Interestingly on YT, there's also a Danielle Steele miniseries titled Secrets; I guess it's not that unique as a title.

Does Jackee not count because she wasn't on Days until 33 years later?

I have no idea how or why someone would track other people's followers on social media. Last month we were all quitting Twitter, maybe he's just late to the trend. Although I'd hate to see it, Nikolas being a casualty of Victor's power grab would place Ava, Spencer, and Esme in interesting positions in the plot...

So, there was a miniseries and then a year later they made a TV movie? This schlock has been adapted more times than The Great Gatsby Thanks for answering my query. Have you seen the 1981 version?

Can someone answer this question for me - how many productions of Scruples have aired? Of course there's the Lindsay Wagner 1980 version, although in hindsight she seems miscast as a fashionista Then IMDB lists this 1981 version with Pamela Barnes and Dirk Benedict, that was totally new to me, and oddly places Dirk as Spider as the central figure - it's listed as a TV movie not a series Then, we've got the never aired daytime version produced by John Conboy in the early 1990s And, finally there's a preview for the 2012 Claire Forlani version of YT, which seems to hit all the right notes of camp and drama, except it also features one of my least favorite actors Chad Michael Murry - But was it ever broadcast on TV? Because it looks complete, not just a pilot. This all started because I was reading Clive Jones iconic takedown Ms Krantz's novel Princess Daisy in The London Review of Books. His confusion about the hat is very funny https://archive.clivejames.com/books/tiny-kisses.htm

Do you buy the single issues or the subscription? Because the print subscription price is criminal (if anyone paid $260 and then didn't buy a Peacock subscription, we need to talk about their streaming budget). Although I admit that I've done the scam where you can buy the subscription which isn't billed for 28 days, then cancel and you get four weeks for free (still not worth it).

I bought this issue on Kindle for a whopping $3.99 having not read a Best/Worst issue of SOD for a couple of years and the magazine is a shadow of it's former self. When I was a teen, SOD and box of licorice could provide an entire evening of entertainment. Now this pamphlet masquerading as a magazine barely holds my attention for 20 minutes. Although the ads for cheap figurines and medical alert bracelets that predate cell phones remain the same. The best and worst list used to be filled with humor, as well as a detailed summary of the story they were critiquing. I recall when it took up almost 20 pages of the magazine with notes about what happened behind the scenes, and multiple images. Obviously with only four shows they have fewer choices, but I don't get the reduction in the number of categories. Where are the best performance categories? Here's all of the categories from 1992 Most Improved Show, Most Entertaining Character, Most Overexposed Character, Most Boring Character, Best Love Story, Worst Love Story, Best Hero, Dumbest Hero, Best Heroine, Worst Heroine, Best Tearjerker, Best Storyline, Worst Storyline, Best New Male Character, Best New Female Character, Nicest Character, Nastiest Character, Best Triangle, Worst Triangle, Best Comeback, Worst Comeback, Best Recast, Worst Recast, Biggest Waste of Talent, Hottest Couple, Most Boring Couple, Best Husband, Worst Husband, Best Wife, Worst Wife, Best Crossover, Best Marital Crisis, Worst Marital Crisis, Worst Plot Device, Best Mystery, Worst Mystery, Sneakiest Character, Best Reunion, Best Entrance, Worst Exit, Best Rebel, Sexiest Character, Best Wedding, Worst Wedding, Most Shocking Twist, Best Special Episode, Worst Special Episode, Best Hot Topic, Best Parents, Worst Parents, Best Family, Worst Family, Best TV Trend, Worst TV Trend, Most Disappointing Show, and Best Show All of that for $1.99 BTW the overlaps after 30 years are amusing. Most shocking twist was Sheila on B&B, Best Wedding was B&B's Ridge and Taylor, and Best Husband was Y&R's Jack. Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.