j swift

I don't know which is weirder, the afro on the lady in the Morning Star ad, or the idea that woman in the Paradise Bay ad played her guitar like a stand up bass?

I was a very casual SFT viewer. I watched the live episode, the flood, and final weeks just because of the hype. My questions are about TR: Was she kidnapped and then ran away?. Because it never made sense to me why Lloyd wouldn't recognize her at first sight. How old was she supposed to be during the circus story (why wasn't she in school)? Did all of her other siblings share the same parents? Didn't Estelle live in Europe? Was she present to raise Lloyd's other kids? Did any of Lloyd's kids work in his company?

It is remarkable that Deidre Hall is only four years younger than Susan Seaforth Hayes, but on screen they seemed a generation apart. By the time Marlena got together with Don, Julie had been married multiple times, had a grown son, and a grandson. Considering that Julie and Doug went on their world tour in 1984, Marlena stayed younger and more viable as a leading character for much longer, relatively speaking

Poor Trista was another Evans family fatality due to a serial killer. No wonder her parents stayed in Colorado for Marlena's many weddings, Salem is too dangerous for the Evans family He just retired this year

I just researched the LA Times archive and one other tip off that the protest was fake is that it was covered by our local "wacky weatherman" Fritz Coleman rather than an actual reporter and Fritz appeared in a cameo as a reporter on Days the next week.

BTW I still remember the local news here in LA covering "the protest" of fans who thought Marlena had died. If you see the video now, the protest signs are totally fake, and protestors amounted to five random extras walking in a very orderly circle in front of the local NBC station rather that the studio where Days was filmed. It was a classic publicity stunt. Also, one of the most offensive parts of the Sam/Marlena switch was the portrayal of the sanitarium. Not only was the drug abuse treatment center also a residential center for people with dangerous mental illnesses, but the threat was that Marlena was going to receive electro convulsive treatment (aka shock therapy) because she was non compliant. That's quite a leap for a soap that had a psychiatrist as one of their leads.

Speaking of naming your kid after your evil twin, how about Shane Donovan's son Andrew IV who was officially named after Shane's father, Andrew II, but also shared the name of Shane's evil twin Drew aka Andrew III? The story of Shane's evil twin was even worse given the proximity in timing to the story of his ex-lover Gillian (Eve's mother) who had an evil twin Grace. Which of course was just a few years after the revelation that Tony had an evil twin Andre. The third time it happened you would expect at least one Salemite to ask if the suspect had a twin. But, after Tommy/Addie, Samantha/Marlena, Sami/Eric, Hope/Gina, Susan/Kristen, Rex/Cassie, Charlie/Tripp, and Eli's twins, I guess nobody in Salem is good at recognizing patterns.

The one concession to that story was, (as I recall), Sam cancelled most of Marlena's patients so she didn't have to do therapy or pretend to remember their histories. That was one of the red flags of how she got caught because people around hospital began to wonder why Dr. Evans was cancelling so many of her appointments.

This is probably too picky of a point, (although that's never stopped me before), but DOOL also tends to overlook the idea that their hospital is attached to a university, hence the name University Hospital. First, a teaching hospital is unlikely to have so many rich doctors, in fact many doctors leave university based placements early in their career in order to make a better salary. I know Greg and Neil had a private practice, but the others docs should be much more middle class. Second, none of the doctors seem to be burdened by teaching duties. Nobody does rounds with students, there are no lectures to prepare, nobody seems to be concerned about tenure, and there is no pressure to get research funding. At UCLA most departments have a minimal expectation for research grants, because at least 30% of those funds go back to the university, but I guess in Salem they get by on the fees from gunshot surgeries (because nobody in Salem has their baby in a hospital). I know Sandy and Mike trained at University Hospital, while Jennifer and Sami were candy stripers, but Kayla and her colleagues never have to worry about student evaluations or government contracts. I will concede that given the nature of the soap we need to suspend our disbelief that the wealthiest members of Salem society would not want to seek medical care at a private hospital (although everyone at University Hospital is treated to a private room). However, the research/teaching aspects of the hospital seem to be furtive territory for stories that goes under used. I wonder overall if DOOL has had more doctor characters than GH?

Even though Neil had an ever evolving backstory, from his time in South America with the Forenza family to his fathering of Sarah, "imposter Neil" was especially convoluted when you consider that Neil was a doctor in the 1970's and 80's. Much like when OLTL Marco Dane impersonated his brother the doctor, or even when Samantha impersonated Marlena, pretending to be a medical professional before WebMD and Google seems like an unlikely feat to pull off.

Neil was such an intriguing ne'er-do-well from the "Cass Winthrop School of Charming Cads", guys who had sketchy morals, but were never really evil. I liked him with Linda and Phyllis. His triangle with Liz and Marie was not great, (Marie was such a snooze that one failed to see her as a romantic rival to Liz). And later being cuckolded by Carlo was a blow to the character's fate. It is a shame that he was never paired with Anna, they would have been a formidable pair. When Sarah returned was there mention if Neil was still alive? Naming her baby after Micky was kind of a Neil erasure from history.

I thought the hysterectomy was when she became pregnant after her affair with Chris Kositchek and Phyllis was the one who considered suicide because Neil wanted her to abort their child

Amusingly, Leslie Jordan told the same tale about Mary Frann when he was on UK Celebrity Big Brother in 2014, and the message boards of that show were equally as defensive of Ms. Frann as those on this thread today. https://filmboards.com/board/p/2313004/ Meanwhile, I went back to read about her character Amanda on DOOL. Within a two year span she had a brain tumor and a hysterectomy. It is no wonder she left Salem, next they would have taken a limb (lol). It was interesting to read the origins of Neil and Don, two male characters that have always been interchangeable in my mind, which probably made Dr Greg Peters seem redundant. Also, this may have been the only plot I've read that focused on Tommy Horton's medical prowess. I've read so much about Bill's surgical talents that I forgot that Tommy was so skilled with a scalpel.

I'm already mourning the idea that we'll not like Sutton by the end of this season

I was thinking about Susan Martin and her parallels to Cathy Craig on OLTL. They were romantic rivals to lead characters who turned into tragic heroines due to the death of their babies. Only to end their stories (played by recasts) chasing men who did not want them. Which in turn led me to vague recollections of Dr Greg Peters, his wife Amanda, and this tidbit that Deidre Hall told about her first day on DOOL when she was on the Kelly Clarkson Show Which in turn made me to recall that Lesley Jordan said this week on Watch What Happens that Mary Frann was awful to work with. Which in turn made me wonder if Deidre Hall shared Lesley Jordan's opinion? Does anyone have any additional resources to read about Greg and Amanda's relationship? I guess the fact that both actors are dead doesn't make a return to the show likely, but the Peters were a family steeped in DAYS history.

With all due respect, this is my pet peeve when it comes to audience responses of gay storylines. It is all up to writing, directing, and producing. Even the most wooden, (but handsome), actor would seem sexually alluring with the right lighting, music, and scenery. While it would be good for the cause to hire more gay actors to play gay parts, we want out gay actors, not people who are don't take pride in being gay. The opposite logic makes no sense. Did anyone say that Maureen Garrett's sex scenes with Michael Zaslow were any less "intensely horny" because the actress was a lesbian? Was Michael Corbett not a believable object of straight female lust on three different shows; SFT, RH, and Y&R (and appeared in Playgirl) because he was gay? Has nobody ever heard that most adult gay media has used straight models for years in gay scenes? To suggest that an attractive actor can't turn an audience on while kissing another guy with dark lighting, sexy costumes, and some slow grooving music unless he is gay in real life is absurd, naive, and a bit narrow minded. I used your comment as an example, but the same silly ideas are spewed on these forums, as well as gossip sites and other internet venues, and it never ceases to heighten my ire. Also, (with even more respect of your opinions) I reject all arguments that the reason soaps don't produce well rounded LGBTQIA representation is because they are afraid of online criticism by gay fans. Soaps have won GLAAD awards and gained popular media exposure for doing the least amount of representation possible. The same argument would never hold water when applied to other types of minority representation. Black and Latinx fans would not accept poor examples of their culture played out on screen and neither should gay soap watchers. We should always strive for more respectful portrayals of our experiences and we should never accept the idea producers don't demand gay characters because they are afraid of backlash from the LGBTQIA community. Gay fandom has never received the respect we deserve and our loyalty has never been rewarded with proper consideration of what we want in terms of plotlines. 60 years later, networks still only care about 18-34 women who buy laundry detergent, but that doesn't mean that the gay audience should just take the scraps that we're given because we still get some entertainment value out of the occasional shirtless hunk or bitch fight.

Maybe I'm just getting too old but, while I loved the chorus of Lucky, I couldn't understand 40% of the words in the verses the girls wrote. I feel like what made Read U Wrote U a cultural phenomenon was the ability to sing along, now with the sound mixing, and lack of closeups when they perform, it is impossible to decipher what the heck they are talking about. Also, why is it that every time they're given a challenge to write lyrics, they always focus on the topic of winning the crown, rather than other humorous takes on the theme of the chorus? From what I could understand only Rose actually included the concept of being lucky in her writing.

Belle's coat seems to be key, and I don't think they're the same size I'm still guessing Ava

In the absence of updates from Soaps of Yesterday, I took to The Soap Opera Saga Tumblr for this week's clips (also I wanted to refocus the thread on gossip, not just GL). Some GH tea that I never knew She told Variety before Gloria Monty? I'm sure that did not go over well backstage. Meanwhile her co-stars were like, "don't let the door hit you on the way out..." Given the popular lore about how Monty saved GH and grew the ratings (which is indisputable), it is interesting to note how quickly they fell off Your guess is as good as mine (for context this was from 1984, and it must have been an east coast soap) Even Datalounge back in the day never had tea this scalding (lol) Finding love was hard for everyone (remember when David Letterman and Howard Stern would ask him why he couldn't find a nice girl to settle down with?) Even in the early 80s, this journalist worked hard to avoid gender pronouns when discussing Mr. Simmons's love life. In the article he notes that he made a fortune working for Federico Fellini, but he spent it all on Italian fashion, so I guess that's a lesson he never learned... AW couldn't keep the names of their characters straight Who knew? In the 1980's every senior citizen elected this one woman to speak for them. She prioritized Mac & Rachel as a "vital interest" over the financial issues of the time. While these Boomers were fretting about infidelity in Bay City, the federal government got away with dipping into Social Security to cover the deficit. Which is why MIllenials won't be able to rely on those funds in order to retire, they'll work later in life, leaving GenZ without the opportunities gain upward mobility in the workforce. Damn you Mitch Blake... That's it for now

Question: In the GH of 2021 is Livvie Locke still Kevin's daughter? I know they revisited the Caleb story with Lucy, but does Kevin ever reference his daughter? To borrow from the comics, is Port Charles considered cannon, or did it occur in an alternate universe?

For me it was the endless permutations of the romantic quadrangles (Lucy, Kevin, Eve, & Scotty/Ian, and Alison, Livvy, Rafe & Caleb). They ping ponged back and forth, in and out of each other's bedrooms, reciting lovey dovey dialogue that was only sped up by the chapter format. I also found Michael Easton and Brian Gaskill to being very unappealing, with their brooding personalities, beaded chokers, and bad haircuts, so the idea that those two engaging young women fought over these shlubs (who had to resort to magic to maintain their attraction) turned me off. No spoilers, but the loss of some of the original female cast was big blow to that show that was never supplanted by the later ensemble. That being said, I made sure to watch the end of each arc, as well as the finale, mostly because I was intrigued by the novelty of the production format.

As humorously evidenced by Mac disguising his voice to help Rachel when she was blind. How did we think it was romantic that one's former wife would be so mistrustful of his willingness to show compassion when she had been through the trauma that he had to fake an accent for her to accept his assistance?

In hindsight, was Mac a low key jerk? He cheated on Rachel with both Janice and the woman who left her panties in his limo while he and Rachel were dating. He cheated on his first wife Iris's mother/adopted mother/woman she believed was her mother. He blurted out that thing about Amanda being his first "real" daughter. He fought Rachel for custody, and the post above was the first time I ever heard that he offered her the Cory Mansion in the divorce. In 2021 would we think of Mac as a guy who was stuck in an eternal mid-life crisis?

That was another time, but I would hope today most writers and network executives would reject those types of portrayals of craven bisexual men as not the types of representation that we are looking for in soaps; which is why I would also not look forward to triangulated bisexual stories, the association of bisexuality and adultery is neither empowering nor respectful.

Like most I want more LGBTQIA representation. However there are some practical limitations, beyond the need for more LGBTQIA writers and producers, in order to tell modern stories. Hollyoaks is a perfect example of these issues. Problem #1: While there are a lot of gay, lesbian and bisexual characters, the small population, coupled with being set in a tiny village, means that they've all dated each other in some permutation. There's a joke in West Hollywood that by 30 everyone has already dated everyone else in town yet, in Hollyoaks it is actually true. Characters who have nothing in common, except for their sexuality, are in relationships because there are no other options. Straight male and female characters come to town in droves, but the same few LGBTQIA characters are stuck with each other for eternity. Problem #2 is that most Hollyoaks stories for LGBTQIA couples are too similar to their straight counterparts. They all want to get married, and then they all want babies. I am old enough to recall when the leading gay magazine's tagline was "the paper for the alternative lifestyle." There are no alternative in Hollyoaks, or DAYS, when every gay character longs for the same relationship ideals of every straight character and every gay character somehow winds up with children. Problem #3: Every coming out story need to have a character in opposition to gay rights in order to play all sides of the issue. Older characters regularly get thrown under the homophobia bus just so the audience can hear someone take the opposite position. Coming out is always played as a single event, and it is either met with total acceptance or total rejection. I recall actors who were gay in real life having to play homophobic jerks and I felt bad for them having to react in a way that we would never expect other minority actors to have to play. Problem #4: Historically, all soaps seem to only have three stories to tell for gay/bi male characters (a) they are the wedding planner/gossip columnist/gay best friend whose only personality trait is flamboyance (b) they are baiting gay characters to get want they need, but really desire a straight relationship, or (c) they are dying of AIDS without the support of anyone but their sudden gay ally in town. So, yes I want more LGBTQIA+ stories in daytime, but not until there is some maturity in how the stories are told.