Vee

Apologies for not going back - is there an ATWT Vault?

Willow has been meant to be a villain for a while now. I have been preaching the gospel of Queen Bitch Willow for at least a year or two. If they lean into it I'm more than down. She needs to blackmail Drew Q into giving her a ring and a piece of his power too. She needs to be fully in that Susan Moore overdrive.

Imma be going backwards and forwards from today and on my backlog (which is a fair bit) here. This better be good!

Raise your hand if you're surprised. Sad.

No? People are either super invested in those couples or it's just sunk cost fallacy, so they keep watching year in, year out. The issue for me is that B&B (or DAYS) being bad is taken for granted at this point as people continue to watch, whereas if BTG has flaws it's time (from some people) for severe condemnation and an inquest every day. That's the disconnect for me. People still want to monitor what happens to Liam or Steffy or the latest disposable twunk Brad hired, but BTG is on the air less than six months and it feels like it gets more daily smoke from some. The exact opposite of what I said in my post you clearly didn't read. He's just here to try to get me to notice him, which is a pity since I don't see 99% of his posts. He should've been banned years ago for abusing other posters (it's most of his posting history) but as you may have noticed, we don't do that here and he counts on it to embolden his behavior.

I don't think what BTG is doing is the UK style. I think it's about their budget and breakdowns, and what the show is prioritizing. At times those are inconsistent. I do think its style is, as I've said before, a pastiche of something very modern combined with an emulation of the Bell/B&B classic style. And I think all that doesn't quite work, for many of the same reasons Faulkner has mentioned as well as ones I've talked about in the past. I think there's a ton of criticisms to give the show, and I've offered my share. I don't think valid criticism shouldn't be given to BTG and I've never said so. But I do think the impatient, dismissive attitude that treats the show like a lost cause less than half a year in and gives it less grace than really lazy or cooked shows like B&B (or over many years, DAYS) is a double standard, and IMO that's because some viewers are far more comfortable with the rot of those familiar shows whereas a new show is seen as an interloper or 'putting on airs'. I don't have time for that kind of attitude anymore than I have time for the tr0ll (because banning the word does not in any way eliminate the larger problems on this forum) that has been cheering for its demise since before the show first aired. It's clear BTG is very earnest, and wants to both educate and provide something a bit elevated in tone and build characters while growing story and pushing the envelope in some areas. You can do that if you're Y&R in the '90s, but this show ain't that. And I just don't necessarily think that idea of elevating or slow character-building are working with the story pace they need atm. I also think educating has to come with enough sizzle for the steak. Right now more stories need to go for the throat. And I do think the family/relations structure is a real problem for all the reasons other posters have indicated. Most of all I would like to see a serious reconsideration of the day to day writing staff, and consider moving the scripts towards the tone of '90s GH vs. a wan emulation of classic Y&R or the B&B of the last 20 years. All in all I think there are a number of good bones/structural elements for the show, but it needs to tighten up a lot of other things.

I don't think the dude is the second coming and I have my share of issues with his platform or circle, but a lot of those kind of folks are already calling Mamdani a sellout because for them actually being electable is a failure. What I do know is that if he (or any liberal or progressive) wins the Times will be on him like this every day. If you ask me to choose between a Nazi eugenicist platformed by the NY Times and Mamdani, it's always gonna be Door #2.

The Times is too busy today playing defense after platforming a white supremacist and eugenicist and trying to hide his identity in a goofy hit piece about Mamdani. Happy 4th, everyone.

Kin is the only actor on GH who has had that many final goodbyes. I wish him the best recovery, I know what that kind of struggle is like. I have every faith we will see him return again to complain on Twitter and exit at least once or twice more.

I'm not gonna go apeshit over this or and make a bunch of wild assumptions about network changes til I see how the situation evolves. (Though I do think the show does need creative changes.) It is a bizarre move on the network's part, if that's what happened. But the show isn't exactly bombing out in the ratings. By the same token I also think it's an weird and inappropriate double standard to apply the same ruthless lens people only seem to selectively apply to B&B, DAYS or Y&R with much more vigor to a show that's been on less than six months.

I left my brief thoughts in the Memoriam thread. Just shocking and sad. He was wonderful on nip/tuck, often better than the material.

This one is a shock. He was far too young, and so good in nip/tuck - too good for the show, frankly.

I think a couple years ago, around the time of the 60th and not just in that one sweeps period, Laura was pretty central. Virtually everything in town was run through "Mayor Collins" for a couple years, the most active town mayor in story since Luke himself lol. Spencer, Kevin/Ryan, etc. gave her a ton of story. I was happy with that, even if I don't care for the boring marriage to Kevin. But Laura has been sidelined since NAC left, and the kowtowing to Esme before that followed by the quick 180 on Sonny after the first half-serious attempt at holding him accountable in decades fell apart (last year) as well as the Heather mess have all made her look like a fool. (As the Sonny quick change also did with Anna.) And frankly I think that is all the way FV likes it. I think either he or someone at the network always resented being strongarmed into a contract for Genie, and it's often showed. I don't think he's shedding tremendous tears about the focus moving away from the Spencers with TG gone seemingly for good. I think all this could easily change for Laura again, as quickly as it did a few years back. But the show has to want it, and it clearly doesn't. I do though. And I think when she was the heart of the show again, Genie played it to the hilt.

Frankly people need to do this for the now quite extensive GH and OLTL archives before it's too late.

Thank you, Emma, for keeping it 💯. I have always hated Britt and I always will! It's not that I don't like soap bitches, because I clearly do. It's that she and Sabrina came on (on the same day) as very two-dimensional foils of each other the show invented from literal nowhere, and Thiebaud proved she couldn't play much else. Her attempts at vulnerability or depth have always come off as weak whining and vague confusion to me, and the show's sweaty attempts to put her over as a manufactured 'gay icon' while not actually doing LGBT story gross me out.

Nor did I. People suddenly acting like oh, she's so indispensable, she can't leave now apparently don't remember most of the last 13 years. Molly was doing nothing and she's still not really relevant, only with an even less unique actress than the last one. Do I think there is a unique character there to bring back someday? Absolutely. But not with this actress, maybe not with Pullos either and not until she's been gone at least a few years. You don't hang around the show as human furniture for over a decade and not get played out.

I wasn't! Nice girl, but she was sickeningly sweet and not a great actress. I was counting the days til they recast. Bruner was perfect to me because her Emma was dry, spiky and the anti-Robin - you are not going to succeed with a clone of an iconic heroine like that, what would be the point or interest? The child would have to be different. People got pissed about it initially but it was always the move in my mind. And she is great with Finola. Van Hansis is good with LW and Becky so I let him ride. I think he does well with the new romance. Any high drama scenes, uh, we'll see if he improves lol. And yes, any kind of individuality or quirk is gone with KV. But Molly should've been retired and sent offscreen long before Pullos' DUI - the character was an afterthought and worn out from so many years on canvas doing nothing. Still is. I think it was in print at one point that Gio was going to take an interest in Trina, before or right after he first appeared. That bore out with a few very brief hints onscreen before they scuttled it.

I think they were purely winging it, in part because of such BTS chaos. IIRC Gio was explicitly announced at one point as being for Trina, but there was only a hint or two of that onscreen before they just had him meandering around with both girls doing nothing for months. My suspicion is Korte, FV, etc. tried to reposition Joss since Dex had lost his very brief luster and thought anything and anyone was game. Then they moved on. My further suspicion is that with the recent success of both Emma and Gio (and them together), Frank may have lost his all-consuming interest in Joss. It happens with him. I could see the vision with Mansi a little earlier than this time last year when Kristina was basically the only smart person in several stories, seeing through Ava and standing up to Natalia while still delusional about her father. I thought that I finally found Kristina credible as a major lead at that moment, even if the surrogacy thing was still going (and about to get much worse). But it faded as soon as, well, everything happened. I think the character and recast could recover, but it's gonna take either a lot of work or a long break. Or both. Vaganos is a passable watch for a character who has been played out for over a decade. I would just let Molly go for a number of years. KV or Pullos or whoever can show up for visits from time to time but I wouldn't bring her back on contract any time soon.

They got these folks in "Nice" lost in the hedge maze from The Shining. Uncle Frank on GH would at least put up a town street with some little flags and baguettes and a mime or something.

Honestly Joss feels like the afterthought on the show now, and has for some time even before Dex died. Emma and Gio are where the money and rooting value is at. I knew Braedyn Bruner had it on Day 1 and GM has always appealed to me but has fully impressed this year. Trina is the only character the show clearly wants to be the real afterthought, but if it was me it would be about Emma, Gio, Trina and then someone like Justus and Faith's imaginary scheming son lol. You could mix and match them together and play a quad or all sorts of combinations, since Trina and Gio were the original intent last summer (an idea almost immediately dropped). You can add other people in as well, maybe some kids from the Asian Quarter, Cam at some point, etc. If we were in the UK you could let Gio go bi too, but that's never happening here.

Sheila has been haunting Y&R and B&B since at least the George W. Bush administration. Leslie has been onscreen for less than six months. I think it's a bit early to make that kind of comparison. She hasn't bombed anybody like an ABCD villain yet.

I don't mean classic Y&R was solely plot-oriented. But it had (from what I've watched, anyway) a very specific and fascinating tone and language. Character issues, traits, throughlines with a person or their family or neuroses or goals would be stated and restated almost in ritualistic ways again and again or played out through recurring situations, and at times in very florid prose. It was beautiful but it was very different from, say, an ABC soap. You knew when you turned the dial from one to the other on your TV, they did not look, sound or feel the same. Modern B&B has a version of this kind of classic formula, but it's much more repetitious, clunky and tiresome as they mouth the same platitudes and pronouncements over and over. I think a lot of that formula is at play in BTG. And I can understand it, because its arch tone served B&B well for decades with a loyal global audience. The Bell soaps have remained at the top even when they shouldn't in recent years in part because of that house style. But latter-day B&B's bastardization of that formula is not the kind of style I especially love, and I would love to see more ABC naturalism in the dialogue. As it is, BTG remains a fascinating sort of mix to me: Classical soap style or even Irna Phillips-esque recapping in some scenes or stories, mixed with other scenes of very cutting-edge trendy dialogue or subject matter. Both of which can either sing or veer on ugly depending on the moment or scene.

It is deeply bizarre watching silver fox E.J. talk to Stacy Haiduk's Kristen about how she passed him off as her baby recently. They look the same age.

T.J. came in in either very late '11 or early '12, just before Carlivati and FV arrived. They made several attempts to put HP's Molly over as their new Starr Manning-type teen heroine, largely by introducing Felix's sister to tempt T.J. into bad behavior and trying to push Molly with that little twink Rafe Jr. It was an obvious attempt to push the Black kid out and prefabricate a new, all-white Starr and Cole. When all of that flopped they lost all interest in both characters and T.J. and Molly entered shared purgatory for years to come. But no, I don't remember any Morgan/Molly scenes post-2012 either lol. The Natalia thing is just another excuse to do a tried and true plotline: Poor Sonny, framed or put upon by the PCPD or his enemies. I am thrilled she's dead though. I'm pretty sure they decided Michael and Kristina was too much of an weird third rail given the shared family history and sibling-like relationship. I won't lie though, I might've watched it. Garrett and Lexi were cute together. You could never do it now ofc.

The Maggie Vega they went with was painful even in small doses. It's no wonder they dumped it. Saundra could've been interesting back then, though I was surprised she was that hard up so soon after Miami Vice.