Vee

Can I ask where she talked about this? The Josh/Harley thing has always intrigued me.

He was bragging about it in the interview! I do think it is hilarious he lost the Aussie role (Brennan) to the New York kid Frank watched grow up on OLTL. I love Chris McKenna but he is miscast.

It sounds to me like the role is temporary as part of the Alias Joss saga. But one never knows with Frank. Look at the Eva LaRue situation.

Robin has always said that she felt Jill definitely held a grudge and that was why she was treated the way she was at OLTL. She repeatedly invoked the GL situation re: JFP over the years, which is how I first heard about it. I also think Robin dodged a bullet there. I think Bo and Nora recovered well in 2009-on because the intimacy between the actors was frankly very plainly still there as soon as they allowed themselves to access it onscreen, which it seemed for a long time at least one of them hadn't (until they both did). The actors were both fully recommitted onscreen and off, which is what mattered. That intimacy stayed there all the way to them as buck-naked AARP members rolling around on the floor on Hulu in 2013, lol. I was a little amazed the show went there at that time. But however silly some of their last stories on network (with Jessica Leccia, etc.) got they still very much had it for me, and that is rarely the case. Using Clint as the vengeful heavy there also created some very good material for the three of them early in the show's final year on ABC, though "Dark Clint" went a bit too far at some points. But there was a period there when that heavy, historical drama with RSW, HBS and JVD was carrying the show while the rest of it was angled around the Fords, Terri Conn and the latest troubles of Victor/Todd.

Oh God.

I do think the original trajectory is somewhat there in spring/summer '93 when Clint is at Viki's side as Kevin is arrested for rape, with Sloan on the outs - you could see in the day to day material where Viki and Clint would eventually get back together. CR gets into his accident within days of this though, and then Clint (who is primed to be very involved with Viki and Kevin in the trial) is abruptly written out due to a similar plane crash or something. That changed everything, though Sloan was always going to die sooner or later. I remember most of Robin's story of her return but I didn't know Zaslow suggested she come to GL.

BTG was dealing with preemptions for much of the week, so it's not much to fuss over there. Impressive that it still held 18-49 over GH.

There's also the fact that they have clearly laid track for Dani being potentially an alcoholic and/or bipolar, through her repetitive behaviors (and the repetitive cycle of scenes with booze, fúcking Andre, acting out, etc). Any time Dani gets on an even keel she self-sabotages. I get building groundwork but I do hope the treadmill of those scenes is ending with this week's developments both with the board and Samantha.

I think the beauty of what the show has done is that Dani (like her typical daytime archetype) is divisive. You have people on here or on Twitter repping for her and Anita hard, and then you also have people who hate what Anita did and think it's more enabling of Dani. That's just soap. I think the writing does show both sides of Dani, for good and ill. You can tell how much Karla is loving playing this very arch stuff, clashing with Bill or MC'ing at the fashion show, etc. I've been very impressed with her, both in the key scenes with Timon Durrett last week(?) and now. And I was never a big Karla Mosley fan before this show.

Agreed. And it's galling because the show is a mess lol.

Martin is very winning this week with Smitty and the girls. There's been much more warmth from BC lately.

This is standard video ho fashion for Hayley tbh.

I don't think there's anything wrong with wanting to see villains face consequences or take losses. But there is a difference between having long-term villainous/antagonist characters - which soaps have had since almost the beginning - and dealing with a situation like what Sonny Corinthos and Todd Manning became. If you don't have black hats or troublemakers you eventually simply lack conflict. I am sure Dana will take a hit when her schemes implode, but I can't see them wanting to lose Trisha Mann-Grant any time soon. Nor should they. That's when you start working ways to keep a soap villain around. Sami Brady in her heyday on DAYS had deep roots in the community which kept her insulated, and she also took many losses. Alex Olanov took many defeats on OLTL but rode a streak of power plays to keep her protected for a long contract run. I'm not saying the Duprees shouldn't persevere over Dana's latest scheme, but there's no reason to throw her out with it when she's one of the single most entertaining characters and performers on the show, and easily a breakout star.

You're gonna run out of soaps pretty quick.

Dana is easily sustainable if she only goes so far and/or marries into power. It's a common soap staple that keeps villains insulated for years.

Brooke 'moving on' usually lasts about 75 seconds.

I'm engaged by Dana because she's fun to watch. I am not going to excuse her killing people, but if she does it's still good drama for a soap villain unless she ends up doing 30 years of the same thing like Sheila. 30 days? Not a big deal. Same goes for Dani. She's fun to watch and Karla is playing it to the hilt, so I can be both entertained, rooting for her or exasperated by her in equal measure depending on the day, the hour or the moment. Sarah Brown's Carly on GH, albeit a much deeper and more nuanced character over a longer stretch of time, was the same viewing dynamic for me. Erica Kane, not dissimilar.

I can both root for and critique Dani, but that's also partly because I think KM is doing wonderful work. Some days I love her, some days I roll my eyes, some days I do both in the same hour. That's just the nature of that kind of soap archetype IMO.

I admittedly have only seen swaths of her tenure (which hopefully will change soon) but I was always impressed with Grace Phillips. I'm just not sure there was enough on the bone with Sarah Gordon to warrant a major recast. I do understand why they did it at the time. Any imaginary OLTL revamp would have to do away with both Todds, at least on a long-term contract basis. Todd would be presumed dead since 2013 and would stay that way for a long time, if not forever. It would be liberating having to create strong new male leads to supplant them with their spouses, in its own way. I could see using TSJ's Victor, who can take on any identity, as a recurring mad villain from time to time or even potentially having Todd maybe appear again someday, but you cannot ever have rapist twin brothers leading a show again. It's ridiculous that went on. And yes, the more you revisit the Gottlieb/Malone/Horgan era in recent times the more you can see how much skewing the show around Howarth's talent destabilized a lot of the canvas. Was a lot of the material strong? Did I enjoy it in the moment? IMO, yes and sure. But has much of it aged well in terms of what it gave focus or priority? Maybe 40-60%. Tops. Yes, the psychosexual layers with Todd, Blair and Marty in 1995 have their compelling angles to watch as isolated scenes, or in terms of say, a stage play or a one-off novel. But in terms of a continuing narrative and having rewatched the rape trial saga recently, it's totally inappropriate.

IIRC, according to Labine it was supposed to be about Holly (I think) having it bad for Olivia and Olivia not being into it. I'll pass.

It can't be, unless FV is trying to slow his roll for awhile and play for Round 2 or something. (For example, I'll believe Valentin is gone for good when he's gone for five years.) Last I checked, Sonny has not so much as kissed Natalia in over a year. That is DOA unless it's just in stasis. I did expect (and still do) that FV will try hard to put her over due by making her sympathetic via the evils of Cyrus 3.0/Sidwell, but I wouldn't be shocked if someone finally said to get ready to dump her. You can tell what he prioritizes, the same way he's dragged his feet heavily on Lucky and Liz re: screen time.

I think it's precisely because many writers didn't want to lose these cushy and by most accounts well-paying positions (or lose them for their children/family, in a number of notable cases) that you saw less and less people trained up. Someone is always coming up from behind you. Beyond the Gates has to its credit tried to prioritize writers of color in the dialogue/daily corps, some of whom are new or at least relatively fresh/new. But there's still a lot of friends of the show or creatives on staff, both because the entertainment industry is always about who you know and because those people know how to do the job. And I won't lie and say I don't wish a few oldheads (like Patrick Mulcahey) could be persuaded out of retirement to tweak some of those daily shows.

I feel quite confident that's not what I said. If one were to do that using the most overwrought language possible, one might consider that substantive reflection yields keen discernment of the same patterns refracted across multiple daytime productions: Another World, where she had multiple women raped and murdered. Guiding Light, where she had multiple women raped, murdered or otherwise killed off. One Life to Live, raped and occasionally killed. Santa Barbara I can't speak to, but I'm pretty sure there were a fair few rapes! After such reflection, one might conclude that the alleged ends really doesn't exclude the means, which were regularly and at times exclusively victimizing women. We really don't need to play devil's advocate on every single issue. We can leave that to our most dedicated and un-banned tr0llls, who next will probably be advocating for the unsung genius of Dena Higley. Oh, I know. It's just a nice idea.

Unless something has changed in the last few years, Matthew Atkinson has nice pecs but cannot act.

Oh lord! God bless the soaps.