Everything posted by Vee
-
BTG: May 2025 Discussion Thread
Like I've said before, I think the show is often a very strange (and admittedly fascinating to me) mix of very old-fashioned, purple dialogue and classic soap opera structural elements - right down to the insanely blatant, virally successful product placement for P&G - mixed with other dialogue or material that tries desperately to be current and hip. One moment it will remind me of very hokey old B&B stuff or expository stuff out of the '60s, and the other it'll look and sound like the Prospect Park soaps. Some of the hipper dialogue or material (Chelsea's sexuality, etc.) works for me, others are pure cringe. Same with the classical stuff, like the characters (particularly the elders) gathering around to recap plot, make grand pronouncements about each other or their children/family, or make grave portents of the future. Then there's the whole piano thing lol. It's a weird mix, but not one I'm mad about atm so much as mystified by. As a longtime soap fan it is very compelling to examine even when parts of it really don't work, because so much of BTG feels both very old and very new at the same time. I do think they need to dump the Bell (or maybe more accurately Brad Bell) school of dialogue MVJ has been working from for years, and bring in more of the naturalistic GH house style she and Guza worked from in the '90s and 2000s. If that means dumping a lot of the dialogue people so be it (I do think some are good). OTOH the Bell style seems to work for a lot of the social media and probably offline audience that isn't me, so who's to say. I don't think Dani is at all in the latter-day Carly though. She's not on quite as much, and she's far from always right. I do think they are definitely playing it down the middle with the Duprees while waiting to reveal more, but I do think they want you to see them both ways or divide the audience on who they are. Which seems to have succeeded because some people are baffled.
-
ARTICLE: 'Beyond the Gates' Renewed For Season 2 at CBS
Lovely news, though I'd like a multi-year pick-up in future.
-
BTG: May 2025 Discussion Thread
Oh God, she's back? I thought those first scenes were well-intentioned but hysterical.
-
DAYS/GH: RIP Denise Alexander
Not hugely surprising, but still another awful blow for GH and soap history in general. Denise was a pioneer on several shows. Others have said everything far more eloquently than me, so I'm just echoing them here. I do wish more of her DAYS work was available - I always wanted to see them honor her again - but I am glad so much of her GH run is.
-
ARTICLE: R.I.P. Denise Alexander – ‘General Hospital’ & ‘Days of our Lives’ Actress Dies At 85
Another legend.
-
The Politics Thread
I mean, he is but he's also still an ásshole.
-
BTG: May 2025 Discussion Thread
I don't hate Hayley but she would absolutely cry about falling for Jacob.
-
GH: May 2025 Discussion Thread
We've agreed plenty before! Probably.
-
GH: May 2025 Discussion Thread
You're both right.
-
ARTICLE: ‘Beyond The Gates’ Stars Daphnée Duplaix & Trisha Mann-Grant Discuss Future Of Soap During Instagram Live
I would be legit shocked if it didn't get picked up. Especially since the right wing has (surprisingly) not really seriously mobilized against it, which is the only way I could see CBS panicking. Its demos are pretty good and it's growing. Do we know how far out they are filming now?
-
GH: May 2025 Discussion Thread
Absolutely. And I think Eden could play that in a reduced role, or until a recast comes round. I would easily give her a brainy comic love interest in the Spinelli vein regardless of who is playing Joss. I do think Eden works very hard, and can do certain things well. But I would at the least downshift her and then consider writing her out and bringing on someone else. She is not a lead.
-
BTG: May 2025 Discussion Thread
I am a couple days behind, but is it just me or do some of the glimpses of Martin's nightmare look like a police traffic stop?
- BTG: First-ever role recast!
-
BTG: May 2025 Discussion Thread
This show has many, many old school influences in how it approaches recapping, elder characters or supporting players, certain character monologues, etc. Some of that is stuff that feels straight out of the Bell formula or B&B, and some of it feels even older to me. That's not entirely a compliment or a positive nor is it a whole negative. It's a very wonky mix at times of dialogue that tries very, very hard to be hip and current - with varying degrees of success or cringe - with old-fashioned soap storytelling exposition and character monologuing. It's actually fascinating to watch, good or bad.
-
What Are You Listening To?
Just happy to see the Pointer Sisters getting their flowers again, thanks to GTA 6.
-
BTG: May 2025 Discussion Thread
They've talked about having staff at the Dupree house, like Rowena the chef. I just don't think we've seen them.
-
GH: May 2025 Discussion Thread
It seems obvious based on the initial material that Korte was going to take another foolish run at Jason and Carly a la 2021 and hoped Mulcahey being back would make it work, as he wrote such famous material for Steve, Sarah, etc. I think a couple good dialogue scenes came out of them together very early on, but there was never any denying that Steve and Laura have never had and will never have any romantic chemistry, plus the audience doesn't want it. So they pivoted to her with that useless dayplayer (Brennan) and now here they all are, spinning their wheels doing nothing of value on the show. I do think PM had planned to do much more with Jason's sons and that rivalry/friction, but once he was gone so was Jake. I've rarely seen any of the core mob 3 feel so totally extraneous and directionless on the canvas. Not that I mind. Anything that makes Jason easier to get rid of works for me.
-
ARTICLE: UEFA Champions League Soccer Coverage On CBS Leads Network’s Daytime Lineup To Season Lows Among Total Viewers – RATINGS
Sports preemption bullshít is a network thing. MVJ has no control over that. You can only 'plan' for that at a production level up to a certain point. Particularly in the age of Trump II. I doubt this inevitable preemption will have any effect on BTG's standing or renewal, especially when it's less than six months old.
-
GH: May 2025 Discussion Thread
I could not care less about Jagger or his family lol.
-
GH: May 2025 Discussion Thread
Wagger was so bizarre. I still don't care about that dude and I knew what would happen to him from the beginning. But it is crazy they pretend like it didn't matter Sonny stone cold killed a fed. I'm sure they will pick it up in a year or two to try to save face and make it important for some other plot point, like how they forgot all about Austin, Nikolas shooting Hayden and letting Shawn take the fall, etc. He was mediocre and folks acted like he was Douglass Watson because of that one Mulcahey speech! The answer here is the same one to anyone who is familiar with Donna from BITD: She implicitly believes she unofficially works here and has a position of authority in fandom. She does not.
-
GH: May 2025 Discussion Thread
This is why I started screenshotting shít years ago. Ol' Foxton loved to edit their posts.
-
BTG: May 2025 Discussion Thread
I'd be shocked if it doesn't get a multi-year renewal. And I'll be deeply amused by the inevitable reaction to follow on here if/when it does!
-
GH: May 2025 Discussion Thread
Jordan should have been killed or written out a decade ago.
-
BTG: May 2025 Discussion Thread
I'll be that guy and say I don't think TMG is a fool. This is a popular contract role on a year-round soap opera for a woman of a certain age (to say nothing of a woman of color). If I'm her I pull a Kimberlin Brown and ride this til the wheels fall off.
-
GH: May 2025 Discussion Thread
It's one thing to post about a soap's rumors or gossip, which in point of fact we've all done. It's another to present yourself as the inside source who knows something to be fact that's about to break wide, then backtrack and call it just Twitter speculation. Between those two extreme poles you have to commit to one or the other. If I got something wrong, I'd say it. (Nor would I keep playing insider after what I pulled with Drake Hogestyn, which should've gotten someone permanently banned.) And regardless, you don't open with this 'news' you don't actually want to stand by yet by mocking DRW's extremely valid concerns re: how the Trina character and Tabyana Ali has been marginalized and put out to virtual pasture ever since the day NAC left. Her playing out her current contract in a C-storyline with Kai does not change that.