Vee

Did Dr. Ted clock the Thomases at the hospital elevator? They were much better at home than in that painful meet cute at the hospital explaining who they are and what they do. Andre did not have to come back to the blindingly white hospital hub just to have the same exact scene with Ashley as yesterday, followed by the duty nurse giving more exposition lol. Martin is very cute, but he didn't exactly put over much of his often clunky dialogue. The civil rights discussion with Vernon was worthwhile but Martin continues to approach scenes as though he is informing Southwest passengers where the emergency exits of the airplane are. Of course, most of his dialogue was pure exposition. So far he's more wooden than Mike Manning, but hopefully the actor can find a groove. Nor did they need to keep talking about Martin's mysterious dreams vs. just showing one (as AMC 2.0 did early on with Celia Fitzgerald, whose mystery will sadly never be solved). The rest of the show flowed better, was more organic dialogue-wise and performance overall. Karla and Tunie got much stronger dialogue today and KM had nuance for me. Daphnee carried as mentioned and her dialogue with her husband and poor Hayley, while at times explaining plot, still felt much more organic and natural than Day 1. Solid enough for me. I did crack up when Hayley doffs her leopard print coat to reveal a transparent titties-out top for work. They may be dressing her as the homewrecker but to their credit so far she is not being written as one.

Once again the Token Whites tank a segment with the worst expository dialogue of the day - talking to Great Value Laura Wright as her mom about how hard she worked to provide for her, here in this hospital that we are currently standing in. Jen Jacob is flat but the introductions of the Thomases at the hospital were also painful. I'll be that guy: If Eden Riegel was a little younger (and she still looks it) they shoulda got her to play Nurse Ashley. Viewers Black, white and plaid would follow that woman anywhere. But she's a big enough name that she'd overshadow some of the new cast, so I get it.

I am mid-show. Nicole's potentially evil husband is insanely hot and very, very good with her onscreen. They both make expository dialogue sing a lot better than Day 1 (and the dialogue itself is better, in almost every segment so far except Martin giving Epcot Center greeter while talking with his grandfather). If Dr. Ted turns out to be the next Carnation Killer, Jingles the Clown or the Carver from nip/tuck I would snap him up to play a slightly younger Justus Ward on GH (opposite Brook Kerr's Portia) before his last CBS check cleared. The Dani/Anita scenes are also quite good, and better for both of them than yesterday.

Don't go there with me, Errol! I'd just gotten over Daphnee not heading up OLTL 3.0 with Dan Gauthier!

If Smitty dies in a Ted Brent car crash in the first 13 weeks I'll never stop laughing. He's cute though.

Oh, she gave me plenty from the jump. Daphnee has always had a core of real integrity and intelligence as well as grit, which served her very well with a very resolute character on OLTL who had previously been diminished and demeaned under past recasts. Again, I don't think the Kathryn Hays/Kim Hughes comparison is far off. I'll cover the rest of the ep in a bit but I am not going to jump to any conclusions on the gays hugging, lol. They still let the boring lesbians, etc. kiss on Y&R AFAIK and they certainly did with Luke and Noah's tiresome stories on ATWT years ago. I don't think we're going back to the Matt Fielding era here, and I think P&G/CBS are smart enough to know the pushback they'll get if they tried while touting all their progressive bonafides during the current media blitz. As for the teen kids, while I still think many of both the str8 and gay couples on the show are too young for so many older kids they're just leaning into the obvious celeb trope of famous gay couples adopting 2.5 children.

As she noted in the specials, Daphnee went out for Dani but the role was always earmarked for Karla by MVJ IIRC. I don't have a problem with it. As many of us have noted, Daphnee comes off like she has already been running this show (with the elders) like a young Kathryn Hays for ten years.

You get a good idea of why longtime viewers might've been put out with the big change in the show - I think the very obvious riff on Steven Soderbergh's then-recent sex, lies and videotape in the 9/24/91 episode, with Megan and "Heinrich"/Cain filming each other on videotape in confessionals, is inspired, introspective and well done and clearly comes from a producer immersed in Hollywood, but you also have to imagine veteran viewers are kind of wondering wtf is going on here with Megan and this guy who's back again wearing a fake mustache and muttonchops. But the show had also been in a malaise already for awhile at this point pre-Gottlieb, so I can't fault them for breaking the mold as I think the early changes (Luna and Tina's mischief, the country club subplot with Sheila, Jason/Stephanie/Kevin/Lee Ann, Bo's "Haunting of Sarah" etc.) are all pretty good. I do wonder if Gottlieb was hedging her bets on Jessica Tuck renewing here. Yes, they had clearly already begun writing Megan's lupus into the show as early as late August at Hunter and Andy's wedding (before Malone's name was officially on it) but you get the sense they were also chemtesting her and Christopher Cousins as well as obviously her and Bob Krimmer. Interesting to see Cassie's first meeting with Andrew too. IIRC they did not hit on putting them together until mid-'92, after their initial plans for Andrew (supposedly the Maggie Vega character, intended for Saundra Santiago who backed out) flopped and they realized RK and LB had chemistry. Cord's sudden massive dose of chauvinism is jarring in these episodes, but also not exactly alien to the show after the Rauch years. It's nice to have it addressed, particularly in Cord's own fantasy sequence (among Malone's first of many, many, many I think?) where he imagines himself as Ward Cleaver with Tina as the doting wife. I don't think it needed to go on for maybe 5+ minutes and end with Cord having learned nothing and stepping up hard on Luna. Yes, Loprieno had most likely given his notice by now but this stuff could be softer. I assume Cord will get his comeuppance and reconcile with Tina shortly, though I also know Mia Korf's Blair and her targeting Cord is just around the corner. Very weird to see the Gottlieb-era canvas shaping up in the old Llanfair set. @DRW50 would know better than me but the old foyer always looks exactly like the Old House from Dark Shadows to me. I assume it can't be the same given OLTL was on-air before DS was off, but IIRC many DS BTS personnel (Henry Kaplan, Gordon Russell, Sam Hall, etc.) went on to various ABC shows. Pretty sure I have an idea of what Asa is freaking out about in his private papers from Du Ann. It is very strange still to see Asa and Renee talking about Little Al as their grandson, who NuMax basically left to them despite feuding with Asa - and Asa still calling Max his 'son' despite knowing the truth and having this obsession challenged by Renee, Cord, etc. since the writing change. As I noted before, Asa and Max's love/hate relationship would continue to circle each other (most pointedly with the tired JFP remake of this storyline) until the end of their tenures in town, and beyond the end of Asa's life - Max's final return to the show comes for Asa's funeral. But it's interesting that Cain would later almost take up part of this mantle in Asa's world, IIRC - Cain is fascinated with Asa now re: his grilling of Megan, and later I believe he tries to or succeeds in getting close to him for a time, being another version of Asa's protege and surrogate corporate tycoon son a la Max. Anyway, I didn't realize JdP is back so soon- I think he is maybe only a week or two away, less than 3 weeks since Nicholas Walker's hammy final airdate on the start of Malone's first full week (9/16).

I was not a fan of KM's work on GL and I thought what little I saw of her on B&B was mid, but I haven't seen much. I was pleased with her yesterday, but it's too soon to know. Dani is a very outsize character so far. I don't think she's incapable of showing nuance.

Tamara Tunie confirms she will sing on the show.

This I have to know about but it's totally the wrong thread, lol.

Incredibly exciting to have an all-new, very different soap to look forward to daily, however it turns out. Exploring other famous periods like ATWT '86, or rarities like GL/GH in the '60s, or the long-lost Linda Gottlieb/Michael Malone handover on OLTL in 1991 has been wonderful recently, but those are all bygone times. To have something totally new for soaps that you also feel the creatives actually have a sense in pride in is the rarest thing of all today.

I hope you'll watch it too!

I'd forgotten all about it. I'll have to revisit something this week.

Very excited to be back to poring over the crucial Gottlieb/Malone transition era in OLTL '91. Malone moves quickly: Luna parachutes in at the end of his first day (a Friday, 9/13), takes Llanfair by storm in her (and Malone's) first week with a series of very fun scenes with Karen Witter's Tina and co. While Andrew Carpenter - Malone's other muse and possible surrogate - arrives on the Monday of his second week (9/23), in a low-key introduction halfway through the episode, after Megan and Bo have already had a heart to heart at Sarah's grave. Megan greets Andrew, who she already knows in a passing way as a newcomer to town but we don't at all. Malone is also apparently laying very early groundwork here - Andrew mentions his brother William, dead of AIDS, in these first scenes. The scenes with Stephanie, Kevin and Jason remain strikingly candid and mature, where she explains her longing for someone to be intimate with her and cut through all their adolescent drama, whereas the scenes with Stephanie and Jason getting it on on Malone's first day were equally candid and raw but also remarkably sensual and somewhat kinky. The sexuality Malone brought to his work proved out even from the beginning, but that emotional and physical candor is so lacking in soaps today. (Even the smart little subplot of Viki and Sheila crusading re: women being marginalized by doctors vs. men seems a bit too forward for today's GH.) It's too bad Robyn Griggs was apparently a a pain BTS because she has done pretty good work here ever since the writing handover, and does have chemistry with Mark Brettschneider. But Yasmine Bleeth is a star and it makes perfect sense that they'd move her to Kevin and finally place Lee Ann with someone her own age. Lee Ann's pointed, fiery refusat to discuss her father makes me wonder if this was ever a story point. The Bo/Cassie scenes where they talk at length over the Sarah issue are actually very sensitive and mature. But it is still very bizarre they're already engaged and I think they've only been dating since what, April? May? Maybe even June or July officially? But for soap purposes it served the Sarah return story Gottlieb wanted to kick into high gear. I assume the masked Sarah in Bo's dream was not voiced by Grace Phillips, but who knows.

Knots is already back on Prime with no notice, lol.

That Phil recast isn't bad.

I liked it! First things first: Yes, there was a Lot of heavily expository dialogue and that was something I had to just roll with and accept as part of a pilot. MVJ is clearly writing In some ways for an audience trained on the mindless, repetitious slop of B&B (sorry, B&B viewers) to make it very clear who everyone is. But that's part of the necessity of any pilot or introductory material. Fortunately, a lot of it came off much less basic or blatant in the context of ongoing conversations vs. the clips we have seen before. Other parts, like the token whites (what fun to say that) or the scenes with Naomi, Kat and Chelsea talking while reciting their familial connections were less so. Naomi and Jacob reciting their full government names before fúcking was pure James Reilly, lol. But assuming this business doesn't continue for too long I can forgive it for being a first day/week/etc. Yes, the whites are boring but they are clearly hinting at something with Jen Jacob's Ashley and flirty Andre. Which I could get behind, because Ashley's man whose name I cannot remember comes off positively Neolithic. Whether Ashley herself is worthwhile remains to be seen. I had a feeling Kat Richardson would be good and she did not disappoint. She is one I am keeping my eye on. The other two girls I am reserving judgment on, though I felt Chelsea came off quite green. Martin varied for me from scene to scene, but it was hard for anyone to sell some of the stuff with the family all sitting around reciting platitudes. The chemistry worked for me more than the dialogue there. Daphnee Duplaix is a major tentpole here (as I knew she would be for any revived OLTL as Rachel Gannon Buchanan - sigh) and comes off like she has been here for ten years already. She is completely at ease and the chill way she approaches a scene makes things familiar and not artificial, as do Tunie and Clifton Davis. Karla Mosley was obviously quite good (not something I've ever said about her before) but had the showier role, so it's harder to get a sense of the nuances of Dani yet. Beyond the core family, Vanessa and Lauren Bugliogi(?) was a major standout for me. The potential Lucy Coe crown on her horizon may be well-earned - assuming Cady McClain's likely similar character does not take it first. It's hard to know yet how we're supposed to see Hayley. I did feel for her at the end. The ending procession of all the Duprees walking up to her, taking a dramatic beat and leaving was hysterical lol. I guess MVJ just couldn't resist, and honestly I don't blame her. It was fun. Daphnee once again played it off the most naturalistically. Overall I was entertained and pleased with the look and tone, the focus on granular family relationships and history slowly being doled out. It didn't feel it was spoofing soap or mocking the audience. By contrast, I remember Passions' first day very well (and first month or two, before I gave it up in disgust). I remember how people deified JER even more back then, and a lot of us young'ins expected great things. And then I remember how it felt like he was just pissing in my face. This was far from that. Was it perfect, no, but it was solid, entertaining and I have high hopes once it gets out of the introductory gear and gets cooking.

Turns out I'm preoccupied with IRL gym stuff today - will watch when it goes up on Paramount, hopefully by 5! RIP.

Y'all have fun with the East Coast feed. I haven't been on it since I still cared about a soap.

Let's all remember this thread is for our reactions to the show and not "here's what some random troll said on YouTube, much to consider in these deep meaningful thoughts!" Just getting that in before showtime.

Nothing there surprises me tbh. The obligatory supporting cast white couple definitely seem dull (particularly Jen Jacob) but if that's the only standout issue I'll take it. They're easy come easy go.

It wasn't up on archive when I linked it, thanks. TV Line review Variety

Almost as bad: When "Evil Will" was taken away by the cops/doctors/whoever in possibly the same gym, again with zero sound control for the acoustics. I had no idea what was happening for a few minutes in addition to the awful folk rock playing.

A few feature pieces. LA Times: MVJ cites the inspiration for Anita and Vernon as "what if Diana Ross met John Lewis?" Very touching to see Ducksworth saying she was thrilled whenever Claudia appeared on GH. This WP piece (which I evaded the firewall on by opening in incognito and stopping it very quickly lol) has some anecdotes by Tunie about ATWT and the issues with family representation there.