Vee

Kim (by her own admission, IIRC) complained constantly about story or lack of story, in almost every regime. But I think even she felt some of Reva's major stories in that period (like her ludicrous late in life pregnancy by Jeffrey) were stupid as hell. IIRC she did like the cancer saga.

That may be true, but I think ZImmer is right about what she says in the book: I do feel some of the material in the Wheeler/Kreizman was intended to demean her or run down Reva, and put her in her place (and I was not exactly a Reva fan going in, lol). But for me it did the opposite. The worse she looked and the more overweight she was (and not in a good place emotionally or physically by her own admission), the rawer and more spellbinding her performances became. Many of us have made the comparison to late 2000s Reva and the British soap divas. The more minimalist the storylines and frankly also the scripts got, the more naturalistic a lot of her interplay with others became. A lot of scenes felt at least 50% improvised in Peapack. Kim, Jordan Clarke, Robert Newman, etc. could sell it. Much of the rest of that era's cast could not. I find the incredibly razor-sharp, arrogant Robert Gentry Ed in the '60s eps very compelling, but so different from Peter Simon's or Hulswit's, both of whom I liked (especially Simon, but I'm biased). It was wild and very bizarre seeing Gentry return in the Rauch(?) era where they were trying to put him over as the same family man Ed. Don Stewart - I've said it before, I'll say it again, he's good on GL but I will never get over his starring role as the skeezy, barechested middle-aged circus lothario with a talking chimp in the modern Mystery Science Theater 3000 classic "Carnival Magic" (now featured in Season 11 on Netflix). I think that was made right around the time Marland came in. I commented on the comics a bit upthread.

It is wild that they made up Tony Call to look old and staid when he was a freshfaced young officer on Star Trek not too many years prior. And of course he was charismatic and suave on OLTL almost a decade later. Ironically, while the main line Spidey books still sell fairly well (for the current market) due to brand recognition and the MCU, allowing Marvel editorial to keep circling the wagons against the marriage they undid (though they allegedly have to keep rehiring only old writers who were involved when that choice was made, as apparently no new creatives want to abide by it), it's now another Spidey book that is currently outselling all of them - Ultimate Spider-Man, set in another universe, written by an A-list creator. Its premise: Peter Parker is thirtysomething and happily married to Mary Jane with two kids. But back to GL - In fairness, Zimmer makes it clear she was no picnic to work with at that time herself and takes some pains to try to give Wheeler the benefit of the doubt in the text re: the pressures she was under with the network and the parent company. I think Ellen Wheeler is a talented actress, and that she meant well. But the impression you still get - not just from that book but from virtually every anecdote from the cast/crew and every media appearance Wheeler did in that period - was that she was unstable and totally unfit for the job. I still remember Maureen Garrett's absolutely scathing remarks about her brief appearance in the last week. She was horrified by the conditions.

Jenz schmenz. Must we all be on a first name basis with this latest non-threatening cardboard villain? Can't we keep it to either "Sidwell," "Egghead," "Cueball," "Chromedome," "Baldo," "Matt Lauer" or (my personal favorite, a riff on Lost in Space) "Bald-Headed Booby?"

I think the point is we're all dealing with enough of that every single day in 2025. We don't need to buy trouble worrying about it here before BTG even airs. We all know sooner or later the right will target the show if they haven't already. We can't control that, but we can watch and hopefully enjoy the show and the resurgence of a television art form, and appreciate that CBS appears to be fully behind it atm. Whatever happens happens.

I think next week we'll be inundated with the BTS specials and more stuff than we can handle tbh. Right now I am just trying to keep an eye out for leaks or takes from people who were at the screenings.

They have their late in life daughter Donna, who I believe is named for a beloved crewmember who died. (Meaning they probably can never kill her off. Oy vey.)

I don't think she was exaggerating. She was very explicit about those details in the book, and that Wheeler had to be talked round about it.

We've literally talked about it before.

Giving Ava a son is a great idea, if they could get away from the years of long-lost adult kids for a little while first. And Kristina being on the wrong end of a bad argument is overdue. Years ago I wanted to kill off the extraneous Avery (when Julian, Morgan and Kiki were still alive, and before they gave Sonny yet another unnecessary child in Donna). It was also back when Sonny's guards Max and Milo were still around annoying us all. At that time, Sonny and Ava were even more at each other's throats than they are now. The premise was simple: Sonny would move to take out the Jeromes and be fed up with Ava in particular, who would've begun consolidating her own power in the mob. Ava would be under pressure from an evil benefactor (Faison) to wipe out Sonny as well. They would each take aim for each other. Sonny would tell Carly to take Avery and leave town for their own safety. She would be ferried out of town in one of his cars by Max and Milo, while Ava believes her daughter is in school. Sonny would then have Julian's penthouse (where Ava and Kiki lived at the time) wired to blow. Two things then happen simultaneously: Ava's men would gun down Sonny's car on the road (believing him to be inside), running it down and killing Max and Milo. The car would crash. Meanwhile, Kiki would return home to the Jerome penthouse instead of her mother or uncle and be killed instantly by Sonny's bomb when it blows. Carly would emerge from the wreckage of the ruined car, the only one alive. Avery is dead. And only she would know the truth (something I always suspected, and would still do today): That Avery was Morgan's daughter, and that Carly herself switched the paternity results in the Carlivati years to make sure he was not snared in Ava's web any further, feeling he wasn't ready to raise a child. The piper would come to pay for everyone involved. tldr: Yeah, one of Sonny's little kids has to die.

I’m gonna start a gofundme to have Brad beaten to death by circus clowns. I feel like the fate speaks to the character. I knew they would try to frontburner Sasha yet again. She is a snooze I barely tolerate and this is going to be a very long year.

Barbara Rodell as the serene Leslie #2 (not counting Kathryn Hays' fill-in) and then as the deranged Joyce Colman on ATWT is night and day. What a talent. I'd forgotten she was the last Lee Randolph on AW too. OTOH you can see why Lynne Adams was so popular as Leslie in the '66 Nixon episodes online - she is ethereal, whip-smart and very youthful, whereas she comes off considerably different in her return debut in '73.

It is. So stupid. But it's gonna go on forever and he'll end up getting some poor fool's heart! I still don't care about latest Molly, though I think Molly should've been written out years ago.

I thought there were at least two others (both younger and less overtly sleazy than Pine). I may be wrong.

I think Larry Pine was an absolute hoot as Channing and one of the few overtly snarky humorous characters I've seen Marland do so far, but it does hit different in 2025 vs. even 2024 since he was so, so obviously a deliberate riff on Trump. That said, if they'd intended one of the several other previous Tads to be a serious romantic test for women on the show they'd clearly given up by the time they got to Pine (though he's a handsome older man, the character becomes a total sleaze). I also got around to watching that dinner from hell in 1977 with Joyce Colman. Mitch wasn't kidding. Holy cow! I didn't know a character that apeshit existed on the quiet, stately ATWT of back then.

I seem to recall the NY market at least moving GL up pretty early near the end. I still had full cable back then, still watched many soaps live and it was at some weird slot.

I am finally getting back to plowing through the back half of ATWT '86, heading towards '87. I apologize for a fairly granular question, but I'm curious: It's October. Denise Darcy has just been revealed as Tad Channing's killer, ending what had become a rather tedious saga with a very strong reveal; they've also fortunately ended the interminable comedy plotline in which Shannon and Harriet are kidnapped by idiot thugs they easily roll over. (Don't get me wrong, the show is overall great but this stuff was dragging on awhile.) Following the rescue though, Shannon points out that she's faced 'voodoo in the Dominican Republic' and Harriet mentions shrunken heads. I thought Duncan's crazy ex or first wife or whoever with the voodoo and so on didn't come in until much later. But there are substantial gaps in what is available of '86 on YT, including a fair portion of the summer. So I'm curious, when did Shannon come across voodoo, shrunken heads, etc. in this year? Anyone know? Thanks in advance. I'm also not sure who exactly knows about Beatrice at this point, who I've only seen maybe once or twice and I can't remember the details. And Brian and Shannon are still together at this point, but Brian appears to be having some sort of audio flashback to Beatrice discussing 'Thomas'. What's that about? I wonder when they decided to pivot to Duncan and Shannon vs. Brian, or if Mark Pinter had planned to leave or whatever. The Craig/Iva stuff where they both admit to taking the fall for each other was very good, especially from Lisa Brown, even If I find it a bit crazy that Iva was willing to go to prison for Craig even though she knew neither of them did it. Does she have that little self worth after her juvenile exploitation by Channing (something Denise is smartly also an apparent victim of)? Obviously Craig/Sierra are great but the rapport here makes you wish they'd played Craig and Iva a bit longer.

I didn't know Lorie wasn't there at the beginning. When did Katherine arrive? I thought it was the first year or shortly after.

They're really dogging Cody after a year of major progress for the character. It's sad.

Nothing about the show looks cheap to me. The lighting is pretty strong at times, but that may be a thing of early production/untreated shots. I have no issue with the sets. The fact is that no soap is perfect out of the gate and there are always hiccups, changes and adjustments. Historically they've usually needed a year or two (or five) to bed in and find an audience. BTG may or may not get a huge amount of grace time, but I am sure CBS/P&G and Val Jean are aware of the historical trends. And sure, GH will be tough competition simply due to brand loyalty. But you don't make this kind of investment to roll it up in 6-12 months (particularly with the added prestige/pressure of the NAACP, which puts a certain obligation on the network) unless it's some kind of staggering failure. That's not at the front of my mind.

Trucker and Trisha would probably the one and only major couple verging on that status, at least from what I know. I love Alex and Ava but I'd never heard of them before I got deeper into the show. I suppose Casey and Ally were also pretty popular.

We get it. You hate the Black girl.

It seemed like there was a moment in time where The Talk had caught on and The View was on the backfoot for awhile. Maybe I'm wrong about that, or maybe it changed with Trump.