Vee

Thank you so much for passing these along. This one in particular is a gem. I don't even know why Bobbie is crying in her close-ups during Steve telling the Christmas story but just that and Beradino's recitation got me. Good old Jackie. Meanwhile Luke and Laura are all but fúcking in the doorway in front of the little children. Good times all around.

The way they insanely botched a lay-up in this period, where A.J. and Carly finally fúcked again and LW and Sean had insane chemistry (IIRC Monica even found them in bed together, or they had to hide from her lol) only to dump it a few weeks later when they could get Roger Howarth back onscreen ASAP as serial killer Franco - to pair with the woman whose son he got raped - is one of the worst GH fúck-ups of all time.

The amusing part is that Prospect Park, which was a Wild West operation run by (likely coked-up) venture capitalists, sued GH but couldn't even follow the legal agreement themselves lol. They had people openly mentioning Sam by name in scripts on OLTL 2.0 during this same time! I enjoyed the two PP soaps but it was so messy BTS.

One of my favorite moments of all time, in addition to him being super jazzed and proud of Michael lol. I also never forgot how happily Brenda welcomed A.J. home, as did Robin later in the year. I was pleased those character beats were included despite that regime already beginning to sour on Kanan.

I suppose I could see that. He did something similar with Todd and Blair re: Tomas from OLTL, but had Tomas (who was purely a HEA spoiler for T&B) disappear before she could marry him offscreen in Llanview which kept the absentee triangle going. And Ron would've likely continued that string indefinitely with Blair going in and out of PC but with other obstacles to keep her and Todd apart, had events not intervened.

Really? Idk. They had pretty much gone all in on Sonny and Brenda again for a number of years by then, and I felt Vanessa had as well in print. I thought the quickie Jax thing was just another classic Carlivati bit - bring back the other partner vs. the fated couple in an offscreen insta-reunion/marriage/whatever for some very artificial, quick drama. He did the same thing with the awful, awful, awful Scott/Laura returns that year, where they had somehow yet again gotten back together after all the shít he'd pulled, were engaged and then got married in a courthouse hallway, with Genie wearing a gigantic tablecloth and looking like she was facing the South American firing squad from the end of Soap. That marriage lasted about three seconds and served no purpose other than to push drama for a LNL reunion Ron wanted but Tony was never going to play. I am still infuriated about all of it.

This isn't really a spoiler so I thought I'd put it in here. Cute pic.

I'm not adding anything new but I will say this is an excellent point.

Yep. Though the final scene left it ambiguous as to whether or not they actually had sex.

Oh, right. Whatever. The whole renewed romance was so forgettable. And yeah, it was ridiculous to me that he would opt for Connie over Brenda.

David Tennant reminisces about The Christmas Invasion. "I'm still alive, so they've wheeled me out to talk about it!" He also takes a shot at the BBC Archives for not preserving DMP. @DRW50

It wasn't something they did a lot of in those years. Ron and to a lesser extent Frank's post-RC regimes have done a lot more of those kind of offscreen bomb drops, because Ron couldn't manage time or characters properly and then he'd always go on Twitter and blame the editing bay for cutting scenes for time. Then we'd cut back to Duke and Lucy after 3 weeks and they're fúcking! What?! I'll never be over that one. I think Pratt is the main reason 2003-05 have such sleaze in them and really abject misogyny. Not that Guza couldn't absolutely be sleazy or misogynistic, but there is a hysterically vulgar, almost camp edge to the brazen sexuality and envelope-pushing, to Faith's sex-laden madness and how the men would grapple with her (I think I've talked about the extended scene with Sonny sadomasochistically manhandling her in front of the Five Families and asking the men if they 'want a piece of this whore,' which should not have aired), to the catfights and even lesbian teases with Faith, Courtney, Carly, etc. that fades after Pratt's gone. And a ton of blondes, blondes, blondes. And of course they hired Kari Wuhrer, who I think Pratt may have had a tie to from his time at Spelling soaps. I'll always give him his props for his days at Melrose, a show I adored, but it's a totally different beast.

Olivia got dosed with LSD by Heather in 2012, the first year of Carlivati and FV's regime. I think the visions started pretty quick. The painful Sonny/Olivia interval, which IIRC ran for part of 2013, was pretty brief. The idea was that Sonny was awkwardly trying to reunite with the newly-integrated 'Connie'/Kate, as wallflower Olivia quietly pined away for him while wanting to support her entitled cousin. It was all lousy on top of the dreadful DID story but also clearly just a time-filler for Maurice and LLC, the latter of whom Ron obviously liked a lot. Sonny felt totally marginalized at that moment. I believe Brenda came back in the middle of that for the NB and it was utterly implausible to me that Sonny would still be giving either Falconeri woman the time of day with her on the scene lol. And I say that as someone who has a lot of love for Lisa and Olivia, especially at that time. I think it fizzled out when Sonny started making mob moves again to Olivia's horror (shocker!) and they threaded him into the A.J. mess and got him back with Carly. The character has of course not recovered from murdering A.J. And yeah, I think Psychic Olivia was one of a number of Carlivati camp flourishes the network clamped down once he was ousted, along with the endless kid quad (Spencer/Emma/Cameron/Joss, and nary an actor among them!) he was forced to stop before being fired. I'd still bring her visions back!

I've spoken about it already in here but it is easily the best adult LGBT show I've seen in quite a long time and it's not close. It's beautifully shot and written, in addition to the excellent work from the leads and of course the remarkably explicit content. A recent interview from Jacob Tierney that various streamers or bigger outlets tried to push them to move all the physical consummation and sex to Season 2 (or add another 'female entry point') speaks to not only the political climate but I think just generally a squeamishness about this kind of material when it's not couched in the Heartstopper, etc. mold. There's a drive to neuter gay sexuality and try to make it much more about emotional intimacy between men vs. the physical, and a tendency from female-driven fandoms of these shows to infantilize the characters or stars as desexualized pets. All of the above also being a line of attack the Guardian happens to level at HR too, but which I think is very clearly inaccurate and untrue - you can't get through virtually any episode of this show without explicit, often dom/sub-flavored fúcking. There's no way for young or sheltered audiences to engage with this and strip out the sex. Tierney himself has said 'these books are porn', but fortunately there's more to the story than that. I like Heartstopper a lot but it's a sweet coming of age story about two young boys as written by an asexual woman in the late 2010s. They amped up the sensuality a bit as they matured, but it's still something very rarefied. HR is also written by a woman, something that made me skeptical going in as does any huge hype cycle around a new show these days, but Reid is a generation older which may speak to why the material is more frank and explicit. And Tierney, the showrunner, is an old pro in Canadian circles and openly gay, so that helps considerably. A THR piece re: the female audience.

I actually think they had pulled way back on the psychic LSD visions by that point if not eliminated them entirely post-Ron. I am not sure when she last had one. I'd bring 'em back tbh! I liked Psychic Olivia in doses lol. Olivia could do a riff on the recent spate of Eastenders flash-forwards, or the dream/near-death experience of future portents Ava had on LOV years ago: She can see a cryptic vision of events in the coming year at its start. Hey, it's a fun gimmick sometimes. I think Cameron is as good as the quality of writing given to him. He always works hard. I do think he was uniquely suited for the nuanced power player/cad Mulcahey was molding him into, and he is by his own admission enjoying being the cartoonish black hat they've made him into since. But he could occupy a happier medium. Happy holidays, y'all.

Jill was never a huge advocate for women lol. And I am sure she contributed to Genie walking. I have no doubt she could've been in agreement with playing hardball on VM, but given how huge Brenda was to GH at that time, how all in they went on her return and how heavy a micromanager Frons was at the time I just can't see him leaving that up to her. Especially when she was routinely shut down on stuff she tried to put over post-2001 (like repeatedly trying to get Kale Browne back onscreen).

This is incredible and should be on the show.

They should let Karla and Sean do this Andre/Dani duet she put on IG on the show. Unbelievable.

Whereas I always assumed it was Frons (and thought I'd heard such at the time, but who knows.) To me there is no way the ABC of the 2000s would've let Vanessa Marcil walk if he didn't sign off on it. He was that heavily involved at that time especially. With that kind of caliber of decision IMO JFP is just the hatchet man.

Maybe. I'm not convinced much of that wasn't Frons, unless someone explicitly said it was Jill. In fact I thought Vanessa explicitly said Brian Frons and ABC wouldn't cover her.

Yeah, I checked out almost immediately when she took over for the same reason lol. AMC and some of ATWT were enough for me. I would look in for very brief periods in those years and I think that subplot came about in the first year or two. 2016-17? It was played for laughs but IIRC JP or Altman was super proud of pushing this social issue. Alexis and the ladies are liberating the stuffy court by ripping open their blouses to prove a point for women's rights! Okay.

It really is not. The eye mite arc is up there with Jean Passanante's(?) pet subplot where someone (Olivia, IIRC) had to go to court over public breastfeeding, leading to I think Alexis and the other women going titties-out in court. Riveting stuff. I think there are other ways you can affect a change; namely, Drew seeing Willow with clear eyes and vice versa and their relationship becoming something different and more mutually villainous. And you can add a bit more dimension and pathos to his new persona per Jake and others, as we've said in the past. But I don't think he needs to do a 180.

I believe so, yes. Cyrus brought it up a few years ago. I think the only reason JFP survived the catastrophe of her solo tenure in 2001-2 was her skill as a line producer to execute Guza's vision. They could've found others. Guza had power over her creatively, having learned from the Riche wars. It was the best comeuppance Jill could ever have for what she'd done to GH, OLTL, etc. IMO.

And I'm sorry you feel that way, because I wasn't actually referring to you. I have no problem with you at all. But realistically, how exactly can I be 'gatekeeper of these threads'? Look at the Top Posters in the right hand corner at the top of the page. You won't see my name there for these last two months. And tbqh most of what I have to talk about regularly gets picked over by others while I am dealing with pressing life stuff before I can watch, so I contribute much, much less here than I do the GH thread. I'm not censoring anyone's speech, setting the topic or acting like I run this shít. If I did the fanfic guy would've been banned before the show even aired for calling MVJ an anti-Black bootlicker, lol. I am not a consistent enough poster in these threads daily or weekly to control the flow of anything, nor does that interest me. What I have been consistent in posting about, all year long, is saying that these constant rotating meta-discussions about how no one can supposedly criticize the show are silly. Yeah, I think some folks overreacted to criticism of the show from the jump. But BTG has been getting ragged on daily like any other soap we watch from the first week! You'll see it in here all week and you'll see it here next week too, and straight through into 2026. Do I agree with every critique, definitely no. Do I agree with a lot of 'em, yep. There's stuff on the show I find earnest, new and potentially brilliant, and a lot of stuff on this show I find cringe or just amateur night. I get that kind of heat in my phone texts from a close friend every day! And hotter stuff is said on here or Twitter seven days a week. So nobody is being silenced as far as I can see. What is different about BTG and these discussion threads is this: SON is, for once, not generally unified in its thinking about the state of a soap opera. A lot of the forum thinking about GH, or B&B or DAYS or Y&R follows along the same lines around here - we may differ on specific characters, couples, stories or plot points, but the majority of posters have generally the same feelings about the overall state of their longtime shows. BTG is new. People aren't set in their ways. The show is a cooking pot that hasn't settled into anything. And a lot of people feel a lot of different ways. That is why I think these recurring discussions of how BTG can and can't be talked about keep coming up. Not because anyone is being silenced, but because a lot of folks (positive or negative) just aren't used to not being generally on the same page around here. It freaks folks out. And again, for me, it's not that serious. Feel how you want! Talk about it everyday! I support it! I'm still repping for some of the Marlene McPherson/Darrell Thomas era of DAYS. 95% of posters here hated that! Again: Happy holidays, y'all.

I barely remember Nigel - the stuff I am most familiar with was both before and after his tenure - but I will try to have a look at this one. Always lovely to see Pat.