Vee

OLTL was the black sheep despite being the daytime workhorse. That was all there was to it AFAIK, at least all I ever heard. The story went that Frons went to the mat to save GH, but had to sacrifice Guza to do it.

There was also the CGI experimentation on GH in those years in the late 2000s (Jason boating to Wyndemere, IIRC). The gossip went, in those days, that FV's OLTL staying under budget and turning a profit was helping to shore up the other two financially struggling shows which ABC valued more. AMC moved to L.A. because it was no longer financially sustainable on the East Coast.

That was the other interview I was thinking of. I think she did a great job from what I've seen. There was a flat affect to her demeanor as Heather at times - different from Mattson's own studied flatness on occasion - that highlighted the void at the center of her.

SPOILERS: He was never going to long-term, but now he definitely won't. I recommend reading the full free article above. It is absolutely damning. The Times smelled blood and went for it. In other less political news, the deeply amoral creeps at Puck (who have tried and failed to launder Will Lewis' reputation in recent weeks) nonetheless have an interesting piece on the failed Paramount/Skydance merger, however biased it may be. It also links back to one of the soapiest, most deranged IRL twists I ever heard and one daytime should snap up, in which a software exec involved in the merger's jilted ex once put up a billboard of the two of them in Times Square.

As always @janea4old @marceline @DRW50 @JaneAusten :

This link has a non-paywalled gift link to the NYT piece on Lewis:

They'd also (allegedly) been covering budget overages at GH with money from OLTL for years. And I don't think any of that (or the MOCA remote with Franco) was cheap.

What exactly is your (deeply masculine) argument? That it won't be given at the very least a year or 18 months to work out the kinks like every other network soap in existence? That it will be off the air in six months? I'll take the bet against that right now. It's not realistic.

What you think it'll have is not relevant. It will have plenty more than six months to run and succeed, like any other new network soap that isn't built on cocaine and venture capital like the poor Prospect Park shows.

The legend continues: Meanwhile, Nate Silver continues to go to the mat for misleading GOP poll outfits:

At this point I absolutely believe that Ron's ego re: his writing was so great that if he could've he would've had Franco laugh off the murders, as TSJ's Todd did the re-rape of Marty and other misdeeds on OLTL (until they had to bring Roger Howarth back and make TSJ into a totally different character). Instead they actively tried to ignore them, when if you absolutely had to have the Franco character it could've been doable to put them on someone else. But no, they just quadrupled down til the network finally stepped in. Supposedly they turned down Tom Hardy and other possible characters for Roger because they weren't 'edgy' and Todd-like enough. What a waste.

Then I think they brought the Carter actor back for one day for that idiotic scene where Carlivati had a prison surveillance tape 'proving' Roger's Good Guy Franco didn't want him to rape Michael. And ironically, after leaving for DAYS RC later confirmed that he'd wanted Franco to tell Carly in 2014 after their Todd/Blair ripoff not-wedding 'by the way, I really did have Michael raped'. FV or the network vetoed it. And this was when he was still trying to keep serial killer Franco as a romantic lead with Nina post-Carly! Ron later got to play this card with Gwen on DAYS, where she gets caught out at the altar and tells Jennifer she killed Laura Horton after all, and we were still expected to root for Gwen. He just doesn't know when to stop, he thinks anything is possible. Pretty sure Guza wasn't out til what, July or August?

Big mistake. Back then I still thought Jax was very viable and that letting him and their family life slip away by screwing him over in the divorce was the biggest mistake Carly had made in years. (And clearly someone on staff agreed given the great evisceration Alexis gave her onscreen not long after.) Today I don't care, but back then I thought she badly needed to atone. Same old story with Carly. I've already said many times how those excellent S&B ending scenes were the end of being able to do romance with Sonny and anyone unless it's resolved between the two of them, so I won't go back over that.

I think a big part of what ended Jasam was possibly the whole Billy Miller drama BTS, where Kelly was extremely vocal offscreen and with fans, on social media, etc. about being for Drew and Sam staying together and not a Jasam reunion after Steve first returned in '17(?). She clearly seemed pissed and bitter about how her SO was treated, and frankly she was right that they had a lot more chemistry than her and Steve. Since then I believe Kelly has done a tearful, embarrassing mea culpa to their fans at fan events in the hopes of shoring up her audience. To me Drew and Sam was the natural organic evolution for her character, as Sam had actually done the mature thing and pretty decisively turned the page and retired from her ride or die action junkie life with Jason as soon as she'd had Danny - first in her flirtation with John McBain (which should've gone further, John on GH was the only time I've liked him) then after Jason's 'death' in 2012, and then in her normal non-mob romances with guys like Silas, Patrick, etc. She made a choice and she articulated it onscreen more than once, and she only really relapsed when Steve's Jason returned IMO. Yes, Sam and BM's "Jason" had action and crime stuff early on but he was always a heroic man much more open with his emotions, loving and inclusive with his first son and with the Quartermaines, a man who embraced the Qs and Monica, etc. (They attempted to transplant some of these traits onto Steve when he returned but I never bought it.) Then Drew moved away from the mob entirely and into business, and they tried to paint this as him hemming Sam in and her not wanting to go straight when they were prepping for Steve's return. But Sam had already moved away from the mob long before Drew first appeared, so that was a fallacy. Before Steve left last time and before they'd broken up, I'd always wanted them to write Sam off as her simply slowly growing disenchanted with their violent and regressive life (which she did anyway in 2020, in record time) and quietly leaving him with the strong implication that she was rejoining his brother Drew (as played by Miller) somewhere else. She's done all this again with Dante now, of course. Both of those insta-marriages felt very rushed and pat. As did suddenly bringing back Kate, recast (though tbh I thought Kelly Sullivan did a solid job with Kate early on pre-Connie). That's when I knew they were out of ideas. How do you really follow up Sonny and Brenda married and the incredible confessional scenes that ended their marriage? Answer: You don't, unless you go back to an old favorite from the past.

I think it was a combination of people including possibly JFP (though I think according to the lore she may have been the one who went to them after the backlash, showed them feedback and said it wasn't going to work). Allegedly Frank tried to do his well-known (dating back to OLTL) lowball offer and let go maneuver to bump Becky a little under a decade ago, and also failed. That was when she (again, allegedly) almost went to DAYS to play Abby. They (particularly Frons) were obsessed with Jasam for the bulk of Guza II and for years after, that only ended when Kelly and Steve clearly were done working with each other around 2020. The only time they deviated was when Kelly was possibly leaving in the mid-late 2000s, which led to Liason, Jake and Sam's brief and wonderful period as a vixen/villainess with her own TV show, etc. I still wonder what happened BTS in '20 to make them end it so quickly and cleanly after decades. The honeymoon 'rape' (Franco didn't actually rape her, so he claimed anyway) was Garin Wolf though. I thought the Chinese restaurant was also Wolf. I never bought Lulu and Dante marrying so fast.

It's nice to confirm what some of us had suspected: That Frank simply wanted to put yet another soap name on the show as another feather in his cap with no other major interest or real plan for the character. I do think GV has improved mightily since his GH days (where he tried hard), particularly on Queen Sugar and DAYS. We're not going to agree about Jonathan who I think instantly re-owned the role when he returned and did very well with material he openly disliked and criticized. But if they're in a pinch and need Lucky I wouldn't squawk about Vaughan coming back again. I think a big part of killing Jake was about undoing the 'mistake' of Jason and Elizabeth having his first child (as Sam and Jason began trying for Danny immediately after his death, despite vowing previously not to have kids given their lives) - Frons and to a lesser extent Guza seemed very wedded to Jason/Sam as the destined ride or die action couple, and treated the brief Liason era in the mid-2000s as an anomaly to escape from and erase as soon as possible. When in fact it's the most I've been interested in Jason since the '90s. I thought killing Jake was horribly wasteful so I'm thrilled he's alive, and Hudson West is very good.

They've been roommates for years. I don't mind the friendship which I feel seems very real and youthful; I mind that the show desperately wants to keep Trina as Joss' ethnic friend/Langston to her Starr. That is the role FV prefers all minority characters in, as far as I can tell. I could understand moving Willow into the Quartermaine society world for the purposes of the Willow/Drew/Nina material PM was clearly developing (and which I think is very good). And I don't like or buy Joss working in medicine (let alone science) at all, so I was fine with that. But I do agree they need more young doctors and nurses. Another reason killing both Emily and Georgie (who I believe was looking to be pre-med or in the sciences) was foolish.

48?! Damn, she looks better than I thought all things considered. But yes, nothing Nancy said is wrong. She's been blunt about her own age for years.

Nancy has been middle-aged herself, so she's not knocking it. Kelly's stans need to leave the house.

That doesn't seem like her dissing Kelly Monaco to me.

Just fire the dude. Why is he so pressed about this at his big age? You want to retire in 2 years, why wait if you won't play the material even now?

Wasn't Anderson speculated to be one of the scab/fi-cores this past year?

No, I totally agree. Particularly as a semi-heroine in her early years with Nikolas, KT had about 3 expressions. I used to check them off on each reaction shot of her, including "Misty Nausea" and "Dull Surprise". Playing a two-dimensional catty bitch and catnip for gay fans is easy and gets you too much credit, being fleshed out is a harder job for an actor and she's never been great at it AFAIC. Bryan was more talented. He was also stupider. And yeah, it's ridiculous how petulant Mo and his coterie get about Chavez on his little show. He and VM must be very close to still let him talk to her the way he has. She's also one of the only performers capable of waking him up and making him work for it at this late date (though it's been 10+ years).

She was as immature and off-putting as he was IRL, at least in those days, which is another reason (in addition to her mediocre talent and thin character) I've never had much time for Britt and don't miss her. There's other Bryan stories, I used to make endless sport of him on Primetimer. But I can't remember them all.