Vee

I have no idea. I suspect Wagger (White Jagger, as I will always call him) was a pre-PM/EK move because he tended to do nothing but wander around mouthing clumsy expository dialogue til the writing change. PM and EK both wrote a ton for classic Jason and Carly in the mid-late '90s. PM in particular has expounded at length about becoming enchanted with Sarah Brown when she was hired, and writing a ton of her material while the character remained controversial BTS from the jump (apparently because of concerns about a message re: adoption). These writers created their very hot and heavy friends with benefits relationship in '96. I think they wrote their best work, and I do think they've taken pains to start putting Jason in particular back to basics in some ways (living above Kelly's). I generally always want Jason exterminated and/or gone and have little use for him myself, but I agree he's a necessary evil and do think the material thus far has been pretty compelling and I will give Steve credit for actually showing up to act so far this time. LW always sells her share of the work of course, but it's not the same for me without Sarah Brown and I will be curious to see how Mulcahey adjusts, as he wrote entirely for Sarah's Carly and was extremely fond of the actor who he helped craft Carly with. I agree about Drew/Nina - I wasn't expecting it to work at all, and I generally have no use for either character up til now. I also love Ava being (presumably) returned to her darker roots with Sonny. I personally think the scripts have leveled up a lot over the last month - it was a notable jump from very bland, colorless expository dialogue and stuff that had real bite and intelligence, and longer scenes about character. It does help that they notably seem to be firing a number of people and there are also notably fewer breakdown writers credited lately, which means I believe that the HWs are doing it.

According to Errol and others, yes. My understanding is the original C&D pitch for Jason's return involved more brainwashing, undead villains (not Valentin but possibly Jennifer Smith and somehow Susan Moore), possibly a resurrected Morgan, etc. Valentin dismissing the "Stone" clue the other day was their dispensing with some of that groundwork from the prior writers (Stone was Morgan's middle name). Wagger's big speech about Sonny is on the first Tuesday or Wednesday of March, right after Steve's first airdate - which I think is the same day Dante gets shot. Mulcahey/Korte really started with Steve on 3/3(?), and maybe tweaked a bit the week or two before, but their official credited start was the 15th.

The GH rumor mill is a lot poorer than it used to be, lol. I remember in the 2000s folks were wired tf in for the ABC soaps, GH and OLTL especially. From what I can see today it's mostly fanbases and wishcasting/fanfic now (I checked the Datalounge for the first time in over a decade and honestly it looks like all they have for 'dish' now is people vacuuming up random spec from Twitter or here and calling it rumors, sad). But there is talk of cast cuts floating around, finally. Just dunno who. I frankly don't find much reliable online anymore.

Yes and yes. She was on a handful of episodes at best.

It'll just be the same old song and dance: A few hours at best of breathless excitement by the Beltway claiming Trump is 'pivoting' and then the reality sets in and they just live with it. No real voters are going to be fooled.

No, that was never supposed to be Hunter. She was only supposed to play Taylor McBride. Morgan Brittany's character (Mackenzie Hart) was short-term and two years before. The bombing footage was delayed from the S3 finale to the S4 premiere because of the Oklahoma City bombing.

@DRW50 Mark Frost is interviewed for an anniversary. Interesting stuff re: S3 and the books. Also, Lynch discusses an animated project and (typically) cryptically mentions future plans.

The '90s Hunter Tylo I remember was not the one from the later years. Still, I can't see her as Taylor either.

I definitely can't, and I've tried.

Been suspecting this for awhile. This is a free link BTW, no paywall (thanks).

Assuming you mean 3/15, what I will say is if you can find it there's definitely stuff in the first week of March and the last of February that is very redolent of the changes we're still seeing now - particularly Scout's birthday party at the Qs where they brought unlikely family connections together (Alexis/Drew, Sam/Willow, Aunt Willow running herd on Danny and Jake's growing issues, etc.) and the incredible scene Wagger/Jagger/John had on the first Tuesday of March excoriating Sonny and his PCPD apologists at the warehouse hit. They've been putting their stamp on stuff for over a month, but yes, the official tenure started less than a month ago.

Ava has got Faith Rosco bangs and a slutty 2000s blouse in the promo and I'm all for it.

A fair amount of stuff before the new team's official start date (3/15, IIRC) was clearly tweaked/ghostwritten - we were explicitly told by Errol that they had allegedly been brought on to start unofficially reworking stuff in the Jason story at the start of March with Steve Burton's first airdate, but there's also some eps in late February that bear PM/EK's mark IMO. More family connectivity and character work that's similar to what we have now. The Jake/Danny, etc. famly focus with Sam and so on also started in late February. Point being, those T.J. scenes you mentioned also hit different to me. I do think they also made a point to highlight and re-center the BLQ/Tracy relationship in those early March days, which I appreciated. There was a quick shift to Brook respecting Tracy's skill and experience.

It's not that I don't think there is a good way to tell a surrogacy story. It's that I think there is no need for the story to exist. 90% of baby stories that play out on soaps today are done a) in lieu of riskier content and b) in order to simply pad out months of the year. They are time-fillers and safety valves. That's all this is to me. Molly and T.J. as characters have been dead ends for over a decade, and while I've enjoyed some of Molly's recent scenes with her family re: the past, Alexis' alcoholism, the law, etc. ultimately the recast feels like a temp relative they threw into wardrobe as a quick fix and I see no great spark there. I would just add them to nearly 10 characters if not more that need to be dumped instead of sinking the cost more and more on people who have been here way too long - let Molly come back someday, but not now. So much of this show IMO has been bent for years around institutional inertia, where it feels like FV will not dump anyone, ever, for fear of admitting failure, losing a decibel point among Facebook-based senior viewers and losing his overall grip on GH. It felt like it took the Jaws of Life just to get rid of Peter August or Gladys. But that has to change. It might as well start with Molly and T.J. who the show has had absolutely no interest in major story for since the Obama administration.

It reminds me of what Lemay talked about in his book - how Irna Phillips supposedly wrote every social worker in her stories as a conniving busybody. He thought that was a disservice to the profession and did the opposite. @Darn asked me that the other day. I have a bit to catch up on today but I'd be all for it, just as I thought they should've paired her and Finn when he first came on and actually had a personality. Cody/JK is one of the few over-30/under-50 adults I'd salvage atm because he's a funny stud you can plug in anywhere.

I would leave Valerie alone for awhile. It was a nice idea but both iterations of the character were boring as hell. I'd only reconceive that character with a very strong actress, and frankly Brytni Sarpy wasn't during her time on the show. (I don't even know WTF was the deal with the other one.) And yes, have Krissy lose the baby, T.J. and Molly leave, Blaze is caught in the chaos, maybe gets exposed to the public and dips, etc. If there's no firings and this boring-ass surrogacy drags on I'll know something is up BTS.

DeJoy should've been made a priority long ago. There are too many characters like him who are accepted as part of the cost of doing Beltway business, except now it's with an asymmetrical party that has gone rogue and operates outside the old rules. Until the mindset changes we can win and succeed, but we're going to keep on dealing with a slippery slope and facing serious dangers. Part of that is the cost of lifelong vigilance, sure, but some things can be made better. You have to put some of these people already winnowed inside the institutions down for good, by dismissing them and ejecting them from cozy posts, and there has to be urgency re: filling positions and not letting the GOP define the narrative which in turn spooks eagerly-frightened red state Dems and makes them reject key nominees. That will also require a real investment in media just like the right has done with Fox, etc. and which our side hasn't done in years. It is no longer enough in the age of TikTok, etc. to just hope 'the right people will get it' watching cable media on Sunday mornings. I think we're in a good position to win this year, but we've got to do more and better if we want to knock the current fascist wave back for good or we're going to be dealing with this kind of relentless insanity for the rest of my life. And I'd really rather not.

Exactly. I have no patience for most of those couples. I especially don't care about these cutesy C/D couples like forcing Diane on Scorpio, or Terry and the various dayplayers Frank has a crush on. But the new writing has made Dante and Sam feel legit to me, even if I don't need them to be together forever.

I would legit have no problem if they leaned into Eva's character becoming a nasty schemer and if it leads to Blaze being written out. Mansi deserves someone more high caliber, female or male.

This may be of interest to @titan1978 - I remember he and I have talked a number of times about the trend towards a rift between the mob husbands and the downgrading of Sonny in the late Guza years.

C'est la vie, Nate Cohn: I did tell y'all.

Kate Mansi is giving the show her all and deserves a much stronger acting/chemistry partner than Blaze, male or female. If fireworks get going with scheming Natalia at Deception I am all for it, but I want a better romantic option for Kristina. I fear this is all setup for Blaze finding her voice and her strength, and while I can see the merit of that storyline I'm just not that interested in this character.

I am used to quakes being pretty mid ever since moving to LA from NYC. I definitely wasn't expecting one to hit the city after I left. As I'm hoping to visit for an extended period again soon, here's hoping they don't circle back!

Kinder and gentler revamp going great, I see.

There is no comparison between Cane and Lily and Sprina IMO. Those Y&R psychos worshipped a single white dude and freaked out whenever Black people came into CK's orbit (Tyler Michaelson, come on down). By comparison, GH magically sprouted fans for Spencer/Esme and Spencer/Joss the moment a dark-skinned recast appeared.