Vee

Well well well. Val Jean is out at B&B.

Paging @Khan.

I'm aware that the peak is over, lol. I hear wildly mixed things from many people about the Latham/Lechowick regime, etc. and I am fascinated by the concept of the insane Dallas/KL switch before them which sounds like oil and water so I'm very curious about it all still. I don't expect it all to be awful from hereonin, but it'll definitely be a different experience. I do think it's a real shame we didn't get those HD remasters before I watched the first six years, particularly since broadcast TV took on a different and more current look overall in the late '80s/early '90s where the difference may not be as striking.

I was watching some of yet another Locher Room, this one a recent interview with Kassie DePaiva and her husband James from OLTL. Kassie isn't usually one to talk against anyone in public but she does mention that Grant Aleksander and Michael O'Leary were nice to her 'at times' and that at others they could be 'mean little shits' and she was never comfortable at GL. I had never heard of GA having that rep with anyone other than Judi Evans (and maybe Crystal Chappell) but it's clear the fratboy antics with Judi alone would let not fly today.

I loved Maria, but there is zero reason for Maria to come on this show.

So I've finally found some breathing room in my life after spending the last few months dealing with a lot of work and unexpected health and family stuff keeping me preoccupied (as well as other classic soaps I needed to catch up on), and while I'm still dealing with some stuff it's not as hectic as it was. As it continues to flood in LA and I have nowhere to go I thought I'd finally put a few random, brief thoughts out there on the last 3 episodes of Season 6 written months ago, not that anyone cares at this point (my last post about it is all the way back on page 139). Anyway, take 'em or leave 'em. The Ruth Galveston subplot has felt truncated to me for some time, likely owing to Ava Gardner's limited number of episodes; she just seems to fade in and out of the background throwing bon mots and barbs and then dissolving into the shadows. Ruth calling Laura a failure at the start of the Galveston family dinner and needling her about Richard was hysterical, but I don’t think I’ve seen enough of a build to the two women's now very open aggression. I was amused at how bluntly Ruth told a gobsmacked Abby 'your marriage to Ewing has run its course' and that it was time to mate with Greg. They could've done more with Ruth to close out this running thread for another handful of episodes in the following season IMO, but it's clear with the way this is being handled that the incoming Dallas creative team just wants to clear some decks where possible. (By this time they have likely already gotten the upstairs edict to get rid of Alec Baldwin and Joshua ASAP in S7, which may partially explain why Joshua and Cathy are totally missing from the finale.) For fans of Ava Gardner BTW, her very very strange fantasy romance Pandora and the Flying Dutchman with James Mason has been touring repertory movie houses across the country. It is weird as hell and I recommend it, but i think it's also on Tubi or Prime. Greg and Laura bantering in the bathtub after their latest fight over Ruth was fun, with Devane likely improv'ing hanging himself from his tie. “Tell me something," Laura pleads with Sumner, trying to get him to commit to his feelings. "Anything, I'm easy. Tell me something I wanna hear." "You mean a lot to me," Sumner allows, but adds "some things are not easy for me. Things that I feel. I need you." That is a lot to drag out of Greg in my experience so far, but it is enough to get him to tell Ruth to lay off at least. Abby showing up on the Galveston ranch in a bathrobe for Laura to see it is a stupid, stupid trick, assuming she came onto the property that morning just to do that since Greg is utterly clueless to her presence. It’s sub-Melrose Place, feels like a lazy late-stage Dallas ploy. Again, it just feels like the writers want this done. Amusingly Greg figures out Ruth's paltry scheme and sends her packing all offscreen between the last two episodes, with zero goodbyes or capper on the storyline. I wonder if they couldn’t afford Ava longer or if she was simply exhausted. At least Laura's hair is amazing now. More great work by director Nick Havinga in the equally infamous penultimate episode of this season - I imagine anyone who knows KL exists has seen either clips from these last two shows or from the first showdown with Abby and Val back in Season 3. Another fun soap cameo from GL's own Don Stewart as a shady contact re: Empire Valley. A storyline which now appears to be spinning its wheels in preparation for Season 7 after Gary was supposedly already clued in on the truth, and a story where we know the new writers again got the order to kill this Dunne-crafted umbrella arc as soon as possible. Karen to Mack about Ackerman: "I know obsessive personalities!" No shít! The famous ending of Episode 29 is nicely structured stage-wise, with Mack, Karen and their nurse eyewitness all arriving separately slowly at the bridge tournament for Ackerman to see, with the sinuous music cue building almost like the mounting stakes in that damn card game. The payoff with the chase and parking lot finale we've all seen by now almost makes the interminable bridge game quest over the last 5-10 episodes worth it. And then there's Episode 30 (The Long and Winding Road): The opening from longtime director Alexander Singer is great: Very punchy, handheld Hill Street Blues-esque cross-cutting without music, just sirens and local sounds, strobelit by police lights as Ackerman's home is ransacked while Karen is still in shock over the suicide, being questioned by the police. This is where prosecutor Mack, the most skeptical player in this baby saga of all, commits himself fully by desperately, illegally ransacking Ackerman's house. Again, no primetime soap that I know of, then or in the '90s, was shooting or presenting material like this. Get used to me returning to this tiresome old point repeatedly over the next few items. Because it's time for post-coital bagpipe-playing Ben! Oh, Ben, no. Joan Van Ark gets the hilarious deadpan understatement over this adorable sequence: "This is getting a little weird." There's more character to thirty seconds of this kind of cute throwaway bit in between plot mechanics on this show than anything in late-stage Dallas, which is why the upcoming creative swap is that much more fascinating to me. They ratchet up a kind of Hitchcockian clock-watching tension throughout the finale, as the audience is waiting, waiting, waiting on Joe Regalbuto's Harry Fisher to see the Ackerman suicide headline in the daily paper while Karen, Mack and Ben are running out of time to move on the adoptees. Would Fisher keep a Google alert on this today, or would he be too cautious? The hour beautifully follows one long day as Fisher finally finds out about Ackerman and plans to make a hasty break, and how our lead characters start to come together and prepare themselves for the moment. It's not just a frenzied rush through the alpha plot. Also great: Abby doing the right thing on Val's beach. As soon as she knows she's protected re: the information she tells Val about the babies, but we already can tell Val isn't too shocked, just at peace. This gives us the awkward, beautiful scene of the two rivals in the car, alone with the radio and some tinny country music as an edgy Abby is increasingly unsettled over Val's silence and serenity. "I always knew they were alive," Val says simply. The writers (Joel Feigenbaum is credited in this case) lovingly elongate these character interludes as the episode just keeps building itself up; that's how we get stuff like Gary and Karen hanging out on the Pacific Coast Highway waiting for Mack and Ben, each of them struggling with knowing what to do or talk about. Instead every pair of characters in the mix has the same shared question about the Fishers (or Val): "What are we gonna say?" Again: Sorry, Dallas just cannot compare. The climax at the Fisher house is staged operatically by Singer - it looks and feels like a standoff in an old Western, with everyone planted across the street in various pole positions for the camera. This heightens the drama when Val looks back at all of them as she arrives with Abby, and finally realizes that they all know. Incredible blocking and visual/emotional geography. I've taken a long enough break from my KL/Dallas dive, so it's time to go back and begin diving into the great creative team swap: KL Season 7 and the legendary Dallas Dream Season. I will talk about it (starting with the S7 premiere followed by Dallas' crossover premiere "The Family Ewing") when and where I can assuming people have an interest.

Kristen Alderson is back again being interviewed for her new Lifetime movie (also featuring PSSNS' James Hyde) and discussing OLTL's recent losses.

Yeah, Facebook fanbase groups are not worthy of culling for weak thirdhand gossip (and generally Twitter isn't either).

He's a very mediocre performer so far IMO. He just sort of meandered through those scenes with Sonny tossing off clunky exposition about Karen, etc. whereas Mo actually half-woke up a bit (probably to intimidate the new actor, lol). It's all just so embarrassing. It's nice if an actor is nice to people on social media, but that doesn't mean they should all be employed on the show.

Dex was really out here risking it all in the Claudia Zacchara Memorial Forest just to not dime out Michael over a personal beef between family. Who cares? Give it up, twunk. tf is old man Gregory sleeping in Finn's apartment? The fireplace? Violet the kind of kid to roll him into the flames in his sleep, then turn to the camera for a big close-up on her snaggletoothed grin as Frank smiles indulgently in the control room. If the Finn/Chase clan finally gets banished we'll know Frank is really losing his grip, because it's clear this obnoxious child is his latest young Spencer/Sam Manning/Starr/etc. and he finds everything she does to be a delight. "I need to protheth thith." Ugh. Willow asking Michael if he's told 'the kids' he's staying for good. Plural? You mean not just Pee Pants Wiley but also your miracle baby that is less than a year old? This show makes me so tired.

Nothing about the strike material I saw rocked my world despite what others have said, and I can't see Mulcahey going scab for it. Nor did it seem recognizable to me.

I don't think Frank would ever deliberately sabotage the show. Survival is always his aim. But as I said in past posts recently I think it's twofold; I think all you've said is absolutely true, but I also think that through the "Cartini" years with Carlivati Frank went from seeing himself largely as a driven facilitator focused on the show's longevity to seeing himself the way the soap press saw him: As one half of a creative duo, the supposed last hope for soaps. He very badly wanted to create the blended 'super soap' of ABC Daytime at GH, to preserve the history and characters of the other cancelled soaps, despite the cost to GH and complaints from the audience. I think the hype those two had built around them eventually got to him, and he began to believe that he too was a creative visionary for the show. And I think that view has borne out in GH's condition ever since Ron was fired. You don't keep rehiring Easton and Howarth unless it's become personal and not just about the bottom line, try to force Genie off-contract or turn away Vanessa Marcil even when it's counterproductive. Since Ron left his orbit and their dream team (and possibly professional or personal friendship) has dissolved Frank has repeatedly put in place writers he can control, who will write about characters or actors he prefers in the ways he prefers. This one may be different.

Drew and Nina do have a weird kind of chemistry in these recent scenes with her tearing up Crimson. I don't think either should be long for the show (at least not Drew in his current Cameron Mathison iteration) but @Khan is right that there might be deranged bipolar hate sex potential - Nina has always been nuts and they definitely appear to be ramping up to portray Drew as off his gourd. Why Drew's years of torture and brainwashing by the Cassadines didn't break him but a month or two in the local pokey did beggars belief, but nevermind.

The Guza II scenario was my first thought about this hire. JFP was reduced to a facilitator from then on, almost entirely powerless on the creative end as far as we know. But I'm going to wait and see how it plays out. Frank being deposed would be quite a feat at this point.

I'm happy for their resumes, let's just leave it at that.

I mean, I predicted it lol. It didn't surprise me at all that she exited with Spencer once the strike ended, it just made narrative sense for the show. I knew once she got her memory back and Chavez had an exit date that Esme was spent. I fully expected those two to have an exit a la Vanessa and Leo du Pres on AMC and that's exactly what they got, instead it was falling off a boat instead of over a waterfall. And I doubt I was the only fan anticipating something like that. But I didn't put it on Twitter or IG as an educated guess. If I did it might well have ended up on this thread being called a 'rumor' and we (I don't mean you) have to be more discerning than that.

Finn Wittrock (AMC), Blair Underwood (OLTL) and the one and only Donna Mills (Knots Landing, LIAMST) are all in Ava DuVernay's Origin.

I don't blame you for being confused. This all sounds like social media detritus and random speculation from people on apps who are in turn interpreting random comments from other fans. That's not credible information and we shouldn't just echo anything and everything.

No one's offended.

I thought it was too coming from back East but the show seems just obsessed, so I thought it might be going down in Silver Lake or DTLA (or some dark nook of WeHo).

Still deranged to me that an axe-throwing pub is a regular set on this show. Did Frank just really get into the axe-throwing hipster scene in LA?

I think the American left, while often aggravating, is a lot more stratified and complicated than these creeps.

Y'all were not kidding about some of these outfits. They got Lois out here looking like an OnlyFans dominatrix.