Vee

Kim talked about them having to change in the back of cars on the side of the road.

The other thing that didn't help about the Peapack shooting style/minicams is they kept using certain preexisting sets, like Company I believe, or some of the hotel/town square. On those handheld cameras and in that lighting the sets and their surfaces looked completely fake and plastic. When photographed by those cameras the town square was clearly not actually outside, and at times you thought you were going to catch sight of the overhead lights or rafters.

Not really, no. Tad was supposedly constantly away on various P.I. investigations, straining his marriage to Dixie who the show began testing with the widowed Dr. Anders. But Tad has a voice cameo in the season finale as Jesse calls him to come home and help with a situation - I think hunting down Cassandra's Russian traffickers - and says 'I'm on my way' or something, which I think is the last line of the series. I believe Tad appears in shadow onscreen in that sequence while on the phone, but it's anyone's guess if that was MEK.

Everyone going into that gas station Kwik-E-Mart/office was mortifying.

The folk muzak often drowned out dialogue. Then there was the fact that both Harley and Cassie's houses looked condemned like something out of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and I'm pretty sure the church/'convenience store' was just a production office. Characters would often just wander along the side of the road at all hours of the day before coming across others, like drifters. It seemed like a lot of stuff had zero blocking or rehearsal. I still remember Zimmer's story from her book about how they had no workable footage of Jeffrey's proposal to Reva, so instead they did what they often did in Peapack with failed footage - shot a bunch of 'atmosphere' shots of leaves, trees, lakes, animals etc. and just put a shot of a waving American flag over Jeffrey's tinny voice-over for the bulk of the scene.

WBY was a very solid, spooky episode (and a great tech demo for the show's new budget). Not the match of Midnight, but solid, creepy work. I still hope Susan appears in the final special.

I am still over 30 eps behind lol, but the show is really picking up. The Rodwell/Varga-Murphy feud leading back to their criminal pursuers and the school drama is really hooking me in after a cheery but slow start. I'm hoping to mainline most of the backlog over the next week or so, right in time to dive back into Knots Landing S7 (sorry, Knots fans!). And the nice use of Harold as a recap device for new fans (like me) while also giving his troubling subplot a happy end was lovely. I often find looking at soaps from a starting point (or, well, soft reboot start) to be instructive, both here and with the PP soaps in 2013, or looking at early The City, Ryan's Hope, etc. online. (Even the early AMC episodes we have from 1970 are good for this.) Nothing has changed over the decades - it's refreshing to watch a new or semi-new build from the ground up. It teaches you a lot about the fundamentals of soap. (Doctor Who may be doing this soon in a different genre, though it is not rebooting its continuity.)

Beecroft has always annoyed me watching old GL. Him being chosen as a Duke recast on GH (which I've also seen - his one note in the role appears to be 'effete') is truly bizarre.

KMH always seemed like a B or C-player to me. They parked her with people when they weren't that invested in them (or were desperate, like with Roger Howarth). She's not at all untalented but it is a world of difference from what I've seen of Melanie Smith. I do think the Hal/Emily pairing really worked, I liked them together because she was so different from him. It was that screwball comedy energy.

Yes, it's September of '86.

I wonder when. Because Holden and Lily have been the driving interest through the whole year from what I can see - it seems they realized quickly the new Emily wasn't going to work or be that serious.

Wild Blue Yonder sounds great - watching it tonight. Don't think it has (almost) any cameos, so if there's some to come it'll be the final special. Also (SPOILER for one returnee this week):

Tragically, I have hit the point in 1986 where a bunch of timejumps come in re: the archived material on YT. Going from late July/early August to late September, it seems Iva has now resigned herself to Craig and Sierra getting back together soon, Tonio and Sierra are on the outs, Barbara's name is mud with Lisa and Hal is romancing the obvious guilty Denise Darcy who is pretending to be threatened by Tad's killer. When exactly was Tad found dead, does anyone know? He was definitely well on his way and mysteriously missing in the last episode I saw before the jump in a bad storm, so I was just waiting for the corpse. The much-discussed Beatrice has arrived and her accent is all over the place. The Wiki dates seem to be characteristically off because the always-adorable Andy Kavovit is already here as Paul. And Barbara is already fretting about having seen the same mysterious monk as Paul in Duncan's magic castle. We all know who that is, I believe, and I've never seen these episodes before. I wonder when 'the monk' first made his appearance to Barbara or anyone else. I'm also still not quite clear on the nature of Duncan's involvement with Stenbeck, etc. (Or the pre-Smith Emily's connection to him - I assume that is who she is getting strange phone calls from.) How long had James been gone at this point? Also, are they really testing Barbara and Duncan this heavy or is it just a time-waster? Shannon and Brian seem suddenly invisible atm after getting pushed so heavy in story with Duncan early on. It also seems clear Holden and Emily's dalliance is just an afterthought/spoiler at this point, if it ever was anything else. The emotional focus has always been on Holden and Lily. The way Marland has dug into the just unsustainable super-close relationship between Betsy and Craig after she married Steve and what that means for her marriage is always interesting to me. Yes, Steve is a boor and obnoxious but it is bizarre that she remains so deeply tethered to Craig after what he did. Other shows would shrug it off, and earlier on ATWT seemed to.

It's just an old troll saying a lot of that stuff trying to get attention.

They're still giving women to Galen Gering? It's like human sacrifices to a volcano at this point. I cannot get over Johnny getting back with Chanel after she left him for his twin.

And some more thirst shots for @Faulkner from SFX:

Wow - I had no idea she was one of the Eileen Siegels, let alone slumming it as a judge in the Higley years.

I totally agree. But I think the easiest solution is what needed to be done several years ago: Write her and Maxie out. The UK/European/Aussie soaps don't seem nearly as afraid of heavier women - Neighbours has several, I believe, or at least mature ones. Eastenders has Kat and Sharon whose weight has fluctuated. It's the US that has difficulty. But none of those foreign soaps dress their women the way Genie is dressed, namely terribly yet again. Anyway, this feels tacky to itemize but there you are.

I honestly think the show is just happy that Kirsten seems (supposedly) more mentally and emotionally well and isn't taking long breaks anymore (for reasons that vary depending on who you ask) that they don't want to try for anything more. She was unwell for a long time. She still looks wrung out to me and I think both the character and actor need a long break from the show.

Gatwa's first full episode begins its rollout:

The Pogues, Kissinger and Rosalynn. What a week. I always go back to Fairytale of New York around this time in the last few very hard years for us all, but especially to the melancholy Bill Murray/Jenny Lewis/David Johansen, etc. version from Sofia Coppola's Netflix Christmas special. But I'll save that for a few weeks.

Thank you. I know I'm not the only one having a hard time imagining 70+ Colleen Zenk crawling around in some vents like the Alien or Bruce Willis in Die Hard.