Vee

That is a great Sue Ellen scene especially post-Season 8. It should not have been cut.

OLTL: Dena Higley.

Thanks!

Is there a good primer news article on the cast and the families in the wake of the revival, or should I just google wildly? It is weird to have a new soap to tune into 4 days a week overnight, again a la the PP soaps. (I will stop making that comparison) Apparently the new opening is slightly different on Aussie TV vs. Amazon? It's interesting that Barton who is supposedly short-term appears to be in it. I do like hearing that the ending is apparently an homage to the classic opening.

I like the new family - again, never one with a make-up you'd get on an American soap. I do wonder what the boy's fascination with the area is about. I have a very passing familiarity with several of the veteran characters, but the youngsters I don't know from Adam so I can't tell who's who or why. Mischa Barton definitely has had a career comedown but looks decent for her age. I wasn't sure what Paul was talking about re: losing people in his family unless it was all meant to signpost the twist. The somewhat frenetic or overwrought nature of the montage cutting, intros, slightly awkward exposition etc. again remind me a lot of the AMC/OLTL revival pilots, plus the timejump. But that exposition was necessary here as it was there, as well as them being somewhat similar tonally and aesthetically. In both cases a fair bit of it is corny but still on brand for what the audience expects - and the glitzed-up editing style/rhythms remind me a lot of the Euro/UK soaps in general too. None of it's bad per se, just different than what we generally get here in the States (and God knows Neighbours is in a more healthy position than they are atm).

Very sad.

Lord!

I guess I should check this out - we'll see how newbie-friendly it is. Oh, the opening recap featuring all the classic standard-def footage reminds me so much of the AMC/OLTL recap videos when Prospect Park brought them back. Sigh.

My God. What a shock. Billy Miller had a real volatile, magnetic energy when used well and written for properly - I remember his AMC stint as Richie Novak that first got him noticed and how compelling he was. Other shows like Y&R leaned too hard on bad story and bad ideas, but he was still a quality actor. His GH run was a total mess creatively but he gave the recast Jason (and later Drew, a stop-gap character the show clearly had little investment in) real soul for the first time in aeons and was so tender and kind both with Hudson West's Jake and with Leslie Charleson as Monica. He was also the last man to have serious chemistry with Kelly Monaco and the last to wake her up. I'll always remember those aspects of his performance; he deserved better from soaps than he got. What a tragedy.

The generations of Trek on the line. Jack Quaid, George Takei, Tawny Newsome, Dawnn Lewis, Jeri Ryan, Michelle Hurd, Linda Park and many more.

Crossposting, hooray! Just to be needlessly anal: For the sake of audience exposition, Tracy seems to be unaware of who the Cramers are, which in terms of ABC Daytime soap continuity, where characters always kept up on this kind of stuff (pre-lawsuit), I have a hard time buying. Tracy is a shark. She would know about Dorian Lord and the other power players in Llanview as a matter of principle, and she also used to have a less than above-board business relationship with Llanview's own Marco Dane when Gerald Anthony crossed over in the '90s; she would've looked into him too. She also researched everywhere Rae Cummings had ever been when planning to take her and Skye down when she came back to the Quartermaine family fold in 2003 (a task she quickly accomplished, clearly with great relish by Guza whose writing made it eminently clear he could not stand the crossover). I'll just pretend Tracy was dummying up for her own cards-to-the-vest purposes. She also would know Starr, Michael's college sweetheart, but I would hardly blame Tracy for forgetting Michael's one other live girlfriend exists. In any event it's nice to see Blair even if the GH fans don't deserve to be put through all this. I have no need for KDP to share scenes with Roger Howarth's latest failed character though. I can't stand the cutesy stuff with Howarth and Patrick Gibbons as is, and making Blair and Franco share scenes would've been even worse than Austin tbh.

I know they're divorced and I thought I'd read once that WK had allegedly cheated, but I don't know if that's true or how rocky the relationship has been IRL. I hoped/assumed it wasn't as bad as Kristina and Jack Wagner used to be, but I still can't see Rena playing a romantic recoupling between Ned and Lois.

Wow. This is going to put poor Lisa Lo Cicero's place on the canvas in harsh contrast, but tbh this should all have been dealt with a long time ago. @carolineg and I have gone over and over how similar Lois and Olivia are down to identical backstories, how Lisa probably should've just been the Lois recast and how the show has never really dared deal heavily in the Lois/Olivia dynamic re: Ned. Now they have to. I am okay with Olivia staying with Ned and I highly, highly doubt Rena is back for good or will agree to be re-paired with Wally, but I am glad this is finally happening.

That will not stop Frank from featuring him.

So sad. I hope he gets the treatment he needs.

Oh lord. We don't need to add a zillion OLTL or AMCers to the show. I love Cassie but there is no reason for her to be here. Blair doing 2 days already has the GH fans in an uproar given Roger Howarth #3 and Michael Easton #4, and they're right to be annoyed! The constant appearances by lthe kid who played ittle Sam are ridiculous enough too. I didn't mind seeing Jack or Nora from time to time or other small crossovers, but Frank still can't let his dreams of a merged soap run by him go and it's tainted the entire show because of the favorites he plays. It impacts even the small guest shots like these.

Erika Slezak does Linda Dano's podcast, including talking Prospect Park and OLTL 2.0. Erika is as candid and critical about it as she always has been and says the 3-4 HW teams the show went through in 3 months 'couldn't handle it' - I don't know if it was the demand for more explicit content or the general micromanagement from above. (I don't think Melissa Archer's lingerie scene in the pilot she mentions was that scandalous, but what do I know.) I had no idea she swapped a dressing room with Debbi Morgan at PP. She said she had to stand over PP's accountant to get paid for her last day after waiting hours, and says the company still owes her, Tuc Watkins and others a lot of money. Agrees it was a huge missed opportunity. There's other great stories in here, though I haven't listened to all of it yet: She talks about Phil Carey's first day and how he was stunned to realize he had to do 30-40 pages at once. Discusses Bob Woods' endless attempts to prank him. Linda Dano talks candidly about knowing Clint Ritchie when they were both on contract at 20th Century Fox in their Hollywood days and they discuss his alcoholism, but Erika also shares a great anecdote about Clint's friendship with Rudolf Nureyev (which raised another old curiosity). And more. I didn't know Clint and Phil died the same week.

Yeah, that was not going to happen here.

I do like the fact that Blair is possibly working with Tracy and presumably against Deception. That's a use of her career history (Melador, etc.) that isn't all about Todd.

It was a Dena Higley special. She got obsessed with certain characters, mostly her own creations, and never let them go. The fact that it was Tamara who is popular kept it going beyond her - and no, the character has never made sense.

I think it's worked on very rare occasions (OLTL with George Reinholt and Jacquie Courtney being one), but yes, it's worth mentioning Steve and Tamara were almost never played romantically on GH. And I've been tired of Ava since before the Obama administration, IIRC.

Wasn't Chanel married to Johnny's twin sister? Who she cheated on him with? This show is a mess.

Who is Ben? Is that supposed to be Rocco? Britt stealing Lulu's baby and renaming him doesn't count.