Vee

There's an L&L fansite out there that I think is still archived which has a number of interviews with Geary in which he enumerates Bill's many changes over the course of just 2-3 years and how he justifies them. He was deeply involved, deeply invested in the character which never really worked, and IMO he never forgave the show for it.

This seems very abrupt. I wonder WTF happened this time. But yes, to be clear I am rejoicing.

That's wild. I remember some of the island business with the teens. On paper someone writing to a con is a viable story, but I can't buy Bobbie being snowed given her history or jeopardizing her marriage over it.

It's too bad about Tracy Middendorf. She's a talented actress in a lot of TV and movies and I remember her debut episode which I found pretty atmospheric. She just was never going to replace Christie Clark in people's hearts.

Yeah, no one liked Becca. I did but almost no one else did at the time lol. IIRC she didn't get any onscreen exit.

I think I've heard of this before but I'd definitely like to know more, lol. Probably in the Classic thread if that's preferred by people. I've never been big on Cari Shayne's Karen. But yes, Carrie and Christie Clark have always had me. Like Kimberly as Robin on GH or Erin Torpey on OLTL, there is a core of lived experience with the actor evolving from child to adult and a quiet intelligence in their presence there that makes the character rise above any poor writing IMO.

What's truly Kafkaesque is how deluded he seems about himself and his views, and how when challenged to drill down in what he's actually saying about 'truth' and 'moderation' he just cycles back around to doublespeak. What he means is his desire to espouse conservative Republican views, but as someone who spent years working for Colbert and probably considers himself a liberal he can't fully admit that to himself or the entire game collapses. Same with his dancing around the topics of trans rights and his strange COVID beliefs - he doesn't want to fully articulate what he is trying to say. That would ruin things and make him realize he's just mouthing more of the same right-wing apologia as Joe Rogan and Dave Chappelle. Say what one will about the awful Zaslav and his sweater vests but at least he seems to know who he is. Licht is willfully clueless. And there were many valid reasons to fire Don Lemon, but being one of few prominent and outspoken gay and Black voices in media who could speak to what Trump and his kind are actually doing to people like him on-camera was not one of them.

The Licht piece is brutal, and everything he and Zaslav and CNN deserve. I was amused by the Twitter comparisons of him to a character from Succession. @DRW50 would know the truth of that better than I.

She was great. Just a string of legends lately.

I hesitate to post Thompson, who is just a gleeful gossip hound. But this thread is instructive, even if much of it is stuff we all could've told the GOP and the NY Times six months ago.

Sure. They've been sent to live on a farm with other not gone actors where they can run and play.

Extremely! I can't stand how they play it. But acting like she's been [!@#$%^&*] half the town for years is off to me.

I don't like Joss' personality any more than anyone else on here but she slept with one dude hours before breaking up with her college bf out of shame over it. She's not exactly Brooke Logan or even Carly, who was the sexual mascot of Jake's in her prime. We can ding the writing that tries to whitewash Joss' behavior without burning her on a pyre as a whore IMO. I'll admit I have a week-plus to catch up on. It's a struggle getting through days upon days of 1) The Same Black Storyline We Had For the Last Dude (it's true, Shawn had literally the same background story as Curtis for years), 2) Willow the Undying, 3) Carly and Drew's Bestselling Book "(If) We Did It", and finally 4) Esme Doesn’t Want to Pay Rent Because She Had Amnesia.

The Family Album was one of the last ABC openings - maybe the last - done with real care. The high-octane OTT GH Guza/Pratt opening debuted around this time too but was just a hypermasculine caricature. I did always laugh when this opening would reach the "and the rest" portion with Mia, Simone and other C-listers streaming by though. I liked when (IIRC) they subbed in Angie and Jesse for the absent Bianca at one point.

Nothing. There's never been a point besides their having slightly more interest in Curtis than Taggert.

Was Travis the outdoorsman? Sean Patrick Flanery? That was a bust and IIRC Sussman ended it when she came in.

Yeah, I don't think Ron has contempt for the genre. I think he clearly has contempt for the audience, especially the online audience that challenges him, and a very weird taste barometer. In his mind, anything is forgivable and acceptable because it's all the wild, diverse magic of soaps and unless he wants you to care about something like one of his overly-pushed favorites, you should never take it too seriously. IMO Ron is a guy who genuinely loves the genre but has lost perspective on his taste and on the issues with his writing a long time ago. His worst excesses have taken hold vs. the quality he was capable of. And his love for the genre has curdled into a love for his expansive yet narrow vision of it. Jamey has always been very in love with '80s glam and camp and big names/stunts at the expense of coherence or rational storytelling. That isn't all he loves; at a few junctures in recent years he has admitted soaps have to move past that. There are also quality soaps, stories, etc. he has genuinely loved and had smart things to say about, as many times as he's also shown his ass online. But lately I think he's too enamored of finally getting to work with his idol to care.

I was under the impression Sussman had wanted to re-pair Jack and Gina's Phyllis and got overruled. And while it was messily executed like everything else I thought the Cane/Juliet affair was the most interesting story he ever had. So of course Goddard hated it. For me, I felt lot of her ideas were good conceptually but poorly executed which I don't absolve Sussman's own choices for but I also feel were pulled down by the utter failures re: budget, plotting, breakdowns, etc. The first failures from concept to execution: The GC Buzz story you mention with the Mariah/Hillary feud and the Fenmore business drama which, due to budget issues and plotting laziness, amounted mostly to Lauren sitting around restaurants bemoaning her lot in life and Phyllis spending a bit of time on a laptop.

This isn't the B&B threads. Go stan somewhere else.