Vee

I've really loved Harley Jane Kozak, both in movies and in her soap roles I've seen. I would've liked to see psychic Annabelle appear again maybe for an anniversary to give hints at future story, like the psychic did on Loving years later. Her love interest (Tony?) is intolerable though.

I would literally contribute to a paid phone hotline to have Willow killed off, like DC Comics did in the '80s to let fans decide whether Jason Todd's Robin lived or died. I could not care less about her or Michael. She needs to be dead and he needs to be gone for a long stretch. Same with Maxie. Sasha must vanish, she basically has already. Dex is hot but boring. Chase, hot but boring. There is real potential in some of the younger stars - Setton's BLQ can do much better, and IMO Josh Kelly could do better too if they leaned into the 'hunky stableboy' thing and dropped most of the rest of his terrible intro, or said he was Mac's by someone other than Dominique. Eden McCoy is tolerable in a certain role, but Joss should be downgraded; she should be support for the youth stars Spencer and Trina, and Cameron and maybe a new Emma Drake on the other side (who I would shock the audience by turning into a real closet terror even though the entire town thinks she would naturally be the golden child). Joss can be turned into a comic character, a spoiled rich girl or screwball schemer, until you find a really strong actor. The biggest issue is story. They know hot young people must be on the show, but they write most of them like they are either 15 or 40, or at times both in the same scene. They don't let them do hot young people things bc it might offend what they perceive to be the sensibilities of the core audience. Easier to talk about babies, paternity and silly subplots like scheming to 'get' a scammy manager who does bad things. And like I said a couple weeks ago, that music subplot is pretty classic cocaine '80s soap fluff! It could be fun. It's just that it executed so poorly and the characters are all written like total simps.

As fascinating as I find the Phillip saga with the Spauldings/Marlers from the Dobson years onward in the eps available online, and as entranced as I am by the ethereal Lezlie Dalton and the great Cindy Pickett, I think it had probably reached a natural endpoint for several of those characters at least by the time 1981 or so rolled around. The Spauldings first made their presence known in late '77. Lezlie Dalton had some incredible farewell scenes with the recast Jackie (who while no Pickett does excellent work with Dalton) and Phillip at Christmas in '80 where she says goodbye - and then allegedly lingers on a bit in 1981, somehow? Anyway, I don't think the show should've cut Elizabeth, Justin and Jackie entirely out of existence as they did a few years later right after GA arrived and the secret came out with the young adult Phillip. That was story malpractice for rich characters and fascinating actors. But I do think Elizabeth, Jackie and Justin probably had reached a winding-down point for the frontburner as well after such heavy, intense story.

It would not have changed much to let most if not all of those characters go recurring tbh. They'd had good long runs on contract but I think some, like Steve, should've remained visible on the canvas for Bert til the end. At least Adam and Barbara returned for visits, Sara McIntyre never got that. Millette Alexander has always been fascinating to me.

Which was a clear directive: To make it look and feel like a Frons-era ABC soap, specifically GH, to try and hook their viewers, come off 'less stuffy' and also cut costs. There is a reason breakdown writers have been largely in use since the time of the horse and buggy passed us by. It is because HWs attempting to do it all themselves in the modern age generally leads to the HW (and/or their entire personal life) collapsing under the weight of it.

Way more of the early, early years from these shows has turned up in recent years post-YouTube than I would have ever expected ten years ago - stuff we all assumed was lost, like a fair portion of '60s and '70s P&G soaps including GL and a surprising amount of pre-Buchanans '70s OLTL, the holy grail. We also know many actors or families of actors kept kinescopes, etc. from their shows or from the affiliates. I would not assume nothing else is out there to be found.

I still think the new Q sets look like the Fresh Prince house and are too suburban. But they aren't terrible.

Damn! Curtis' hostess at the Savoy looks like she could beat up the entire male cast.

Not on network it won't, that's almost certain. I don't say anything for certain because I've been proven wrong about the wildest shít in the past (like AMC and OLTL coming back from the dead in record time).

B&B is an outlier; its style, tone and rhythm are totally different and so is its international audience and cachet. I think it'll run for some time to come just as is and can easily move to streaming if needed.

A question for the ages, and one Donna can rarely answer. Anyway, as to changing up the show: I just don't know. I do think streaming is the only real future soaps have, but Y&R is in no way equipped for it now, probably the least equipped soap left on air ironically; they have been comfortable at #1 by default and have done little to nothing to update or adapt. Their star paychecks even after what I'm sure are many pay cuts still have to be large. You could absolutely go back to the show's sensual, stylized roots, strip the cast down to a smaller guard, add new beautiful young people like the original cast and go back to 30 minutes on streaming, but what would that look like, and who in the current audience would watch it in large enough numbers?

Oh, that's wonderful.

I had no idea about DeWitt Bodeen and Val Dufour either! I know Bodeen via the Cat People films.

That is a very big assumption in this day and age. I don't actually think this strike is the death knell for GH or DAYS at least. I suspect they have planned for the strike and will muddle through one way or another. Y&R is another story. They are never recasting Jack again and most likely never firing Nick lol. I also think Griffith would rather cut off his arm than dump Thompson, MCE and several other played out people.

None of this is news to any of us. That doesn't change the fact that this is an extreme and very stupid move.

Britt was poisoned. They said that onscreen, there is no reason to doubt that. Do I think Heather was the original Hook at least in the scripts? No. Am I hoping another shoe will drop? Yes. Do I think the show is lazy enough to scrap it all and just blame Heather? Absolutely.

Even Logan is taking shots. As some will recall, he does not do that often unless he feels the target (like Ron at GH in 2015) is vulnerable.

Lord! Of course he moved to evangelical movies.

I'm sure some of them have taken cuts in recent years. But when you have that many top line stars it's not enough.

The stars.

Maria Arena Bell has not been at the show since 2012. The article from Branco dates back to '08. But yes, Griffith's relationship with the show and its personnel has been fractious for years. It's been suggested his relationships at CBS (Steve Kent?) and keeping the show functional are what keep him in place.

I'm not defending Griffith, but we have no idea if this is a mental health thing so much as clearly cutting costs to the bare minimum and Griffith being foolish enough to think he can do it all himself. Or it could be CBS/Sony pushing for it as well. I remember Gazzaniga from working on the PP soaps (I think they ended up one of the final de facto HWs near the end as PP kept cutting people to save their dwindling funds). I think Michael Conforti was one of the guys credited for the early youth writing for Dillon and Georgie at GH, though I may be wrong. I know Jeff Beldner's name but not from where.

It's cheap.

It's not a 'fake'.