Vee

Chrishell was almost unrecognizable in that promo. I am curious how this show is doing on Peacock (and what a full Jamey Giddens-scripted episode looks like 😶) so I will have a look.

Anyone at B&B has relative job security for daytime with the show's secure position internationally, and they allow HT to direct. I can't fault her for staying where she is, same as the very talented writers they have churning out that slop. I also think CBS or Sony would be very uncomfortable with HT back in the role as I think they would call her 'the wrong physical type' - as in, not hot enough. Which is ludicrous, but that's exactly how networks think and how they've come to think of Victoria.

I do think they're testing Ava and Austin. Howarth and Maura have had chemistry since her earliest days with him as the mortifying Peroxide Blond Franco, but the role is still wrong for him and it's too late.

It felt like 5 years. I only got interested in GL at that time because of Annie, then the clone and then a bit later because I knew Carlo and Maggie from OLTL (Thom Christopher and Crystal Chappell) had moved there thanks to the soap mags. I was beyond baffled by the San Cristobel story and the endless parade of overly lit pastel suits, big titted blondes, etc. The whole show was just garish and loud. Frank Grillo turned out to be very talented in films but I didn't understand how he was supposed to be Roger's son or whatever. I remember the rumors about people hearing him and Wendy Moniz banging through the walls.

I love Christie but I do not think she had the chops to follow Heather Tom.

Folks, if you're not watching the show (and I'm not yet either) maybe let the folks who are weigh in on the content change.

They are [!@#$%^&*]-scared of writing for any new generation, let alone a non-white one.

I do wonder if at least some (more?) of the P&G or ABCD soap library ending up on Pluto or FreeVee is a matter of time. I wouldn't have thought so a couple years ago but now the overhead and debts facing companies like WB/Discovery, NBC/Peacock, etc. in the streaming wars are immense. They all have intense expenses to deal with from their streaming platforms, anything they can monetize helps.

They're right. But this show is obsessed with generic baby stories and has been afraid to discuss abortion since well before Dobbs last year, and I have no faith in them ever maturely or openly discussing COVID or abortion rights on a show uniquely suited to take these issues on.

Burke's death is absolutely a classic fake soap death that seemed primed for him to turn up alive (and maybe was intended to leave the door open). I fully expected to see him return when I was a kid watching on Sci-Fi, as I was already very familiar with the old plane crash chestnut from soaps. For whatever reason they never pulled the trigger though and just moved on to pairing Vicki with Roger Davis. Maybe they felt the Anthony George recast was not working and that the character was too uniquely paired with Mitch Ryan (who'd made himself unemployable due to his alcoholism). I also always loved the very dark note of ambiguity to Burke's presumed death: The possibility raised in the scripts, I believe, that Barnabas could have had something to do with his plane going down, perhaps by appearing on it.

The problem is it never lasts. They try it out for a few weeks or months at a time and then she's back to mooning over Billy or the latest spare dude and wearing pashmina or making her own granola. And after almost two decades of this I just don't see why we should keep hoping they get it right the next time they flirt with not writing Victoria like an ABC Daytime heroine. She is simply not strong or consistent enough to warrant keeping her around for that possibility. But they're never going to recast Heinle so it doesn't matter.

I will always love Tasha Yar but it is obvious they have no investment in this character with Denise in the role lol. She is not suited for heavy material. If they wanted to invest seriously in these two characters (which they could and should do) they'd have cast daytime heavyweights like Robert Newman or Colleen Zenk to raise hell at GH. They aren't invested in any real story for them or for Liz, that's why the entire Webber storyline wrapped in literally 3 days after dragging on for like a year.

Heinle has never been very good as Victoria. What's really trippy though is when she first came on, some eps from which they showed on CBS during the COVID lockdown in 2020, they were clearly testing pairing her up with Jack.

I still don't know!

It is absolutely not true that soaps only started bringing characters back from the dead in the '90s.

Another proud moment where when Donna states a BTS fact I need a minimum of three other primary sources to back it up.

That's dumb. I'd thought the drugging fucked with her memory up til very shortly after she returned. It seemed clear to me the Brenda who first turned up in Rome? Milan? in like 2000 was not in her right mind to be living it up in secrecy away from her loved ones.

I thought Brenda had no idea who she was until not long after she returned in '02 and that Luis had told her she was definitely ill.

I'm curious about this - how so? I'm not challenging you, I'm just curious. I know they'd introduced Vicky, Marley, Jake, Donna, Michael, etc. in the mid-80s before his return.

Today in utterly predictable yet still welcome outcomes:

Bringing back OG Tony was Hogan Sheffer's baby. Higley took over and didn't give a fùck.

No chance they kill Nikolas permanently.

Thaao is just pure queeny camp period lol. I have shrugged off him playing them pretty much the same. I do think he still adds some more pathos and genuine earnestness to Tony though - he's always seemed to appreciate that they brought the real, mostly heroic character back after so long (twice). I am happy Tony is around, I never liked how Higley immediately wasted his resurrection when she took over.

Don't watch 2001 except for morbid curiosity. I mean, I might again. It was that bad.

I still think the iron is hot enough for Disney/ABC to revamp their soap properties with great self-congratulatory fanfare on something like this - but if they did it they'd probably do it via Hulu. Unless they're considered too declasse for the current Hulu brand atm, and anything F.A.S.T.-oriented ends up being a tier below Hulu somehow.