Vee

I still can't believe they put that on the air. But I can't believe they put most of the show from about 1997 to 2006-2007 or so on the air.

My God! Same here. Unbelievable. Meanwhile, this is hard to read.

I blame brand loyalty and Reilly hangover for DAYS staying afloat in those years, much like I blame brand loyalty and COVID for Y&R's continued relative stability today.

I'll never forget that sudden SORAS. It was so random and it felt so rushed, and then they were pushing Kirsten and Jason Cook immediately. It was a mistake and it proved out years later when Reilly had burnt them out at a very young age. Now they come off too old and as pointless also-rans to countless other characters.

If the Cassadines killed Luke for real, Laura and Lucky alone and probably Scorpio too would not rest until they'd wiped the ones responsible out. There's a lack of stakes and urgency on this show and it started (in its latest iteration, anyway) with nobody lifting a finger when Billy Joel a.k.a. Valentin came back to town free and clear after 'killing' Nikolas.

Yeah, the 'penthouse' is a damn sight closer to the original than the redecorated, reversed and too small Q drawing room IMO. I def do not believe Luke is dead.

Every opening since what, 2011? Has looked like PowerPoint.

It is scummy as hell of Tracy to not tell Laura, assuming she knows Luke isn't dead (which she may not!). I thought they'd gotten beyond that with each other.

Christie Clark has always been a solid part of the firmament. We've talked about her here a lot over the years. To this day it's a mistake that she is not back more often or on contract IMO as a steadying presence; her unexpected return in 2012(?) proved it could work. Carrie is far more interesting - and comes off more youthful and vibrant - than Belle who is supposed to be almost twenty years younger than her yet has the same profession. Belle could go away forever and I wouldn't blink.

They're never going to recast Sami. And it's clear they can work with Sweeney's schedule, they just choose (as Ron so often does) to feature her in central stories and then leave the stories hanging. That's a choice the show is making with Sami, just as Ron has done with so many key characters over the years. AS's availability is considerably more than some other actors in her position over the years, IMO. It's how the show and the writers handle it that is falling down on the job.

I didn't see this posted. @DRW50

The AS thing is classic Ron, though. Not that her not being on contract is his fault, but he and Frank Valentini made a school at OLTL and GH of stalling and staggering long storylines with key characters played by actors who were simply not there. They'd send them in and out of town regularly and keep the plot percolating in the background perpetually with any numbers of excuses or twists. Sometimes it worked and I applauded their ingenuity (most of Tuc Watkins' later years on OLTL), often it didn't. The most famous example, of course, is the Robin story on GH in the 2010s, where they wisely reversed course on plans to kill her off for good and kept getting Kimberly McCullough back. At first I felt it worked, but by the second time she was abducted and then they finally recovered her, what, two years later, at the end of 2015? That showed the limits of running that game. Thing is, Ron does it all the time now at DAYS even without Frank. It's how those two learned to manage budget - Ciara, Sarah, Sami, Jenn. I get it, but it frequently fails today. Some people blamed Kimberly at GH too, and there are few soap lifers more committed and loyal to these shows than Kimberly McCullough and Ali Sweeney IMO. I don't blame Ali. Despite being the queen of Hallmark she's made herself heavily available, just as Kimberly did. (Including, allegedly, at times they could've had McCullough back in the long intervals and didn't bc they were doing other [!@#$%^&*].) I blame the way Ron plots - skipping beats and thinking he can out-think the taping schedule and string stories out forever. He learned this long ago and I think he's decided he's a master at it.

I didn't buy Kelly and Dylan together again when he came back. They'd put too much into Brandon and Kelly and into the many, many mentions of Brenda and Dylan being back together offscreen over the ensuing years. That whole period for 90210 was very bizarre, even by the standards of their later years. Brandon abruptly leaves 4-5 episodes into Season 9, and Val abruptly leaves a week later as Dylan returns and Vanessa Marcil arrives all in the same episode. I'd love to know wtf was going on there, but the dishy tell-all interviews with some of the personnel at the show that have surfaced in recent years don't seem to discuss that stuff.

I never thought either MW or GG were very good, frankly.

I thought either Aaron or Fox didn't want it because she was already a big 'serious' star on Ally and they felt it was brand contamination. I may be wrong. I don't think the mention of Alison on the reboot was personal to Courtney (who I love) because tbh they gave virtually every old character who appeared a dark, cynical fate - all of them turned out to have grown into purely careerist vipers out for themselves, all of them had some angle they were trying to play against the new cast because their own fortunes had gone south. Which I suppose is true to Melrose's characters and to L.A. to a point, but it's not what I wanted to see for Jane, Jo, etc. years later. I may have misphrased it, it's been so long. IIRC, Amanda was receiving either phone calls or faxes from Alison drunk and struggling in Atlanta. Sam overheard this and schemed to get revenge on Billy and Jennifer, and I believe she faked messages from Alison to Billy asking him to come be with her. She was found out, Billy and Jenn stayed together, etc. Alison's fate was never mentioned again. I always assumed it was personal from JER.

As I've said before, Chloe has had every demeaning story short of being abducted by aliens or joining the Klan. A recast ain't gonna fix it. Phillip and Chloe have been spent characters for years IMO who burnt through a ton of bad material by Higley and co., and I say that as someone who really liked Nadia for a long time. They need a long, long rest. Brady isn't far behind and I say that as someone who thinks Eric Martsolf is sexy as hell.

They were writing lines about Alison being a lonely drunk in Atlanta even during the final seasons of the original show, lol. I was sure they would have Billy leave to be with her, but instead they used Alison's drunken faxes from out of town as a plot point at the end of Season 6 to make Sam scheme against Billy and Jennifer. So Alison is just hanging out there, and Courtney didn't even get to cameo as a drunk barfly in the final episode like she wanted.

It can't be worse than the time Frank and Ron tried to bring back 'the brownstone' and it lasted about four weeks and looked like a kids TV playset.

This is Luke and Tracy we're talking about, so faking one or both of their deaths would just be another Monday for them. That is my first assumption, that it's part of some scheme. But if it's not and it's real, I can't imagine why they'd do it now. I have to see what they've done to Sonny's penthouse lol

Not buying it, but if it's for real you have to wonder what spurred it.

Mandip Gill has confirmed she's done along with Whittaker, who has confirmed she's shot her regeneration sequence. The next special involves the Sea Devils, which is a nice blast from the past. I have not finished Flux (a.k.a. "Floox") yet but I hear Chibnall predictably cocks up the ending - I guess I'll catch up.

I don't agree, I think it was a mistake to kill virtually all of them. DAYS' poor use of many of those excellent actors is on DAYS. Maggie especially had a second life with Victor, no matter how tired folks got of that in the last decade.

I thought she was psychotic, and I really liked Liza Huber as Gwen.

That was how I felt. As a slasher movie buff I was pretty into the story as a simple concept, and it was to Reilly's credit that he could still get major eyes on the show and buzz for it. But the actual storyline (except for the ominous, doom-laden lead-ups to 'murders' like Jack, Abe, Roman, etc.) was amateurishly executed on virtually every level. The dialogue and plotting was kids TV-caliber, and it was clear he took a perverse glee in what he was doing to really beloved characters. The thing with Maggie being bludgeoned to death on livestream or whatever, while ahead of its time, was horribly done and so crass. There were ways to do that kind of storyline - even a fakeout, like it all turned out to be - in a classy but also shocking and creepy way. As equal parts a soap and horror movie fan, it deeply disappointed me how it turned out. And it was obvious it would be Marlena, because Reilly was always obsessed with Marlena. And no matter what anyone says I absolutely believe he would simply have blamed the Devil or something again in the original plans, and expecting the audience to go with that with all those people dead would have been unconscionable and despicable. I loved Frances Reid blowing the whistle on him and Corday and calling it a rewrite because the story tanked.