Vee

People like Martha Madison because she engages with fans. But with the exception of a very brief period with JKJ aeons ago, she has never worked and has always skewed way older. She's the reason Shawn and Belle are little more than exasperated parents today. I think it's too late to recast Belle, roll her back and make her a lead, especially with her daughter and Sami's twins now on the show as young adults (and you're never going to supplant Sami's role on the canvas, gone or not). People have been crying about me saying this since her first day onscreen, but nothing has changed. They like the idea of her working out more than she ever has.

It's all Frank IMO, and some of his writers have def fallen down on the ball though I think the current HW team might (or might not) be capable of more solo.

Nadia Bjorlin, JKJ, Madison, Beemer, etc. do not need the unemployment line bc this show just brings them back every 6-9 months. Madison has never been a lead actress and never will be so her being in the Possession is out, and I doubt you can recast Belle at this point sadly. The character has been a nonentity for the better part of 15 years.

I think all they respond to these days are flyover state fans and FB/Twitter. They can occasionally pander to them and say, 'look, we did it.' Everything else feels like Frank's Playhouse.

If this was normal times, of course, people would get fired for this. But since ABC no longer cares, no one will. See also: Josh Griffith, Y&R.

IMO Frank has been micromanaging this show for his own vision since RC was fired. They clicked together in sync, whether the work was good or bad, but I think with Frank solo, having consumed all that hype from soap bloggers and Twitter folk that they were the saviors of ABC soaps and the last guardian of the history, it emboldened him to try to become Jill Farren Phelps - creating the show himself with his favorite folks, adding in bits and pieces of OLTL, etc. at any opportunity. Frank couldn't stand Dena Higley at OLTL but serviced her vision as an EP in those years because it was necessary. Now he's running the show.

Rushed, lazy and anticlimactic has been this show's MO for years.

He should've walked in with her coming down the stairs in Jason's shirt. Isn't that how it went down with Jason when she fucked Sonny, IIRC?

Only on this show would Sonny not walk in on them in bed together.

Elizabeth Debicki is a brilliant actress. It would be hard to top her, though I'm sure Kristen Stewart does a great job.

I remember the scuttlebutt way back when being that Kristen Meadows (Mimi) only held on for as long as she did due to friends in high places, but I've no idea if that's true. It always seems like an odd character.

There's a big difference between the smoke I have for someone trying to silence any critique of soap operas vs. someone who's never learned basic netiquette in the year of our Lord 2021. I may not like your random obsessions that often lead nowhere but at least they're not trying to infringe on someone's speech. Anyway, when you learn how to embed a tweet after 10+ years we can revisit this conversation.

I'll leave you alone when you learn the same lesson many people have been trying to teach you here for what must be close to a decade: If someone doesn't like a show and expresses that POV there is absolutely nothing you can fuckíng do about it. I myself have no opinion on Beyond Salem atm, but the question of whether someone can hold an opinion divergent from mine is quite clear. No debate, no calling for them to stop. You lose. Move on with your life.

Yep.

lollll

I only saw this ringer's post bc it was in the posts ticker on the right hand side of the main board, since he's already on Ignore. I regret to inform them I have not been to DL in almost a decade. Sorry, champ.

smdh that Howarth has been on this show long enough and had enough different characters that he's gone from having a elder/junior relationship with the much younger Kirsten Storms on the show when he started to being chemistry tested with her now that she too has most definitely gone through it IRL

"Dear friends" indeed! Good for Eure and Marx. I too remembered Wesley Eure talking about losing Patty Weaver in his life, and it's lovely to know they've reconnected.

Still true though. I'm quite calm. The issue here is the false equivalence you're drawing re: "plot armor", which I find ironic considering you're a fan of characters who actually did and had all these things on AMC. Erica was made the butt of the joke a lot of times in the last decade or so on the network. Her abortion was overturned. Her history was razed solely to service others. That would never happen to Sonny; it would never happen to Ryan. And other characters were often the specific beneficiaries of Erica being floated off into a rarefied orbit. Yet somehow Erica is the problem in your mind. Didn't really happen that way, though. Erica was diminished and sidelined in a way those characters you're drawing a parallel to never were.

If that's what he's looking for, he shouldn't be hosting some of these. Based on past reactions we've seen from some guests when discussing BTS stuff, one of these days Locher may regret doing it up with some of these folks and ignoring the elephants in the room and that's all I'll say about that.

Locher's first loyalty is to the parent companies, even after all these years, which I can comprehend but don't accept. He did PR for these soaps in their dying days, and many diehard fans recognize that. I don't think his former employment should preclude letting these actors and creatives be candid.

I think for a lot of older folks it's habit plain and simple.

On a side note, speaking of dirt and unceremonious exits - Robin Strasser indicated on Twitter recently that she was outright let go and not invited back in the final months of OLTL on ABC in 2011. She's talked about it before, but here's the latest iteration. According to her version of the story, part of which we already knew: She left to have back surgery and was concerned about pain management and becoming dependent on medication (as she had from a prior procedure) in order to cope should she go back to work too soon. She claims she wanted to return in October of '11, but OLTL informed her they wouldn't be needing her back before the end of taping. She put on a happy face about it for PR, but was crushed. With Robin's POV you need a bit of a grain of salt at times, but I absolutely believe her on this one. I think Frank Valentini was looking to cut costs and drama by any means necessary in the final months and just didn't want to deal with her. I understand Robin could be high-maintenance, but it's a disgrace - especially re: Robin, who IMO never got over being fired by JFP.

We've talked about this in the past, but Bob Woods has vacillated over the years when talking about Jacquie Courtney as have a number of castmembers. (I've always found Erika Slezak's quiet asides re: her and Stuart especially interesting - "once Joe Stuart was gone, I knew I had job security.") He's sometimes been very complimentary and kind about her, particularly when she passed. The impression I got is that some of the OLTL cast - or perhaps just the more rough and tumble Buchanan actors, who were known to not always be big on discipline back in the day - found Courtney high-maintenance. I imagine the truth is somewhere in-between for all parties. When exactly did Rauch arrive? Fall of '84 or earlier? Because depending on when Courtney exited in '83 (allegedly December), he might've already been in the mix. That happens at these shows often BTS before the credits catch up. I always assumed Rauch was the answer to why she was cut, but that may well be untrue.