Vee

Not that much, lol! They just had the typical romantic dinner with Donna together while Turner was shocked, shocked! to hear Congressman Drew threatening Sonny, and gushed that she was beginning to understand his value to Port Charles. It was so dumb, just an ancient, tired script that has been done 500 times. IIRC she was just a hot piece who was barely there so they could say Sonny might get some action in a particularly slow moment for him, post-Carly and Sam and pre-Reese/Kate.

I seem to recall Nazneen Contractor's name coming up in some big industry news many years ago but I honestly can't recall what. I do remember her brief role on 24 as well as Rota's longer, progressively more annoying one. She's pretty dreadful, and even more inconsequential a character than Reese. She's in the Claire Walsh or Jordan Baines/Kristin Minter zone, the latter of whom I barely remember.

You've managed to convince me to do a BritBox trial to check it out (failing other options). I haven't looked in on the show in a hot minute.

Forgot to add last week: The Gio stuff in the church and with Dante/BLQ talking about his foster mother was admittedly very well-done, from script to performances. GM remains very strong and connected well with them, as well as alone in his monologue to his mother.

Renee Elise Goldsberry (OLTL) is President Idris Elba's First Lady in Kathryn Bigelow's nuclear thriller A House of Dynamite for Netflix next month.

Cameron Mathison on Who Shot Drew

I'll be that guy. It wouldn't shock me if Jake did it, and he's not even on canvas atm. He had a deep relationship with Drew before Drew Q became who he is today. He is old enough and has a dark enough history with Cassadine brainwashing that I can see him going for the second shot, unlike a young child. (I would invoke the Stephanie Hobart/Carlo Hesser example from OLTL re: a shooter appearing to be off canvas and turning up 'later', but I can't recall if that was actually the case.) It would also potentially allow Liz Korte to finally rid herself of Jake, who she clearly does not want around (vis a vis Jason and Liz). I hope I'm wrong though, I'm not really expecting anything like that. Jake is a longshot guess and not my first choice. (I would still go with Willow framing Nina, etc.) I feel like there is a 50% chance Mo thinks DA Sidwell's Wife is just Hannah. She is starting to make Lisa Vultaggio look like a seasoned thespian.

It will be interesting if the repeats are deliberately themed choices made somewhere. On an unnecessary anecdotal note (hey, it's a repeat week!): Last time I remember that happening was when ABC ran two very specific OLTL flashback episodes on holidays back in 2011 - one with Roger Howarth's Todd marrying Blair in '95 and one with Trevor St. John's marrying her in 2003. They did this right after they'd launched the mystery of a strange painting dated '03, the year of the recast, but featuring Blair in a shot clearly from her famous golden wedding to RH's Todd in '95. Anyone who knew her wedding outfit or remembered those dates knew that was significantly tied to one Todd and then the other and it was easy to suspect something big was up. Then they showed both Todds in those two eps, and it was confirmed. A few weeks? later, they formally announced Roger Howarth was back. Anyway, interesting story signposts can happen in repeats sometimes.

Monty II was still in swing when they hired Gottlieb, maybe six months after Monty's return - it seems they took the big risk around the same time. Monty II really begins onscreen, IIRC, in February '91 and Gottlieb's early production changes and first additions begin to air in July or August, with Malone's work and more characters debuting in September. The whole Monty cartel umbrella arc with Faison, Paul Hornsby, Harlan Barrett, etc. was climaxing in this period IIRC. Then they dumped Monty and her sister what, 4-6 months after Gottlieb's work began to air, in February(?) of '92.

I think Bill is the closest the show comes to a more layered Black male lead, and I actually like him a lot. I loved the scene where he was railing at Vernon about swallowing the family's sins for them. I think Martin is in that area but it gets obscured by what they focus on plot-wise and BC being green, though I do feel he's improved a lot. The rest of the males are cast across more simplistic outlines, but it is still earlier days and they have yet to shake enough of the B&B formula. Which they need to do. I agree it's for the best that it's a Black addition. I'd love to see Ted King on the show, for example, and happen to think he'd have chemistry with Daphnee, but I don't love the message it would send so quickly. Especially with Ted (Richardson) having become so pathetic.

I'm just happy to finish catching up, lol.

Thanks! What a name.

I think they're just being playful about the material now, decades later. Gottlieb was clearly serious about it at the time. I did find "Blair's cue". It's Suzanne Ciani from her '91 album - she and Nichtern really did some beautiful work for the show. Again, this version is different as the one in the show often uses either flute or some other kind of synth, then there's a darker variation, etc. They composed an entire new library of music at the time. I had no idea Ciani was apparently a serious electronic music pioneer. I'll keep digging through both their discographies to see if I can find the others I like (like the sultry Twin Peaks guitar-esque track they use with Jason a lot). The Lee Ann theme in the album is lush and very FOTH, but the version on the show is prettier to me - simple harmonica or something. Then there was this very interesting sort of delirious version of it they played when Lee Ann had a nightmare about Asa tormenting her for her mother's sins.

I should add, in Laura Bonarrigo's defense - I've always loved her - she plays a much more scary unhinged Cassie in '98, sinister, quieter and calculating. There's none of the really OTT histrionics from '91 (or some of the miscarriage drama, IIRC). That whole '98 storyline was designed to write her off and make her the antagonist, but she wiped the floor with Sonia Satra and at the time I found saintly Cassie going dark very interesting. I just wish it hadn't ended with her being excised from the show.

Max has a busy first week back - the dates for October eps online are off but judging by the calendar for October '91, his first day in the Love Nest bordello was a Friday reveal and tag, followed by him going from the bordello to a barfight to jail to the sweat lodge and finally back to Llanview for Halloween all in the following four eps. Max's sweat lodge vision quest with his father's old ranch hand Joe Hawk is a hoot with some kitschy special effects - JDP overacts hysterically during Max's visions, bless him. I really like the guy playing Joe but can't find an accurate name for who plays him online, or any clear closing credits - I hope it's not another Star Trek: Voyager situation where they got a Latino dude playing indigenous again. The timeline for the latest round of Buchanan/Holden family feud reveals ("20 years ago", complete with sepia flashback) is surely a bit off for Asa to only have made his proper fortune by stealing from Wingate in 1971. But the retconned rationale they introduce here for the last year of story, with Asa bizarrely obsessing over Max being his true heir out of guilt, makes a lot of sense. Asa is also still legitimately tortured about this secret re: Wingate, which was not always the case for the old man. And Max returns with JDP clearly revved up, with charisma to burn and the character driven by a stronger purpose, which he really didn't seem to have much of under Nicholas Walker. Max's reunion with Little Al is cute and he and JDP instantly seem comfortable together and very cozy. I don't remember if Evan Bonifant (later of 3 Ninjas and the infamous Blues Brothers 2000) was in the role long before this point but he already has a lot of character; the Al I remember most fondly as a kid was Jason Alexander Fischer or whatever his name was, with the big teeth. Side note: Bonifant went on to very briefly play a teen Lucas Jones on GH under Guza II in 2002, caught between cousins Maxie and Georgie Jones (yes, eww) and the network promoted the trio of Lindze Letherman, Robyn Richards and Bonifant a bit in the mags but it never went anywhere as GH clearly was not interested in anything non-mob at that point. I always wondered what happened to that kid. The whole 'fake crazy Cassie' storyline is a bit much, and always has been when clips previously floated around online, as is her wearing Sarah's old Halloween dress to 'sell it' which poor Bo does not seem onboard with. As @DRW50 has noted, Laura Bonarrigo was constantly being made to play hysterical and sobbing/shrieking during the Alex terror saga in the summer and now fall, and it really didn't suit building her popularity. Not because she can't play it because she absolutely can, but it gets so OTT and grating when Cassie seems to be at full tilt 11 every day. When you were used to the relatively more stable and mature Cassie of the mid-90s as I was watching as a kid (though the character definitely had her mental lapses, lol) it's a lot, which is probably why her eventual mental spiral in '98/'99 before being dumped by JFP was so shocking to me. Anyway, Cassie's entire 'fake' psychosis is already exhausting but they are definitely playing it, in script and onscreen, as though she might actually be losing it. There is a hilarious moment when she mistakes a trick-or-treater for Alex and screams at the door, only for an off-camera voice to snap 'Happy Halloween, bitch!' I do wonder what they had in mind for poor Cassie when Bo/Sarah was going to be the endgame down the road - they didn't hit on Andrew and Cassie til later. It was interesting to hear her talk about her relationships with Rob and Jon Russell briefly in this period - I don't remember Laura's Cassie ever mentioning Rob other than this. With Cain and Megan's temptation by Heinrich 'gone' they're also playing the Megan/Andrew angle even more heavily on Halloween, as Viki teases Andrew about his adoring female parishioners and him finding a woman and Andrew gets awkward just in time for Megan to usher Jane Ebert into the Llanfair drawing room. The lavish Halloween '91 costume party (or as they keep calling it 'the Halloween fair'), long seen only in rough bits and pieces on YT until now, is great to see in full. Princi's Dorian looks incredible as Morticia Addams(?) and of course, Craig Wasson's abusive Doug is on the loose here as an evil clown a la Roger Thorpe. And Max making a grand masked entrance planting one on Megan at the kissing booth is fun. Megan running interference for Tina yanking Cord away from Blair is cool - MK's Blair looks like a million bucks in her 1940s outfit, which seems like a nod to mousy Blair's true nature. She even sings a sultry little ditty to herself when leaving her apartment for the fair. I always appreciate when a soap amps up the atmosphere and does Halloween right. OLTL did it many times. Here they nail it again with little Jessica ending up at the boardinghouse trick or treating and seeing Luna and Lee Ann, then stumbling into Blair's room and seeing the back room slam shut (thanks to invisible Addie, again very Jane Eyre) and becoming convinced it's haunted. Great, spooky stuff. The scenes with Lee Ann and Luna drinking together in her little apartment and sharing sorrows and feelings are great too - this is the first time I think where Luna talks about her first husband, Bobby Ever, who died young and foolish. SB is wonderful in this stuff and Yasmine Bleeth was always so empathetic in this role. I always wanted to see Lee Ann return once so Kevin could deal with the loss of Duke, and maybe have her make trouble briefly for him and someone else. Obviously it wouldn't be Bleeth, but I do wish she hadn't gone downhill personally and in her career; she really was strong on the show, more than just a Baywatch hottie. The more atmospheric, dark and synth-like riff on Blair's deceptively wholesome theme music is amazing. I wish these Gottlieb revamp music cues (by either Suzanne Ciani or David Nichtern, or both) were easier to find online. I wonder when they retired this theme, if they ever played it for KDP. From a doc about Ciani, featuring her and Linda Gottlieb. The post-production process before '91 does sound fairly primitive. Upon doing some digging, David Nichtern is responsible for at least some of these early cues too and as many of us know he was at OLTL for several more years - he created the great "Lee Ann's Theme", which is often done in harmonica or synth on the show in fall '91. You can hear a more heavily produced version on his album From Here to Nichternity (lol), along with I think at least several more OLTL cues. I'm still trying to find Blair's cue, or whatever it's called. The recurring Luna music cue is also great.

In the early 2000s, the Sheffer-era ATWT branding exercise of taking hot soap stars and recasting them in older, mostly off-canvas ATWT roles worked out fairly well in the beginning IMO. Others will disagree and it was definitely controversial from the jump but I thought Hunt Block's Craig, MBE's Sierra and particularly Cady as Rosanna (the polar opposite of Dixie Martin) worked out well, even if Block's Craig in particular was a much colder, darker version than Scott Bryce. I appreciate SB much, much more today and think he's superior and far more versatile (especially as when he did come back later he played a more villainous Craig again very well), but I could see the deepest root of his original in the recast. As for Grayson McCouch, well, he was very hot at the time; his Dusty was totally different from the original, almost unrecognizable, but he at least had heat with Martha Byrne. The worm turned (at least IMO) with Roger Howarth. By his own recent account on a media podcast he was near the end of his emotional or perhaps psychological rope playing Todd at OLTL in '03 (possibly because of the "Rashomon"-style 'was it rape?' story Michael Malone later did with Trevor St. John's Todd and Blair at the end of the year), and an acquaintance told him to get in touch with ATWT. He did and quickly took the out to go play anything other than a serial rapist, namely Paul Ryan. The problem is they already had a very good Paul (Scott Holroyd), the viewers were outraged, and when they brought Roger on it was to do really embarrassing, reheated Todd stuff that was identical to what he had just been playing a month or two before on OLTL - haunted by his father, talking to ghosts and visions, lurking around in the dark, angry at women who lied to him (even though RH did have chemistry with both Martha and Cady McClain), making bad jokes. As someone very familiar with OLTL who tuned in to see how it went, I was appalled. I was like 'is this plagiarism? Can ABC sue?' It was that close. It was nothing like Paul Ryan, it was just Todd or Roger sending it up in unfunny or OOC ways, and it was so bad. And I don't think ATWT was ever the same after that big recast flopped. The veil fell from the show's big gamble on these recasts, and everything else fell apart with it. By the time you got to Julie Pinson's character eating the show it already had gone south.

If you wanted to get really kinky with it: Kat falls for the bad boy/black sheep brother, then Jacob gets jealous over time.

I might do it, but not soon. tbh Kat needs more life experience, and namby-pamby Jacob needs to get a lot more seasoned himself. I'd have her with another serious partner before going there once they're both evolved. Play the long game, like what Ryan's Hope teased for awhile with Jack Fenelli and Siobhan Ryan (his wife's sister).

I was just glad to see Ed, Holly, Bridget and Nola even in those unbelievable conditions. I'm pretty sure Ed and Holly had their romantic exit with one of them living in an underground storage room. Maureen Garrett's comments about it after were mortifying but unsurprising. Lisa Brown seemed to be the one who was just taking the whole insane situation the most in stride, given what appeared to be several casual improv's on her part.

They're still doing this Budig thing? With this large adult dude? My God.

I have no idea how they have gotten away with this for long. Like, even Y&R has those cloistered lesbians.

It goes back to what I've said (too many times) - the show is such a mix of a) old, old school soap staples from Bell or Irna Phillips and b) very immediate, edgy stuff. Some of the newness really works, some is cringe and tryhard. But the explicit nature of some of the everyday dialogue, to say nothing of the frontburner LGBT story B&B and Y&R would not dare touch, really sets me back on my heels for the historically supposedly more conservative P&G or CBS Daytime. That side of the show really reminds me a lot of the PP soaps. Maybe a lot of the old guard at P&G retired? LOL. Then at the other end of the table, you get days like a month or two ago where Anita comes back to town while practicing with the Articulettes, and much of the family assembles at the house to update her on their lives and talk through their troubles. But to my amazement, we actually saw every single one of those meetings in turn - Anita sat down with every single one of her visiting kids or grandkids individually for a full segment, IIRC! That is like something out of the '50s or '60s soap. And that's not a bad thing. There's a lot of expository family elder scenes like that, either just between Anita and Vernon or with the other characters, some much clunkier than others but generally heartfelt. The show has plenty of issues to work through, but this mix is sort of an interesting soap history lesson for me. If @DRW50 or @Khan ever get into the show, I hope they will weigh in on this very peculiar stylistic mix. Sorry to tag you guys, but it really is fascinating to me.

They did, he was a mobster threatening Lynn Herring, IIRC. Then Grayson McCouch's Dusty showed off his kickboxing class moves fighting Billy Warlock's thugs at a dumpster outside the studio while one track from the Inception score played on loop. It was all so bad.

I think Kat/Jacob is definitely being played with. I wouldn't go there too soon. Naomi has the charisma of plain toast, and Jacob isn't much better but he does have chemistry with Kat.

I would not have had the patience to watch this Chelsea/Alison, etc. saga grind out for a year or year and a half. These specific actors are not that engaging and the story is an old soap chestnut. The show absolutely has issues with pacing that Ducksworth has actually talked eloquently about - as I've said, the first new American soap since 1999 has succeeded in reaching some of a new audience but now has to accommodate their attention span/viewing habits. But despite that ongoing experiment I'd rather they just burn through this story and find something better to do with Chelsea.