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ATWT. Several of us have referenced it here, yeah.

I think Chelsea as a character and RRM as a performer is just weaker than the Kat/Eva duo. They've written up and down for her, as I said above, but I find Chelsea boring and Mantilla very raw. That green performance and the sometimes PSA-styled writing of her personal discovery don't help. It feels very much like they want to educate the viewers which I can understand, soaps have always done that and frankly it's still relevant and the heart is in the right place, but it feels a bit too canned in both scripts and delivery. Some stuff meets the contemporary moment, other stuff feels like a Degrassi Very Special Storyline. That, and the insta-girlfriend doesn't work for me. Chelsea and Madison barely went out twice before they practically moved to opening a bed and breakfast together.

I don't agree that Chelsea has had no development. They've been pretty much all in on Chelsea's journey of self-discovery and sexuality and have been playing that storyline heavily for months - the momager thing with Dani was a sideline/character beat that was largely dropped after the first month or two and hasn't come back into real focus, IMO. (Though it should.) They've been focused on her exploring her orientation, then they brought in Madison and finally brought back Alison. It's been going for at least several months. My issue with Chelsea is not that she isn't developed, because I think she is. My issue is that I often just find her boring lol, think RRM's performances are often very green and I think the insta-relationship with Madison is forced and silly.

I absolutely have seen old folks do this.

I don't care about the McBrides' home (they do have a bedroom we've seen before, though) at the moment, at least not until Vanessa is hopefully shed of Doug. I do think Joey's casino def needs to be upgraded.

They won't dare. Curtis and Jordan can leave any time. I'm good. They don't do it because it requires investing in hiring more Black people.

It's just the show shuffling around all the Black people they don't care about.

No. Isaiah should not have shaved and that's all I'll say about that. Good actor, attractive man being poorly styled onscreen but I don't care about those two together.

Good to know. I always figured the Y&R stint put her in more demand, though I know Tina Lord made a star.

Was Andrea not popular here? I thought she was a success and frankly thought that was part of why OLTL went after her to revamp Tina back then. Or was it the story that was famous vs. her Patty?

I think in a different time, with a different Y&R Howarth (or Billy Flynn, or whoever else) would be a big get. Even 15 years ago. He is willing to act these days (unlike Trevor St. John's predictable stint) even when he has a certain range, and I think in a better situation he could adjust to the rhythms and style of Y&R and do well. The problem is that this show has long since become, like ATWT and like @DRW50 said, a clearinghouse for old ABC stars, from creative BTS personnel who were more comfortable working at ABC. And very few of these added soap stars or young additions hit or last, because Y&R has failed to cultivate talent long-term or build out anything new anymore. It's calcified. Say what we will about Frank Valentini's GH, and I could say a lot - it has its own aging vets it refuses to move off the front line, it has a massive traffic jam with too many kids in the younger generations - but it's still nimbler on its feet, still feels alive and still invests more time and focus in the next gen than modern Y&R ever has or apparently will.

I think the desperation in Max when he initially returns is actually deliberate. Everyone around him in Sweetwater says he is putting up a big front to hide his pain over his terrible year, including Lee Ann's surprise cousin? sister? Ruth Ann who I did not expect to see in the flesh. I actually think JDP and Max are a big shot of dynamite, charisma and energy to the show at this point, but it's early days yet. He's a lot fresher and more fun than Nicholas Walker. I think after he settled down with Luna into comfortable marriage with family, and then again after she died they had no real idea what to do with Max, particularly once Malone was gone. I think JDP has said as much about that period being the real downhill slope. He had chemistry with Crystal Chappell but that whole pairing was so messy. (By contrast, the unpopular gambling story does suit Max's past IMO and the famous, intense sex scene with Blair set to Pearl Jam still holds up - even if I hated the story back in the day, I kind of get it now.) I have always wondered what would've happened if Malone had been given a freer hand in 2003 to do the quad he clearly intended with Max, Gabrielle, Bo and Nora that year instead of Frons and the network mandating the Holdens being wiped out after Nathaniel Marston got himself fired the first time (and then rehired). Malone had never written for Gabrielle before, and got very little opportunity to do so that year beyond her being Bo's troubled girlfriend, Al's grieving mother struggling through intense heartache and depression after his death, etc. Malone was far from at the height of his skills at that point but I still wonder how he would've approached Max and Gabrielle, which was a primal force and the polar opposite of Max and Luna. I'm not sure he would've known how but I would've liked to see what happened. (JDP's Max has a funny line on his first day back in '91 about his wife being America's Most Wanted.) I did like both Howarth and Mark Brettschneider and think they're both talented, just different. I understand why Roger and Todd took off, but looking at a lot of that material today post-2010s is a different experience. There's some great stuff still with the Todd saga and his therapy, rehabilitation, etc. or the early pairing with Blair (and some of the dark relationship with Rebecca) that I still really value, but it is so weighted down by considering the road not taken for the show, and the queasy, often inappropriate nature of the stuff with Marty and others that plays even more inappropriately now. Then there's the whole dark prince mystique which the audience bought into and the show wrote the hell out of, but which also seems so different and disturbing vs. the show's focus two years before, and overall it just hits me different given the world we live in today and what Todd and characters like him, for better or worse, wrought. Of course we could also say a lot of the same about pimp Marco Dane, Roger Thorpe, Luke Spencer, etc. I guess that's part of why I find Max's return so refreshing here, despite also being familiar with years of the more moribund, sadsack Max near the end of his tenure on the show. Max may be a scoundrel but he's happy-go-lucky and hey, he hasn't raped anyone. It's worth noting Max's first full day in late October is also when they begin to lock in on forging Megan and Andrew's friendship more deeply following the first couple meetings, less than a week after Heinrich/Cain has been ejected from her life. It's also when they make a point to mention Megan's health issues again after several small hints, and have Wanda and Andrew urge her to see a doctor. I was thinking about the gay Joey angle in some of these episodes, as Chris McKenna is featured heavily over the last several months and I assume will continue to be. I don't think it ever got past the network so I would assume it is not hinted at onscreen, but who knows.

It was a pretty lousy one, and cancerous for Max.

I actually think Joey and Vanessa have heat. I just wish they'd find somewhere to fúck other than on the sideboard at Golden Corral.

JDP from the great interview Damon Jacobs ran:

It's surreal to watch this stuff and then go to the last couple weeks of GH, where Susan Batten is basically playing Luna again by another name as a recurring character, Home & Heart TV cosmetics personality "Flora Gardens". This is almost certainly Frank Valentini doing a favor to an old friend to help Batten (and Morgan Fairchild) keep their benefits. I can't stand the H&H stuff but I don't have a problem seeing SB or Morgan from time to time if they could utilize their appearances better. I do assume Flora is an actual relative of Luna, lol. Like I said a couple pages back, Luna was always divisive but also always popular as much as she was hated. I get the complaints but I still like her, especially in this early stuff where she is so different from a lot of the show. Poor Jon Russell shows up to try to whisk her off on a fancy date at sea while she shows up in jeans and a hoodie and laughs it off, and it makes you wonder if right then and there they were future planning for who her endgame was - I have no idea if it was always intended to be Max, as I knew they went hard at Max and MK's Blair. They bring Max with a purposeful vengeance in this period, and I assume Jimmy DePaiva must've enjoyed it despite his later clashes with Gottlieb (like many of the actors on the show, or several men at GH under Wendy Riche). So far he's not swanning around in suits like NW's effete NuMax; the original article is still all denim and dust. I never got the sense it was the Luna pairing he objected to but in how Max became Mr. Mom and super domesticated toting the babies around, etc. near the end of Malone I. At least that's the part he was complaining about loudly on USENET where soap stars often thought no one would find it in the mid-'90s.

A very quick change happens late in October '91 following Asa humiliating Lee Ann and Kevin at not one but two public events (the teen social and Asa's birthday bash) - just as the Asa/Max intrigue is heating up, suddenly Lee Ann is racing to the phone at Wanda's to see if it's Max calling from Texas, and Kevin is so turned off by it (after arriving at the restaurant eager to continue their romance) that he decides in the same episode to split for the Buchanan ranch in Arizona and clear his head. Same episode: Carlo is out of the hospital and is ready to take Stephanie to California so he can recuperate in Charlotte's home! Sure, why not? No more mention is made of the Joey angle with his obvious crush on Stephanie, at least not so far. Anyway, Kevin and Stephanie get a reasonably mature and wistful goodbye as friends at the airport because they're both taking off, reflecting on their whirlwind courtship. I wonder if this is how they wrote Robyn Griggs out so abruptly, presumably because of backstage conduct, as they clearly were still playing her (with Joey and Jason) a week or two before and potentially playing the angles with her, Kevin and Lee Ann. Or maybe this isn't her contract exit and she'll be back again before Carlo's murder mystery, where IIRC she returns to town after his 'death' to later be revealed as the culprit - I really don't know, this is my first time watching '91-'92 in sequence vs. select clips or scattered episodes. I'm sure someone else will know better. Griggs, Joey Thrower and Yasmine Bleeth all do very good work in this stuff, particularly Thrower who is so unabashedly emotional and boyish with Lee Ann (and Stephanie) vs. the more put-together, evolved and manly Kirk Geiger. Sometimes JT is too wet behind the ears or obnoxious, and I can see why they recast but I do think he put in pretty good work with this period, especially after the unbearably treacly Kevin/Stephanie summer debacle. The first hints of Addie in Blair's locked room, with strange noises knocking about next door followed by Blair playing a music box to soothe the invisible guest, are pure Malone gothic, very Jane Eyre. Blair's fascination with crafting jewelry, which led to Melador (Blair's company to this day on GH, where it is a current competitor for Lucy Coe's Deception), was also baked in from the beginning. I always wanted them to make more of both this and Blair's journalism background in later years, so it's good to see the roots for both stretching so far back. Korf's Blair also lets the mask slip finally, briefly, not just when her hand curls into a fist over her papers when she meets Dorian at the Banner but when she puts on her handmade(?) earrings in her little boardhouse room and suddenly looks transformed, regal, laser-focused. I will always love KDP's Blair (who was still very rooted in MK's Blair's history in those early years if you revisit '94-'95, which is likely why Kassie always said only Malone understood Blair) but Mia Korf is a revelation so far. It is still so amazing that there was an AAPI lead at this time on a soap, and so unconscionable that Korf was basically the last. Caherine Ann Christiansen (Jane Ebert) has a very strong performance monologuing about her abuse by her husband and how she can't remember if the first time he hit her hurt. Her other performances to this point were a bit too simpering and bog-standard for me, but that was very well done even if the Ebert saga is taking up a bit too much time very quickly. (I am still trying to remember how and where Viki got so involved outside of seeing Jane working Asa's party; I think she saw her one other time at Wanda's.) The airdates and labels get very wonky on these October episodes online and you have to go on a real fact-finding mission in order to watch them in proper sequence (which I have, with some work), but at this point the Eberts can't have been around for more than two weeks. Everyone's doing a good job but I can see why it annoyed people as I think it plays out over the next month, though again I still think it is a brief vignette side dish to the larger classical soap opera arcs unfolding. Jason and Lee Ann always did have serious chemistry, and Jason's crush on co-worker Lee Ann comes into focus as Kevin skips town. I wonder if they were keeping their options open on those two this early even with Kevin and Max in the picture or if Jason was always meant to be Lee Ann's endgame. (Don't get me started on what on Earth the show would've looked like if they'd actually gone through with recasting Lee Ann with Sydney Penny in '93.) Their bonding over the Ebert situation and Jason's past with domestic abuse (in the 10/18 episode which I am pretty sure is not actually 10/18; I believe it is actually 10/25) is very well done - Mark Brettschneider's voice catching as he lets slip that he was the abused neighbor boy he claims to be talking about is heartbreaking, and his monologue kind of outshines Jane Ebert's. Again, a sign that Jason was the obvious prototype for what later became Todd Manning after Roger Howarth and Frat Boy #2 took like a rocket, except Jason came minus the serial rape. Jason even has the scar courtesy of his stepfather's abuse. I always wished Jason and Lee Ann would have reunited. Then again, I liked him and Marty too. The meta-commentary from the bordello madam about Max being all 'doom and gloom' until he came back to Sweetwater and rocked all the girls' worlds and now 'looks like the old Max we used to know and love' is hilariously OTT even before they do the infamous shot of JDP winking to the camera about feeling like the old Max again. Brian Frons and the Real Greenlee campaign would be proud. But after suffering through the final painful months of Nicholas Walker's fey, hammy Max Buchanan I can't exactly be broken up about it.

Another guffaw-level quip of the month in October '91. That is, in fact, exactly what Du Ann looked like. I'll get deeper into this stuff in my next post or two, but I had heard for decades about the bombastic reintroduction of James DePaiva's Max after Nicholas Walker was flushed out the airlock, and the online legend does not disappoint. They film him ass-first in Wranglers strutting to the camera with his rear the focus, face unseen for much of the episode, and have a bevy of bored Texas bordello workers straight out of the One Eyed Jack's brothel from Twin Peaks light up at the sight of the hometown stud made good returning to the fold like he's John Holmes. Just hysterical, but well done and properly amped up given the hype at the time. They've also been setting up the latest iteration of the convoluted, labyrinthine Max/Asa family history (overcomplicated long before Gottlieb/Malone) pretty well with the secret key, Asa's paranoia, Joe Hawk in Texas, etc. The Joey/Stephanie angle keeps being played up as she takes him to visit Carlo(!!). Little Chris McKenna and Thom Christopher, of all people, get a refreshingly strange duo scene together at the hospital where Carlo educates the petrified boy on Schubert, asks if he'll keep standing up for Stephanie and ponders 'making peace with his demons.' They're obviously referring to Carlo's role in the Sarah conspiracy at this point, but one wonders if TPTB had the truth about Carlo killing Stephanie's father in the back pocket even then. (Particularly with Stephanie bringing up missing her father to Renee.) I know the original intended conclusion of the Who Killed Carlo mystery was for little Al Holden to have shot him by accident, and that the network vetoed it but that is over half a year away. The later reveal of Stephanie was presumably not planned for at this point, but it's possible the other secret was always there.

Drew is the only organic and compelling antagonist this show has, lol.

I keep telling y'all Ted was not built to last.

I don't think anyone is loving the random announcements out of nowhere. But the repeats re: the first year order I get.

I said that the first time, but as it turns out I don't think it's done either. It didn't take a huge drop previously, and the social media and offline audience for this show is encouragingly significant. All I see from anecdotal stuff IRL as well as comments online is people watching it, finding their relatives watching it, wanting to catch up from the beginning, etc. Like I said a few days ago, BTG is in a unique position as the first new soap in America since '99. A lot of people are just now discovering how to watch daytime, and some are trying to binge it. But whether they jump in midstream, try to burn through 100+ episodes on Paramount Plus or Pluto or catch the repeats, they're engaged. That is good news. Does it mean I want these repeat weeks continuing in 2026? Definitely not. I'm no fan of repeats. But it appears to be baked in given either the nature of the initial episode order, the budget or both.

That's not how most renewals of new shows work in the 2020s. Including new soap operas. These repeat weeks are most likely (per Errol's own post weighing in on this) to do with the initial order of episodes, and filling out the year.

How did RH help secure Jill's promotion to GH?

I would not call Roger a FOJ. His time working for Jill Farren Phelps was relatively brief, and as far as we know she never attempted to poach him since OLTL. But they could be friendly. Roger does have a past with Josh Griffith, and I suspect that relationship was less contentious than his with Michael Malone.