Vee

Why is the bad guy at Funky Puppies always wearing some pajamas? Seriously, every time I bother looking up in these scenes (not often!) dude looks like he is wearing some silk jammies. Is it just me?

"Professor Johnny?!" The things you see on the forum feed, I swear. Johnny doesn't even know how to read.

Does anyone just call the train the Cane Train? I feel like it's right there.

I would say it went in the opposite direction there. The way I remember it, Gabrielle's initial return at OLTL was wildly unpopular with everyone except, well, me lol. I had not been around for Gabrielle's first run, I only knew the legend and a handful of old episodes online at that time, and I found her Annie Lennox haircut and OTT campy ways insanely entertaining. There was no one like her on the show and I was all in. But the story with her marrying Asa, histrionically pawing herself and the furniture horny for Max, etc. was roasted by the mags and most fans, and within a couple months even the show was mocking them in the Trading Places episode where they had JDP and Fiona switch roles and played the Michael Bolton song, lol. Allegedly, one of the two actors found the story so radioactive that they quietly asked for Max and Gabrielle's reunion to be curtailed. That led to Gabrielle being moved to Bo and Max going towards the Roxy thing, which sadly never quite took off for Max. But I actually do think Bo and Gabrielle were fairly popular and a surprise modest success for the show. I certainly enjoyed them and I think it was only in 2002 that Fiona found her footing with the audience again. I do think Malone had planned to put both Bo and Nora and Max and Gabrielle back together, which could've been very interesting as he'd never written for Max/Gabrielle or Gabrielle at all. But instead they both fizzled out when Frons wanted the budget cut and the Holdens canned. I still miss Gabrielle. But I do think her return started a bomb and then became a reasonable success with an unlikely pairing. People were very sad to see her go. As for GH, yes I'd bring back Brenda (and teenaged/college-aged, gay af Alec) tomorrow.

Why didn't they just bring back Bill? Were they playing it cheap or was he busy?

I still don't understand how that happened. Just crazy.

So stupid, the transparent need to meet Mo's guarantee by having the boys call Sonny first when they see a floating corpse lol. What is old man Sonny gonna do? You know he can't swim. And then he just calls the cops anyway. Rocco: "Dad was out of town so we called him first, even though Dad's literally here right now!" The Stella subplot is also dumb. She freely admits she committed insurance fraud while everyone keeps insisting she's clearly being railroaded, followed by Alexis being like 'yes, Stella is being targeted although tbf she has done this between 6 and 200 times.' Okay!

I feel like she only frees up like $6. But yes, agreed, let's fire lots.

We've recently been blessed with near-full runs of many ABC soaps from the '80s on (particularly the critical and long-lost Linda Gottlieb/Michael Malone transiition period at OLTL in the early '90s), and quite a lot of EON, GL, Y&R, etc. But the Marland era still being spotty is just a tragedy to me. I got to see a great deal of '86, but when certain key sections go missing it stings.

But Sidwell's wife is a nice lady and will work for scale and free food! It saves on dressing rooms and parking space!

I absolutely think them hiring Chad is only a matter of time.

Which is why it is so crazy FV seemingly won't even consider it. Paging @Darn since I know he gets even more heated than me about this!

I would give a lot to see the missing month-plus of the climax of the Frannie/Sabrina UK saga. A lot of the buildup in late '86-early '87 is online, but IIRC February sweeps is almost totally absent.

There isn't. I was just saying how boring those actual characters were.

I think MVJ's responses show that she is not in control of the repeats nor a fan of them, and was allegedly not given a heads-up the first time. This was all evident the first time it happened. So now she avoids discussing it so as not to bite the hand that feeds. Whether that's a good idea is for someone to weigh in on, idk how I feel about it. I do think CBS/Paramount/etc. have continued heavily promoting the show, at least from what I've seen. But I do think not giving an earlier or clearer heads-up on the dark weeks is not okay, even if they have yet to really hurt the show.

I will check these out, since I only remember the one as well.

I'm happy to roll the dice. I enjoy watching a lot of the show these days. It's improved a lot vs. where it was two years ago, or a lot of last year lol. I also find other stuff that is so boring or stupid it'll make me tune out for days or weeks, and there are key systemic issues. But I'd still take the chance on new blood. It's just past time. And yes, the fact that the Quartermaines are now the central family hub of the show again and populate the majority of the canvas in 2025 is nothing short of a miracle.

I will continue to credit Mulcahey with a great deal of what has become of Drew and Willow; he planted a lot of seeds in his short time. I do appreciate that the returning writing team has leaned into it and gone further with the characters' metamorphosis, even as most nuance to the story or other potential for Drew has been lost. Meanwhile we're all just lucky Chad either got bored or got a girl pregnant, or both. It's just unacceptable when you have very bland, boring or directionless characters like Chase, Sasha, Curtis, Jordan, previously Willow, Nina, etc. lingering on the show for the better part of a decade (or more) being totally unremarkable. They're here because FV doesn't want to get rid of the actors and most of the characters are/were very tired. We're very lucky they allowed Willow to change otherwise she'd have been the second one I cut after Sasha. And Watros keeps Nina afloat via sheer force of will onscreen, but with PM and the Drew/Nina option gone what's left to do with her? Nina was never a character who should've been around for over a decade, no matter who was playing her. I'm grateful for what's changed or improved and I do think the show is much more compelling than several past years, but there's still so much more to do and plenty of bad stuff. And I just don't have faith in this team to upgrade it - I'm dying for new blood - but we've seen what happens when someone not prepared to execute Uncle Frank's creative vision is hired. So here we are for the foreseeable future.

I always thought it was a mistake not to revisit Josh and Harley. I think that would've gone over a lot better than Cassie. But Beth Ehlers was so hard by then.

That is adorable. This show really is bringing the communal spirit of daytime back, storytelling warts and all.

I still think he wanted to fire her and others but we got stuck with a lot of that crazy job shít that went nowhere.

Lucas is gonna take 'em to the drive-thru window at Mercy and stop by Jack in the Box on the way. Willow should go full socialite bitch. Even though people threw a fit when she first went into society/charity work last year under Mulcahey, which was a device to get her more involved with Drew and Nina.

Thursday, I believe. After Portia was whining about their marriage when Stella was arrested and Curtis walked out on her. I found this whole setup goofy and rushed, but then I don't care about any of the characters except Portia and they've absolutely dragged her character under a truck yet again. They really hate her lol.

Yeah, it's gone IIRC.

I am catching up on BTG still, but I also still watch GH off and on as I have since '93. I'm also deep in a binge of classic OLTL 1991 and some '80s material, like Eterna.