LostinHarmony

Yikes, I feel bad for the Passions fans on this message board, shade or no shade y’all go in lmao, but hey, everyone’s free to post whatever they want so I’ll get off my high horse lol

I’ve been keeping up to date with their twitter page @passions20th, you know the soap blogs don’t cover anything Passions related lol Its honestly sad, despite a great turn out at the Passions fan event 2 years ago many people mentioned on social media they didn’t know it was even happening or else they would’ve went but PSNS has always been treated as the red-headed stepchild of soaps 🤷‍♂️

Wasn’t Darrell Ray Thomas an associate head writer with Marlene McPhereson on Passions before they head wrote DAYS? I see he is listed as an executive producer for the documentary and will be interviewed in it, he’s probably the closest we’ll get to what really was going on with Jim and what he intended for PSNS.

Hopefully some of this will be explained in the documentary the cast is releasing this fall. I hope they don’t take the PC route and not want to talk about the things that weren’t so great behind the scenes. Chrystee Pharris and Jade Harlow were both very open and pretty candid for the most part in that podcast they did about the casting changes and why they left as Simone and Jessica. Honestly, what Chrystee was saying about the younger cast feeling more at ease brought questions to my mind about how Lena Cardwell was on set. All that said, the PSNS cast seems like for the most part, the type that will only say the good things to not offend anyone and I doubt we will get the full story. But who knows, I’m still definitely watching this documentary.

I think the takeaway from all of this is that while Passions still ruffles a few feathers with those in the daytime community and long time soap watchers for not being their cup of tea, those 12-17 year olds that watched the show and were die hard fans are now older today and keep the show alive by attending fan festivals and supporting things like the upcoming 20th anniversary documentary for the show. The cast said it best themselves during the fan festival 2 years ago, that if a fan approaches them they can tell by their age if they recognize them from Passions or another soap they’ve done. They found a corner in the genre to attract, those 12-17 year olds (today they are 32-37) and like it or not I think while not a major impact like some shows, it gave itself a pretty good dent in pop culture history and will be remembered certainly more than some soaps that have been forgotten over the years. Passions had a small but very loyal fan base and it still shows today.

Just finished binging the rest of the episodes of season 3, I think as per usual I’m in the minority but I enjoyed this season a lot.

I’m still behind because of work but now that it’s on Netflix I’ve been binging and so far I’m liking it. Made it to the 80s episode where the kids are playing the parents and LOVE it! Not sure how far off the rails it will get but the introduction of the supernatural aspects gives me Passions vibes and I’m enjoying it so far.

Stumbled across this montage, this for me is Passions at its best.

So happy to hear they are doing a 20th Anniversary documentary on Passions. I know the show gets a lot of crap from the daytime community but the fact they had that fan festival 2 years ago in LA and now this proves there’s still an audience. Wishing the cast success and looking forward to this doc, should be interesting considering it was the red headed step child of soaps.

Are you guys still watching Riverdale? How do you feel about the current season?

I think we can all agree most of the PASSIONS recasts got worse and worse but I’m curious where you guys fall with Travis Schuldt and Eric Martsolf. Natalie Zea’s version of Gwen was the only time I sympathized for that character . So unfortunate David Bailey passed. I preferred him as Alistair. John Reilly’s portrayal seemed to cartoonish and at that point I wish they had left the character faceless. Chrystee Pharris seems like a nice person but boy did her version of Simone grate me. Preferred Lena Cardwell.

Agreed...that interview makes me question even more why Lena Cardwell left the show now.

I posted this in the “actors that were involved in real life” thread but figured it was worth posting here as well. Last week on The Real Showcast, Jade Harlow and Chrystee Pharris did an interview together where they talked about there time on the show. Jade revealed she was engaged to Bruce Michael Hall during the show and got matching wedding band tattoos. She just started the tattoo removal process. The two also dropped additional tea and talked a lot about there time on Passions, check it out... https://www.podbean.com/media/share/pb-tdwkc-aa3531

I think it’s so odd that no one, including Tracey Ross who was romantically involved with him for a period of time in real life, has no idea where Ben Masters is. It was mentioned during the recent Passions Fan Festival and Galen mentioned it with his most recent interview with Soap Opera Digest. He apparently lives on a boat somewhere, hopefully he’s safe wherever he is.

Like other soaps, Passions had its fare share of celebrity fans from Julia Roberts who got Emma Roberts hooked on it, to Lin-Manuel Miranda and so many others. Well Angie Thomas, the author of ‘The Hate U Give’ and ‘On the Come Up’ is also a huge fan and got a surprise visit from some of the cast members today at her LA book signing at Barnes & Noble... And here’s VIDEO of the tearful moment she sees them... https://mobile.twitter.com/angiecthomas/status/1096975356349665280

Haha, yes @pdm1974, PSNS often made the classic lines section of SOD

Had the show got a 10th year I can’t imagine anyone headwriting the show except perhaps Ron Carlivati. However, I would imagine Marlene Clark Poulter and Darrell Ray Thomas would have been promoted instead of moving to DAYS.

For a show so bad, what do you think kept it around for 8 years on NBC and then a pickup for its 9th season on DirecTV? Why didn’t they can this bad show sooner, especially for the way people dragged PSNS, people had it made up in their minds after day 1 and the first few weeks it was “trash,” how’d it survive? Surely being owned by NBC can only get you so far. PSNS had a loyal fan base and cult following, but the overall audience wasn’t big so I’m just curious how a show deemed so bad by the soap audience could last nearly a decade?

Those first 4 weeks were slow and still establishing stories and characters. I had never seen the beginning until the reruns on Sci-Fi channel. To me, Passions was at its best between 2000-2003 hands down.

The PSNS nerd in me had to let you guys know surprisingly the second day came fast in episode 5 (that Friday during premiere week) half way through the episode. It's sad how many times I've rewatched this show to know that lol, but it stands out to me because it was the first time I had seen the day change midway through an episode on a soap and the words "the next morning in Harmony" appear. Granted we all know how slow the days will go in the future lol

Yes, this was recent at the Passions Fan Event they had 2017 in LA. No but I recall that spinoff as well which was Harmony High (I suspect same concept as Salem High.) Reilly was on a roll back then because NBC also approached him about adapting the book “Hidden Passions,” prequel based on the soap set 20 years earlier, for primetime. So unfortunate none of these came to pass.

As a heads up guys, this YouTube channel: https://m.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL1CFAFE0931459B4D , has the same episodes in ‘full’ without you having to watch the episodes in ‘parts’ and having to click to another video to finish the episodes (with the exception of the 1st episode!) There’s a lot of fan discussion in the comments as well but beware of spoilers if it’s your first time viewing.

Here’s an old TV Guide clipping I found from early in the shows run. I was also reading how Passions was consistently the #1 soap with girls 12-17, unfortunately that demo means nothing to advertisers or its chances of not being canceled, but I fell into that category at the time and my friends and I were hooked.

Is it safe to include Castleton here now? The cast of Passions mentioned during their fan festival two summers ago that a spin off was in the works to have Colton Shires return and focus on the younger set in Castleton where Charity and Faith lived but no more info has been revealed since and I imagine they dropped the idea?

Passions may not have been a huge ratings success but it had its cult following and apparently New Yorkers loved it...