Broderick

My biggest takeaway from 2025 on BTG is how well Karla Mosley & Daphnee Duplai have grown into leading ladies.

Probably what Ted should have said is, "Nicole, ole weird-ass Leslie is running around saying Vernon is having an affair with Sharon. Now, I believe she's wrong. But on the off-chance she's right, I wanted to let you know about it so you wouldn't think I'm keeping secrets from you. She's most likely wrong, though." How hard would that have been?

I really enjoyed the Christmas episode with Vernon singing "Joy to the World" and "Never Can Say Goodbye". (Hard to believe Dani & Beautiful even considered ruining Anita's Xmas with that silly third-hand account of Vernon's "affair" with Sharon. It's painful enough that LESLIE believed it, and even dumber that TED would believe Leslie's story, and downright RIDICULOUS that Nicole would believe Ted's testimony about it.) The payoff of Clifton Davis singing was probably worth the silliness of the circumstances though, I guess.

Ours always went up late, too -- because one of the kids (me 😆) insisted on keeping it up till January 6th for the wise men's arrival. Mama was afraid it would burn the house down if they decorated it in early December and left it up till Epiphany. Now that I'm an adult with my own place, we just wait and decorate it on Christmas Eve.

Meet your first! We brought our inside Sunday and plan to decorate it Wednesday afternoon. That'll give us our twelve days (plus one extra), which seems like more than enough to me. I'd be tired of it if it sat there from Thanksgiving till Epiphany.

They messed that up. Mrs. Bell isn't related to Irna. Bell often told the story about his introduction to Irna. He was working for a Chicago ad agency. He heard Irna might be looking for an assistant writer, as one of her writers was leaving. He called Irna's secretary and was advised to submit a sample script. He did. But the writer who was thinking of leaving decided to stay. Several months later (or years later), he crossed paths with a lady who said she was Irna Phillips's niece. He said, "I sent your aunt a script one time, but nothing came of it." The niece said, "I believe she's looking for someone right now." The niece mentioned her conversation with William Bell to Irna, and Irna said, "If you see him again, tell him I need an assistant. I believe he's the boy who's married to the talk show hostess, and he sent me a script once." That time they connected, and she hired him.

No pushback from me. When there are TOO many female writers, the Lifetime movie effect generally begins creeping in. Needs more male input. A balance is always good.

Miss Nicole is perfect ... You nailed it; she's distant and kinda cold, but she's so pretty and so engaging that you can't help being drawn in.

If I were getting something delivered from Dooky Chase, I'd get the pompano or the veal panne -- not that damn ole gumbo. Winterfest hit all the right marks for me -- it's like those countless parties we ALL attend in early December -- overhyped during the planning, and then it's just a basic party where somebody gets drunk off their ass [in this case, Vanessa]. From a dramatic standpoint, I thought it served its purpose -- it highlighted Kat's isolation from her childhood & from the people she's loved all her life; it gave Leslie another chance to torment Laura & Mona; it showcased Bill's nostalgia for Dani Dupree & her family; it struck a note of jealousy in Theodore when he saw Beautiful enter the club with her new beau; and it started Beautiful's "healing process" from all the hurt she's felt since learning of Ted's betrayal. And best of all, it caused Drab Ashley to leave in an even more MOROSE mood than usual. My only complaint is that the writers seem to think we're as DUMB as Leslie about Vernon's meetings with Sharon. I thought it was clever to create a situation where Leslie gets the wrong idea and can potentially make a fool of herself, but the writers seem to think we're all as stupid as Leslie about a series of voice lessons. Hopefully, we ain't. One thing the writers have done well is consistently show us the kind of person Senator Dupree is. No sense in trying to trick US into thinking he's suddenly changed.

Having adult kids is the most interesting thing I see about him. Maybe Kat can trade-in that dud she's stuck with for one of Dr. Rollins's kids, lol.

I imagine the writers considered dramatizing the scene involving Madison, Chelsea, and Willow but decided it could easily backfire from a medical perspective. Either Willow would've had to go WAY over the top with her observations, or else her commentary would've come across to many viewers as completely reasonable, especially with Chelsea sitting there smiling & encouraging her, while Madison frowned in frustration. The end result, unless Willow was presented as TOTALLY bizarre, would've appeared that Michele Val Jean supported the position that a "smile and a crystal" are more effective than an antibiotic in clearing up an infection, and I don't believe that's the impression BTG hoped to give. In this case, it was probably better for everyone to discuss it afterwards to highlight that Willow is down in an internet rabbit hole, and Chelsea was encouraging it. As Anita said today, "I thought Aunt Melba was completely normal and fine in the brief amount of time I spent with her, but I realized Vernon and his mother had FAR more experience with her than I did."

I had nothing against Maurice Johnson, but I'm crazy about Keith D. Robinson. I believe he came along at a difficult time -- "after the damage to Ted had already been done", so to speak --- but I can't imagine anyone else in the role now.

Not at all. The entire storyline with Victor & Nikki wouldn't have happened with Erica Hope, lol. There was an undeniable chemistry in Braeden's "Dracula" character playing opposite Melody's "I-just-need-to-be loved" dingbat stripper/cultist/lingerie model. It wouldn't have flown with Erica Hope's more conniving, manipulative version of Nikki. The Nikki character's motivations softened, and she became someone we were (usually) rooting for when Miss Thomas took over in 1979.

🤣🤣

Gosh, I had no idea those two "actresses" were actually "TV people" until I came to the board. I assumed they were a pair of ghouls who'd auditioned for the role of June last summer, got passed over, and someone pulled out their headshots from a file folder and said, "Get these two on the phone & ask them to play the country club hags on December 1st."