Broderick

They can't afford to give Alex Cheeks a contract; they tied up their payroll allocation on the award-winning Tomas. Real Estate Barbie is mighty cute, and I always enjoy her scenes with Dani Dupree & Miss Nicole. Real genuineness among them. I'm glad Carlton finally got a thin shred of personality today. It's sorta a shame that Dapnee Duplaix is wasted on a "relationship" with some recurring character who's barely even given a storyline crumb.

That's an excellent example of a line that should've never seen the light of day. I'll fix it for them. VERNON: Which Jackie? ANITA: Jackie Tyree -- the Anita Williams Impersonator from Vegas. VERNON: I hope you told her she shouldn't have conducted that --- ANITA: What's the point? It's too late. Dani and Andre are married. VERNON: They were drunk. ANITA: What we need to concentrate on now is getting the marriage annulled. She offered us an open invitation to come see her act the next time we're in Las Vegas.

The same thing happened to Chelsea that happened to Martin a few months earlier. Neither of them (RhonniRose or Brandon) was very good in the first weeks of the show. Someone on the board pointed out in the initial episodes that Brandon Claybon delivered all his lines like a Southwest Airlines flight attendant telling us where the emergency exits are located in the aircraft 😉 ) Chelsea wasn't much better. Late in the spring, Martin was given a storyline in which he was required to express fear, desperation, anger, remorse -- sometimes all in the same scene. At times he did fine, and at other times he was pretty awful. But by the time the storyline came to its temporary conclusion, he was like a whole new actor. He found his character, he found his range, and now he exudes the confidence of an actor who knows what he's doing. Chelsea got the same treatment during the kidnapping storyline. She had to express a host of different emotions all in the same scenes. It was a tough job. Sometimes she was good; other times she came across as an absolute amateur. But by the time she was rescued and brought home, RhonniRose's confidence in her character and in her talent range had increased 100%. Those two storylines were the best experiences that could have possibly happened to those two actors. They were "baptized by fire", and they survived it. I hope we're not subjected to a storyline like that with Alex Alegria. lol. It won't do any good.

Leslie called it wrong. This hare-brained fool ain't a "Bad Bunny". He's just a plain ole Dumb Bunny.

I liked his stories, but Douglas Marland's dialogue was often laughable. ("I ran into Lisa earlier, and she said she'd talked with Bob and Kim, who mentioned to her that Frannie had learned from Kirk that Duncan and Shannon are out of town until tomorrow" -- instead of just saying, "I think Duncan and Shannon are out of town.")

I cringed at that one too. I believe literary folks call it "over-writing", when extra words are haphazardly thrown in, making the sentence (or question) clumsy, awkward, and repetitious. In theory, the dialogue writer should've caught that line when he reviewed his completed script with an editing pen. Then the script went to a "script editor", who should've caught it if the dialogue writer didn't. Next, it went to a member of the headwriting team, who definitely should've caught it. And lastly, it went to the director, who would've scratched out the clunky, unnecessary words immediately. But somehow, on Beyond the Gates, those glaring errors often slide right through the entire editing process and end up on our TV screens. Hopefully, they'll become more proficient in fixing them.

BIG BILL: "So ... why aren't you with your nearly-incestuous, underage husband?" 🤣 I'm mighty impressed with that little boy who's playing Donnell McBride. I wish TPTB would suggest he give some acting lessons to that grown-ass Tomas. I'm sure we'll find out more about Hayley's "pregnancy" as time passes. In fact, if she was lying about it (and I still suspect she was), that might ultimately be what pushes Bill back to Dani Dupree for Round #2. I can always find something to complain about with this show (June's warp speed move from the underpass to the soul food cafe), but typically they never drop a storyline thread. Even immediately after Doug's death, when Vanessa was in the police station with Jacob, she was being assured that if any foul play was involved in Doug's wreck, Jacob would crack the case. She said, "What about Laura Peterson? Did you solve that?" Everything that's happened seems to still be on the writers' minds and comes back into play at some point.

Good Ole Banneker U has been hovering in the background since the first day. It's a make-believe HBCU in Washington. Ted and Madison both got their medical degrees there. Big Bill got his law degree there. Vernon is an instructor there and is on the board of trustees. Vanessa's kids go there. And we're being led to believe Jacob might have a close relative who's on the staff. I'm expecting we'll soon be seeing Good Ole Banneker U, because back in February, during their "get to know Beyond the Gates" specials, they kind of teased that the university would come into play later on in the series. It's named for Benjamin Banneker, and they made a point of letting us know that, along with Orphey Gene's being based on the Florida Ave Grill in DC.

The scenes between Smitty & Martin were very honest & real. (Brandon Claybon has really stepped up his game in the past 4 or 5 months.)

The girls playing Eva & Kat are just acting their asses off, and that poor guy playing Tomas stands there looking like he's wondering if he can beat rush hour traffic on I-85 when he leaves the studio, or if she go around by I-285. Bless his heart.

After Eva gave Tomas that glowing 5-star review and he sauntered into the shower, I was hoping she would roll her eyes.

Well, in Eva's defense, she did TRY shooing Kat out the door before her 5-Star Review With Droopy Eyelids wandered aimlessly back into the room. And was Vanessa in the bathroom while Allison monitored the (dull) ChelseaKat QVC Expo? Vanessa was talking to Jacob at his desk, I looked away for a minute, suddenly Allison was sitting there babbling about the Eyes of God, and next thing I knew Vanessa was back again & Allison was gone. I feel like Jacob got whiplash during that.

I find it "entertaining", but only because I suspect Leslie will soon have a financial awakening that causes her to crash & burn. This storyline is in no way reflective of real life or how "rich people live". Assuming the Jarvis family owns a "modest" $5 million mansion, the bank carrying the mortgage will expect Leslie to put approximately 20% down at closing ($1,000,000). That's every cent Leslie ever had! She'll have nothing left for renovations. In fact, she'll have nothing left to buy Ramen noodles with, until she receives her next trust distribution. But as we know, Leslie told Vanessa to "double my offer". If she offered $10 million for a house that appraises for $5 million, the bank holding the mortgage will expect her pay approximately $6 million at closing. She obviously doesn't have access to that type of money; nor does she have any method to acquire an additional loan for the down payment. Meanwhile, she's also purchased a condo for Eva, and made various financial promises to Peaches. Plus, she's got a hotel bill to pay. Not to mention, she threw $50,000 in Ted's face on day one, plus she's (theoretically) had to pay-off that $50,000 credit card bill she owed for the wigs. On top of THAT, she has a substantial monthly bill at the country club, and in a matter of months, the board of directors will be looking for Installment #1 of the multi-million gift she's promised to the club for the new building to be named in her honor. I think we have to view this as "dark humor" that's leading to financial disaster. If Michele Val Jean believes there's any semblance of reality in this storyline, she's sadly mistaken, and she takes the viewers for financial ignoramuses. The only possible "out" I see for Leslie in this "negative net worth" scenario is a bail-out from Joey Armstrong, which of course will make Joey the de facto beneficiary of Barbara's trust, until his loan to Leslie is repaid in full, which could take years & years. (And that's assuming Donnell McBride doesn't take Joey to the cleaners first, per the previews for next week.)

No sir, Leslie will have no luck at all securing a bank loan using trust assets as collateral, because she obviously holds no ownership interest in the trust assets. The assets of the trust belong to the trustee, not to the beneficiary. No one (aside from possibly some shady, high-risk loan shark) will grant Leslie a loan under those circumstances. Bank loan officers are savvy enough to understand that if the trustee misappropriates trust assets, there will be no future distributions to the beneficiary, and the bank's loan will go into default. After a lengthy lawsuit against the beneficiary & the trustee, the bank will likely receive pennies on the dollar, which won't even cover the bank's legal fees. Not worth the risk to the bank. ALSO, in the case of the trust Anita established, if another child of Barbara appears on the scene, Leslie's share of distributions will be instantly diminished by 50%. If a third child of Barbara should appear, Leslie becomes a 1/3 beneficiary, rather than a 100% beneficiary. Again, not worth the risk to the bank. I'm only mentioning this, because I serve as trustee for four different trusts and have years of experience dealing with it. The trust document is clear that I as the trustee can utilize the trust assets as collateral for a loan, which I've done on several occasions -- such as to pay property taxes, make a large repair to a building, or to advance a distribution to a beneficiary who's in desperate need of cash. The bank's happy to give ME the money, because I'm the trustee, and as such, I'm the owner of the trust assets. I've seen various beneficiaries go to the bank and try this with zero success. A bank will typically only lend money to a borrower using assets owned by the borrower as collateral. Leslie's got NO collateral; the trustee holds the collateral. The show failed in its research of this issue. All we can do is shake our heads & realize that writers often don't understand what they're writing.

Ha! Thanks, I hadn't seen this. I really enjoyed what Donnell was saying in the preview for next week. If his dad drank himself to oblivion in the casino and was then killed in a fiery car crash, the family would definitely have a wrongful death claim against the casino, the bartender, and the man who brought the drinks to the table (Marcel). Will be fun to see how this plays out. The Cheeks kid looks SHOCKINGLY like I'd imagined Vanessa & Doug's son would be.

While most of us here were complaining that the "Chelsea is Kidnapped" story arc came out of nowhere practically, skipped most of the beats, and ended too quickly, I stumbled into a Facebook discussion where everyone agreed that it should have been completed in ONE day instead of five. lol. The "short attention span issue" definitely is at play. A lot of viewers now seem to want a solution to every issue in an hour.

The ONLY reason it occurs to me is Bill Bell's quote about the expansion to an hour. Bell always said, "I resisted the expansion as long as I could, because I preferred the half hour format. Eventually, in 1979, the word came down to me that the show was going to an hour, and it would go WITH me, or it would go WITHOUT me." We can see exactly how that happened. CBS told Columbia, "We no longer want to license a half hour show from Columbia Television. We want to license a full hour. We would prefer it to be Y&R. If it can't be Y&R due to Bill Bell's resistance, we'll drop Y&R and license another show instead." Columbia Television then went to the executive producer of Y&R (John Conboy) and said, "The show is going to an hour by February of 1980. MAKE that happen. We co-own this show with Bell Dramatic Serial Company, and WE license this show to CBS. It's OUR decision to expand it to an hour. You either convince Bell to go along with our decision, or you fire his ass and hire a writer who will do as he's told." That explains Bell's quote about the "word coming down" to him. And it explains why he and John Conboy developed such a contentious working relationship that virtually sabotaged the show and which lasted until John Conboy left in 1982.

Let's add (briefly) that once Conboy and Kenney were BOTH gone from the show, Bell permanently took the title "Senior Executive Producer" so that he could no longer be "bossed around" by an executive producer. That's clearly an issue that had haunted him throughout Conboy's reign as exec producer from 1973 to 1982, and during Kenney's reign as exec producer from 1982 to 1987. Once Bell was the "senior executive producer" and Ed Scott was the executive producer, Bell was able to tell the stories that he WANTED to tell without interference from an executive producer who theoretically held the power to fire the headwriter. And of course that's when the show stopped intermittently hitting #1 and became a permanent #1.

@kalbir I believe if the story is ever told honestly & completely, we'll find Wes Kenney was responsible for the Golden Touch storyline, the Sleazy's Bar storyline, and the Mr. Anthony storyline. I don't think CBS, as the licensee, was in a position to dictate storylines from 1982-1986, but obviously the licensing company/co-owner (Screen Gems/Columbia/Sony) was in a position to do so. And one would assume the Columbia/Sony edict was delivered to the writer (Bell) by the executive producer (Kenney). Bell had obviously written some action/adventure storylines earlier while Conboy was producing (Rose DeVille and the Slavery Ring in the summer of 1979, Rose Deville and the Lingerie Models in the final months of 1979, the [terrible] New World Commune storyline in the summer of 1980, to name just a few.) I'll always believe Columbia Pics wanted MORE of those storylines, and Kenney delivered the news to Bell. Those types of storylines obviously weren't what Bell WANTED to tell, but he generally managed to infuse them with enough character development to make them tolerable, and they kept Y&R from being completely static and stationary during the period of time when Luke and Laura were "on the run", Jesse & Angie were "on the run", Bo & Hope were "on the run", etc.

I've never read the ATV article. Here's what I do know. (1) Kenney fixed the lights. I know that because I could see it with my own eyes. In early 1982, it was often difficult even to tell which set the characters were in. The actors were lit (beautifully), but the sets themselves were merely indistinguishable, murky pools of darkness. By the springtime, when Kenney was settled in, we could suddenly see the Cheshire cats on Kay Chancellor's mantelpiece, we could see the designs on vases, we could see the artwork on the walls, we could tell what color the sofa cushions were and what color the walls were. We could see sunlight and shadows filtering through curtains and blinds. The actors were still beautifully lit, but now we could tell what environment they were in, which had been impossible in Conboy's final year. (2) He updated the taping process. I know this because Wes Kenney said he did. He said that when he arrived, the show was still being taped in sequential order, with the cameras moving from set to set, and then back again. He realized how inefficient that was. He started taping ALL the scenes in Paul's office, then all the scenes at Jonas's club, then all the scenes at the Newman ranch, etc., and then editing them into the order dictated by the script. This allowed for more interesting segues and cutaways between scenes, and it also streamlined the taping process for the actors, the director, and the set crew. (3) He injected himself more into the storytelling than John Conboy did. Eric Braeden admitted in an interview, "I stayed on the show, because Wes made it possible. I could take Wes aside and tell him, 'This scene isn't working.' He would allow me to change it. Now Bill Bell obviously knew Wes was allowing me to change things, but he never got upset because he knew the scenes the scenes that aired were better than the scenes he'd written." We also know that as soon as Wes Kenney arrived, several of the dead-end storylines were abruptly terminated. We can either believe (a) Bill Bell woke up one morning and realized what was working and what was not, or (b) Wes Kenney said, "Bill, if you want me to produce this sh!t, here's what you've gotta do to make it workable." I'm 100% sure it was (b) rather than (a). (4) Bill Bell did NOT LIKE Wes Kenney but respected him. When Bell was asked about John Conboy, he said, "It's better not to say anything about him. Let's talk about someone else." (Obviously by early 1982, Bell hated John Conboy and, most likely, had hated him ever since the show's expansion to an hour in 1980.) Next, Bell was asked about Wes Kenney. Bell said, "He was a great director, a good producer. He and I did NOT see eye-to-eye on many things. I was in Chicago, and he was in Los Angeles, and ... Well, I don't want to say anything bad about him. Next." (I believe his issues with Kenney related to Paragraph #3 above.)

I was dreading Vanessa's reaction to the news about Doug. Very often, actors take an opportunity like that for sheer histrionics, with lots of melodramatic weeping, wailing, and gnashing of teeth. She didn't. She was more about Disbelief, Quiet Regret, and Deep Remorse. She's REALLY good. I don't blame Miss Nicole for getting so snippy with Andre. The scenes were more like, "I'd like to snatch a KNOT in Ted right now for sleeping with that slut again, but since he's not here, I'll just take it out on YOU, Andre." Jacob is awfully Eagle Scouty, but he's definitely not a dummy, and Marcel knows it.

I probably should've "spoilered" it, but they popped him right into the credits for all the world to see. (They also gave the Anita Williams Impersonator a character name -- "Miss Jackie Tyree".) Oh, Doug could always pop up later, I guess. But that last shot of him Wednesday, his eyes were all blurry, and he seemed very confused. Marcel had been bringing him drinks. I believe the drinks had a sedative in them, they knocked him off, put him in a wrecked car by a tree, and set it on fire.

I looked up the Donnell actor after seeing his name in the credits today. He's an Atlanta kid named Alexander Cheeks. And he looks like we would expect Vanessa and Doug's son to look. He's a shade darker than Vanessa and about two shades lighter than Doug. I think Doug is deader than a hammer. (The reason he was "burned beyond recognition" is Marcel Malone killed him in the casino and then staged the car wreck. He had to be burned so the autopsy won't detect his actual cause of death. Just my humble opinion.)

What an episode. Yes, Dani is an utter lunatic, but when she does something ridiculous, she's awfully cute. Loved her advice to Big Bill ("Go home and cut up some bananas for your child bride's Frosted Flakes!'), and his response ("Your new husband was still playing with blocks while we were on our honeymoon!") And the whole deal in which she "critiqued" the quality of her leaked wedding photo. I always had a suspicion the annulment would get "delayed" indefinitely while Dani and Andre make Big Bill and Dull Ashley jealous. I expected Vanessa to go over-the-top with her reaction to Doug's death. She didn't. The girl who plays Vanessa is REALLY good. Do y'all look at the closing credits? The name "Donnell McBride" and the name "Peaches" jumped out at me today when the cast list rolled.

It doesn't even have to be an "elaborate" office. When we saw the footage of Jan 6 2021, we repeatedly saw the office of Nancy Pelosi (and she was the Speaker of the House at the time). Her office wasn't anything gigantic or ornate. It was like an insurance agent's office with a flag in it, lol. If they would stick Martin's young Bubble in a little "junior congressman" office, it would open a TREMENDOUS amount of storyline for him (and Smitty), involving fictional bills, colleagues, corruption, compromising, maneuvering, negotiating, and campaigning. If they're frightened of "party affiliation", that's silly. I think MOST of us probably assume Martin (as a young Black male from the East Coast whose grandfather was a civil rights pioneer) is most likely a Democrat. Just identify him as a Democrat, and roll with it.