FrenchBug82

12 hours ago, soapfan770 said:

But on the flip side I’ve seen a few people here and other places suggest the upcoming  “big shocking plot twist” is that Ridge is Eric’s bio son after all.

People speculate about a lot of things but none of them are "unheard of" in daytime.
Ridge being Eric's son - besides being pointless if Stephanie is not around to react to it and pointless because the fact he isn't hasn't mattered for story at all for more than a decade - would be well within the bounds of having been done tons of time, even on this very show.

The only speculation I saw that doesn't read as something as having been done before was

but I would be confused where this would be coming from and what they would achieve with it other than

So I don't believe that rumor either.
I'll admit though they got me curious. It'd better be something fun AND actually shocking if they want to live up to their own hype.

14 hours ago, soapfan770 said:

No Bridget to be completely stunned/floored by Brooke & Deacon’s night together while harboring old feelings for Deacon herself?

Yes. I understand why Bell thinks Bridget has run her course but her absence during the current story is a HUGE missed opportunity. Hoping the upcoming cameo gives us a chance of a conversation between Bridget and Hope.
B&B has flaws but it has a fun history it could do a lot to write good dramatic soap scenes with heart for if it tried. I am all for camp but give us some character-building bones from time to time!

Let's be honest with ourselves here: the possession is not going to be a story with a beginning, middle and end.
It is going to be another open-ended tool for RC, just like the face masks, to be able to tell any story he feels like telling without any limitation of plausibility or characterization.
He is using the "Devil" as a get-out-of-jail free card to write things happening that he is too lazy to make happen slowly and organically based on proper storytelling and well-developed characters with motives.
The Devil Did It is so much easier.

19 hours ago, Soapsuds said:

Seriously the Craig and Leo story is terrible and very cringe worthy. It shouldn't have been told. This was about a man in his later years coming out. There should be a serious tone to it but instead it's treated as a joke.

I wrote this two months ago when the story was still a rumor.

I mean... Did I call it or what?

I am not saying this to self-congratulate myself. It is just because it was so entirely predictable and one of the reasons I got mad as soon as I heard it floated.
Someone who had put some thought and heart into wanting to seriously and compellingly tell the story of an older man coming out wouldn't have picked Craig from his decade-long absence from the show to do it. 
This is about KS being gay and out; that's all there was to the genesis of this mess and then he wanted to shoehorn the entire gay scene into it since Beyond Salem was well-received in that way.

And as happy as I am to get Will/Sonny back, I am not optimistic he is intending to write actual proper stories for them that do not involve sex or hijinks.

12 minutes ago, Paul Raven said:

All he does is take a few potshots at the 'previous regime' (Mal Young?) who wanted to diminish Victor

This obsession he has with writers wanting to "diminish" Victor - something he has complained about in interview under various regimes for twenty years - is why we get the colossally boring Victor of today.
He doesn't lose, he doesn't have emotions or weakness, he knows everything and is always three steps ahead, he saves the day in storylines not his own.

There are no challenges, no layers, no rooting interest. And a powerful rich bully without any difficulty easily comes off as an a*****e. 

He is a dull caricature. I lay that squarely down at EB's antiquated notion of what makes a man "a man".
And at Heather Tom leaving. Victoria slapping Victor in anger then recoiling with shock at what she had done was the apex of what that relationship should be - and what the actual rivalry of his latter years, loving and yet complicated should have been.

I will reuse my assessment of of Jamey and the SaRenee story for RC and the gay stuff because it fits and I think that's why these two are seeing eye to eye.

His jokes are not witty lines. They are "Look how witty I am" lines.
RC is not wink-winking at the audience with references and horny content to connect with the gays. He is Lucille Bluth-winking at the overall audience that he gets to write the gay references and horny content and that makes him cool and savvy.

What he is doing is the equivalent of two gay men loudly yelling GURL at each other while making crude comments about the guys passing by and making sure to reference RPDR every three sentences so that the basic white bitch girl sitting one row behind them can hear them and want them to be the Will to her Grace.
 

1 hour ago, Chris 2 said:

Yep - agreed on season 3. I think 2 and 3 are the strongest of the series. Bob McCullough was there running things and it showed. He left after season 3, and his guidance was missing in season 4, which is still fun but veers a little too far off course from the original premise.

I also love Emma, a breath of fresh air when it comes to soap opera characters. And I like how Emma is the one who Angela really has a soft spot for. She’s never vicious to Emma the way she is to Lance and Julia.

I am a horrible person but to me Angela's kindness to Emma already read more as low-expectations while she was tough on Julia and Lance because she knew their potential and wanted them to live up to it.

2 hours ago, Vee said:

Lenz was not on for one day. She had a prominent role in a major story and both the magazines and fans had enough time to take notice in print back then, without much Internet. There are many other short-termers who have been given contract roles over the last 50+ years. I can go on as long as you'd like.

People who have been on shows have been rehired in other parts later plenty of times indeed.
However I just don't believe whatever happened before would/will happen today for these actresses.

We have the same set of facts but it is just one of these rare occasions where I take the more cynical side of the argument

In the end it doesn't matter because, even if I were correct, they shouldn't be expected to pass on an opportunity now in the risky hope some better contract role might come later. 

So let's enjoy having them on-screen for a bit and if they rock on, that they will indeed catch someone's eye and get a larger meatier part later. For at least a couple of them  I'd love nothing more.

2 hours ago, Vee said:

I don't think it closes the door. No one would blink twice if Hartley or Garita returned in a permanent role. Chloe Lanier started out on this show as Young Pat Spencer, which got her Nelle not long after due to fans loving her performance.

I hear what you are saying but all these examples featured performers doing a one-day mini-role, not a temporary recast of major character.

Impossible? Of course not. Not in an era where ME and RH can be on their third role in a row.
But I don't think it would happen with actresses that are not buddy-buddy with producers. I think they are burning their shot.
But hey happy to be proven wrong on that one.

36 minutes ago, Cat said:

Almost a waste of Priscilla Garita's potential. She did some great work as Gabi on SuBe. Really.

She did.
I am having the same thought about a lot of good actresses taking temp roles lately: her, Lindsay, Karla M....
I guess they want jobs but this closes the door on them getting more permanent gigs and that's a shame.

In case people were wondering why Kristian Alfonso's character was Latina and Ana-Alicia's Italian, his "How could it be plagiarism? Of course the vineyard owners were mostly Italian and the foreman was Mexican" remark should clarify where he was coming from.
It was the 80s and it probably wasn't malicious. But there is a mindset

I love Italy.

The land where porn stars post fangirling pictures of herself meeting Ronn Moss at a party on Instagram and she doesn't need to explain who he is.

Link is SFW

https://www.instagram.com/p/Bj1ZaFKAj3i/

This SaRenee story is not JG paying homage to Renee. It is JG paying homage to himself for remembering Renee.
It is not him telling a story about a character; it is him writing a story so that we would tell the story of him knowing so much about that character and the show.
Not only it stinks as a story but it reeks of the self-satisfied self-indulgence that led to it being written in the first place and there are few worst crimes for a writer imho.

My first thought when I saw the news, which I kinda was expecting, was that three months is really a very short period of time to leave to a show like this to both wrap its current storylines and characters in a satisfying way while giving it an ending it deserves with cameos and a larger sense of closure.
I thought they'd get a bit longer time to prepare. This seems cruel on many levels.

I agree with @Khan that if they were going to kill Maggie, it should have at least tied to something that would drive story for the entire rest of the season.
Since they wanted to transform FC into a noir-ish different kind of show, this was the perfect set-up to provide motive for Richard - better than that insta-girlfriend - and some kind of rooting interest in things being resolved for the audience.

Instead killing her in such a tragically stupid, almost mundane way, felt intentionally humiliating to the character. We were discussing it recently regarding Linda in the Knots Landing thread. There are just deaths that happen in such a way that you can't help but feel decision-maker wanting to just twist the knife a tad more than necessary.

 

7 hours ago, Khan said:

At first, the show seemed to be setting up Julia as their answer to DALLAS' Sue Ellen - which would have been great to see, except, I don't think Abby Dalton had enough gravitas as an actor to pull off an alcoholism storyline.

I think Julia was salveagable even after they made her Carlo's murderer - which was a relative surprise as she was a main cast member. But they decided to double her down into the cliche crazy criminal instead of using the mental health issues to rebound on more interesting material.
I really wish the fact both Angela's daughters were mentally... special had been explored in a lot more depth and layers. Jane Wyman was an acting powerhouse and the few times she got to play Angela's heartbreak it was great. I think her having to reckon more as to why the two daughters she raised ended up having issues - while the son she didn't ended up just like him - should have been a stronger theme rather than a light subtext.
Instead they wrote Julia off and used Emma for comic relief.

7 hours ago, Khan said:

She was smart to get two contracts...but that show, lol.

Such an incredibly smart woman. 
Another ridiculous setting-money-on-fire aspect that hurt the show was that Michael Filerman was brought back for the beginning-of-the-end Season 8 because he had a co-creator credit for his work in the very early episodes of the first season and while he had had nothing to do with the show all that time - and as his creative choices in S 8 would prove he had not even watched it - he was being paid all that time some kind of co-creator fee.
CBS felt they were paying him to do nothing so they figured they would make him run the show to at least earn what they were paying him. 
Whatever creative missteps the show made, the business side of production was even more incompetent.

My favorite thing about these stupid deaths (Melissa, Maggie) is that both of them happened in the first few episodes of their respective seasons so both actresses who had negotiated a clever contract ended up being paid an entire season for not working.
And so did Jane Wyman in Season 9 but for other reasons.

The show was basically setting money on fire to make itself worse.

I am in a huge minority when I say that I don't think there was nothing intrinsically wrong with KA and Pilar as an idea.
The character could have been a fine addition had Melissa not been abruptly killed off right when she was introduced (which was the biggest crime) and had they used Pilar as the second-tier character she ought to have been.
But as far as "Lance's love interest of the week" go she was one of the more believable ones.
And I would have loved to have seen what they could have done with a Melissa vs Pilar battle.

1 hour ago, AbcNbc247 said:

Thomas finding out what Sheila did has taken this story in a good direction. I was actually interested in today's episode.

I agree. I like that it is not going totally expectedly.

But Sheila blurting it out like this? Hum. Such a contrivance.
KB sells "bitterness leads her to lose control" very well but it still makes Sheila look like an idiot, which considering the amount of secrets she has kept in her life is kind of lame.

But Ill take it.

2 hours ago, Cat said:

Not gonna lie, I loved loved loved the character of Grant.

Really?

Genuinely curious what you liked about him.
He always felt undefined to me. 
 

38 minutes ago, Chris 2 said:

Did Lilimae pay any kind of price for running over Chip?I recall she got off easy.

If I remember correctly, it was one of those put-her-in-a-psych-ward for a few episodes kind of deal.

45 minutes ago, dio said:

Steffy having been Phoebe for almost 1-2 years worth of story would be a pretty huge/hilarious twist, imo. 

That's the only way it would make sense. 
I mean, it *wouldn't* but from the POV of the thing they are trying to hype that would be unexpected alright.

Would be a bit weird to launch a double-role story for JMW (in a vacuum, she is totally Bell's pet so he would) right before she goes on pregnancy leave but I agree that the whole Phoebe name drop AND the entire weird insistence Thomas and Steffy kids have for reuniting their parents might not turn out to be innocent and is intended to set something up.
I remember that KA is the first one who started mentioning the twist so I imagine Taylor is involved in the story.

Of course if it is Phoebe who fell in love with Finn, the way Bell would manage to screw us over is if it means Steffy, wherever she is, is still hung up on Liam.
But please let it be Morgan who is responsible for this. Story-wise it would make huge sense. But they are going to make it Sheila, aren't they?

44 minutes ago, Melroser said:

Isn't Jack Wagner between Annika Noelle and Rena Sofer? Not next to Denise Richards. I know it's too much to ask, but can't Nick and Quinn just have one scene together where she makes fun of him for loving...Brooke? Shades of Eve and Peter about Amanda (Melrose). Otherwise, I don't really care about Nick's return. 

I had forgotten the Melrose Place connection.
YES! This would be fun fanservice.

I am also glad to get Winsor back briefly as a palate cleanser after the ill-advised Ingo recast.
Whatever I thought of Nick at the time, I am actually also glad Nick is getting acknowledged here. After driving, for better or for worse, story for so long, it just feels odd to me he is never mentioned.

Looking at the picture though, I hope JW is OK. I hate to comment on appearance but he is not looking well.
AJ is looking fantastic and pretty much everybody is looking very sweel.

On 2/27/2022 at 1:21 PM, soapfan770 said:

He’s not the only one of course; one of many examples is Rena Sofer, who had the show killer label as well in the late 90’s and early 00’s. 

In recent times, the wonderful Paget Brewster also had to carry that anvil until Criminal Minds.

I'll only accept Phoebe as alive (they shouldn't have killed her off in the first place) if Morgan has her.
Just because I am still fangirling over Sarah Buxton all these years later and I'd love to see a visit from her.

But I don't think that's it. Return from the dead is pretty run of the mill and whatever they are trying to hype up is supposed to be a first for daytime.

Ironically Falcon Crest has my favorite last scene of a primetime soap so there you have it. Their last season was considerably worse than even KL Season 13 had been. An embarassment. 

The KL finale was actually decent enough. Abby being behind the takeover attempt was a fun twist and her visit was definitely the highlight. The last scene worked too with the right tone.

All the things that were wrong with the finale are the things that were wrong with S13-14. Some of these side characters needed their stories wrapped too, whatever we thought of them, but I would have wrapped them up in the penultimate episode and let the last hour be fully on the "Major Cast" and give us longer scenes between them.

One really stupid thing that has driven me nuts for twenty five years: the Abby/Paige interaction in the finale is great. But when Abby asks Paige if she is still sleeping with Greg, Paige responds: "Once every morning, once every night, twice on Saturday".
Color me stupid but if she sarcastically says she sleeps with him every morning and night then she is already saying she is sleeping with him twice every day, not just Saturday. It is supposed to be a clever line but it makes no sense.
Yes I am nitpicking.