FrenchBug82

And then there is the fact they *always* confessed.
Not that I want to encourage perps to try to get away with crime.
But why? VERY often Jessica's rationale, as sound and accurate as it was, really wouldn't have been nearly sufficient to win a jury trial in terms of evidence.
How is it that none of these people ever thought they should deny, deny, deny?

I could literally fill in pages of stories I would mention. I am an optimist but I'd say two-thirds of bad stories start with a pitch I might have said Maybe to.
For instance, 80% of the Bold and the Beautiful in the past ten years qualifies for me. Love a lot of the ideas on paper and then the weird pacing or weird narrative choices just ruins most of it.

Controversially, that's for instance how I feel about Eric's ED story. I find the idea of a story about an older man and a younger wife struggling with his ED and what it means for their marriage and his sense of self and her coping with how to handle her sexuality is in theory a really rich organic conflict for a couple that could make for great soap.
Instead it was played fast, cartoony and then when they added the layers of offensive with the cuckolded-by-a-black-man aspect there was no salvageable it
However, while people reacted badly as soon as it was floated, I think it could have had merits if told better as psychological soap rather than twist-and-affairs kind of soap.

But I have so many. 

As Vee said just yesterday or the day before in another thread, it almost NEVER works when a show brings back an actor as a different character (that two of the entries are such story is a good illustration).
So RKK's return was weird and ill-fated from the get-go.

BUT RKK does the charming blue-collar thing pretty well and I am not going to lie, I was softer on Bobby that I expected to be. He was charming and he and Vicky had good chemistry. The story was a bit paint-by-the-number but I was sort of buying them falling in love which was a hard task after Ryan.
BUT it really really REALLY went pear-shaped when they completely switched the character, who he was, what his backstory was, etc. mid-way through.
It made no sense, removed every minor investment we might have had in what they had taken months to carefully establish and turned the character into something that is less in RKK's wheelhouse. All that because a new headwriter wanted to tell a story they had previous pitched or written in a book and decided to shoehorn it onto this existing character.
Only to kill him off less than a year later despite having had Ryan The Ghost give his blessing to what was supposed to be Vicky's new great love. 
I think the initial bad idea would have been salvageable because RKK, whatever his real-life faults, is a great screen presence and a good actor. It is the twist that made it go down as a huge mistake imho.

To me the worst mistakes are the ones that are both obviously a mistake from the minute they came up in someone's mind, are unnecessary (meaning no actor-leaving etc) and are unsalvageable.
The only one of the stories I am familiar with on this list (roughly two-thirds) that qualifies is Erica's stealing Maria's baby. This should have been shut down as soon as it came out the HW's lips (same with the unabortion later).
Others, at least, can be defended in theory (I hate lookalikes but how could B&B not jump at a chance of having JJ back) or have aged well (like killing Philip)
 

2 minutes ago, Forever8 said:

Who some of the old characters would you bring back if you had the chance? 

Oh my. 
Looking at the list of the past few years I realize how many of them had exits that were definitive. And the characters whose nostalgia prompts my comment are probably too "old" now to be part of the younger set.

I would bring back Eddie actually. Not the best-written character in the world but I feel he has enough ties to the canvas AND with Curtis gone they might do better things with him.
I'd definitely bring back the Warner triplets - I was so sure Tess' death was the setup to return Sass because they look alike to me and Sass/Tom would have made some sense.
I'd love for them to go Hail Mary and return a character we saw grow up on screen: Hunter, Sophie, Daniel, Ulla (although if that means bringing back awful Vasa, probably not Ulla), etc. The characters are established and there'd be a small bonus for nostalgia purpose, like when they randomly brought Vinnie back and it really worked.

10 minutes ago, DRW50 said:

I think Tom was showcased enough and relatively popular enough to where they would have kept him if he didn't want to go.

Rewatching the old episodes also reminded me how similar the Maia/Mark relationship was to Maeve/Tom and it figures that another potential thread not picked up would have involved the good ol' lesbians-want-a-baby storyline with Tom as a donor.
Original? Maybe not. But I feel they should have found ways to make the Tom dynamic more of a problem for Nicole/Maeve.

1 hour ago, DRW50 said:

My guess is that the actor only ever signed up for a limited stint (as so many do with this show, it seems - I  notice Francesca is also on her way out)

I imagine there is a factor about the actors' wishes but the difference to me is that Sarah Wiseman's stint was announced to be a limited-time stint from the get-go because she is very busy outside the show.
A lot of these younger actors have nothing going on that could justify demanding only a one-year tenure.
I am very sceptical that of the two dozen leading characters they have cycled through the past three years, several would not have loved to have a steady gig (during a pandemic!) for a few more years than the year-to-18-months characters cycle through these days.

1 hour ago, DRW50 said:

it did give an unintended false impression about how long Tom would be there. 

Worth noting that the official SS Facebook page had a "Do you think Tom will be back?" post the day after his exit.

Maybe I am reading too much into it but that would seem a strange thing to tease if they were not fully leaving the door open with the actor.

1 hour ago, DRW50 said:

I thought it was kind of clever that Tom, who started out as a liar and schemer, now reformed, sees through the incoming liar  and schemer in Jack's life,

While that particular note worked, I actually hated the insta-reconciliation between Tom and Jack. It rang so false.
When they were briefly pushing the Amelie custody issue, Maeve of all people asked Jack of all people to talk Tom out of it saying: "If you can't, then no one else can". How in the hell do they figure? They had been reconciled for a hot minute by that point. The Jack fluffing makes me dislike the character more than he deserves.
But I did like Tom spotting Hamish for what he is.
Funnily enough just yesterday I was rewatching old Shorty episodes on YouTube and they had a similar line during the Jai-cheating-on-Maia affair where Mark responds to Jai scoffing that he doesn't know whether she slept with Dylan or not: "Never kid a kidder, Jai".

1 hour ago, DRW50 said:

Regarding Dawn, I assume she is still there mostly because the actress is happy to stay put, but I do feel like she has been showing her age (not physically) of late.

That's exactly the problem. I don't mind a character that starts off as immature and irritatingly goofy lasting - the actress is good and Dawn is likeable enough. It is just that she has not grown up. They are writing her exactly the same despite all the tragic stuff that has happened to her that could easily have allowed them to take her down a few notches.

1 hour ago, DRW50 said:

Louis, which just seems  like they don't know what to do with either character (and I'm not even sure how long he will be around as the actor has mentioned wanting to leave for law school), 

On one hand they do indeed not seem to know where to take Louis. On the other hand, they need whitebread leading men and after taking out Tom, taking out Louis would only leave Viliami whose entire purpose on the show is the Madonna connection.
So I imagine we are due for new characters to be introduced soon if they are writing out Louis. Probably a family 

Or, and it won't happen, I wish they would explore returning some old characters. Feel there is a huge bank of past characters and at least some of these actors would welcome a chance for a job. The NZ acting scene can't be that big.

1 hour ago, DRW50 said:

@Bright EyesTom is/was such a heavily propped character, partially because his start on the show was botched so badly. The actor is gorgeous, and not that bad thespian-wise, but he feels (or felt, as he's gone now) like someone dropped in from an American medical show. 

I thought the first few weeks of this year actually got him in an interesting place without totally retconning his darker side: while the mourning was a tad overdone and the mom stuff plotted too fast, that scene in the hospital corridor before her exit was chilling and compelling and put a lot of things in perspective. And he was appropriately self-aware.
I was looking forward to where the character went from there and... then he is immediately written out.
Although I find it weird they would set him up to overhear Hamish's phone call if they are going to do so little with it.
What am I saying? Shorty does that all the time.

3 hours ago, Bright Eyes said:

Good to know Dawn is still annoying.

No knock on the actress who is likeable but I still can't believe that of all the younger actresses they have introduced over the past five or six years, she is the one who is still there.
Also, while I can appreciate the show lampshading the fact she has been, hum, with a lot of the hospital staff, it doesn't make it less groan-worthy when they then immediately throw her in the direction of the last age-appropriate male character left that she hasn't hooked up with yet.

And there is apparently a rule that every woman under 30 who gets hired at Shortland Street inevitably ends up either bisexual or dead.

I know people have strong feelings about BC but I think I am going to venture GH's Morgan in the category of characters that had a lot of potential that was left on the table.
He was more interesting than Michael with a lot of interesting character traits that could have played out for years.
With a different actor if BC was a problem but as often with legacy children, I don't think killing him was the right move.

2 hours ago, Soapsuds said:

I hated the AW freeze frame ending. It looked so cheap.

See I liked the idea on paper but I agree that it often looked really dumb.
Not only did it look cheap but sometimes they would freeze on a really weird frame (like mid-head turn) and it would look like they ran out of tape or something.

I don't like abrupt endings so the slow fade definitely is up there but I do have to commend the doob-doob of EastEnder as being perfectly effective when they start it a couple of seconds into the end of the scene and before the credits roll..

1 hour ago, Paul Raven said:

The Y&R style ending with a character closeup held tight and slowly fading is really classic soap so that's a vote from me.

Expanding on that a bit, can we also talk about end credits (when they properly existed)

Do you prefer

1. Credits rolling over the logo of the show eg Day's hourglass, a lighthouse (GL) floating clouds (SFT) etc

2. A scene (or scenes) continuing as some soaps used to do eg characters continuing a conversation with music overlay

3. Montage of scenes from that day's episode

4. Other

I wish I remember what show did that - maybe not a daytime soap, maybe a primetime one - but I recall a show ending some particularly dramatic episode with an all black silent credits with just the names rolling. 
And it was SO effective at underscoring the shock of what had just happened. 
I am frustrated I can't remember what it was though.

Otherwise I am personally rarely watching the end credits. But I do prefer them to them going right to commercials.
And DO NOT immediately cut to the preview of the next episode. That completely robs the cliffhanger of any after-effect. Bad bad idea.

I don't know if it is a topic that can yield much discussion but as someone who usually think about the production side of things I am curious what people think.
What's the best way to end an episode in everyone's opinion?

The Another World freeze frame?

The slightly slowed image and slow fade old-YR style?

The abrupt cut to "Stay tuned for scenes from the next episode"?

The Doof Doof Doof sound of EastEnders end credits?

Is there a behind-the-scenes story for why they never went there with Tad and Erica?
Is it that it never happened organically for all these years and then the fact it had never happened became enough of a thing in itself that they decided they would never go there?
 

Also, it wouldn't be the first time a show that monitors what is said online would try a bit of misdirection in order to put a question mark on some leaked spoilers.

Not that I have any information myself but I would trust your reliable sources over social media activity that is intended to send a message.

Thoughts:

- By all means, Shortie, give a character that had been a bit of slog all kinds of interesting layers and then... write him out right after that. I know Tom would never win a popularity contest with the audience but I was interested for the first time in a long while.
And not to harp on that turnover again, but they don't even bring back characters. So it is really a huge waste.

- I find Sara Wiseman so magnetic; I love watching her act. The writing is kind of the wall for that character and I never bought Francesca/Samira but I wish she was here long-term.

- But sure, let's write out complicated characters so we can instead drag another few episodes of cringe jokes about Damo's D&D cosplaying and the paint-by-the-numbers impending Louis/Dawn pairing. Yawn.

- I like that Shorty is often pretty blunt about social issues and it hasn't always been subtle (I was rewatching old episodes and I had forgotten that the lead-up to Tane's drifting accident was Sarah running around the hospital with a petition in favor of setting drive age at 18 because teens are irresponsible).
But man they are really dumbing down that stuff to tediousness. The less said about Desdemona's "help-a-junkie" subplot and the entire stereotypical gender wars the better.
But the shared DON stuff pissed me off. Started with a really compelling off-hand remark by Madonna about feeling invisible (using the fact she and Chris don't ever interact which was well-done). Was an interesting character layer and something to think about... only to have Nicole repeat the exact same speech using the exact same lines three times to three different characters thus managing to both fall into the white saviour trope AND turn a nice compelling line that made you think into a heavy-handed preachy point banged over your head.
What happened to letting people fill in the blanks themselves.

3 hours ago, soapfan770 said:

That way Brooke could be “see Taylor slept with her daughter’s husband too!!”

Well, Taylor's fling with Rick was when Phoebe was pursuing him so while it is not nearly as far as "daughter's husband", this is yet another episode the show is pretending never happened now that we are back to Taylor being 90s Saint Taylor (which I am fine with until I hear any of the Logan-haters).

So far they have been writing all this with a degree of cleverness I wasn't expecting so even if the momentum has dulled a bit, I am going to keep faith they are going to keep it interesting and that ya'll are right that Steffy's push is not just a convenient but irritating plot device to push Taylor/Ridge and instead the set-up for something more twisty.

We shall see.

3 hours ago, DramatistDreamer said:

Apparently there are different types of recurring because when CK was recurring, she was on about as often as she was when on contract. I guess it just depends on a whole other set of criteria. (*shrug*).

Well some people go on recurring because the show doesn't plan on using them enough for their guarantee to make sense financially but some people go on recurring of their own volition because it gives them (and the show) some flexibility to do other things/take other jobs/live far away/be allowed to walk away anytime.
I have been preaching a more flexible system for years now - give enough leeway on the leash of actors to keep them happy while giving writers flexibility not to force themselves to write for characters just because they have a guarantee.
When actors have to choose between the safety of a soap contract and their gut desire to be creative and take on other projects, many will take the risk of leaving for the sake of the latter. Keeping them one foot in would keep some actors we otherwise lost.

5 hours ago, Nixor said:

It looked like Maxie and Austin were still doing a Covid kiss but others have been straight up kissing. I wonder how they decide these things?  

This is completely gratuituous on my part but considering KS's health issues they may be extra careful with her?
Even though she ended up catching Covid anyway

17 minutes ago, Khan said:

Again, if only he were a Kevin Bancroft recast.

I want Ashland to die of a heart attack while having sex with Victoria.

That's it.

That's the story.

Victoria would not do that but one of my favorite soap plots of all time is Football Wives' Tanya Turner killing her hated weak-heart much older husband by pumping him with Viagra and f***ing him over and over until his heart yielded.
 

11 minutes ago, Khan said:

He (still) looks good.  But I still don't buy him and AH's Victoria as a couple.

My thoughts exactly.
He is a good-looking older man but he looks incredibly jarring as a romantic partner next to AH who doesn't look her age at all.
RB/AH looked like an older man with a younger woman. This looks like a dad with his daughter.

I'm definitely in the eyebrow-raising crowd here but I am not perceptive enough to know what the gossip could be sadly.

1 hour ago, RavenWhitney said:

Patrika Darbo is doing a very good job with the weak material. Kevin Spirtas has a very narrow acting range and the story is being written, so far, from Nancy's perspective. 

The latter being the one thing I will give them some appreciation for. Since turning Craig gay is a gimmick, I don't expect nor do I want them to try and write it from the point of view of HIS journey. It would be fascinating and compelling in the hands of a better team telling a better story but this? I'd rather not.
So give Patrika all the material, I am good with that. And if it allows her to stay on and get her own story, I am also fine with that as she is a likeable good actress and maybe they can row back a bit all the damage they are doing by breaking up Craig/Nancy and give her a full busy love life.

1 hour ago, Faulkner said:

Well, at least Sally got to tell Chloe and Chelsea where to shove it today.

This is where I think they should have put the character (and still can if the writers wake up)
Someone who doesn't GAF, is calling all of them out on their hypocrisy and s**t, is not taking no for an answer but is not taking BS either
The same chip on the shoulder the original Sally Spectra had on B&B about being looked down upon and having to struggle while the rich privileged people whined about their problems. And a willingness to get dirty to lift herself even with them because she can talk herself into justifying scheming for a "good cause" against "bad people".

Instead they constantly are going back and forth whether they want her to be an ingenue or a schemer and they never take the time to give her a consistent motive - even though it was right there for the taking from her early B&B appearances (B&B also lost that side of the plot but it would have been enough to pick the Spectra-clan-will-show-the-world thing back up)

23 minutes ago, ChitHappens said:

This only works for me if Harmony weren't a sex offender who screwed over Alexis' girls.  

Agreed it would have been better with a different character but I guess they don't trust enough drama would come of simply a different-sexuality exploring love story and they need a more typical soap conflict when her daughters find out.
They couldn't write any of them as rejecting a lesbian romance for their mother just because it is a lesbian romance lest it damages whichever bigoted daughter they would make bigoted.
So they need an additional external source of tension which, you know, fair enough.

32 minutes ago, Faulkner said:

 

I get the sense they’re at least testing audience reaction with some very overt plays at sexual tension. Whoever mentioned Alexis in the “late-in-life coming out” thread was on to something. I think NLG would do well in such a story.

And it was a complete coincidence too. I had NO idea they were right about to actually go there. If it does pan out, I am not going to lie that post will be going on my wall of fame along with that time SOD published my letter.

Self-congratulations aside, it is worth pointing out that Alexis potentially falling in love with Harmony can be a lot of things. We tend to react to these things in binary terms (me included) but it can simply mean she discovers she is bi later in life or that she is sexually fluid or that she falls in love with that specific person regardless of gender

I am very interested to see where it goes but if there is someone who I bet is super enthused about playing this and will do her best to do it justice, it is NLG. 

48 minutes ago, ironlion said:

where are they going with Willow's birth certificate, Nina connection perhaps? I smelled this from the moment she said she needed the certificate to travel.

I have never been willing to believe Nelle was intended to be Nina's definitive daughter because it made no sense to sacrifice a family tie on a dead character.

And when Willow overheard Nina/Sonny and ended randomly being the one to blow the whistle on them, I raised an eyebrow.

Consider both my eyebrows raised now.

12 hours ago, DramatistDreamer said:

People always talk about Stephanie Forrester preferring Ridge over Thorne, but she sure went to great lengths to protect him when he shot up his older brother's @ss. 

No doubt Ridge was still her favorite.

That's the one I was thinking of. That being said, preferring Ridge does not mean not loving and wanting to protect Thorne.
Stephanie is an interesting case because she doesn't just favor one son over the other but she also favors both her sons over her daughters.

Does "She thought it was her son for a period of time" count for this?
Coz Y&R's Jill being so incredibly closer to Cane, who she briefly thought was her son but was actually not, than her actual living son Billy comes to my mind - in a bad way.
 

Are we going to be talking about "We were not really married but she is a good dog mom"?
Coz looks like CD really wants to take over SB's crown as the biggest d**che of the GH cast. Yikes.