FrenchBug82

Maybe I am straying too far from the concept since those weren't options anymore by the time the show ended, but if you had told me at the height of Falcon Crest that Lance/Melissa wouldn't be the end game and that Richard would end up with some random woman instead of Maggie, I would have been surprised. I am trying to think of ideas for daytime soaps that have ended but give it to Guiding Light that they pretty much put everyone that ought to be together together at the end even when it was a huge sudden stretch.

Since we are doing primetime too, I guess it applies even if we know why it didn't happen (which I think is that VP said no) but since Dallas had gone through the trouble of very strongly suggesting to us Pam was alive, it was surprising they didn't reunite her and Bobby at the end. And while it was not a surprise *when* it happened since DZ had been gone for a while and they really tried to sell us on the Allison pairing, but if you had told me during the MP heyday that Jake and Jo also wouldn't end up together once it was all said and done, I would have been surprised.

I have nothing interesting to add but I just wanted to say I really enjoyed this read a lot. I have long said that while I somewhat understand why the Kenya fight didn't get her fired, her kicking a woman sitting (Cynthia, that is) was absolutely unacceptable.

Honestly, no, but they did have great chemistry and the love story was compelling enough for the Passions universe. I wasn't a fan but it was SO heavily pushed that the sudden 180 was jarring. That's what make me so mad. I can understand (even when I don't forgive) a writer killing off or having some bad happen to someone off-screen for the purpose of furthering current story for another character. But here it was unnecessary either in the original or the reboot. Putting Billy/Allison together even with an offhand comment would have been a nice little gift to viewers who had endured the first season and stayed loyal. Not doing it felt... petty. I don't know if you saw but after Norm McDonald's passing she did a YouTube video about that infamous Conan interview where he bulldozed her and she came off as so self-deprecating and humble and lovely.

I am fine with returning Mimi but I'd secretly root for her to be recast (sorry, FF).

Kristina Wagner's return ought to be tied to this sudden news about Luke, I'd imagine.

That's always been my assumption. Now whether the issue was between her and the producers or between her and GG has always been the mystery for me. I remember very very vague rumors that MW/GG had hooked up and GG's wife had turned it into a Melissa Reeves situation (either they don't work together or you need to quit) but that's very VERY thinly sourced gossip. I refuse to treat the reboot as canon. That unnecessary cruel line about Alison being one of the reasons.

Well, does any female character like Kate? lol Joking aside, I remember Kayla being blackmailed by Stefan into spying on Kate and ultimately it led to Kate being fired from DiMera but I don't remember if there was any previous backstory

As a matter of fact, I have always been under the impression that the low work load is part of why HT is sticking with B&B. She wants the freedom to do other things - mothering and other projects - and light workdays and only being frontburner for a few weeks a couple of times a year work for her. It is a horrible waste for the rest of us because she SHOULD be one of the pillars of Y&R as Eric Braeden turns 80yo but that's another story. I was more surprised to see DD"s Bill be barely used this year. He had been driving story for years and a lot longer than I would have foreseen. But after what happened at Y&R and his unexpected second wind, I figure he is grateful to have a job and enjoying the ride.

No. She just doesn't want to stay full-time and to be honest, I understand why, from their point of view, they'd just take as much of her as they can even if it is not enough to write solid story. But I agree with everyone that it leaves too many other characters in limbo. They need to find a better way to use her in spurts instead of trying to tell a long-running stories in bits and pieces.

What makes it obvious that there was a weird BTS reason for Luis/Sheridan is that they also started writing Sheridan as a horrible person, which she had not been until then, presumably not just to keep them apart but poison the character so profoundly that the audience wouldn't want them together. One of the most blatant examples of pettiness directed at an actor*ress in the writing that I ever saw. And agree that I'd like to know the story. As for Nick/Sharon, they would be the endgame if the show were to end. But as an ongoing story, they definitely need a long time apart. We know Morrow prefers to work with MS anyway AND that they both recognize that being part of a supercouple is limiting and it is better for the characters to work with others. But I suspect they will be back together at some point so it is premature to include them here imo. It is probably safer to think of shows that are done. John/Sharlene on AW is definitely one that makes me sad because it is rare that I root for a "normal" couple and it would have been easy to reunite them off-screen even after Forsythe left. Their last bittersweet scene outside of the hospital was actually written very mature and realistically - in the real world they would indeed not get back together - but still emotionally I wanted them together in the end. I'd also add Billy/Allison on Melrose Place. It would have been so easy to add a line in the finale about it.

Now SoapCentral is reporting that when MR leaves again soon, MA is going with her "indefinitely" which they take to mean he is written out altogether. So I am confused.

Well, of course, I was rooting for Sable through all of this so Frankie being miscast ended up twisting around the usual purpose of the good girl/bad girl dynami imho. Were a lot of viewers really emotionally invested in Frankie/Jason rather than simply rationally "getting" they were supposed to think of them as the end game? Coz I didn't see chemistry there at all and to be frank I found their behavior to be pretty selfish rather than endearing. And I'd add that while they considerably softened Sable during her Dynasty run, the bitch vs bitch dynamic was the only saving grace of that last season. So I don't think it is necessarily true a bad girl vs bad girl framework cannot work. You just need to give the characters a clear thoroughline - my criticism of Colbys Season 2 is that without the same Jason obsession, Sable was drifting more and I am 100% with SFK that Sable made this show - and layers - and Sable was plenty grey with a lot of vulnerabilities - and it can work.

Ron C. thinks he is emulating Reilly's DAYS but he is closer to later Reilly's PASSIONS.

In all fairness, the SHOW is using SH when the storyline is about Brady or the current stories. ED's cameos are far and few between so when they use her it is for nostalgia purposes; in scenes that involve John and Marlena. I am not sure it is so much an acting choice than just the way the show is using them at the same time for different purposes. ED had plenty of chemistry with Brady when it first played out; that's why the story worked when it really shouldn't have.

I know I saw this one yesterday I will never for the life of me understand why Bell killed Aly. Talk about unnecessarily short-sighted. Not that I want to encourage the merry go-round for the Spencer brothers but imagine what having a third Forrester option for Liam and Wyatt - and one that is slightly coo-coo and hates Steffy in a more visceral way than "sweet" Hope - could have done to make this ever so slightly less tedious while keeping Forresters front and center. And keeping Thorne in the mix.

One reason I am so glad she is so well-received right now is that I liked her even on DOOL and it made me sad that she was remembered in such poor way. She wasn't a good fit for Billie BUT Billie was also written very differently after the recast. It wasn't on her being bad IMO and I am glad she gets to prove it.

I wish I remembered what was known publicly at the time of the sequence of events but Macy died in October and BE first aired at AMC on December 12th. So the gap between her leaving B&B and joining AMC was very small. My speculation - and it may be that this is *known* but I don't remember - is that she was auditioning for AMC while still working as Macy (despite the fact he had just resurrected her) and Bell was so pissed off when he found out that he made sure to 1) kill her off so that she knows she won't get a second chance 2) do so in a humiliating manner.

Not only was it stupid and short-sighted but the almost insulting way it was written would be a strong indication that whatever happened BTS was personal in nature.

Well this is going in the annals of VERY unfortunate premature headlines. People's next issue arriving in mailboxes this weekend:

It is so freaky because I opened Twitter this morning and Betty White was trending because of that Ryan Reynolds comment and her upcoming 100th birthday celebration. Two hours later, boom. This breaks.

I apologize for not remembering who said it but someone had an insight on here a few months ago that I have thought about a lot and ended up thinking was key: the strength of YR and the reason for its stability in the ratings is that it is veteran-heavy, much more than any other show in numbers and in fewer comings and goings. The problem though is that that crowds out any new character and there is very little room to play new generations and invest in storylines outside of the narrow confine of those veterans. It is a short-sighted strategy because none of them are getting any younger and once they start dropping, the void will be pretty terrible and the ratings will crash IMO if nothing is done to prepare the succession.

We go back to AlexElizabeth's point. Ron pulled a name out of the show history in Laura because "Look I am using History!" but he didn't understand who she was and what she meant to the audience so he saw no problem treating her as an expendable chess piece in the story *he* wanted to tell with a character *he* created. If he is not undoing Adrienne's much-easier-to-undo death, he is not undoing Laura's. Unless he goes full Melaswen and uses the Devil to pretend everything that has happened for the past few years was the work of the Devil!

Add "attractive man willing to queerbait" (which Justin Melvey was doing back then before it was cool) and Boom RC is interested. But yeah from the posession to this this is 100% what is going on.

I am really not. This was the dumb cliched soap twist that I mentioned earlier I was afraid they would lazily go to. Yet another "member of a supercouple accidentally cheats on the other due to alcool/misunderstanding and then has a secret" SL that completely sets aside the interesting organic conflict this started with. A bit cheap if they go there IMO.