FrenchBug82

I wonder in what category Days' Sami would fall. She was clearly a villain - albeit from a place of hurt - at the beginning and she is a more grayish character now that I guess we are supposed to root for her. She has had times where she was clearly written as a straight-up heroine and then they revert back to flawed schemer albeit now generally with enough of a "reason" that it doesn't come as straight-up villainous. But she is still not a good person. Which brings my question: where is the line between a character that has reformed (like AW's Rachel who we could not picture doing anything wicked by the end) vs a character whose edges have been sanded off to make them more durable: they are softer and have shown more layers but I'd argue their core is still selfish and ethically challenged like Sami or Todd.

I didn't even remember her. Was it a Charity Roehmer situation or was she OK on-screen and other factors might have played a part? I am asking because we often hear long-time actors say that the actors who can't remember their lines "don't last very long" but it is not that common for actors to be quickly fired so I am always wondering who that might be.

Your entire post was super interesting for the record. I wanted to nod vigorously in approval on that particular point. It was fine that they imagined it to be the supercouple when they started but they should have quickly realized they weren't that compelling. When we did the "Which actor dominated their show the most" conversation I was stunned that Clive Robertson was either the record-holder for all soaps or a close second. Good-looking as he was and not a horrible actor, he didn't have at all the shoulders to carry the show in that way.

My gripe about the PP soaps personally was my intense dislike of some the off-screen plot points they chose to write in the continuity in order to explain why certain characters weren't there. But I suppose disliking story choices is not specific to the PP adventure so I might be in slight bad faith here. The two criticisms she gives in the Fairman interview are: - that they "didn't know how to make a soap". That could mean a lot of things but I take it to refer to the concrete production issues we have heard about which must have galled someone used to a well-oiled machine. That definitely tracks with your diagnosis. - Especially since her second substance-based criticism is completely off-base in my opinion. She complains they made the show too "risque" because it was online and wanted to be "modern". Well, yeah. That seemed like an obvious move to be more explicit about sex and not be afraid of swear words if you don't have the constraints of network TV. ES is an elderly woman now and with that comes old-fashioned attitudes, I suppose.

I could see Braeden playing a Cassadine but it is still hard to imagine tbh. I can't really imagine Bergman on GH or DOOL at all but I think he would definitely have found a job if he had returned to NYC. His acting style was a better fit for the NYC soaps.

Granted, my issues started when they were still on NBC but it definitely was a bad move. And I was watching Michael Fairman's interview with Erika Slezak just last night and boy does she seem to wish Prospect Park had never happened either. It seems that, as happy as helping them survive makes fans on the moment, it is probably better to let them die in glory than try to keep them alive past their due date.

I wasn't litigating the specific issue of Muhney or try to both-side what happened later. Muhney's issues are well-known. I was more interested in the fact the dynamic between him and EB - that they both described at the time long before he was even fired - was very similar to the speculated dynamic between PB and EB to try and suss out a pattern with EB. It is interesting to see in contrast with how well EB works with other actors.

I think Sunset Beach still had time to, if not improve, at least adapt to what it was and feel less out of sync. When it started Aaron Spelling clearly thought that because he had had success in primetime, he'd have it easy in daytime too so the show was taking itself seriously. It was jarring because the acting was often mediocre and the show looked and felt so incredibly cheap (which is a real shocker considering that should have been the one thing AS knew how to do well). It is once they realized what they were putting out was mostly trash and embraced it - like the infamous turkey baster story - that it became a bit more fun and enjoyable. It lowered its pretensions and didn't pretend to be anything more than it was. Funnily enough, a lot of the cast they got rid of during their first retool were some of the most credible actors but they still played the people who were left and who could act in pretty decent classic soapy storylines (I stand by what my opinion that the Annie/Olivia/Gregory corner of the show had a lot of good stuff that stands the test of time) while the rest was just fluff. And it worked as fluff. But fluff is fluff and it is not a very solid foundation for a long run. Passions certainly improved during its run but took a serious nosedive at the very end imo. I am still certain that something happened behind-the-scenes that so many established couples, long-running storylines and character personalities were switched so abruptly and confusingly all of a sudden. Whatever else we could say about JER he had a clear vision that shone through even when the show was bad but then towards the end so many things went out of the window that it became hard for me to even understand that these were the same characters and story universe I had been watching until then. And that's very off-putting.

I know Muhney is a hugely controversial actor on forums and he certainly had his own share of his issues but this seems to mirror a lot of how the similar conflict between him and EB started later on - the new guy who thinks he has the answers, the old guy stuck on his own ways and wanting "respect", the clash of egos and approaches to the job... All these people have responsibility in the tensions generated but I suspect EB specifically is very rigid by nature and even more so as he established himself as a tentpole of the show and feels he has earned the right to have things his way. This clashes with the guys who fancy themselves alpha males. The male leads EB seems to get along with better seem to be the guys who don't care that much (JM, DD back in the day etc) or whose "performances" are in storylines EB is not directly involved in (like KsJ).

I think her plastic surgery, while unnecessary as they often are, doesn't look as botched as, well, others. She was looking very Jessica Rabbit on Friday. Which is mostly a compliment. I was so distracted by how much I hated Quinn's shoes though.

I have to say I disagree with you on this. Killing Colleen was a HUGE waste. Besides the immediate plot point of giving her heart to Victor, this had literally no follow-up, no impact and the story itself sucked. On the other hand, killing off Cassie is what allowed them to break up Nick and Sharon. We take Phick as a viable option as granted now but Sharon/Nick were the supercouple then and there was no way the audience would have been ready to accept anything else other than them as the endgame. The slow deterioration of their relationship after her death in parallel to his chemistry with MS (with whom Nick only started to only interact because of Daniel's involvement in Cassie's death) is what allowed them to open up a whole range of stories for both characters . For younger characters they had already been in a deadend of repetitive stories when stuck to each other. This really opened a lot of doors; a lot of those doors ended up sucking but that's another problem. Those two were important figures of the next generation at Y&R and they were already tired. Revitalizing them as individuals has had a huge story-driving impact. I am not saying *I* would have killed her off. I still think killing any legacy child is a short-sighted move that soaps often regret and try to undo (and indeed the idiotic Mariah retcon shows why it is stupid no matter how good the story) but Cassie's death is one of the few child deaths that had an impact that lasted beyond the immediate aftermath. That doesn't mean not having taken the risk and going in a different direction wouldn't have been better. Cassie's death is such a case imho: it worked but it would have been not to have done it. I think Cassie would still have an even bigger impact had she stayed alive and that they could have figured another organic way to split Shick. But it did "pay off" and we will never know what the payoff for the alternative scenario would have been. Colleen's death on the other hand was and is and forever will be a wasteful idiotic travesty.

Would creating AW's Vicky as Marley's twin count as a risk? I feel creating "forgot I had that child" characters are always hit-and-miss and that one paid off spectacularly in terms of performances and driving story for the rest of the life of the show (to its detriment the last five years but that's another story). Another one that is probably going to more controversial: OLTL's Natalie. The multiple retcons around Jessica were problematic but I think creating Natalie was something of a risk (and frankly ridiculous on paper) but I personally think it paid off creatively and obviously Natalie ended up being a big part of the last decade of the show.

When I heard Minaj was hosting and then the giddy anticipation over her "giving hard truths" to the Housewives she dislikes, I kept hoping one of them would have the balls to call HER out on marrying and running cover for a rapist in return. She can spare us her lectures on Gizelle and her fake relationship with a cheating priest if she is not ready to go on the floor with her own dirt which is ten times worse than any of the housewives have. They won't do it and they wouldn't air it but l'd like her to try me and start "calling me out" because she is so "real". I would read that woman faster than she can spit out rhymes.

Did the ratings fall BECAUSE of it or was it just a time where GH was not doing well for other reasons?

If anything the physical resemblance with Christine Tudor is uncanny.

Yes. To both men's credits, they have owned up to it, talked openly about it and how unfortunate it was and they both accepted their part of responsibility. That being said, maybe I am naive but it is for me to understand how anything like this can escalate to blows. I mean, short of someone sleeping with someone else's wife or something very personal like that, disliking a colleague should be something you grin and bear. I wonder what the real spark for this was - can't just have been excess of testosterone and professional rivalry for it to escalate so much.

I wish he would study the Television Academy Foundation one-on-one interviews. The interviews interrupt once in a blue moon (granted with relevant questions that couldn't be asked at the end of the anecdote) but you hear these great actors or TV people talk and stories can go on for ten minutes without interruption and it is glorious.

Here is the link for those who want to offer feedback: https://www.youtube.com/post/UgkxYtVN9QPYDRxCeiHzasiy6Y8sB5vk4N5c

I mean he wouldn't be my first choice in the GH cast but, whatever else one might say about him, WR is an attractive man. I wouldn't sleep with him though because I bet he is the kind of guy who makes a big convulsing grunting production that last a couple of minutes when he cums. You know... the Julliard orgasm. Those who've had one of those lovers will know what I mean.

That's the way I remember it too but even when she was scheming, it was coming as whiny rather than take-charge like when Kate does it. And to me at the time it also read as the writers writing the character all over the place as a prop to the main show - Bo/Hope - rather than a real thought-out character "evolution". But because I like to read more into storylines than what is explicitly shown, I remember interpreting to myself the scheming - as encouraged by Kate - as a way for Billie to try and connect with her mother. Before it started there were quite a few scenes where they had carried over the reluctance LR's Billie had to accept Kate and the scheming is when they started to get along. So I choose to read it through that prism and forget the rest

It is actually an interesting question I also would love to hear more about. As a side note, I rewatched Robin Strasser's return scenes on OLTL in 1993 after the Elaine Princi interlude and I was struck that the voiceover said "Dorian will ONCE AGAIN be played by...". I had never heard that before and it had a slightly more mild-mannered "real Greenlee" feel to me. I checked and the other un-recast returnee I could think of, Anna Stuart, got a traditional "Donna will be played" voiceover.

Oh don't get me wrong. I think turning him evil was a HUGE mistake; potential was huge even if he wanted to leave later. But sadly that ship has sailed.

I mean I am a fan of Blake but one reformed serial killer as a romantic lead is already one too many.