FrenchBug82

I mean, I have no personal knowledge but of all the things that went wrong in the 90s, I can't be too harsh there. The character didn't work in any of the versions we had been given. There was nothing memorable for us to miss. He functioned mainly as a romantic lead to prop up other characters and by then Vicky had Ryan and Jake as "soulmates", Marley was a non-entity and the other leading ladies in that - stretched as it had been - age range were related to him. There was no room, was there? In a vacuum he should have been there as a member of a core family but in practice I can see why he wasn't necessary and the audience didn't miss him specifically, did we?

YES! Invent a dislike between Katie and Quinn out of thin air to add one extra layer to the fallout of Karter. I mean, come on. It is so easy. There is so much padding with scenes that repeat themselves on this show... it would be so easy to add apparently-equally-mundane scenes but that actually build something up for later. I am frustrated with B&B because the ideas are fine with me most of the time. It is the lack of anything around it that gets my goat.

The eternal problem of The Bold and The Beautiful. The plot point might work - because the actors are good, the chemistry is good, because it is not a bad idea story-wise - but thre is no way to see anything coming because nothing is shown to be coming. Nothing is teased, prepared, slowly introduced and seeded. Someone might be schtooping one character one week and suddenly madly in love with another the other week. If they had interspersed the cuck storyline with a few scenes over the past month or so where Carter confided in Katie - thereby giving us the Carter POV that was missing AND establishing the friendship getting warmer - this would have been enough. Instead... yeah another thing that happens in a vacuum. Fine idea on paper but what happened to telling a STORY. Plan just a tad ahead. Give us the beats. Let us anticipate. Urgh. So frustrated by all these decent ideas getting wasted on poor story-telling.

I am really happy to say I fully agree. She is my fave too and I am so glad they are keeping her around despite the obvious fact they go long stretches without really knowing what to do with her. But she has so much history to bounce off of and a great chemistry and sense of humor with many - Lucas/Kate never ceases to entertain me - so it works. Roman and Kate are fine by me but there is no conflict there so it feels a bit like parking two characters with decent chemistry and nothing else to do rather than a real story development

I appreciate you retelling me this story as I had missed it the first time. I can run hot and cold with Housewives and need a break from them sometimes LOL But this is interesting. I can definitely believe Bethanny manipulated certain situations - and the show's narrative - for petty reason for sure but Carole's rage feels deep and personal enough that I believe there must have something done directly from B to her. I feel the same way about Dorinda's anger towards Timsey btw. There is just something that feels deeper about those as if they are really coming from a personal place rather than show BS. But that's me. I probably read more into it than there is.

Yeah. I don't mind the T but I am not sure this is making Bethanny out to be a monster as Carole seems to think it does. First, I don't think anybody doesn't understand Bethanny to be a strategic calculated person. Is she even hiding it? Who's being fooled into thinking she is an angel that just lucks out? Nobody. The fact she is making her success is part of her persona. Who does Carole think is being fooled here? Second, she did the right thing. She didn't invent Tom cheating. She just set it up so that LuAnn would find out in a dramatic way for the show. Which Lu might thank her doubly in that regard: it saved her from a bad marriage AND provided her with a lasting moment that has kept her afloat for a couple of seasons. Frankly, even without the show, that might have been something I'd do so that my fingerprints are not all over my friend finding out their significant other is cheating. You want proof and you don't want it to backfire on you. Third, the SkinnyGirl thing is brilliant. Can't blame the hustle. They are ALL hustlers. Carole, who I don't dislike, sounds bitter some hustles have worked better than others. On the list of "things that happened between seasons and that we clearly never got the full story out of" I'd place Carole's sudden unbridled rage at Bethanny near the top. None of the explications given on the show made any sense.

I can't see where that rumor could have come from. Not that we'd necessarily "know" but there is nothing about ED that looks.... Anyway thanks for telling me And don't forget being women. In any case, the line is indeed very thin between being demanding for good reasons and being a "diva". Between caring deeply and passionately and being difficult. Etc. But it is only a certain type of women that get branded that way which says all that needs to be said. It doesn't mean it is not possible that some of them *are* crossing lines but I tend to approach those rumors with an extra dose of eyebrow-raised because we know how it works in show-business.

Thank you so much for tracking it down for me I am only two minutes in but I think I am indeed going to need a cup of tea for the rest. LB hasn't said much yet but even just the writing is... That is also a fun tip! Thank you.

WHAT? I heard some wild ones but I never heard that one. May I ask who - obviously knowing it is not true? And that is a fun idea for a thread. I won't have much to contribute as I don't personally that much gossip but I am sure I will read it avidly Should we add "Mary Stuart was a monster" to the urban legend pile? lol

Does anyone know if the Borgenson/Canary scenes that Vee was referring to re on YouTube? I tried looking for them using a few key words but it hasnt yielded anything

I feel soaps have forgotten that sometimes "basic good guy" can be a good archetype to have as one of your leading men. Lord knows we have enough of the antiheros and the brooding types. And it is in the interest of even those characters to have someone that works in contrast.

Could be a matter of personal comfort for the actors. I mean Steve Burton - who does zip for me but who is obviously in great shape - hates shirtless scenes and does very few of them so maybe the others in this list also have an understanding they'd rather not do shirtless scenes. And maybe otoh Jason Thompson is an exhib and since no one seems to care about Joshua Morrow anymore, someone's gotta give them the quota of mannipples so he volunteers. As I said, the ripped look is not my favorite but I gotta say it is stupid not to have featured Burgi's body yet. I mean, if only to sand off the 15 years age difference off a little.

I don't have a body type and I don't mind most men shirtless for eye candy so I am all for it. It is funny though to compare with what he looked like shirtless in 2008: For the record he was an attractive man either way as far as I am concerned but I guess twelve years in daytime has nudged him towards investing in a gym membership. Well at least he was "taught" to wax early on. Sigh @ soap male body image standards.

Am I crazy that I seem to remember they vaguely chemistry-tested these two a while back? I like the idea on paper because of the Phyllis connection and they would seem like a good match if those were real people BUT that would be quite the vortex of personality-free yawn if it wasn't for the potential conflict with Phyllis.

I don't believe the story happened like this either. Is it possible Maree said that and that was the straw that broke the camel's back? Seems flimsy enough, but, sure, maybe. But there is no way you'd fire someone just for a remark like that. If she was fired, either she had already pissed people off a lot many times or there was another agenda, whatever that might be. And, in any case, even if she was fired like that, it didn't happen overnight as you rightfully say. NB is really telling a tale for the sake of a juicy story here. Which brings me back to why I don't trust NB. I am sure there are grains of truth in the gossip he tells. But he embellishes and BS so much that it undermines the credibility of the real nuggets.

I am against next-day previews generally speaking so, with that in mind, still need to say: What in Hell was THAT next-day preview?

To me Felicia and Mitch kind of worked because as you said, I couldn't buy Felicia into a full-fledged long-term romance. Lucas completely defanged her personality and the less said about the damage done with the John thing, the better. What fit her was a casual "For fun and For good conversation" kind of relationship and while it wasn't written that way at all, I sort of saw Mitch as the happy medium between what would be the ridiculous literal version of the boytoy with Sergei later on and the maudling more classic romance with Lucas. Mitch was "beneath" her enough that I could pretend she was just getting her rocks off with a hot guy but still in an age-appropriate adult mature kind of way. Of course all of this was me projecting onto it an interpretation the show wasn't giving us although I would argue the easy way they were broken up is proof they didn't see that couple as particularly solid in the first place.

@Paul Raven

I am fascinated by how many events and interviews those three ladies continue to make together. Several a year for sure. It is really really rare for a show that has been off the year for thirty years, isn't it?

I don't doubt this has been litigated many times, especially at the time, but may I ask what specific points about the finale were "more putrid" than needed to be? I can think of things I disliked and a handful of choices that don't sit well with me but I am curious what people - with the benefit of time having passed and knowing what happened next with some of the characters - feel was done "wrong" in those last few weeks.

I mean, in all fairness, that's a joke *I* would make so I can and could totally see a scenario where it was indeed teasing and dry humor. I haven't read her book and I only based my assessment on the way she told the story in this particular instance. Maybe she made it sound meaner here for comedic effect. I wouldn't presume to know. I just repeated

I just realized the actor who played Channing Jr was the lead killer in Silent Night, Deadly Night (the original one, not the "Garbage Day!" sequel) and mind: blown.

From the way she told the story I think it was actually the first time she met Mary Stuart which makes it even more ... special. She started by saying she was terrified of Mary Stuart when she started (and later said she was terrified of her all throughout lol). Then the anecdote: Maree mentioned that the CBS studio was very cold so she liked to wear big fluffly slippers. Their dressing rooms were upstairs and the set downstairs so there would be a lot of climbing the stairs up and down to go to rehearsals and blocking etc. So she did the trip with curlers still in her hair and her big slippers and when Mary Stuart saw her (and again this seems to be the first time they had met, or shortly after they met), she said: "So THIS is our sex symbol?". And from Maree's delivery, Stuart didn't say it in a cheeky teasing way but in a condescending manner. I think Maree's face when mimicking Stuart telling her that says everything that needs to be said about the way it was intended.

Why does he write a script if he is going to mess it up so badly? Especially with factual errors that LP corrected (kindly). Otherwise, barring the LP freezes that sometimes led to overtalking, I enjoyed the conversation very much. They are both awesome and lovely and are good friends in real life which helps in those double-interviews. Loved Maree's anecdote on Mary Stuart. I don't know if she intended it that way but it said a lot.

This is why I said what I said about RC not actually liking the show, which was kindly and probably more accurately rephrased as him not having any emotional connection to the show he is writing for. RC clearly didn't see most of or follow the original storyline. He doesn't understand why it made such an impression of viewers (whether one likes it or not, and I didn't, it did). He thought the idea was amusing and recreating it with a wink would be fanservice. But you can't do just a wink if you don't understand what is a joke and what isn't. The original possession story was over-the-top but it wasn't a joke. He doesn't get it so he is doing a parody of something he thought was a joke in the first place so we end up with this clownery. Same with Kristen and the multiple identities btw. He didn't get what made Kristen such an iconic character originally and the entire convoluted twin story memorable. So we ended up with face masks. Because you can only mock what you understand and what you like. If you mock something you deep down have contempt for, it will show and be either ridiculous or mean. And I can tell the difference because when he writes tongue-in-cheek for characters he cares for or respect or has some bond with, he has been known to find the right balance.