FrenchBug82

On the other hand, that plus him liking Ingo's video... I can put clues together when I see them.

Another entry on the long list of "You can't recapture magic twice" soap attempts at repairing two actors. When will soaps ever learn?

I haven't wanted to be insensitive so I haven't brought it up but since we were talking on another threads about whether, as an older actor, I would prefer to work until the bitter end, at the risk of my character death story being rushed and abrupt and not having the same impact (see: Katherine who had a nice funeral and then... nothing) or whether I'd want to go out on my own terms to leave the show the time to put together a really good exit story that provides closure, a final great performance, a good homage to the character and set up things so that the aftermath reverbates for years. Let me say I had Victor in mind. EB is 80yo. I wish him many decades more of life but let's be honest. The time is approaching. Victor will leave a huge hole on the canvas and I think it is misguided and unfair on the show to resist planning for his exit. There are years of potentially great drama surrounding his inheritance and the battle between his children if it is properly set up. But having him just not wake up one day isn't the spectacular exit a character like Victor deserves. Imagine a story of Victor having to deal with not feeling as strong anymore - how a man with such an attachment to his self-image as a strong man would cope with that - and then a story of Victor, feeling life slip away, revisiting his past loves (cameos!), his choices, having a Brooke-and-Stephanie-style conversation with Jack, etc That would be amazing TV potentially and ratings blockbuster. And the right thing to do for the fans and the show even if it is sad. So I doubt he will but I'd like him to start thinking about his legacy and the show even if it must be sad to have to leave a show that has been such a part of your life for decades.

Watch FS suddenly suggest he'd consider coming back after all at that event with CM planned next week

They are really relying on the gays to sell this thing, aren't they! LOL I hope they get paid for all that PR because by now CM and ZT in particular have probably spent more time on online videos/interviews than they did actually filming the five episodes of the show.

You can tell GR is also having a blast. He is such a great actor but Kevin has been so underwritten for so long now that he probably enjoys having something fun to do. It really makes a lot of difference when the people involved are actually enjoying what they are doing. So much of what's wrong on the main show are the stories where you can tell where RC is merely checking a box ("Oh right we need to use Nicole and Rafe... Fine let's put them together") and the actors are cashing the check. Ahhh the 90s/2000s where straight men pretending to be gay was considered the height of comedy. I thought her and Eric was a pairing that made sense and they were cute enough. But two "sweet" characters do not a story make so there was little there.

Since we were speculating about possible stories to get Carrie on her own, I am not against also bringing Greta back and get a triangle going there. As awful awful awful as the Garden of Eve was Austin/Greta were cute enough. In truth I don't know if there is enough story to warrant bringing them back full-time but my nostalgia is acting up. Even though 95% of her stories sucked, I really liked Greta as a character.

Not impressed about them doing a C-plot involving a week-old random character blackmailing and then killed off back-to-back in such a short period.

Seriously. That is a lot of PR if that's just about selling Beyond Salem.

I don't know what goes on in this scene but CM cracking up in the background gets me.

I have always wondered, if I were an aging actor, if I'd prefer working until my last day, at the risk of making my character death sudden and done in a week, or if I would want to work with the show to set up a great storyline for my final exit, giving the time to get closure on storylines and past relationships and enough preparation for a rally spectacular exit and set up great stuff for the aftermath. I am leaning on the latter tbh but I hear both cases.

Maybe I am naive but I still think the fact Will/Sonny is a big chunk of Beyond Salem and that they are leaning on them for part of the publicity of the show is an attempt to nudge whoeever is reluctant at the higher level into recognizing that there is a real audience (read: ratings) appetite for those characters and getting them back on the main show.

Actually, credit is where credit is due, while I don't think she is Kiki, I think your initial instincts when the "nurse" was introduced might have been right. The fact that she referred to Kiki as Lauren - her real birth name that noone but her mom used - tells me her connection is with Ava, not Ryan.

Maybe it is the Labor Day break BUT if I speculate, since I am convinced (with no evidence) that November sweeps are going to be the best time for "Sonny" to "return" and yet Jason/Carly are about to be married already and they are showing Jax starting to piece things together, I am going to guess (with no evidence) that maybe something is going to happen to Jax when he tries to interrupt the wedding to tell everyone about Mike, presumably by being caught in the Cyrus crossfire that he warned about so many times (which in turn feels like soap foreshadowing). I'd be surprised if they pulled the extended coma trick again but I feel that, even without knowing the BTS stuff, a lot of the red flags are converging story-wise.

In my memory she lost the fandom specifically because of the affair because Brad and Katie were pretty popular at first. But I could be wrong. Might have an opportunity to discuss this on ATWT thread some time; don't want to derail the Beyond Salem thread especially when there is a BUTT sighting

Yeah but Terri Conn was SO popular and beloved. I mean who knows? I've just always thought there was something else going on we didn't know. Back to Salem! As I mentioned earlier for Sonny/Will, I am fine with Austin and Carrie being the end game. But I'd like for them to be in the game and spend years driving story with others before they settle for that end game if you know what I mean

That's why I would have thought people at Days may have given him the benefit of the doubt when he returned considering there was, hum, public evidence his "values" had changed (and he had improved as an actor). But it is hard to say because we don't know him - who knows what has changed or not. I will say that while it was juicy gossip, I will never understand why that specific story of costars cheating on their spouses with each other blew up on-set and off-set the way it has. I mean, not only does it happen often - just on ATWT I seem to remember one of the parties was taken/married when Colleen met Mark and Maura met Scott - but at the very same time Austin and Terri were shacking up, a very married actor on that very show was hooking up with a co-star too (not naming names but people who read blind items will know). So why these two - who are still together so clearly they genuinely fell for each other - got so much blowback over the dozens of other soap cheaters fascinates me. I have to assume part of it is maybe that AP is grating in other ways so people are less willing to cut him some slack but I dunno.

Oh right the religion thing. I had forgotten. Thanks for answering and jogging my memory!

Did AS and AP not get along?

True. That's also a factor. What I meant though is that I put blame on the lackluster material for how wrong it went.

I am not super fond of the body-shaming either - for the record I think FS, as annoying as he is IRL, is still a cutie as a chunkier man - but I don't think it is entirely fair to say the double standard is due to their respective attractiveness. Fundamentally CM was always IMO a superior actor and, more importantly, a charming charismatic presence so even when his performances got lazy - and they did get lazy, that is true - he still had enough underlying likability that it didn't turn people off the way FS did. FS did decent work the first few years and definitely had great chemistry with CM. But when they slowly started to lose the latter - or least it lost its shine in comparison with the Paul pairings - AND his performances got progressively worse, he didn't really have a reserve of goodwill among us because there was nothing left. Add his off-the-show behavior and nobody is in the mood to be indulgent. Does it help that CM is attractive? Sure. But it is not like they ain't a gazillion other good-looking actors that we collectively rag on with abandon - RSW or Shawn Christian can testify that being hot ain't all that on this board. People will come for you if you suck. Now, I don't hate FS as much as a lot of other people on this thread do but I don't think the criticism of his late acting is unfair or unwarranted. But since CM and FS both were tuned out post-Paul, I do have to agree I'd let the writers shoulder most of the blame.

This. It wasn't a producer agenda or anything. It was the vocal fans - the same that are doing our head in with Ben/Ciara and confined Jarlena and Bope to supporting roles because any story that involved putting their couple in danger created such intense backlash that writers didn't feel comfortable writing for them anymore. "Supercouples" are the bane of every soap but it is particularly bad at Days. I am in the minority that I have enough emotional attachment to Sonny/Will that they would still be the end game for me but the entire point of the END game is that it is the END and for us to root for them to get back together they must not be together. It is the twists and turns and other relationships and changes in their relationships that make them interesting characters. The "Why can't the writers let them be happy" crowd is profoundly short-sighted - not to use a stronger word - and it is insane that producers and writers yield to them.

In all fairness to Victoria, the idea that someone else other than your daddy can get you a high-flying job is probably too much to wrap her head around.

I did notice too but I figured that since it is a recast, there is zero marketing value in putting him on the poster since no one would recognize him, even long-time fans. That's how I interpret it at least. Austin and Carrie aren't on there either so it is not like it is meant to show the entire cast.

Setting aside the awful Photoshop (half of them don't look like themselves...) As I was saying about Ciara (and Ben) heavily front-and-center...