FrenchBug82

"My time as we know it" Hum.. what?

I like the black cast too but man that supposedly flirtatious dialogue with the tie and what not was cringe.

Rewatching early SB as I am now, I actually like Bochner fine in the role as it was written then which was the patriarch archetype. He does feel fatherly and "dignified" with a hint of manipulation. I do find it hard to imagine him in the more active romantic lead storylines the character was later given under JA I meant the Dobsons since this is the SB thread and I am ready for STORIES!

But, see, this is why this is so bizarre. They wanted to sex up Lucky/Liz up a bit? Why not? They thought they needed a hunkier guy to do that? Sure. Why not? They don't care how good an actor he is? Now it starts to become puzzling, but fine let's take Vee's argument that it is par for the course at face velue. But they didn't even hire someone who had any chemistry with Liz? This makes no sense. So I will go to my grave thinking there was something uniquely weird about this casting. And I say that without even touching on the later rumors.

Listen I do not want to turn myself into a Karen basher coz I love Karen. But she didn't own it. She spent the entire reunion of that season deflecting and refusing to answer any factual question. At times with legit complaints about the timing and manner of it all. But she never OWNED the fact she had been BSing everything that season. Everybody moved on the next season and those particular issues were never explored in depth again. That's definitely clever of her to have managed to deflect it so well. But that's not owning it. I doubt Gizelle will be given as much leeway to bulldoze through her own receipts and everyone's mileage will vary on whether Karen earned more leeway or what not but no. Karen does not own her own BS anymore than the others. She is just slicker which, great for her! But I am not there for pretending she is above it all.

I know how he passed but did any of his co-stars ever give a more detailed account of how things unfolded now that some time has passed? I was thinking about it because I was listening to Philece Sampler (RIP) interviews recently where she talked about Brenda Benet's passing and I had always been compelled by BH's story (partially because of the closet angle)

That is a VERY inspired idea. I totally co-sign. He even LOOKS like a mix of the previous Luckys and he has the range. Would never have crossed my mind but kudos for thinking of it.

This is indeed an AWESOME quote but she has been found plenty. The timing of the whole IRS/house moving needling by the rest of the cast was distasteful but she WAS lying her ass off about her money troubles.

That was initially going to be my joke in response to this conversation. Maybe we'd rather work for the Shapiros than the Dobsons but would we rather work with Joan Collins?* *whom I adore but let's face it she must be brutal to work with.

Of all the people mentioned I actually would go for JY last. Not that he is not good-looking obviously. But JJ, TC, CB can come to my house anytime first. So I wasn't making a case about their attractiveness in general - such a subjective thing anyway - but we are talking stereotypes of what's "good-looking" per soap standards and while I strongly disagree with Vee's dismissal of it as "usual", I certainly agree with them that JY was a case of abs-based hire. I simply think it is particularly surprising they went there in this very specific case and I hear nothing that makes it convincing to argue it is not. Funny thing though is that in the end we all agree it was a miscast which was the point so no need to belabor whether it was as "to be expected" as ya'll seem to think. I do think YOUR point which is that it is possible to be insanely attractive without looking like an underwear model is 100% correct and I'd argue anyone who watches soaps knows it is perfectly possible to find attractive-in-various-ways people who can act. And soaps do more often than it commonly believed aka my point. We will never fully know what was in their heads when they misfired so badly with JY.

I hear the arguments and I think I didn't make my point well because I do agree that it is perfectly possible to write a balanced 30 min soap. What I was trying to say is that Bell's worst instincts (the bizarre unbalanced way he tells stories and the pacing) comes from HIM not mastering the pacing. As Chris B said, they created a good canvas of characters so it is not like Bell is a bad writer in itself. He has done great plots over the years. And I think HE - because B&B is his and he is not letting go - would do better with a full hour. But in a vacuum it is absolutely correct there is no reason it couldn't work at 30min AND it is absolutely correct someone else writing the show could force a better way to spread out the stories. My point was about B&B as is which is Bell's thing, and I stand that my belief that Bell has always had troubles with pacing in this format. It has gotten more obvious now that the show is old and the stories weaker but this "only one story for a week with C-list characters eating time by idly talking about the A plot while ignoring every other story" thing has been going on since the beginning.

They didn't cast Jonathan Jackson or Tyler Christopher based on abs. That very same year they cast JY, they also cast Chad Brannon. So, yes. In some circumstances it is shocking because, contrarily to popular belief, it is not how they cast most of the time and, for some roles, it is particularly absurd. You can take the risk of leaning on looks when casting a rando role with no ties to the canvas. As I said, B&B casting him on looks wasn't a big shock. However recasting the son of your most famous couple, that had just been played by a celebrated young actor, based on abs is particularly puzzling, no matter how low your opinion of soap standards are. I stand by that.

On the other hand, a lot of the problem with the writing comes down to the fact it is only 22min. The incestuous cast, the very bizarre pacing, the unbalanced way characters and stories are played... I bet B&B would be a vastly superior soap if it did full episodes.

GH's Maxie had children by Nathan and half-brother Peter.

This stays puzzling to me For B&B to cast him on looks wasn't absurd. I mean, it fit the role and this was supposed to be a teenager anyway and the material wasn't Shakespeare. He was going to play besotted by Amber and then bamboozled by her pregnancy lies. Not needing to be the best actor to pull "being dumb" off. But Lucky? JJ had made Lucky an extremely popular character based on his very strong acting work. It would have been insane for them to think "hunk" without worrying about the acting factor. It is not like they couldn't find a good-looking "hunk" that could act a lot better than JY could at that time and could take the ball where JJ had left it. Heck, at least find someone with good chemistry with RH. It still boggles my mind to this day. There are plenty of bad recasts that don't work because of untangible things but that made sense enough on paper. This was doomed from the start in a very conspicuous way that anyone with half a brain could have told them before he even started airing.

I am going to put my hand up and say I don't understand ya'll. They are all messy liars with dirt in the closet and everyone exposes everyone else. I am not sure why Karen should be getting a pass for her own BS. I love Karen! But she is not anymore above the fakery than any of the others. Everyone on here acting as if calling Karen out for stuff is an act of petty sacrilege. I know nothing of their history with kids. Would be perfectly plausible for a Housewife to use "trying for a baby" for a storyline. BUT. I am also sure we have all heard of women or couples who once thought they didn't want kids and changed their minds as they got older.

Right but as Vee said, he just wasn't very good on his first B&B run either. He just wasn't a very good actor. He was VERY green when he first joined B&B and was cast mostly on his looks. Why GH thought he was an appropriate successor to JJ is weird to me; he certainly was miscast. Then with a mix of getting older and better (maybe as a result of the blowback he got from his Lucky performances) and JR being a better fit for his strengths, he did well in that role - not always as good as another better actor would have IMO but good enough. And then when he returned to B&B the second time, the writing for Rick changed to get Rick closer to a softer version of JR and it kinda worked. I am going to put my hand up and say I also liked his chemistry with Skye. He was very relaxed by then and RC could keep up with him. The romance aspect was weird and obviously noone was fooled into thinking this is was an endgame romance but their flirtatious banter is one of the few things that I found tolerable from him in his last decade or so. I mean, the Tracy stuff had moments but when the Skye scenes were light-hearted and he was much better when he was not trying to ACT. This was material he could just show up, be himself and cash the paycheck which is really all he wanted by then so these made him visibly happier and in turn it made him better. I have been preaching that Georgie point for years but I fully agree. Courtney was expandable but maybe with better (more balanced) writing she could have done something more interesting - I didn't personally hate the actress. And Emily is someone that Helena should have put on ice to get her away from Nikolas and she is not really dead or something. She has too many ties to various sides of the canvas.

Merci! Setting aside their big picture mistakes, were they also a pain in the behind to work for on a day-to-day basis?

Thank you. That's what I had gathered from the posters but thank you for making it explicit. Do we know why they hadn't told Bateman?

That's what I said. When you look back at when she was the third wheel antagonist to prop up Sabrina, looking at where she is at now is insane. Great because KT rocks! But insane. I still wonder what they were planning to do with that very very weird quickie with Julian that literally nothing ever came out of and why they squelched it and wrote her out for several months.

In all fairness, the Shapiros were hardly better writers than the Dobsons. Whatever Dynasty had going for it, it was neither the scripts nor the quality and coherence of the plots. Funny because if you read a few pages over I was struck by this scene too when I started rewatching SB from scratch. It was not just cringe and awful writing but it was such a bizarre thing to think and think people would find it hot. Mark my words: the Dobsons must have had a very kinky sex life. Where did you read about it? I am only piecing things together from this thread and I'd be interested in the whole story.

I wish John Aniston nothing but a long healthy life but obviously it makes sense to prepare for when we will lose him and it seems Tony can hold roughly the same space on the canvas as Victor does now.

Why did he take it? Did he need the money or something?

I'd buy an attempt to see if Sally and Adam have chemistry. Why not? But a pairing needs conflict to be interesting and what would the story be there? She gets with Jack for ambition and then starts having the hots for Adam? Meh. I love Sally and the actress but they have not figured out yet whether they want us to root for her or whether they want to play full vixen. Even though that's not how the character started off at B&B I can accept if they turn her into a full scheming-for-advancement antagonist but everytime they move in that direction they then try to pull back to keep her "sympathetic" I guess. They need to pick a lane for her and own it. CH is a great charismatic actress. She can still manage to be interesting and likeable if you make it clear she is after Jack for the money. But the writers need to commit to a characterization instead of going back-and-forth. So I didn't miss anything? It is true they never had Nick finding out about that? This is Soap 101. How could they not play that beat! Does Victoria know? Lily and Summer's conversation around it is one of the few scenes of the past year I remember enjoying. It seems insane they are leaving so much great potential for organic drama on the floor without using it. And now that Summer is gone, it is too late. So ztupid.

I am in that group too. In hindsight the supreme irritation I felt towards her was mostly directed at how she was written and how overplayed she was. Add to this things like the Emmy - honestly I still think this is one of the most embarrassing daytime Emmy wins of the past two decades - and I resented her. It was really a time where the writing for "pets" was really skewed and I think our memories associate her with that era (and the horrifying Sonny pairing) more than she herself had earned. But truth is: she was fine and relatively innocuous. I hate "heroines" on soaps and that's how they were playing her so I would have never warmed to her but she, as an actress, was doing fine. Not Emmy-worthy at all but fine enough that she probably doesn't deserve the collective groaning at her name she gets since.