FrenchBug82

We don't know where the story goes so I will wait to complain about Liam later.

Focusing on the news about Finn specifically: a real dumb move. I wasn't over-the-moon for him and never expected him to be long-term but Finn and Steffy worked enough that they could have squeezed some years of story out of them. And the INSANITY of retconning Sheila an insta-son but use him for five months of stories before killing him off is just jaw-dropping short-sighted.

EDIT: Come to think of it, what if the dream thing is really the twist? Then Finn never existed, right? And he is not Sheila's son?
So his exit is not that he is dead; it is that Steffy never met him. Which means he can be reused later, I guess.

6 minutes ago, YRfan23 said:

Thanks for clearing up the original date!  We say it a lot, but I wish they'd just realize the audience gets that we've had several actors play the role. 

The worst are the horrible photoshopped mall photos they use to retroactively create "young" photos. How do these show not have anyone mildly adept at Photoshop?

Honestly, I don't mind them reshooting if it is doable. Thirty years later is complicated but I think it was clever of them to do that 2001-1997 because 2001 was twenty years ago so it helps a current audience.
Blair looking puzzled and checking herself in the mirror when the Asa weddings flashbacks were playing on OLTL was a fun moment though

10 minutes ago, will81 said:

Yeah true. I think Brenda just performs it like she has no idea who Nikki is - either she is playing Jill like she forgot they were in-laws, or playing her like she is distancing herself "I don't know her" Lol. 

I do not know these scenes but like a lot of the gold she struck as Jill, I think this might be a case of Brenda having no idea who Nikki is so playing it as if Jill does not either, and yet it works because Jill *would exactly be* the "I don't know her" kind of girl.
 

I hate the idea but I love all the curveballs this would open up the door for.

If this is a dream from Steffy, this explains why Taylor is such a saint again.
Imagine if all the Steffy/Taylor fandom who were yessing those girls' attack on Brooke the past couple of months are left with Taylor being rewritten again into the slutty mess she was under her latest HT incarnations.

3 hours ago, Vee said:

"The Plan to Save Y&R!"

If at least they are aware the show needs saving, I'd say it is a step up from the complacent "everything is fine as long as ratings are stable" attitude I was under the impression TPBT were embracing.

16 minutes ago, Vee said:

Technically, soaps have done a 'dream season' if we're counting Dallas. Of course it's not daytime.

I really don't want it to be true but I did notice Errol specified daytime.

But maybe then we can get Thomas and Vinny back together after all LOL
And Flo isn't a Logan. But what happens to Sally then? Because we would be getting a twin-named-after-dead-Bobby thing there if Sally discussed at Y&R what happened with Flo which was after Steffy's accident if my memory serves me right.

But at least I am glad I was right that Finn and Steffy's shooting was *obviously* not "the twist" since it is not *a* twist. 

4 hours ago, Soapsuds said:

Ha! Doug was cute in a puppy way but the actor and character of Ben was dull as dirt.

I cringed everytime Ben took his shirt off.

In a weird way it really worked for me and for Knots Landing's appeal to me that I was not sexually attracted to any of its multiple male leads over the years - and trust me, I am usually super easy taste-wise.

I am not going to bash anyone and I saw the charisma in many but Gary, Greg, Mack, Ben, Larry, Richard, Sid, Nick...
I mean there are a few supporting characters I would have - Karen's sons - but very very very few were classically handsome.
None of them really were TV-show good-looking. It helped ground the show very much IMO and I am pretty sure it is part of KL as a female-centered show.
 

The reason I don't think these shows could have done self-containing stories - and why it didn't work for soaps that tried - is because doing it in 60 min forces a resolution and that's not how life works, particularly for the kind of stories soaps tell
When it comes to romance, social issues, business dealings, nothing ever gets resolved and things re ongoing. You can't tie everything with a neat bow like you can when the perp gets arrested on Murder She wrote.

There is plenty of deserved criticism for the way things are unfolding but hold up: I don't know what the twist is but I bet you my right arm that this isn't the twist they are talking about.

It is not even a "twist" by any definition of the word.

So I do agree Sheila should have been used better and more long-term rather than bring her to 100 so fast for so little plot. Criticism warranted.
But I think everyone is wrong to assume this is what they were hyping as the twist. I am quasi-certain it isn't and we can criticize *that* or not when we see it on-screen.

Just now, Soaplovers said:

I think Gary and Val took a long time to reunite because she and Ben were popular together.  I remember my parents saying Val was too good for Gary..and that she had more in common with Ben.  Both were writers, both jogged,  both loved the ocean, and both had a quirky sense of whimsy.

I actually liked him with Abby better.

That's what I am saying. I think a LOT of people felt that way and it is a testament to the talent of everyone involved - actors and writers.
There was a lot more story that could be told - the dilemna between the man who is right for you and the passion that is toxic but that you can't get out of your skin - especially with the twins still hanging over them.
They didn't reunite Gary and Val properly until much later so besides ego I don't see why Sheehan should have cared that Gary/Val would be the end game. The end game was a long ways away!


I actually found a piece that I think might bw what is mentioned above from People in 1985 and not only does he come off as something of an a** to me here, but he confirms that
1) it is about ego ("Second-fiddle"? Dude was given plenty of material; he wasn't going to get top billing over the OG)
2) it is amazing when you think he was still ON THE SHOW and was a year away from leaving when he was saying those things 

https://people.com/archive/tired-of-playing-second-fiddle-on-knots-landing-doug-sheehan-starts-tooting-his-own-horn-vol-24-no-22/

So I would have to imagine it didn't make him very popular on-set either.
 

- Whatever lingerie Brooke was wearing when she unveiled "Brooke's Bedroom" on B&B

-

Do we include primetime?
Coz I remember Nolan Miller showing in his Academy of Television interview his sketches for what would become costumes on Dynasty and that was captivating.

The clothes McKenzie Westmore had to wear for, what, six months while Sheridan was at the bottom of that pit, which must be some kind of record.
 

38 minutes ago, Khan said:

I can't blame Doug Sheehan for feeling bitter and unhappy and wanting out.  Everyone BTS was so sold on Gary and Val being endgame that they made Ben look like a damn fool in the process

Granted I am not an artist so I don't know the feeling of wanting to walk away from a good-paying job because you want to "be challenged" but this feels like cutting off your nose to spite your face.
While everyone understood Gary was the endgame, by the time Sheehan chose to walk away Val and Ben were going very well, were very solid and were surprisingly popular considering, well, that they weren't the endgame. They weren't putting Gary and Val back together anytime soon.
There was a LOT of story yet to be told with the character, even from within the confines of the Val triangle, let alone if they managed to use him in other directions which they might have!

His exit story, which wouldn't have happened if he hadn't asked to leave, was ironically the only really garbage "we-don't-know-what-to-do-with-you" story he really was given.
He was paid very well to play a character on a high-rated primetime show. I can't possibly understand what would have creatively bothered him so much that he would want to walk away from the job when there was no sign the character had exhausted its potential IMO.

2 hours ago, victoria foxton said:

I liked Michelle as well. 

I think people associate her with the awfulness of the last few years AND especially some of its worst plots like April's killing and James.
But on the merits Michelle was the least bad new character they introduced in the last few seasons.  I was disappointed that Kimberly Foster's character on AMC turned out to be a big ball of nothing.

It is hard for me to hear "This is a female-oriented" show and think this is supposed to be a critic.
I realize the bitterness is speaking but it is a good thing that KL was centered around its female characters when all was said and done.
Sheehan had a good run but I do remember he wasn't happy and I think he asked to be written out so I think it is possible he was frustrated and unhappy there.
There'd be no way Behrens would have been surprised and bitter to be written out considering what his character was. He was a guest star for a season, nothing more. He'd have to have been deluded.

I love how a big deal was made of him cutting his hair when he left and he basically was away just long enough to grow it back where it was

2 hours ago, j swift said:

I think there were lots of candidates for the "next gen" JR including Michelle and James (although the casting of James was atrocious). 

I have confessed before that I actually am of the three or four people who really liked Michelle.
The writing was awful by then but I thought she was interesting and beautiful and was clearly learning and improving at scheming from the initial impulsive girl. It was more character development they allowed anyone else.

She could have been a out-of-left-field adversary.

And yes I still have trouble understanding how that guy landed the role of James'. Especially since we now know he was a piece of work IRL too.

5 hours ago, Videnbas said:

I don't get why Sheila felt the need to switch those labels in the first place. She held all the trump cards at that point. She had just scored a huge win - being invited for Christmas BY TAYLOR. Brooke had provoked her but there was no power behind the words. All Sheila needed to do was stay on her best behavior. Sheila had nothing to gain by switching the labels and everything to lose.

And, well, if the secret is out already, what are the stakes?

As I said the stakes were too low for this to be the secret of the century.

BUT it is very Sheila to self-sabotage by obsessing over getting revenge on a small slight that sidetracks her from her main goal.

So while I think this should have been written a notch more interesting, it is at least not out-of-characters.

I will play Devil's Advocate slightly in that this is the kind of secret Sheila could obsess about protecting if she deludes herself into thinking there is a stake.
It didn't matter the previous two times she did because she was being vindictive but there was no concurrent goal.
Here she is trying to prove to her son that she has changed, that she can be in his life and she is not a threat. Proving the illusion that she is IS a secret and Steffy telling her that she has ammo to ban them from their lives is a threat.

NOW I 100% agree that if this is all there is to Sheila's stint, it will have been lamer than I would have wanted for her.
And the stakes for her are kinda neutered since Steffy told Finn first. If she was trying to prevent Steffy from telling *Finn* - in her desperation that he sees her as a mother figure he can trust and who has changed - it would have made sense to me somewhat that someone obsessive like Sheila could have worked herself up to become dangerous in service of preventing Finn from learning who she really is.

6 minutes ago, Paul Raven said:

I'll take MS as 'good' Phyllis for a while as she'll have to dial down her worst 'acting' instincts.

I'd genuinely be very interested in Phyllis maturing and her wanting to dial herself down while fighting her nature.
What I liked about GT's tenure is that she was sort of portraying her that way and it would have been nice for them to continue further on it. It doesn't mean turning her into a saint however.
But "I have grown and I am trying to be mature about this" while still having that bad girl fire inside struggling to get out is definitely good material.
Of course psychological drama in a soap nowadays? Fuggetaboutit.
And MS probably would play that inner struggle as a comedy, like she did a lot of time with some of the earlier Diane tension when Diane was living at the mansion.

10 hours ago, janea4old said:

Sheila begins to unspool while fearing her dirty deed will be revealed.

Fwiw it took me a few hours but I realized that, if we accept the possibility that what we saw didn't happen, "dirty deed" could very well apply simply to her having spiked Brooke's drink. 

On 3/31/2022 at 3:01 PM, Vee said:

I think she did a very good job. It is what it is, really.

I think she has been wonderful so far which is why I forgive the absolute intelligence-insulting two-sentence explanation of how she faked her death.
"Deacon helped me, a corpse from the morgue" ... That's it? I know the Genoa City police is usually rather incompetent but Diane was a public figure. Noone noticed the body didn't look right?
Oh and that's without even counting the fact we the audience SAW HER dead.

I suspected they would just hand-wave it rather than give us a decent explanation. I like Diane being back and I have liked what SW is giving me so far so I will accept it.
But I again see signs in that monologue that they are setting up Diane to have been a lot more evil than she was and I dread what they are intending to do with her now.
 

3 hours ago, janea4old said:

-A powerful bond is formed during a chilling near-death experience. 
-Sheila finally receives what she's always dreamed of having.
No idea what those are about!

Doesn't "near-death" confirm Finn isn't dead?

Obviously they know how to word those as to not spoil anything fundamental but the fact Sheila is out and about in those spoilers tells me something is amiss here.

Those spoilers confuse me.
Why is there a storyline between Li and Sheila? If Finn is dead, well, yeah she will "never be a mother" to him.
Why is Steffy keeping Sheila's secret?

Is FInn really dead?