FrenchBug82

Which is why I am surprised about how blunt this is, particularly since they know how public this case is. You'd think they'd want to use more diplomatic language; we have seen it before. They must be really pissed about something for them to just cast her overboard that undiplomatically.

Yes! It was one of my favourites of all the lockdown reunions. It was too short; I wanted it to go on and for each lady to have time to discuss specifics. I hope we can get Susan Keith at some point Yes! Lisa! I can't believe we haven't heard from her. I know she is born-again but I don't think she has turned against her past career, is she?

Or, if one is more unkind, which I am feeling like being because I don't like the way this conversation is going, it is a lot easier to become a big fish when you are in a smaller pond with fewer other big fishes. If you get my drift.

Don Diamont granted a restraining order against a stalker who claims DD is responsible for the Iraq War and Covid and WHO SHOWED UP AT HIS HOUSE. Yikes. Must have been terrifying. https://www.tmz.com/2021/06/15/soap-opera-star-don-diamont-restraining-order-alleged-stalker/

I might be in the minority but the over-the-top gushing over JS is not something I had missed. But since people have been in a hurry to belittle the current two male performers involved in the Sami triangle, let me just say that I would boink BD - then or now - any day over JS. And I would take DF over JS, physically speaking, scruffy or cleaned up as well. So, there. Maybe Sami has my tastes. I do agree with the initial criticism that I hope they don't try to shoehorn DF into the polish that JS had brought EJ. I didn't like it then but that came naturally to JS so it worked for him. Allowing DF to have his own spin on the character would probably work better. We shall see.

This. I am a bit surprised to see many people making definitive statements after one episode. But then again I really did not like or enjoy JS as EJ - neither the character, not the acting style - so I am not going to be really the best judge. But still... yeesh. Give it time, ya'll, and then you can decide.

Yeah. Of course they are setting up a new triangle with L/H/T. It is transparent and obvious and that's what they were working on when they slowly rehabilitated Thomas. I was more commenting on what a horribly misogynistic trope it is for a man to "give" his wife to another man as if her thoughts, opinions, feelings, free will were not a factor. Me neither and being that he is the one expandable character involved in the Vinnie murder story and we were told there was a "mystery" - which isn't obvious so far as the story has been about what we saw Liam do -, well... Let's just say I can see a way he'll be out of the picture within the year.

OMG I forgot about that. I cannot see for the life of me in what part of the cast there is a hole that he is supposed to fill. Why couldn't be Austin and be done with it? OK Unpopular opinion: realizing how much I didn't care about Patrick without Robin around was a bigger problem than Sabrina in this entire time period. But to the point, I'd love to go back seven- eight years in the past and tell fans that of all the characters involved in those dreadful post-Robin hospital storylines that *Britt* would be the one still around with family members in town and a front-burner romance eight years later. LOL

A reminder of something I preach on every thread about every show: whenever we criticize casting and recasting choices of producers, headwriters, etc, we NEED to keep in mind there is a LOT we don't know about and some human resources decisions are made like they would be in any other business. It is not always the quality of the underlying work that makes someone unacceptable to keep around. We understandably often talk about those casting choices and firings as if it always came down to whether they were good actors and whether the writer wanted to write for them. But there are plenty of other things that came at play and I bet most apparently puzzling casting decisions could easily be explained if we had the full picture of what goes on BTS.

The way she was holding the package flat to the camera even when walking was hilarious too. The reason I didn't pick that video though was that Peggy McCay, God Bless Her and may she RIP, actually tried to sell it and delivered the lines with some level of enthusiasm. I am sure she didn't like it anymore than Peter Reckell and Kristen Alfonso did but she did it like a trooper so the cringe was slightly less for me. Seeing actors die inside while delivering the lines is the extra level of "what are they doing" for me.

Can we talk about how awful it is for Liam to say something like that? What happened to Hope's freewill? Are women gifts that men decide which of them gets? Setting aside the stupidity of choosing Thomas, are the writers thinking this is romantic as in "I am sacrificing myself for my woman to be happy" rather than yet another proof that Liam is a egoistical self-pitying misogynistic a**? What are they doing?

Agreed. I really wanted this to work and I guess I commend CBS for knowing she is great and finding a way to keep her tied down to them on contract but this is not working. They clearly do not know what to do with her. I don't blame them for firing whatshisface but it is so weird they are insisting on continuing to tell the story without a recast Chance on the canvas. Are they holding off to see if they can land someone in particular? I still say Ronan was a pretty interesting character and it is weird he is never mentioned. But then again neither is Dylan.

Genuine question: would Tricia Cast want a front-burner storyline even if she they wrote it for her? She IS a gem but I have gotten the impression she was a bit like Beth Maitland or Jess Walton these past few years - happy to pop up for stints and show up when needed but not eager for a full-time job. However I might be wrong. Did she give an interview to that effect?

In all fairness, as I am rewatching Ryan's Hope from the beginning in recent times thanks to a generous YouTuber, Seneca WAS introduced as a controlling husband. That was the entire point of Nell leaving him and moving to NY as far as she could from him. He wasn't letting her have her career etc. His first scenes had him trying to interfere with her attempting to start a new life before moving himself to NYC... And the tone of those scenes was more "How dare she" rather than "I miss her". I gather the relationship between them ended up being portrayed differently later but in these first few months at least, it is strongly hinted that Seneca is a controlling suffocating husband indeed.

This is Days of Our Lives not ATWT but since we are talking about product placement, this is an example of what I am talking about. It is not product placement. It is characters straight-up delivering a commercial in the middle of the show - with the enthusiasm one can imagine.

That's what I never understood about product placement in modern soaps. Why did it have to be so bad, so corny and SO obvious? There is nothing inherently degrading about product placement within the show if it is done cleverly - some big prestigious movies manage it seamlessly - and yet so little effort was made at making it anything but cheap and obvious when it was done in recent times. As if the people behind it thought the soap audience was so stupid that it had to be heavy-handed to work.

I was about to comment the same thing! The irony of Liam is that, while I certainly like Scott C's suggestion for why he is so irresistible, if the character had a lot more of SC's natural charm and humor, it might somewhat make more sense that Steffy and Hope would treasure him so. But the appeal of the self-indulgent whiny dullard we are given is a complete mystery.

That's am impressively classy way to say she was sexually harassed. I mean Gina was my favorite part of SB so it is going to be hard for me to say anything bad about RM. I loved both portrayals... The writing shifted though so that's what I would blame one's preferences on.

Enjoy the character being dead for all I care; I am personally glad he is gone. That is of course not what we are talking about when we are decrying the abuse thrown in WR's direction.

She was a nun on Love is a Many Splendored Thing!

I simply expressed hope things can be brought down a notch once the current frustration subsides and then shared my own admittedly generous take on WR. You can rest assured you are and will stay as free to consider him a bad actor as you do now and there was nothing in my post to suggest otherwise. In any case even bad actors do not deserve the torrent of bile thrown at him on Twitter and I am just a softie: as documented on this thread, I haven't been the last to criticize some of his ridiculous performances but I am just so uncomfortable with the aggressivity and what borders on personal abuse. If only so that nastiness goes away, him being written out is a relief. On a more positive note, as documented on past GH threads, I 1000% agree that the direction is atrocious and it boggles the mind that noone tried to rein in the worst impulses of WR, PL, RH etc. That is definitely something we agree on and more.

I don't want to belabor this because you are probably right and it is not happening regardless of what I say but nevertheless *someone* has to be enough in charge that they could make that call. The rights to that stuff are not lost in outer space; a business has clear lines of authorities and the responsibility for legacy material must lie somewhere, even if they are not active in that field anymore.

My first instinct would have been to say that with the benefit of hindsight they probably would have been better off sticking with some of the things they felt were not workings - actors, stories, characters - and work at repairing them, even if it meant the show being rough while this was accomplished - rather than wildly changing directions every six months in a way that made it hard to cultivate loyalty and interest in the audience. BUT maybe they felt they didn't have the luxury (read: enough support and goodwill for the network) of spending months repairing what they had and instead repeatedly cleaning house abruptly and trying new things was a better way to appease executives and stay on the air? As J Swift said, while the Dobsons made a lot of bad calls, we do not know ALL the factors that were leading to what was business decisions as much as creative ones. Overspending at the outset WAS a mistake on their part and that's on them. What follows is probably a muddled mess of complicated motives and interests from the various parties.

It is entirely fair but it is still hard to comprehend why they couldn't at least sell it to someone who is in that business. Might or might not make a decent buck out of it - but it would at least be more than they are making by letting it rot out of sight doing nothing with it.

I think maybe now that he is gone, people's rage will subside and they will have a slightly less bitter approach to WR. My take is this: we have seen him do decent to good things in other shows so he cannot be said to be a bad actor. He is attractive and, yes, he can act. However he was terribly miscast in this role - which wasn't his fault - and then, for reasons I cannot understand (was he trying to compensate for not feeling the role was a good fit for him?) he made things considerably worse by making bad and sometimes offensively ridiculous acting choices. It was a bad character AND he was bad in it. He was set up for failure by a bad casting decision and then proceeded to make it a gazillion times worse. But now that the irritation of having him on-screen is gone, hopefully people can leave him alone and, if only out of human kindness, wish him well in his future endeavors for which I hope he will be cast more appropriately.