FrenchBug82

I don't think the writing for Abby has *ever* worked even with more charismatic actresses in the role so count me in the camp of those who are not bothered by MO herself: she is inoffensive enough and do not quite understand the fixation on HER. Write Abby out to join Ashley wherever she is; that, I would get. But recasting? Problem with Abby isn't MO. They need to retool the character first and then they can think over whether MO can pull off the new version.

That character and everything that surrounded him was a true of work of fart* * Referencing this for those who never saw it:

Taylor coming back from the dead a gazillion times kind of lost my interest in the character and while I thought Nick was a solid rival for Ridge - who did need a solid rival to be more tolerable and they never wrote Thorne well enough to be it - the Nick/Brooke story lost me when Bridget started being part of it and it became all too incestuous for me - again. But one thing I will say for the Taylor/Brooke/Nick/Ridge quad is that it still led me to one of my favorite moments which is Taylor finding out the baby she carried had been conceived with Brooke's egg. Don't get me wrong: the story was insanely stupid and the acting iffy but it still is one of my favorite B&B camp moments of all times.

Not in the late 80s/early 90s but look back to the late 1990s/early 2000s and the complaints about the never-ending T/B/R triangle were similar to now. Not that I don't understand and agree with the complaint - I also find the writing for the current triangle less compelling (I think Hope in particular is underwritten as an individual and both Steffy and Hope have not been given enough "alternative" pairings to distract us in between revivals of the triangle) - but I just do remember that this is a recurring problem for the show.

Which is why the (understandable) groaning about the Liam merry-go-round amuses me. It is nothing new for B&B. It just used to be Ridge going back and forth and back and forth and grown women making stupid choice all the time and the incest, oh the incest.

We have talked plenty about the downsides of doppleganger story but you touch on something important: it is understandable for a character to be drawn to someone who looks exactly like someone they loved and lost. But the fact they systematically end up trying to recreate the coupling ends up being insulting. Love is not just about physical attraction and it is a little too convenient that the resemblance ends up leading to love everytime despite the fact these are supposed to be completely different characters. I would have rather he be Stefan even if it would have made no sense. I like BB but this sucks.

I knew that and I have read plenty of stories over the years about him being problematic behind-the-scenes on a more personal level which is why I was asking.

How many of Swan's other, hum, behind-the-scenes idiosyncracies ended up impacting story, as far as is publicly known?

Let's be fair to the show though and wait a bit before we complain. We *just* learned she was pregnant; they are setting up the story. Could very well be they are going to go somewhere interesting with this; we cannot declare a story a bore before it has even started

"There is so much these girls don't know about my problems and my personal life" Well, gurl, that's what we have been criticizing you for for YEARS that you have been on TV faking a life that wasn't real and never talking about the real things going on in your life, unlike many other housewives. You can't come NOW and use that as a shield to make us feel sorry for you. The reason they don't know is because YOU didn't tell them because you wanted to present a fake image of yourself. Get out of here with that self-pity. As someone for whom Kenya is a favorite, what is galling is the shocking double-standard. Because on the substance, yeah, that costume was cringe and in 2021 she should have known better. As for the edit, to be entirely fair to Bravo, the costume wasn't intrinsic to the story and could be edited out without hurting the substance of the show too much. LeeAnne's rant was crucial to show considering how much "story" then flowed from that. Now, I agree, a lot of white housewives have been allowed to be racist - unintentionally and intentionally - and Bravo needs to do better and the double-standard is not cool. But I am not mad at them reprimanding Kenya, although I will note that no one in production noticed the costume was problematic back when they were filming (they could have told her to change!) which in itself says something about Bravo and the producers' whiteness too. Talking about double standards, I would have liked the "reprimand" to have included their own responsibility

In all fairness, B&B has always had a tendency to give heavy focus on one storyline at a time per a run of episodes then switch to another story and so forth. I wish they would run two storylines at a time - instead of the main storyline plus random character discussing what might be happening in the main storyline - but that has been Bell's style for eons now It had actually never occurred to me it could be budgetary but now that you say it it makes sense: if you run one storyline over the course of, say, a week's worth of episodes, you can just bring in the three or four characters involved and record several episodes at once and save money and allow the infamously-comfortable schedule of the show for the actors. Better mix-and-match would be better (not to mention it would lessen the impression that things happen at breakneck speed) but it is particularly frustrating when the one storyline doesn't work and we have to endure only that one for a week

I am glad I am not the only one who liked Kate/John and was frustrated they dropped it. Of course the endgame would always have been Jarlena but I wish Jarlena fans understood how much they hurt the characters by reacting viciously to any attempt to do something with the individual characters that didn't involve each other. Either way, I am sure Kate will be fine and swear revenge and it will be fun enough but I agree it kind of does not speak well of Jake as a character. I really enjoy BB but this is yet another in a long list of soap "why did they kill the character off if they were going to rehire the actor in a less-interesting lookalike role soon after?"

He is obviously right but this is particularly stupid because this is the SAME TRICK they used back when they first wanted to pair Sharon and Adam together in 2010 and they had Adam save Faith from a falling barn beam. The SAME trick with the SAME character to sell the SAME couple. How lazy.

That's fair but it is not like they didn't have a history of being all over the place. If they wanted Lazar when they hired her and then, in my theory, fired her four months later in part because she didn't fit the stereotype even after they died her hair, they could very well hire Michaels another five months later even though she didn't quite fit the concern they had in December when they fired Lazar. You know what I am saying? Consistency wasn't exactly SB's decision-makers' forte. I dunno. I always thought that had to be a factor.

Cute lines are cute. But that's not going to distract from, you know, the real T this time.

I don't want to besmirch anyone and since I don't recall if I read it as a fact or simply speculated in my head, I am going to ask. Has anyone ever discussed the issue of Reva's latter-day wardrobe? I have always assumed the problem was as much about KZ's taking time to adapt to her new shape (to be fair, many people including me postpone changing their wardrobe because they expect to lose the weight and then never do) and her ego not letting them dress her plus-size as it was GL not knowing how to do it. I seem to vaguely remember her admitting that by the time OLTL came around she was more comfortable in her own skin and that was why her wardrobe there was a lot more appropriate. But I could be wrong. Do we know?

I think the racial undertones of that should not be ignored. I firmly believe some of the subtext of what happened is that she didn't look or sound like a "sterotypical" Latina and that became a problem in the minds of TPTB because the cliches they wanted to rely on (see her "fire" leading her to bring a gun to Joe's return in the first episodes) weren't clicking with her more subtle performance and non-daughter-of-the-Latina-maid appearance.

Yeah I am not disagreeing with you there. But I still think that because it was new and excitingly campy and they sold the hell out of it and the stake were high, I was in for the ride. Here they are asking us to suspend disbelief for a story that is not worth it. Put it another way, because we were just discussing this on the GH thread, I love soaps because I love soaps. And I was willing to accept Marlena going along with not telling John about Kristen over and over and over again based on believing Kristen's obvious stalling lies because I knew the day it would all unravel, it would be amazing and so satisfying. Here when folks are going to realize what Kristen is doing it will be just another episode. SH is a good actress so I just don't think it is fair to lay it on her by saying ED would have sold it. ED is amazing but I don't think this dud would have worked with her either - as you yourself said, the last few months after the Susan reveal when they were stretching the story to use ED all the way to the end of her contract, it had already lost steam which I find kind of vindicates my sense that the acting can't save the story once it is stops being fresh and fun.

Yes. We had discussed it a few weeks ago and I agree I am very satisfied with the soapiness of a lot of the current plots. I often feel soap producers and writers nowadays have internalized "soap shame" and are trying to make their show look and feel as anything BUT a soap. But we watch soaps because we love soaps! We all could see the BrookLynn/Maxie baby switch story or the Nina-will-see-Sonny-first twist and the double-wedding-reveal-all-the-secrets set up and the Britt-and-Jason-chemistry-tests because we are soap watchers but we love it and we eat it up! And it is good fun entertainment and they should embrace it. If I want to see a crime drama, I will watch a crime drama. I want to watch a soap and that's what I feel when watching General Hospital in 2021 - down to the islands of bad actings lol. So I fully appreciate it.

I kind of agree and yet I also think Kristen at the time benefitted from the novelty of it all. It was camp and over-the-top but it was also the first storyline of the sorts. Part of the problem with the current mess is that this is a character that only works in small doses. You can't have ludicrous plot after ludicrous plot; at some point the character needs a rest. Also the unrealistic-ness of the Banks quintuplets storyline was very soapy and camp but within the realm of what we are asked to buy into with a soap. The mask storyline involves something that does not just require us to suspend disbelief but actual impossible magical technology. We can all immediately spot the very concrete practical plot holes of this. It is quite a different leap to ask us to make. Finally, the Banks storyline was entertaining. This just isn't, even if Kristen was a fresh character and the premise plausible. We are not talking about going against supercouple Jarlena here. We are talking obsessing over Chloe's week-long flirtation with Brady. And Sarah who I liked but... Hardly the stakes of the century. ED might have given the Kristen-as-Kristen scenes a lot of intensity and baggage that raised the drama but I don't think there is anything she or SH can do to sell the underlying meh-ness. If you want us to accept this level of nonsense, it has to be worth it story-wise. The Banks story sure was.

That pretty much sums up the entire dynamic of the racial conversation in our country, particularly with conservative-leaning white people. They are SO offended at the word "racist" that they spend more time feeling victimized by it and being defensive than actually listening or learning to what PoC are trying to tell them about their experience and how to do better. Hence "being called racist is the new racism" "Cancel culture" and all that stuff whereby because people don't want to think they hold racist prejudices, even without knowing it, and because they want to define racism in its narrow definition of overt hostility, they don't listen to the lived experience of PoC and think *they* are the victims. In a society with centuries of racism, misogyny, homophobia behind us, it is inevitable that all of us would hold - even subconsciously - some prejudices and learned bad habits from our culture. The difference is not between good non-racist people and racists: it is between self-centered people who don't want to listen when their "feelings are hurt" and decide they know better anyway, and those who want to be good people and do better and learn and step back and defer to the experience of those who are not like them.

Re: "The Help" Right. Remember what I was saying about Ramona's problems going way beyond just the "I-just-put-my-foot-in-my-mouth" borderline-autistic excuse? This is a perfect example. It is not just that she said something awkward or rude or inappropriate. It is what it reveals about what she THINKS. And she is an awful person. Sorry. Entertaining but awful.

OK This is irritating me. If you want to write camp soap opera, write camp soap opera. But don't try to gaslight us into thinking this is realistic. He is smart enough to know there is no comparison so he is clearly trolling but maybe the headwriters shouldn't troll his audience? He doesn't have to always please the audience but maybe he can at least respect it?

To be entirely fair - and I have issues with the plotting at B&B and indeed the short-term memory - the show is INTENDED to be camp. I don't think Bell Jr ever hid that. You don't create a show with a character like Sally Spectra (the original) without knowing what you are doing.

Darlene is awesome in many ways but one thing I particularly appreciate while rewatching is the skill in her delivering these long monologues with a lot of complicated well-written turns of phrases they liked to write for Sally. I don't know why they wrote her so many monologues but it is striking and boy did she deliver them flawlessly. From a purely technical pov, gotta admire that skill, on top of the acting talent of course. Darlene is awesome in many ways but one thing I particularly appreciate while rewatching is the skill in her delivering these long monologues with a lot of complicated well-written turns of phrases they liked to write for Sally. I don't know why they wrote her so many monologues but it is striking and boy did she deliver them flawlessly. From a purely technical pov, gotta admire that skill, on top of the acting talent of course. Rewatching old shows, one thing I admire in particular with the benefit of hindsight was her ability to deliver these pretty long monologues with convoluted but well-written turns of phrases flawlessly. She was so talented in many ways but that's a very specific skill and many actors say delivering monologues can be one of the toughest thing because you are not bouncing off of anybody and of course it requires a good memory to deliver them in one-go. I don't know why they would write those for Sally so often but really, setting aside the acting, from a purely technical point of view, you gotta admire how she was pulling them off and rocking them