FrenchBug82

That's usually the problem with soaps set in a proper urban environment. It seems silly to the audience that people who live in a big city would be constantly on top of each other in the same five places - that's not how it works in real life - but if you start spreading people out, you lose the sense of "place" that is crucial to soaps. It is a hard balance to waive and that's why writers have always set soaps in mid-size towns instead where they can stretch the importance and size of the city when needed for story. Britain has done much better finding a way to create a sense of place and community in a large city setting: both Coronation Street and East Enders are in proper cities.

It is funny because for the longest of times I never understood why Bev didn't like this story. I enjoyed it tremendously; it was great soap and it gave me one of my top GL moments of all time: the scene where Alex tells Billy about Mindy and Roger. That eyeroll Alex gives Fletcher when he tries to lecture her at the end is one of my favorite gifs to use. BUT thinking back about it I realize she had been in the business long enough to know that the way that once they started writing Alex that way, the cat would be out of the box for good. That was too easy for writers to create story with an hysterical vindictive matriach rather than the more complex character she had been so far. They had played with the DNA of the character and there would be no going back.

I actually liked that that very Carly thing to do ended up costing her. As by-the-numbers as the story is so far, it was a fun twist and I'll take it Still don't know why people think the story is going in an Annie direction. It is a feud but it doesn't have the ring of Annie's descent into Reva-obsessing madness. CW is a great actress; she will give it a different beat. I am not going to defend him because I don't think anything from him since the wedding has been salvageable. BUT the directors are clearly screwing him over. That scene with Olivia and Valentin about Dante in the restaurant was SO poorly staged, at a weird angle; forced him to stand there awkwardly looking massively taller than Olivia and not knowing what to do with his body. That's something that is down to placing and that was bad stage direction. Not why he is making those bad acting choices but it was one of those small moments where I feel some BTS people are not feeling him either.

Why is it that everyone MiM is mentioned, people get so very defensive as if she is being attacked or something? At NO point did I suggest she needed to "prove" she is a good actress. She is great. I don't know one person who questions that. Did you really read me as suggesting she be paired with Joshua Morrow of all people to prove she is a great actress? I mean, come ON! You have to know how silly an argument that would be. No need to be on the defensive all the time. Whatever criticism we have, it is not of her personally and certainly not of her talent. I was referring to the earlier debate where many of us thought Amanda hadn't quite clicked the way Hilary had and I was suggesting throwing her into different circles might give Amanda some spark that has been missing in the current downer of a story and toxic relationship with Devon. My habitual reminder that Nikki killed Diane and that is a fact that is apparently of no relevance or interest to anyone in GC, not even Diane's son.

The fact that the exit is unnecessary for the story and rather abrupt tells me that it was probably LMG's choice to leave. I hope she is well.

Right. Another angle that would make for drama. If I was writer, I'd test the chemistry they have because on paper, it has a lot of potential.

We are indeed missing a point when criticizing Marj's Alex is that while Bev gave the kind of performance only she could give, Alex during the whole blackmailing Mindy saga was already verging on the over-the-top huffy-puffy shrieky bitch that Marj played. Bev had a better handle on what she wanted to play so it was less in-your-face on-screen than it became but the character was already written differently - less cold and in control - in that whole saga.

I adore Donna Mills but that show was so cringily fake. I mean most reality TV shows like this are bad and transparently semi-scripted but that one was real bad. It does seem that she and CH have grown a real friendship out of it, which certainly was unexpected but I am into it if it gets me more of Donna Mills.

How about we combine my suggestion with @ajsp35801's prediction and suggest Amanda as a new potential lover for Nick? Someone completely out of the usual cast of two or three exes he rotates between, which he really needs to get out of his rut IMO, and I'd love to see MM up against some of the Newman cast. I mentioned before I am meh about Amanda so chances to see her develop some extra connections outside the "black island" and show how good she is an actress would help spruce that up! Plus if she walked away from Dexon's toxic approach to their relationships, it would be unusual enough for a soap character that I'd grow real appreciation for her. Plus, if you are right and Victor had something to do with her father's death, that adds another wrinkle to a potential Nickmanda romance (conflict!). I say: chemistry-test it. It would be good for all characters involved.

This was entertaining as it unfolded on screen but this feels like lampshading and it reads as contempt to the audience to me so as soon as the scenes were over, I started to get annoyed.

Yeah, if you read between the lines of my earlier post, I was kind of uncomfortable with how he delivered the lines and that's why I said it was the whole setup that did a disservice to everyone involved because if even Zaslow can't hit the right note, then it is the music sheet that is flawed. I didn't take it as a slight. I think even she hinted by the end that in her latter round after she came back post-Vanessa, the writing was so horrible that she was not even trying and just going full on OTT to please the writers. And, again, the fact she played Myrna so brilliantly shows that it was not on her. She could do it- they just didn't give her the material to do it and then she just let herself be molded by the writing. Reminds me a bit of Amelia Heinle over at Y&R. She too was taking over a really strong actress and a strong character and she too had played a somewhat similar character on another show with great results but the minute they brought Victoria back, the writing for the character had mellowed and she didn't try to push back with her acting. She let that carry where she went rather than try to cling to the OG's version that she could have emulated on acting skills alone. What would have been the upside for Marj to swim against the tide of what the creative team was clearly going for and risk being criticized for trying to copy her predecessor too much? She also didn't have great chemistry with many of her costars - which is intangible but a shame nevertheless. She and RR were fine but RR was, well, lacking so it didn't help Alex as a character and there was no one else that I could have watched her interact with just for the sake of it. Bev had not only great chemitry with her family characters but watch her with Roger or Fletcher or Blake or with Reva and the flow is delightful. Noone had that effect on Marj unfortunately - they should have tried to bring a character like that for her. That was the major loophole in that story regardless but indeed playing the initial confrontation as a comedy rather than concoct a reason for which Alex could not come back until now despite knowing but she is now on the warpath would have been so much more satisfying. Which is why we can bat around other great ideas for recasts like Constance Towers but ultimately the characterization had changed the minute Bev walked out. Alex would have known about Jenna and Roger stealing Spaulding and would have come back. That's where they needed to write her differently, whoever was going to replace Bev, because otherwise the absence made no sense. If you read any interview she did in her latter years, she was done. Like, really done. No amount of hands and knees, and certainly not on the part of JFP who had antagonized her, would have changed her mind.

I give him s**t but he has actually delivered the very few times the writers gave him something that needed him to deliver acting-wise. But Nick is such a nothing character and 90% of his stories have been about him jumping from Sharon to Phyllis and vice-versa that he can coast most of the time without hurting the show. I am disappointed that they are not using Rey to do what Sharon really needs which is a whole run of stories that don't involve the Newmans but I'd say Nick would benefit from the same. A story that involves nobody from his family and no ex of any of his family members. Someone fresh that can give some life to the character.

I hear the argument that it was dated by the mid 90s AND that a real song as credits is not usually a great idea but I still listen to that song as a song unironically and without any relation to AW. I like that song.

Another world had a character have an unknown twin and they were preparing, a few years later, an unknown triplet to the twins. To be fair, the circumstances of those births left just a teensy bit wiggle room but still! (They dropped it before it was fully revealed so it never became canon)

Here is what I think. First let's set aside the absolute trashing of the character in latter years when she had nothing to do anymore with what Bev had played and where, frankly, I can't blame Marj for cashing the check and just phoning in a hysterical over-the-top caricature. What this clip shows is that even in her early years the writing had shifted for the character already for one. And for two I can't entirely blame her for not trying to be Bev - no one could - and as someone who had played a recast before she knew it is better not to try. They hired her because of how she played Capitol's Myrna and this is what she was channeling. It wasn't Alexander as BmK played her but it could have worked with stronger writing/stories. When it didn't, she clearly could not be bothered to salvage whatever they were doing

In all fairness, Adams's first "redemption" after the baby switch and when they were starting to hint at Shadam was to save Faith from that falling barn. So not only is it manipulative but it is also repetitive and reductive. As I said, every beat of this story is taken from something that has happened before with the same characters. It is incredibly lazy. You know it must gall Joshua Morrow. That was literally his one asset for the show.

Well that would have been easy since Trisha moved to New York City under another name to be a book publisher around that time... 😉 Joking aside, I could have enjoyed that as a Loving fan but I am not sure Loving legacy characters were going to be of any interest to the "new" audience The City was supposed to reach. If they wanted Loving fans, they could have kept Loving. And yes, that's me being bitter.

To be fair, it is not just Marj. The entire scene is poorly written and staged, full of histrionics and ridiculously fake pretend "fights". I love the show and everyone involved but this was more cringey than I remembered.

It goes back to soap producers fundamental misunderstanding of what is ailing soaps. They are changing what is soaps' strengths: the format, the way to tell stories and pace them, the writing style and keeping the same tired stories. Modernizing soaps should be the other way around: soaps can't compete with the pacing or the hipness of primetime and should worship their slow-burning world-building and instead what needs to change are the topics and types of stories and characters that are told to be more in the 21st century. Making characters speak like hipsters is not the change that is needed.

One of the things soap actors who are committed to the genre, as PB is, learn is that you need to weather the bad storylines to get to the good. You try to salvage the character from the bad writing as much as you can until it washes over. I am surprised he wasn't more vocal about it afterwards though. Considering how open he has been about loathing the LuAnn story, which, retcon as it was, was not a bad story, you'd think this much more heinous thing inflicted on him and his character would warrant some harsh words. I will say I did appreciate that Phyllis being fooled into sleeping with Marco was acknowledged as rape, which is what it was, and that they wrote Phyllis dealing with that and being angry about it. That was good soap AND a responsible way to approach the mess. I wish they still had that anger and upset bubbling up underneath instead of having Phyllis regress to... that.

The character of Anton never quite worked but there was something about this guy that got my hormones flowing. For all the talk of AMC being in decline by that stage of McTavish's 92-95 tenure, I thought the storylines from that episode were all good - from fine (Not a fan of Julia but whatever) to outstanding (Janet return, Erica vs Kendall)

I have said it in an earlier thread and a tweet by a soap news site has pissed me off enough that I want to say it again: making Flo a Logan is not equivalent to "redeeming" the character. She has done nothing to earn the audience's forgiveness and insisting we MUST forgive her now that her last name is one we know has the opposite effect on me. If they want the character to be viable, they need to figure out how to redeem her organically: not by writing very loudly Please Like her! Please Like her! A rascal with a known character as a father is still a rascal. That's not "redemption". That's a lazy shortcut to try and manipulate the audience emotionally into caring for a character the writing has done nothing to ingratiate us with.

I don't mind the bullying storyline but having Sharon play tearful hospital bedside scenes a mere two weeks after she did the same with Rey feels like the right hand planned a story and didn't tell the left hand about it. Bad writing to time this like that. And I am not super fond of them mimicking Cassie's death (even if Faith won't die) by replaying the drunk-accident scenario. It feels cheap to me and I don't like it. There were other ways to put her in danger.

Because Britt/Jason indeed seemed to start organically and the chemistry is there and they are playing with it without forcing us down our throats, I can't help but, yeah, root for them to explore it. My major reservation is that I like Britt and I like KT and the thought of her being saddled with SM's Jason grates me already. Dante/Sam feels like it was more planned (as a response to teasing Jason with someone else) but yeah Jason and Sam are played out at this time. I know they will probably be the end game but Sam has had nothing of interest to play but second-fiddle to Jason and it is time for a shake up.

I actually never minded that at all as I prefer it a lot to the Stafford-Braeden school of mangling-mumbling the lines. I might actually be tempted to actually celebrate the over-enunciation if he is, as I hope and suspect, leaning into it in order to emphasize the yin-yang aspect of Victor-Jack and, maybe, troll Braeden's infamous garbled delivery of his lines I am probably projecting too much into it but I like that interpretation of that acting choice.