Darn

Yes!!! Thank you! That's it exactly it. I used to spend hours reading those recaps, they had screenshots and everything. Days was so different from the soaps I grew up (ABCD) with so I was very entertained at the time.

Meghan is at least 35.

They've always shown the consequences of his business but rarely past like 1997 what he actually does. He has territory that others want, everyone has a gun, you will explicitly hear what his enemies do wrong (Alcazar was an arms dealer for instance) but not what makes what he does illegal.

Yeah they understand that the audience loves her but they don't want to see her as a lead because she's not whatever they've deemed attractive enough. Instead we have Melissa Ordway, who no one would notice was missing if they replaced her with an eggshell colored piece of plywood in a blonde wig in the middle of a scene

Low energy stories, writing, directing. Actors who only show up for a paycheck, which I don't hold against them. At the very least, even with bad non-sensical stories, the actors on GH or Days or hell, even B&B look like they're kind of having fun. Everyone on Y&R looks miserable.

Did her first episode start with a classic Abbott family breakfast? Even the directing was different that day I recall, it harkened back to when Y&R was the golden standard for atmosphere (not nearly as good obviously but someone was trying).

I don't think what he does really matters. He does illegal stuff. He's a mob boss. It's a nice to know but ultimately irrelevant because they'll never show him doing anything destructive. He's an elderly bad boy who doesn't do anything bad.

Question: Does anyone recall an Australian blog from the early 2000s that recapped mid-90s episodes of Days because they were 5 years behind? It just popped into my head and I want to make sure it wasn't some sort of fever dream. I used to enjoy reading them quite a bit.

She's barely in it so don't go in expecting much.

❤️ Susan Flannery was on Y&R/B&B as Stephanie and Days as Laura. Lesli Kay was on Y&R/B&B as Felicia and GH as Lois. Kimberlin Brown was/is on Y&R/B&B as Sheila and GH as Rachel. Still trying to think of more diamonds in the rough lmao

@Michael you should add the 4 timers to the original post list as we find them.

You're right, I think in my mind I lumped those years into the SJCS hour because every time I tuned in there they were. And the Grey's synergy always felt like something they were forced to do (it was obviously but I hate that I felt it when watching), telling a story about the trials and tribulations of a hospital staff is the whole point of the show and it was done begrudgingly.

Genie Francis was on Days and Y&R and is of course currently on GH.

Has any other soap done what GH did from 2000-2013 and become nearly solely focused on the lives of four characters? First Sonny/Jason/Carly/Courtney then Sonny/Jason/Carly/Sam with the other characters largely supporting their A stories or used as filler. Even soaps with clear cut leads didn't feel as suffocating as the constant sturm und drang as what they all went through.

Sonny and Brenda (don't kill me @carolineg) but I just hate everything Sonny does. Maurice was off the charts hot back in the day but his acting isn't remotely impressive to me, Vanessa had charisma and spunk that made him okay to tolerate. And they had one of those annoying soap romances that suck all the air out of a room. Brenda always seemed on the brink when it came to him, actually most of the women he's paired with act like that. It's just annoying. Nick and Sharon have no appeal to me. I don't think either actor is very good (everyone overpraises Sharon Case, I'm sorry), they're both so bland and generic. I don't get the appeal of most couples on Days. They're all so saccharine when they're in love and their obstacles are always external.

I always thought it was just the classic way soaps punish women for having agency. Erica Kane got an infection and almost died after her abortion. Pat Matthews' abortion made her infertile. Any vixen who knows what she wants and is unapologetic about it gets raped eventually, the consequence of being self focused and upwardly mobile.

Can someone explain why Victor has kidnapped Lucy? I can't follow this story and I'm not sure I care. I've never been a big fan of the adventure stories on this show and now they don't even have location shoots so it's even harder to hold my attention. Cynthia Watros was so good today she almost made Maurice tolerable.

Chase, Willow, Michael and Sasha don't have one discernible personality between the four of them.

What stories?

@Vee has mentioned this quite a bit, the generic leads of the youth set. It's crazy to think that soaps were willing to take risks with legacy characters like Robin by giving her HIV (this was a game changer and it would never happen today) or Jason with his amnesia (no matter how you feel about him, permanently changing the personality of a lead character just doesn't happen) or making Bianca, the only child of the One True Daytime Star™ a lesbian. Daytime used to be so much more willing to make big swings or tell challenging stories with people we'd spent years getting to know. They would never do something so dramatic to Joss for example, that might impede her ability to marry 7 different guys in 10 years time. Now it's mostly mired in paternity/maternity reveals and baby switches, plot points that don't matter or won't last. They feel dramatic and are dramatic but ultimately weightless because nothing sticks. I've been enjoying the Nina/Willow conflict and the reveal but knowing that Nina and Willow will eventually be bosom buddies will make the new few months to a year kind of tedious. She'll be calling her mom in no time.

This is kind of old now but I just learnt about it, apparently Kimberly McCullough is a mentor of Olivia Rodrigo's and wore her Emmy dress in a Good Morning America performance. A family heirloom that was gifted to her by director/actress Franchesca James the day they shot the scenes where Stone died.

I can feel the boredom already.

I've been thinking lately that the hospital as the center of all the action on GH has kept it alive and in better shape than the other soaps still around (in my opinion of course, the show is certainly not great right now but it's the most watchable daytime drama by a mile at this point). Is it absolutely ridiculous that characters who aren't medical professionals are constantly at a hospital? Yes. Do I care? No.

She was in mourning for her post-menopausal baby. You missed that scene.

If the money isn't being spent on sets or background actors, what IS the money being spent on? Are salaries still that high? Let some of these people go. That's this show's problem though. They've done nothing to build a new generation of leads. Name a character introduced in the last decade that's as interesting as Jack or Lauren or Michael or Nikki.