Videnbas

2 hours ago, DramatistDreamer said:

Did the B&B post any clips of Betty White's scenes with Susan Flannery and Alley Mills? Everyone wants to post those final scenes at the beach, but that doesn't even capture the most powerful scenes between the actresses, which were those combative scenes where Stephanie confronted her mother Ann about the physical abuse she suffered at the hands of her father, which Ann, at first refused to acknowledge, with Pam caught in the middle. Those actresses were going toe to toe.

It's a shame if nobody posts those clips because they were so dramatic.

Those final scenes at the beach were beautiful though. Possibly the most beautiful death scene B&B has done. 

4 hours ago, charholden5 said:

I find it so ironic that he said he ran out of storylines for her and he also said he finds it hard to write for Thorne. Yet, he can come up with tons of stories for Liam and Hope.

Especially ironic since he had just given her about three years' worth of storyline compressed into six months. No wonder he ran out of fuel.

And yes, Thorne, Macy and basically all of the Spectras have all been in the same boat. Brad Bell seems unable to write for them because they are not his favorites. And yet I have always preferred that group of characters over the ones favored by Brad Bell. Which is kind of discouraging when their story goes something like: Macy gets her head bashed in by a random chandelier and dies, Darla gets her head bashed in by a random car and dies, Aly gets her head bashed in by a random tire iron and an even more random rock and dies... (Aly was my favorite in the young generation but she was related to the Spectra gang so I guess I should have known.)

7 hours ago, FrenchBug82 said:

I wish I remembered what was known publicly at the time of the sequence of events but Macy died in October and BE first aired at AMC on December 12th. So the gap between her leaving B&B and joining AMC was very small.
My speculation - and it may be that this is *known* but I don't remember - is that she was auditioning for AMC while still working as Macy (despite the fact he had just resurrected her) and Bell was so pissed off when he found out that he made sure to 1) kill her off so that she knows she won't get a second chance 2) do so in a humiliating manner.

I did a quick web search and this was what I found on BE's transition from B&B to AMC:

https://www.soapcentral.com/all-my-children/news/2003/1020-eakes.php

This article is from Oct 19. Checking the recaps, I found the chandelier incident happened on Oct 3 and BE's last air date was Oct 22. The mention of "oh yes, and by the way Macy died" was on Oct 29. But other than that, it seems just about everything else in the writing is more consistent with Macy just remaining in a coma, rather than her actually having died. So it makes sense that the coma storyline was Bell's original intention and when BE left, he just changed as little as possible in the scripts, which led to the nonsensical off screen death. But the way I interpreted the article, the chandelier coma thing was written first (because Bell supposedly ran out of ideas for Macy) and BE's choice to audition for AMC came as a reaction to that.

1 hour ago, skebujebu said:

I always thought Macy‘s second death was complete waste. I just wish the show sent her on worldwide tour as she was making comeback.

1 hour ago, FrenchBug82 said:

Not only was it stupid and short-sighted but the almost insulting way it was written would be a strong indication that whatever happened BTS was personal in nature.

 

I agree with both of you! It was unnecessary, short-sighted and poorly written. It almost felt like they decided to kill her off after she had already left the show and then they added in some random dialogue about her being dead to explain away her absence. There was zero emotional payoff (I even thought at the time there was an episode missing because I couldn't believe they just killed off a major character between episodes).

And since she was already in a coma, it would have been so easy just to have her remain in that coma off screen. No need to kill her off if they weren't going to show her death on screen anyway.

But really, I think the biggest mistake was speeding through too much storyline with Macy too fast after her return from the dead. In less than a year, she returned from the dead, married Lorenzo, left Lorenzo, reunited with Thorne, had Thorne cheat on her and get her best friend pregnant, had cancer, had a hysterectomy, divorced Thorne, almost fell off the wagon, met Deacon and married him, took part in Deacon's battle for custody of Little D, helped Eric get control of FC back from Brooke, restarted her singing career, had a chandelier drop on her head, and supposedly died again. It would have been so much more compelling if she had just stayed with Thorne and the truth about Aly hadn't come out until after Macy had adopted her.

With Macy they severed the strongest link we could have had back to the original Sally Spectra.

35 minutes ago, kalbir said:

January 14 will mark 15 years since Darlene Conley passed away. Of the original B&B characters as written by Bill Bell, Sally Spectra was another one of my favorites. I didn't mention Sally in the B&B from the Beginning thread since her episodes are still a while away on the YT channel. There was nobody else like Sally on daytime and I would say her arrival was a turning point for B&B. Sally breathed new life into the show and Bill Bell smartly built a business and a family around her, eventually replacing the Logans with the Spectra gang by 1991. It was another missed opportunity during last year's classics that we didn't get a week of the best of Sally Spectra.

I agree wholeheartedly! To this day, there is a huge Sally-shaped hole in the fabric of the show.

It is such a shame that the Spectras were completely written off the show. Sally's legacy could have been kept alive through Macy and CJ. 

5 hours ago, FrenchBug82 said:

I am really not. This was the dumb cliched soap twist that I mentioned earlier I was afraid they would lazily go to.
Yet another "member of a supercouple accidentally cheats on the other due to alcool/misunderstanding and then has a secret" SL that completely sets aside the interesting organic conflict this started with. A bit cheap if they go there IMO.

Unfortunately, Bell always seems to default to one of two default storylines: the secret or the triangle (and sometimes it's both at once). Every storyline that it set up eventually gets simplified into one of these formulas.

1 hour ago, rsclassicfanforever said:

Hey everyone.

 

I am ok and i want to record and upload new episodes starting sunday

 

its because of the work and the holidaybreak, i am not at home at the moment

There are 26 new episodes to come

 

love you all

That's wonderful to hear! Have a great New Year! 

Just watched today's episode. The choice of Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata when Sheila swapped the labels on the bottles was unintentionally hilarious. I have to wonder what they were thinking. Was it Sheila listening to that piece of music (if so, when did she develop an interest in classical music? in prison?)? Was it supposed to be just part of the background music (which literally never sounds like this on B&B, so it was quite a jarring break)?

And the result was this tragic mood while the camera panned the motionless champagne bottles submerged in water. I honestly felt like those poor bottles had drowned.

48 minutes ago, AbcNbc247 said:

Well, I'm glad they remembered to do that 

I do like the way the storyline has been going lately, though I do think using Brooke's alcoholism, sobriety, fear of falling off the wagon etc. could have been done with a little more nuance.

Brooke's alcoholism has never quite seemed believable to me. We have never really seen her struggle to stay sober. She just drank too much for a while and once she realized it was too much, she stopped. It never seemed that difficult for her to stay sober. Her drinking never truly seemed out of control.

It was not like with Macy for example, where you truly felt that she might literally drink herself to death. 

Does anyone know if there has been any recent change in the writing/directing team at B&B lately? It just seems to me the writing and plot structure this past month or so has been somewhat less abysmal.

16 hours ago, soapfan770 said:

That’s a pretty great assessment. I remember a few years back when the show was without Steffy and Hope so Thudley felt the need to make Ally and Ivy them instead and it bombed big time lol. I think having Deacon, Sheila, and Taylor in the mix is actually to drive new developments and help structure the show better. At least we get multiple stories out of it and something finally different for all the characters but I also know the recent momentum will collapse by February sweeps lol.  
 

LOL $Bill, Shauna, Wyatt and Flo are DOA at the moment. Pretty sure Bowden is off contract too and none of them are missed.

I agree having Deacon, Sheila and Taylor back is good for the show. If done right, it could be a kind of reset to the last time the show was good (this combination of characters feels very 2001-2002, and the storylines that are revisited now are also from that period - Breacon and Sheila shooting Taylor). 

By the way, I'm only just catching up on December episodes, and although I like that the focus is more on the legacy characters now, some things in the dialogue just make me go "huh?".

Taylor feeling honored that her grandchild Hayes was named after her?

Ridge asking Hope to move out and Brooke going "this is my house!" - and Ridge NOT replying (or remembering) that he's the one who bought the house for her.

Taylor the scientist talking to Ridge about how she has no idea what an "elliptical orbit" is - and neither does he.

But on the whole, I like this shift back to the "core" of the show.

28 minutes ago, Sasha66 said:

Who are the top 5 actresses of bold and beautiful to y’all? 

To me, right now the only one that captures my attention is KB to be honest. Her screen presence is in a league of its own, and her scenes with SK are my main reason for watching right now.

Other than that, I am pretty indifferent to the rest. They are okay for the most part, but I don't miss them when they're not on and I don't find their characters very compelling.

2 hours ago, AMCOLTLLover said:

Merry Christmas to all fans of B&B!

1994-95 was my favorite period with Taylor’s Princess storyline! I hope Videoland will continue through those episodes

Merry Christmas to all of you! 

1994-1995 was my favorite period too. I was hooked on the Princess Leyla storyline and the Thorne/Macy storyline. 

I was thinking and this question came to mind: If you could pick just one character-defining scene or storyline for each major character, that is, something that captures the essence of who they are as a person, what would it be?

B&B: When I watched Thorne and Macy's wedding party from 1995, I remember actually thinking at the time "this could be the end of the show". We'd just had a lot of major storylines that had all wrapped up during the summer (Sheila's reign of terror, Ivana's murder, Taylor's back from the dead storyline and Ridge finally choosing between Brooke and Taylor), and there weren't really any new storylines that had gained any momentum at that point. Also, three major couples on the show had just been paired up or were heading in that direction (Eric/Stephanie, Ridge/Brooke, Thorne/Macy). It's the only time in the history of the show that I recall where it could have ended without any major loose ends, and with a scene where the entire cast was present and celebrating (it was one of the few weddings on the show - possibly the only one - where all the characters were invited and everyone present actually supported the marriage). 

Sure, we'd have missed some good stuff between 1996 and 2002, but I do feel the tone of the show shifted a bit in those years and there really wouldn't have been a natural end point before the show started going downhill in 2003. If written a bit differently, the Portofino location shoot might have been that end point (as it was IMO the last truly great moment of the show), but as it was, it couldn't have ended there because too many bombshells were dropped then that needed to be followed up back in LA. 

2 hours ago, Manny said:

Does anyone know what the deal is with two actresses playing Alex Simpson? Rosemarie Thomas and Carla Herd seem to be rotating in the roles each few episodes. What is up with that?

What? Are you sure? I never even noticed! 

6 hours ago, Soaplovers said:

I was curious about how season 1 ended with an episode titled in Feb 1987...and season 2 picked up in March 1988.

I'm surprised that Margo and Clarke had hardly any build or hint of an involvement until a recent season 2 upload.

A character like Margo is a prime example of a grey character.  Some good elements, some not so good elements. Bradley could never write a character with shades like Bill Bell wrote for Margo 

That happened because the uploaders don't have the correct air date for Season 1. Every episode from July 1987 and onwards in the Season 1 playlist has the wrong air date.

Agree about Margo! She is a truly grey character and quite an interesting one.

4 hours ago, Broderick said:

I'd say he was more of a "Ridge Antagonist", to make the (fairly shallow) Ridge character seem somewhat more sympathetic to the audience.  In the early episodes, Ridge is no one we'd be tempted to sympathize with -- proposes to Caroline to spite her father, cheats on her, gets photographed cheating, gets exposed, gets miffed because she dumps him, criticizes his father's designs, basically just acts like a whining brat.   He's not very easy to like.  But since Bill Spencer sits around plotting against him, it makes him slightly more sympathetic.  I'd say that was the initial purpose of Bill.    

I think Bill Spencer didn't have a lot of villainous traits at first. He was just an overprotective father and a powerful man. His grey sides were more developed later on, as we learnt about his secret magazines and the shadier side of Spencer Publications.

I am currently watching February 1991 and the end of Jake's abuse storyline (and I must say the final episodes are very suspenseful!) and I'd really like to hear your reactions to it. I think the show did really well handling an extremely dark and difficult subject.

I'd also like to hear your views on the Julie Delorean subplot. To me, there's just something I don't quite follow regarding Bill Spencer's motivations here. What exactly was his goal in having Julie go after Clarke? Why did he want to finance Julie's business with Clarke? The root of all this was his desire to stop Sally from blackmailing him (or get back at her for doing it?), but from there on I'm having a bit of trouble connecting the dots.

Also, the scenes with Stephanie and Ruthanne (the homeless storyline) are just riveting. But I had to suspend disbelief a bit as to why they didn't manage to clear everything up when they first went to the police (by telling them about Stephanie's car being stolen and her being robbed, and showing them her torn clothes and wedding ring). 

7 hours ago, DramatistDreamer said:

@Videnbas Wow, that seems extreme! 

TBH, I was never quite sure of what a shadow ban was, so I finally decided to look it up.

You pointed out something that was amiss. It's really not that serious. It's not as if others hadn't noticed, everyone pretty much knew that the sequence of videos could often be out of order. They could've just corrected it and kept things moving.

Unfortunately, I can't say that I am surprised since I have seen soap fans sometimes get up in arms over a critique, as if it will sink the entire series. 

I do wonder if someone made an error and felt pressured to cover their tracks. You'd be surprised by how some people in the entertainment field can chastise people for the tiniest of errors, just ask anyone who has ever worked for Scott Rudin.

It's not always convenient but posting here, rather than under the video on YouTube is your best bet for uncensored discussion. Unfortunately, I am already beginning to see "Stan Wars" between various factions (Brooke fans vs. Caroline fans) in the comments section and it's utterly ridiculous. One of the more embarrassing elements of soap fandom, and there are already enough to go 'round.

These episodes are over 30 years old and people are fighting over who Ridge loves more LOL.

Yeah, I noticed the fan wars too! I think it's a bit sad really when the complexity of a storyline is reduced to fighting over who Ridge loves - it's kind of missing the entire point of the storytelling.

I didn't know what a shadow ban was either, until I noticed my comments were only visible when I was logged in on YT and I started Googling why that could be. The funny thing is, I was not the only one who pointed out that the Christmas episodes had the wrong dates (because the uploaders didn't take into account the preemptions of 1987), and the uploaders never corrected the dates but just kept labeling obvious Christmas episodes as having aired early December. And fans were commenting on it like it was a bizarre 80s thing to have Christmas episodes take place on the wrong day... 

I do think the quality of the discussions is a lot higher here than on YT or any of the other B&B message boards. No fan wars and more people interested in having in-depth conversations about the show and characters. 

4 hours ago, kalbir said:

During the Bill Bell years, would we consider Bill Spencer to be a villain? I got the impression that Bill Bell wrote Bill Spencer as a more villainous version of Stuart Brooks.

I wouldn't say Bill Bell wrote any of his main characters as clear-cut villains. But Bill Spencer is certainly a morally dark grey character. His motivations are not entirely villainous (usually either protecting himself or his daughter), but he does bend the rules quite freely to achieved his goals. 

Oh, one that I forgot...

B&B, the storyline with Jake's abuse in 1991 where the major plot twist was how Jake mistook his uncle for his father. The casting of Jake's father and Jake's uncle - AMAZING. They managed to find two actors so similar in looks and voice that this major plot point didn't take any suspension of disbelief at all. They looked like fraternal twins.

1 hour ago, Marquise said:

I think they are 10 so far.  they uploaded a clip about Brooke and Deacon' s story , may be the episodes are in connection with that

Makes sense - I checked one of the episodes and it was Hope's birth.

I made a comment on a 1987 episode on the official Youtube account a few weeks ago, and to my amazement I just realized I have been shadowbanned from Youtube ever since!

(All I did was comment politely that the episode dates were wrong, hardly offensive by any standards. Could it really be that the people managing the official account reported me for pointing out their mistake? Or am I being paranoid?)

Has anyone else experienced this problem? It's a bit sad suddenly being unable to comment on the episodes on Youtube (or any video at all).

Anyway, sorry for the OT post - I just wanted to vent my frustration, and perhaps give a word of warning to those interacting with these videos on YT. Only goes to show this right here is a far superior site to discuss classic B&B!

3 hours ago, AusBoldFan said:

Content can be distributed with or without a score track too. RTL would have no rational justification to mute the score track unless they did so in error - 5 times. I’m inclined to think the distributor sent out the wrong version.

Probably, yeah!

What really strikes me is how at first when I saw the episode, I thought the acting was unconvincing. It wasn't until a while in that I realized it wasn't the acting that was worse than usual, it was the emotional cues provided by the music that were missing! And it hit me that the background music that we take for granted actually can make the acting seem more convincing (or less, if it's the wrong music).

I think this could be an important lesson for the current writers/directors/producers, because often when I watch current episodes the backgrund music actually takes away from the mood the characters are trying to portray. I thought about it a lot at the time of Kimberlin Brown's latest return, when she was playing Sheila subtly while there were anvils dropping all over the background score. (It sometimes reached the point where the ominous background music drowned out the dialogue of Sheila's scenes - and they weren't even very dramatic scenes.)

5 hours ago, AusBoldFan said:

There’s actually a handful of episodes without score music. I have come across 4 or 5. I should have noted the episode numbers. I doubt very much RTL/Videoland removed the backing tracks. I suspect there was a mixup with the version the Distributor supplied RTL.

From a technical perspective, there are multiple tracks (voice and music) on content. Broadcasters can opt to receive content with or without tracks for the purposes of dialogue replacement/voiceover into local languages.

I have the German version of 956 and it has background music, so it's definitely an issue with the RTL Lounge broadcast, not the original US episode.

I can understand versions without dialogue being used for dubbing, but a version with the dialogue left in but the music gone just seems so random (and useful only to aspiring film music composers who would like to make their own background scores for practice).

I just watched episode 956 and I realized the background music is gone. It's the weirdest thing. Is it the same for everyone? The voices are all there, it's just the music that's missing.

It took me a while to figure out why the whole episode seemed a bit off, then it hit me.

2 hours ago, BoldRestless said:

Hi guys,

 

Some of you might remember last year a very kind anonymous person sent me a lot of rare Y&R for the Vault. This year the person went through the Vault and sent me a lot of the missing B&B episodes on DVD! I'm slowly getting them into the Vault. Some of these have the World of Soap Themes (WOST) logo on them which is a treat for me as I wasn't around for the original site and luckily this person saved some of those episodes.

 

This is what I've added so far. More to come.

 

1993-05-14
1993-03-30 - Lauren & Sheila Dinner Party
1993-03-31
1995-03-20 #1998 - The episode after the Jacuzzi fight!
1995-03-22 #1999
1996-04-10
1998-06-19
2000-07-10 Macy's accident aftermath

2004-04-12 #4275
2004-05-23
2004-06-03 partial
2004-06-25 partial
2004-08-26
2004-09-23
2004-10-05

 

Thank you so much! I've been wanting to see some of these for a long time!

Does anyone have the missing July 2000 episodes 2000-07-11 and 2000-07-12?