Videnbas

Is anyone else watching the new 1993 episodes? I'm at December 1993 and it's SO GOOD! I am loving the Spectras crashing the Forrester/AFI fashion show, as well as the Scotland subplot. To me, watching these is a dream come true - we're into my favorite era of the show now!

I use squish names as a convenient shorthand when talking about pairings online. But it just occurred to me that I never use them about characters and couples I really like. Maybe because I feel like the names diminish the couple and characters involved somehow.

So many strange moments with the writing/direction/acting on these episodes! Grace slapping Carter was just strange. She was sitting there, then stood up to give him a weak slap without any buildup, then sat down again. And "heartbroken" Paris just sitting there with the exact same blank facial expression and tone of voice that she always has. I love Sheila and Mike but it seemed like nobody could decide whether the scene when Finn flatlined was supposed to be dramatic or played for laughs. The dialogue could not have been meant to be taken seriously ("oh no, I killed him AGAIN!") and there was a strange lack of urgency when Sheila tried to restart Finn's heart (including Mike debating with Sheila whether or not to use the machine, like just leaving Finn there with no pulse might be a better treatment option...). And why did Finn flatline in the first place, only to be awake and lucid minutes later?

Best 8-year time span? I'd say the years 1988-1995. Best individual 8 years? Not sure, but most of them would be within that time span for me. I thought most of the years from 1987-2002 were pretty good but it's hard to pick my top 8. Top 5 for me would possibly be 1989, 1990, 1993, 1994, 1995.

B&B worst storylines: Ridge and Bridget. Ridge and Bridget. Ridge and Bridget. Nick Marone's exit (I only remember the lobster costume but that alone is enough to make it qualify). Taylor's second return with Ridge digging up the fake corpse. Maya being transgender after previously having been pregnant. Macy's second death which happened between episodes and was then just casually mentioned in dialogue as if it was yesterday's news. The Room8 spinoff. The berries. The "why did I drink?" saga of early 2022 (especially the 20+ flashbacks in January alone). Quinn helping Zoe poison Paris's smoothie so she would get gassy during the date with Zende. The Hope/Liam/Steffy triangle. But the absolute WORST is when B&B ignores the basic concept of "storylines" altogether and just has random things happen with no real purpose or long term plan.

Who would you say are/were the top 10 actors on B&B? I think it's a lot harder than to think of 10 good actresses because the male characters tend to be less developed and have more of a supporting role. So a lot of the male characters are sort of one-note - meaning they work as one "character type" but rarely have the opportunity to show any range. The show usually isn't "about" them the way it is "about" the women.

I like your list too! It's pretty close to mine, especially at the top. You are right JF's Bridget was phenomenal. She could have done so much more on the show but I think she went on to primetime (unsurprisingly). In the case of most characters/actors who have been around a long time (like Sheila, Stephanie and Brooke), I think they invariably did their best work in the early years (mainly the 90s, up until the early 00s). I wonder if it's a reflection on the directors of the show because I imagine that can make a lot of difference in an actor's performance. I actually feel the way you do about KM's Hope and JMW's Steffy! It has made for many years of frustrating viewing when the show revolved/revolves around one or both of them. AN's Hope is much more tolerable and nuanced to me (albeit not exactly a scene-stealer) and she did some great work during the Beth storyline.

LOL, I don't really have a top 10 list. I just meant that I could easily think of at least 5, possibly 10, actresses in the history of the show that I feel were stronger than both KKL and HT. But it also depends on the material - some actresses were given much less to work with than either of those two leading ladies, so I also think it's fair to take into account what an actress does with the material she's given. Susan Flannery is of course the self-evident #1. I would place Darlene Conley, in all her scenery-chewing campiness, at #2 because she created a truly memorable character and actually set the tone for an entire subgroup of the B&B cast. Then it becomes difficult. I have seen Joanna Johnson, Kimberlin Brown, Michelle Davison (Ruthanne), Bobbie Eakes, Schae Harrison, Jennifer Finnegan, Heather Tom, Ashlyn Pearce, Alley Mills, and many others do wonderful things when given the right material (although some of them weren't often given the chance to shine). I think I would place all of these actresses above HT, and at least half of them above KKL.

I would say KKL was somewhat better and had more range and emotion. Hunter was good in therapist mode but fairly unconvincing whenever she had to get emotional. Sadly I think both of them regressed acting-wise in later years (possibly as a result of the direction and/or writing). But neither of them would even make my top 5 list of the best actresses on B&B. Possibly not even my top 10 list.

I liked Jake's sexual abuse storyline, but his romantic storylines after his "recovery" were kind of not really working. (Then again, maybe that was the whole point.) The whole premise that Felicia selflessly encouraged Jake to dump her so he could go experiment with other women because he was so inexperienced was just... sexist in a way. Would a man encourage his girlfriend to dump him and go try out other men before deciding he was the one? Would it be seen as problematic that a woman lacked sexual experience when entering into a serious relationship? I just have to compare Jake's situation to Caroline's. For both of them, their first sexual experience was non-consensual and abusive. But for Jake, the "cure" was to date many women, whereas for Caroline, the "cure" was rushing into a marriage. And I agree that for Macy to suddenly fall head over heels in love with Jake and sleep with him after knowing him for an hour was TOTALLY out of character for her. She was all about Thorne and it was just so unlike her to cheat on him. That affair never made any sense - why in the world would she even consider leaving her husband, whom she was actually deeply in love with, for this guy she barely knew? It was almost as if her main motivation for having the affair was some kind of misguided sympathy for Jake, or the need to feel needed, or believing she alone could "fix" his problems, or being afraid to say no because it might hurt his feelings, or something. And then in the end she realized she really only liked him as a friend. Macy is one of my favorite characters but her storyline for the second half of 1991 is kind of uncomfortable to watch because she is just not acting like herself.

Actually I feel that the first female therapist on the show (was it the one counseling Thorne) would have been a perfect Taylor type character. And she was already in the right profession unlike Taylor who was an oncologist.

I also remember that failed reconciliation of Thorne and Macy from when I was watching with my mom! I remembered Sly as a much more clear-cut villain than what I see now, which is really a complex guy who does love Macy - just not enough to realize that his relationship with her is destructive and he needs to let her go. This time around, I have really enjoyed watching the Sly/Macy codependency dynamic. And my opinion of Karen went way up when she found some self-respect and ended things with Thorne. It was so refreshing to see a relationship end because it simply MADE SENSE for it to end, not because of some silly triangle. Bill and Darla seem to have fallen into a plot hole. I wonder if their fate as a couple will ever be addressed. Their relationship was fun while it lasted. Speaking of Kevin, I LOVE him! I think he is just so adorable and he really has a wonderfully sweet dynamic with both Macy and Keith. The show did a pretty bold choice hiring a mentally disabled actor to portray him and I think it really works. I like that they are adding some more layers to Macy's alcoholism by showing her doing and caring about other things besides getting drunk (as well as actually acting quasi sober at times). At first I felt that whole drinking storyline was a bit underdeveloped (as you say, the Spectra side tended to get the short end of the stick), but the longer it goes on, the better it gets IMO - it seems that after keeping it on the backburner for months, the writers start getting more invested in this storyline around #1580 and it shows. (On a side note - I have to admit I enjoyed Macy's first drunken binge immensely because the scene where Keith brought her home and put her to bed was SO MUCH like when my four year old stays up past her bedtime and gets overtired!) Of course the BeLieF thing is the big frontburner storyline. It was probably the most seismic shift in the show that had happened up until that point, so of course it deserves a lot of air time (although I admit I feel some of the scenes were not, strictly speaking, necessary). And during that time, Sheila is surprisingly normal and well-adjusted (although she is kind of doing a "double agent" thing where she tries to be friends with both sides hoping to gain advantages for herself) because she is reasonably safe. Which is why I CHEERED watching a certain character showing up in episode 1634 today! I can't wait for the epic scene coming up in a few episodes!

I agree wholeheartedly. Paris is a non-character. The writers has failed to give her ANY personality traits at all, and the actress doesn't really add any personality of her own to her scenes. Paris always seems like she is half asleep in her scenes, reciting lines like "I am so incredibly happy" in a tone of complete indifference and with a bored look on her face. And everything we do know about her falls into the "telling, not showing" category. We hear about her great work with the Forrester foundation off screen, but never see her actually do anything. We have people singing her praises and are left scratching our heads at how and when all these supposedly fantastic qualities actually manifest themselves. The writing is what it is, but Paris might have had a chance to work as a character with a more bubbly, high-energy portrayal. Instead, Paris almost reminds me of one of those human-looking AIs.

Interesting takes on character development! I think Sally took a few months to truly build all her dimensions, but after Macy's introduction and when they started mending their relationship, Sally was complete as a character and the many facets of her character were all there. To me, Sally is one of those characters who have stayed pretty consistent over the years and never truly been "out of character" - being a bit of a "trickster" character and "larger than life", she has a wide range of believable behavior and since she is likely to do almost anything, there isn't really very much she can do that will damage her character, as long as her heart is in the right place. However, whenever Sally falls in love she tends to lose at least 30% of her IQ points. She clearly has a blind spot when it comes to her choice of men. I think Stephanie, as of year 1993, is still a very complex and strong character, although I do agree that she tended to lose dimensions as time went on. However, I think it became more noticeable from the late 90s on, when her bluntly aggressive side started becoming more prominent than her razor sharp and subtly humorous "chess player" side. I think the haircut scene from 2003, funny as it was, was pretty out of character for Stephanie (although totally in character for Sally), and Stephanie became more of a two-dimensional character after that. I agree that Taylor improved after the first two years or so. She was pretty frustrating to watch during that whole Storm-Ridge-Blake period when she seemed just unable and unwilling to decide what she really wanted, but after her marriage to Ridge she has really settled into her role as a good wife and a "voice of reason". This, IMO, is Taylor at her best - that is, the Taylor of 1992-1994 and 1998-2002. (I don't recall it very clearly but I seem to remember a temporary return to that initial annoying indecisiveness after her first return from the dead when she just would not reveal herself for months and months and months, and the whole pregnancy storyline where for some reason she couldn't tell Ridge the truth about the child being his because... the universe prevented her from doing so?) Taylor post 2005 is an entirely different character, so I don't really count her as Taylor at all. Now Brooke I feel has been very consistent from the start - her character development has been very linear from 1987 to 1993. Even in the seemingly innocent girl of 1987 there was this seed of ambition (her fascination with the Forresters and her reluctance to marry Dave). It's worth noting that in Brooke's own personal take on her story, she is always Cinderella and remembers herself as a "caterer's help", when in fact she was not working with her mother at all but rather asked to help out only on that particular evening, as a way to get to see the Forrester mansion from the inside. Brooke taking over FC in 1993 feels like the natural culmination of her character arc (and makes Stephanie's antagonism towards Brooke seem almost prophetic in retrospect). I think Brooke's character started getting derailed with the sudden sharp turn in 1999 when she suddenly developed an extremely passionate attraction to Thorne after having friend zoned him for over a decade. And then of course Breacon was a low point and after that Brooke became sort of a caricature of her former self, constantly jumping from one scandal to the next but without the focus that kept her together for the first decade of the show (especially when her role as a business woman ended). As for Macy, it seemed like the show originally may have had an entirely different personality in mind for her, and then the writers spent about the first six months turning her character around (unless this character development was always what they intended, as part of the reconciliation with Sally). At the end of that arc, Macy was a very sweet character but almost too "normal" and unproblematic. So the writers tried having her half-heartedly cheat on Thorne with Jake, which really did not ring true, and backtracked again by having her end the affair. I think it was only when the show acknowledged and played up Macy's latent depressive and self-destructive tendencies that the character truly fell into place. Paradoxically, this character was truly in her element when she was balancing on the verge of an abyss. She needed that shadow hanging over her in order to thrive. I think Macy hit her peak around 1992-1995 and 1998-2000 (with the exception of some OOC writing in 2000). Sheila is an interesting case because she came on the show with an entire backstory that non-Y&R viewers knew nothing about. And then the show introduces us both to the Sheila she was then, and the Sheila she is trying to be now. And there is this enormous tension within the character as she tries to maneuver between her different selves (the one she is trying to be, and the one she is trying to suppress). As long as Sheila has these two sides, she is a very compelling character. And Sheila is probably one of the characters who spends the most screen time thinking - she has her own theme music that plays whenever the wheels are turning in her mind, and she is probably one of the cleverest characters on the show. The problems occur when one of Sheila's two sides goes missing for too long - she needs to be bad, but not ALL bad. IMO Sheila was at her best on B&B between 1992 and 1998.

Yes, it is clear almost from the start (late 1987) that Spectra Fashions is meant to be an integral part of the show. They are this unknown and unseen entity that we only hear about in dialogue until Sally makes her glorious entrance. What I do think was less clear, though, was HOW Spectra Fashions would fit into the fabric of the show. I believe at first the idea was to make Sally more of a mob boss type threat, and then very soon it became clear that the humor and camaraderie between the Spectra crew was a more viable way to go. Then I think the addition of Macy was really crucial for the long term viability of Sally's character, because it humanized Sally, gave her a motivation for her actions, and gave us the viewers a window into the soft core of Sally's character. @sheilaforever, are you still watching the 1993 episodes? What do you think about the "current" (for us) storylines?

It would be interesting to know how far in advance Bell Sr planned his storylines - that is, when he left as HW, how much of future storylines were already outlined.

@sheilaforever after a week of massive binge watching (incidentally the first week of my summer holiday) I am now up to #1610 and have run out of new episodes to watch for the time being. I will not spoil anything, but to me the whole Thorne and Macy's separation/Macy's alcoholism started out feeling a bit underdeveloped (as if the writers had this lighthearted Cyrano de Bergerac story in mind at first but then changed their minds and suddenly decided to go dark instead and send Macy into a downward spiral). But IMO it gets better and better as it finds its pace and gets more time to develop. I think where I am at now, it has played a lot of beats, many of them very poignant, and is shaping up to be the best addiction story arc that I can recall on this show. Also, I think Macy's character makes a believable alcoholic - she always had an emotional vulnerability and the drinking seems like an extension of that.

Is this a problem for everyone outside the Netherlands? Or can Videoland be viewed from other European countries? Are there any fans on this board who actually live in the Netherlands and have a Videoland account? I really hope this is not the end of the Dutch high quality episodes!

I agree that Jessica's rape ruined the Sly character. I feel that it was out of character for Sly to do such a violent thing - I would expect him to manipulate and sweet-talk in order to be intimate with a woman, and maybe even take advantage of a woman who was vulnerable and whose judgement was clouded (or who was too naive to have any judgement in the first place), but I don't think Sly as a character would have crossed that line and assaulted a woman who clearly did not consent. After all, he had plenty of opportunities to sleep with Macy while she was passed out drunk in his room and he never did, until she agreed to it (albeit for VERY messed up reasons). Connor I really had a problem with from the start because of his backstory that really didn't fit with the history of the show. Connor and Ridge as high school rivals, with Brooke and Connor as high school friends, just doesn't add up. Ridge is at least five years older than Brooke (as established during the early years of the show) so there is no way all three characters would have been in high school at the same time. Besides, it kind of takes away from the narrative that Ridge and Brooke were from completely different worlds if their respective high schools regularly played football together. He also starts out with a fairly sketchy and one-dimensional characterization. I do like his connection to Brooke's children though. And I had completely forgotten how persistent and delusional Brooke was during those years. I can't believe I was rooting for her the first time I watched these episodes. Now all I see is a woman plotting and scheming and insisting that a married man leave his wife for her, even though he is clearly happy in his marriage and has really given her very little active encouragement. And the way she keeps telling him how he feels is starting to get on my nerves. (This is not me taking sides in the ancient Brooke vs Taylor feud. I am not really into Taylor's character either, but objectively, she is the one in the right here, because she is Ridge's wife and he married her, and stayed married to her, out of his own free will. But watching these episodes now I don't really connect with any of the characters Brooke, Ridge, or Taylor. They just aren't as interesting to me as many other characters I would much rather watch.) Karen is another strange case to me because on the one hand I find her interesting to watch because of JJ's acting and screen presence, and on the other hand the character itself is something of a dead end. She just has no viable options in terms of romantic interests (or storylines in general). Pairing her with Ridge would feel weird, although they have chemistry - and she just doesn't click that way with any other male character. Maybe her coming out story came some 30 years too late because it would have been fitting after her breakup with Thorne that she did some soul-searching and figured out what she really wanted in a relationship.

I guess we'll have to agree to disagree on Sly. I found his unhealthy codependent relationship with alcoholic Macy interesting to watch because the dynamic between them felt very complex and convincing. (Though I have to admit, I love everything and everyone connected to the Bikini Bar because I really like the atmosphere of that place - it's just so fun and summery.) I really hope there will be new 1993 episodes soon somehow! I've nearly watched all of the uploaded ones too and I'm so very grateful for the ones we do have, but still wishing for more because I've been hoping for so many years for a chance to rewatch this period of B&B! Also, I think it's fun that there's a group of us here who are watching more or less the same episodes at the same time so we can talk about them! What are your thoughts on Connor Davis?

Sly was introduced in episode 1298. He was on screen for less than 5 minutes in that episode, he is not even the main character in those scenes, and during that time we learn that: * He is a bartender * He is on friendly terms with Taylor’s brother Zach * He is a surfer * He has an eye for the ladies * He is outgoing and social * He has no scruples about lying or misrepresenting himself in order to pick up women * He goes by the name of Sly Donovan. * His nickname is Sly because he looks like Sylvester Stallone. * He doesn’t want to reveal his real name, presumably because he has a name that isn’t ”cool”. (It isn't until three years later that we do learn his real name - Irving.) That is pretty impressive in terms of characterization. And it's all so effortless, being shown rather than told, so we don't really feel that the writers are dumping all this information on us, it's just there naturally. After those five minutes, we really feel like we know what he is about and the type of guy he is (to the point that we've probably met someone very like him at some party or in a bar in real life). Current writers really have something to learn from this.

I am watching 1993 episodes and I had this vague feeling something is missing and I just realized it's Clarke. He was such an entertaining character to watch, the way he would constantly paint himself into corners because of his hubris and then try to smooth-talk his way out of them. I actually thought Jake worked as a character. What doesn't work for me at all, though, is the Taylor/Ridge/Brooke triangle (and I totally understand if this is an unpopular opinion). Ever since Taylor married Ridge, that triangle has basically been stuck in a loop with Taylor the understanding wife, Brooke trying different schemes to convince Ridge to leave Taylor for her, and Ridge not actually encouraging Brooke but not conclusively shutting her down either. Another possibly unpopular opinion - I actually like Sly as a character (in pretty much the same way I like Clarke - he's not exactly a good guy but he is entertaining and fairly well-developed). I think it was the way his introduction was written that really impressed me, because in a single episode we got a PERFECT snapshot of exactly what Sly was about. Blake Hayes - no. This was not a good character. I have just watched Connor's introduction and I am unimpressed so far. Maybe he gets better.

It was explored in exactly the way you described. In fact, Blake Hayes did everything he could to orchestrate a Karen/Ridge relationship based on basically transforming Karen into Caroline. But in the end, he didn't succeed. And I think it was ultimately for the best, because Karen's transformation into a Caroline replica had this somewhat (=very) unhealthy feel to it, and a Karen/Ridge relationship would also have felt too much like it was based on transference of feelings. Nevertheless, Karen and Ridge still had chemistry, for obvious reasons. And the show struggled (and failed) to find any other viable pairing for JJ.

Does anyone know what episode Videoland is at now? I hope they are still airing the classic episodes and that one of the angels will eventually be able to upload... the show is so good!

Yeah, it was not a good look for either woman (and it made Thorne look pretty bad too). Which is why I basically cheered when they finally saw the light, decided they'd both had it, and teamed up to get Thorne to make up his mind already.