Videnbas

Yes, but my main objection to this "shock" approach is that choosing the surprise of Sheila at Li's (which they diluted anyway by having Baker tell the audience first) over showing her and Mike plotting her escape robs us of Sheila's POV. And that kind of turns her into a more two-dimensional villain than if we had got to see her in scenes with her old pal Mike, which would have been better in terms of character development. Skipping the entire escape just tells me the writers don't really care about Sheila as a character beyond the shock value of having her pop up somewhere and be scary.

In this case, though, it could have been a great use of history. Sheila and this particular guard go back almost 30 years. He was her faithful sidekick for a very long time. But the big letdown was not letting us see them interact or letting us see how they pulled off the prison break. The "right" way to do this would have been to build up to the prison break slowly - letting us see Mike and Sheila reconnecting, plotting in secret, almost getting caught, figuring out a plan and carrying it out with a real possibility of failure. That would have been a riveting storyline. Not just letting all that happen off screen over the weekend and then going "oh, well, Sheila escaped".

Yeah, Karen is pretty much in limbo by spring 1993. She is basically just one of several obstacles for Thorne/Macy, and the focus isn't even on her in that storyline either. The problem is that her "romance" with Thorne absolutely does not work on screen (meanwhile, she has like ONE scene with Ridge in this time period and there is decidedly unintended chemistry there). And her friendship with Brooke also does very little for Karen's character development. Oddly, though, Karen seems to connect pretty well with Macy (which in terms of storyline is counterintuitive but it's there. Their brief scene in the bathroom after the food fight, bonding over their mutual misery, loss of dignity, and the stupidity of their living arrangements, was the best part of that entire contrived storyline).

Thanks! That's a lot of interesting information! I guess I'm trying to figure out how the show could go from well-crafted storytelling with a "professional" feel (sure, some storylines were better than others, but still basic structural things like shaping a story arc, setup and payoff, dramatic turning points in each individual scene as well as in the overall plots, basic characterization by "showing rather than telling", and so on, were always in place) to the "make-it-up-as-you-go along" rambling poorly paced inconsistent mess that is the show today. I think that is the most frustrating part of watching the current episodes and the classic ones side by side. It's not even about the storylines or the cast, it's the difference in structure that really gets to me.

I have always wondered about John F. Smith's role as a B&B writer. All the way from the beginning, he has been credited in second place after Bill Bell and when I google him it seems he was associate head writer 1987-2002. And I have always felt that the most noticeable shift in the show happened some time after 2002/2003. So I have to wonder if he provided some "creative stability" when Brad took over as HW.

I did try to google the lyrics too, but nothing came up. And yes, the premise for this entire storyline is Thorne and Macy completely failing to communicate. In a way, though, I felt like that strange fractured telepathic non-duet with its sometimes awkward rhymes and the music that kept stopping and starting was the perfect way of illustrating that because it felt like they were trying to burst into one of their usual songs, but failing because the connection was broken. I know I'm overanalyzing it of course but I love doing that, especially when it comes to music. Speaking of music, I have to say I absolutely LOVE how they accompany the scenes where Sheila seduces Eric with this song that goes "witchcraft..." Perfect. And just the fact that they actually have live musicians regularly on the Bikini Bar set. That's a really nice touch.

@sheilaforeverI just got to #1520 and the montage that you mentioned. It was very... odd. Not one of their "normal" duets but more like a tentative "fractured" song that didn't quite manage to become an actual duet - like it was broken. That can't have been an actual existing song, it must have been the scriptwriters getting a sudden urge to do musical theater. (Sometimes I swear Thorne and Macy exist in a parallel universe to the entire rest of the cast, where everyone else is in a soap and they are in a musical.) I either love it or hate it. Can't decide which. What were your thoughts on it?

To me, the most interesting aspect by far of the Bridge/Tridge triangle is how my own perception of it has changed since the first time I watched it. It really is like a Rorschach test. What you see is a reflection of your own mind. The first time around, I was watching this as a young girl with my mother. I was maybe 11 or 12 when I first watched these 1993 episodes. And I was completely Team Bridge because I believed they were "destined" to be together and I thought it was romantic. This time around, I am in my late 30s with a family of my own and my perceptions are completely different. Sure, I still feel that Ridge married Taylor partly on the rebound, but he was committed to his marriage and clearly happily married, and Ridge and Taylor had a healthy way of communicating about their issues. Meanwhile, Brooke spent the entirety of her pregnancy scheming and plotting trying to get Ridge to leave his wife for her, and after Bridget's birth, she became even more aggressive in her pursuit of Ridge, who really didn't encourage her all that much. And my sympathies are entirely with Taylor - even though I don't even particularly like the Taylor character - because here she is clearly in the right and Brooke is clearly in the wrong, because Ridge has chosen to be married to Taylor. Brooke comes across as extremely disrespectful not only of Taylor but of Ridge too. And Brooke and Karen plotting together on how to lure Ridge away from his wife (while Karen is already living with a married man knowing he still loves his wife) is pretty sickening to me now.

Ooh, I'm just a few episodes behind you (just watched 1501) so don't spoil anything! 😉 I agree the early scenes with Sheila and Mike in connection with the paternity test are edge of your seat stuff - I had forgotten about the existence of the scene with the scissors so it took me completely by surprise and I loved it so much I had to rewatch it several times. I kept getting distracted thinking about the genetics side of it all though and wondering what the best way would be for Sheila to tamper with the paternity test results. It appears to me just switching Eric's and Ridge's blood samples would not be enough since they also had Stephanie's blood (and since Sheila did not actually know for sure that the baby was Eric's). And I kept thinking that Ridge's paternity (as it was retconned later) would have been revealed here. I am just entering into the Macy alcoholism storyline so I haven't really been able to form an opinion about how it plays out on screen. She has only been drunk once (and I did like the scenes with poor Keith at Sally's apartment) and I remember thinking "wow, that came out of nowhere" and fearing that we'd go from 0 to 100 in one episode, but then the writers seem to have slowed it down temporarily with Macy appearing sober at work a few times. As much as I like Macy and Thorne together, this entire storyline hinges on a LOT of plot-induced stupidity on both sides, where they consistently have to avoid talking about anything that might clear up their misunderstandings. To me, the Taylor/Ridge/Brooke stuff is where I find my attention wandering elsewhere. I know they were supposed to be the frontburner triangle and I was invested in their storyline back in the day, but rewatching it now, I just don't find them as interesting this time around. Maybe it's knowing that they'll still be at it 30 years later...

How many of you are currently watching the 1993 episodes from the Vault? I have been binge watching the first few months in the past week or so and I'm very excited about what is to come. (I keep telling myself it's time to start rationing the episodes so I won't run out of new ones to watch just yet, but I keep watching and I just can't stop.) What have been your highlights of that year so far?

So today's episode (June 13) illustrates everything that is wrong with the current writing. Last week they achieve a real surprise twist by bringing back Mike Guthrie (in my opinion a more rewarding twist than this whole Finn-is-dead-no-he-isn't stuff). This week Sheila is suddenly out of jail and we didn't even get to see Sheila and Mike having a single conversation, or see how he helped her escape, or anything. I was waiting all weekend for a Sheila/Mike scene where he helped her break out of prison and where we'd get some of that old witty back and forth between them, and now suddenly it all happened OFF SCREEN? This story has so many missed beats it needs a pacemaker. I guess it's still possible that we get to see what actually happened through flashbacks, or that we'll get more scenes with Mike down the road, but it's just as likely this was only a brief cameo and the writers once again failed to see the true potential in what could have been with Sheila and Mike back as partners in crime. This is what they ALWAYS do - big surprise, fantastic potential, no payoff.

I'm not sure I understood the question right - is it about which current characters are similar to or based on classic B&B characters? I think it's really hard to answer because the current characters are nowhere near as well-developed as the classic ones, so it's not easy to make a comparison. I guess Hope/Liam/Steffy are supposed to be a next generation Brooke/Ridge/Taylor, but the characters aren't really that similar to their classic counterparts (other than Liam having inherited Ridge's indecisiveness, and the girls having inherited their mothers' strange attraction for a man who will never settle permanently for either one of them). Wyatt is in a similar position to Thorne - always playing the knight in shining armor to the women who are in love with his brother. Dollar Bill has some similarities to his namesake Bill Sr, but Bill Sr was a lot more sophisticated on the surface. Carter is possibly the modern Connor Davis - everyone's lawyer but without any luck in his own personal life. Paris and Finn are virtually blank as characters - I can't think of any classic counterpart to either of them.

B&B lost the Spectras in the early to mid 00s after they had been on the show since the late 80s. And even though Darlene Conley passed away in real life, that didn't necessarily have to mean the end of that entire family. But Conley's real life death had been preceded by years of gradually phasing out her and the cast surrounding her, meaning there was nobody left to carry on the Spectra legacy when the show lost her. There were several writing choices that led to that point: never giving Macy or CJ children meaning there was no viable third generation (other than possibly Aly who was promptly killed off), never establishing adult CJ as a core character but rather only giving him a few short term storylines and then writing him off the show, killing off Macy (the obvious heir to Sally) twice in a short time, killing off Darla, and having Sally lose Spectra Fashions and end her days as a secretary at Forrester Creations. Then the show tried to backtrack in 2017 by inventing a whole new set of Spectra characters, but the damage had been done and it never really worked.

Yes, I agree that the character evolution of Brooke and Sheila as such is not necessarily unbelievable, it's just the way it is realized on screen that bugs me - especially when it comes to Sheila because I feel like KB has been aiming for "subtly unbalanced but trying to be good" ever since 2017 but the director or whoever makes those decisions about the camera angles and the soundtrack obviously has "cartoon villain" in mind and it really undermines her more nuanced acting choices when we get extreme closeups of Sheila's sinister smile accompanied by sinister theme music and a sinister laugh with sinister reverb (while the entire rest of the cast tells us in dialogue that Sheila is "crazy", in case we didn't get it) - without Sheila actually having done anything sinister yet. The writing also tends to undermine Sheila as a character - especially during her current run where the things she does and the dialogue she is given to speak are usually so far beneath the wit, intelligence and cleverness I have come to expect from Sheila that it almost feels like 2022 Sheila is suffering from early onset dementia. Sheila used to think, and act, much FASTER than she does now. She would not sit alone in her hotel room for three months contemplating the results of her latest scheme. She would keep moving, keep her plan progressing. And another thing that bothers me this time around is the fundamental motivation surrounding Sheila. In current episodes, Sheila seems motivated by anger, and she seems to inspire anger in everyone else. But that is NOT what Sheila was about. Sheila was always about fear, not anger. She feared others and others feared her. All her worst deeds were always driven by fear, not aggression. Sheila was always (in her own mind) acting defensively. And others in turn were defending themselves against her. They did not deliberately and unnecessarily "poke" Sheila the way Brooke and Steffy have done this time around. Making Sheila all about anger makes her less threatening, not more.

Since the show just brought back Mike, I was wondering if you have a favorite Sheila/Mike scene? The one with the elevator and the Dobermann is classic of course, but I really loved all their early encounters - just watched the one where he tries to force her to have sex with him and she turns the tables on him and threatens to "turn him from a bull to a heifer" using a pair of scissors. Mike goes from believing he, the tough guy in a uniform, can intimidate a little nurse into having his way with her, to utter terror when it dawns on him that one does not mess with Sheila Carter. I always thought Sheila added drama to B&B, but it's not until Mike comes along that the character really reaches her peak IMO. They truly were the perfect match.

And it saddens me because it seems like KB is really trying but everything works against her - the plot structure, the dialogue, even the camera angles and background music, everything seems designed to make Sheila more cartoonish, and it was the same in 2017. The sound engineer even adds reverb when she laughs to make the laugh more diabolical. Not easy to do a nuanced portrayal under those circumstances. 1993 Sheila still had her own theme music that followed her around, but only when her mind was working on something sinister. I feel this time around they are misusing Sheila's theme to create tension when it isn't there in the writing. But then again, all the veterans are unrecognizable these days. Brooke is a shadow of her former self. Eric is an old fool. Taylor and Ridge are obviously not the same characters (even though KA occasionally channels 2002 HT). Deacon is the only one who is still somewhat in character, although he seems to become more of a loser every time he appears on the show (and the show has now completely forgotten that he too is an alcoholic).

Yes, just looking at the cast the show has HUGE potential right now. Bringing back Sheila and Deacon at once, and putting them in each other's orbit, could have been a stroke of genius. They could EASILY have been the new Sheila and Mike since they have great "partners in crime" chemistry. It wouldn't take much to make the scenes with Deacon and Sheila a joy to watch because the actors have what it takes to make magic together. Sadly, I keep getting disappointed because the writing isn't there to back it up. I feel both Sheila and Deacon are given dialogue and scenes that are just so beneath them - these are (or should be) two of the most sharp-witted characters on the show. But they spend most of their scenes treading water. Also, the whole Sheila/Taylor angle could have been fantastic - their rooftop scenes showed seeds of something truly great. But I am getting the same feeling that I did back in 2017 - the show introduces some AMAZING ideas and then proceeds to miss every beat. I am currently watching the 1993 episodes in parallel with keeping up with the current ones and I just find it so hard to see Sheila as the same character. 1993 Sheila is always scheming. You can see the wheels turning in her mind 24/7. 2022 Sheila just spent 3 months in her hotel room obsessing over one switched bottle label, while completely losing track of her main objective which was to gain access to her son and grandson. Sheila may be crazy, but there always used to be method to her madness.

I kind of liked 2017 when they were doing the Spectra reboot and bringing back Sheila. But sadly, the initial ideas were better than the follow-up. Both returns started out very promising but ended in a very disappointing way. I also enjoyed Aly in (I think) 2014-2015.

I just reached episode 1444 (the day before the 1992 Christmas episode) and I was wondering if anyone else found it as wonderful as I did. B&B holiday episodes usually go for heartwarming Christmas spirit and all that but this one was like no other I've seen, because it focused not on the joyful side of Christmas but the painful side - the sadness and loneliness that comes from being on the outside looking in and not being a part of the Christmas cheer that surrounds you. It was very poignant and well written. Truly a hidden gem. Do you have any favorite "special"/holiday/family celebration episodes? Hoping for more 1993 episodes soon because the show is getting so good now I just want to keep watching!

These would shock me too, but in a positive way. B&B needs SOMETHING to shake it up and the writing style needs to change in a major way because the storytelling, characterization and dialogue are not working and haven't in a long time. I used to think bringing back fan favorites from the good old days would do the trick but after seeing veterans like Kimberlin Brown and Sean Kanan return only to be given ridiculous repetitive dialogue, out of character writing, and poorly paced plots (but doing an amazing job with subpar material), I think that if the writing doesn't improve, nothing else will, regardless of who is in the cast.

This absence of a matriarch, and the failure to fill that void, was very obvious on B&B when Stephanie left the show. She was the show's matriarch in the truest sense of the word, but after her, characters have actually been claiming on screen to be the "Forrester matriarch" (actual dialogue) simply because they were married to Eric Forrester (who was never a true patriarch by the way). And it never rang true because nobody after Stephanie has actually been matriarch material.

B&B: Stephanie Forrester (a.k.a. Queen Bee) was the quintessential matriarch. Sally Spectra was a fabulous mother figure.

So let me get this straight... Quinn has basically put a baby monitor on Eric? How degrading.

I liked the storylines of 1994-1995 (first half of 1995) when I first watched the show. Out of the episodes I'm currently rewatching, I liked 1990 the best so far. But I haven't got to 1993 yet and I suspect it will be pretty good too from what I remember.

I was referring to April episodes.