Videnbas

3 hours ago, sheilaforever said:

I second both. Mid 2014-2015 was GREAT. The best in many years. 2017 showed lots of promise and did some good stuff like the Spectra revival and Sheila's return. It fizzled in the fall, but overall it was still highly watchable. Ever since the only really strong moments were the baby Beth baby switch, Thomas and the Mannequin plus Sheila's latest return. Oh, and for camp's sake I really digged Sally's fake illness with Dr. Penny Escobar the wannabe designer.

 

EDIT: cast wise - 2022 is the strongest set-up in more than a decade, IMO. Bringing back Sheila, Deacon and Taylor were all unexpected but oh so smart decisions which have potential for greatness.

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.

On 6/8/2022 at 2:00 AM, Soapfan8 said:

What has been ur favorite recent year of the show? Mine would be the first half of 2015, the only year that could compete with pre 2006 of the show probably. 

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!

12 hours ago, BingCherry said:

Maybe the only thing that would shock me on B&B is Bradley Bell stepping aside; no casting twist short of possibly Bobbie Eakes returning would be shock me 

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.

2 hours ago, Soapfan8 said:

Ok so in the history of bold and beautiful what 3 years a are the MVP? Like the top 3 best years in you alls opinion 

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.

1 minute ago, Markjeh said:

Not the April thread when it's almost June.

I was referring to April episodes.

So another thing I don't understand about this storyline: When Steffy had regained consciousness and Sheila was alone with her in the hospital room, Sheila was looking menacingly at all the medical equipment by Steffy's bedside and looked like she was about to do... what exactly? It seemed like Sheila was about to kill Steffy, but how could she possibly do that using those machines?

Edit: I guess one of the machines controlled the pain medication?

B&B: Sheila and Taylor

On 4/15/2022 at 7:15 PM, ReddFoxx said:

Maybe I'm tripping, but am I the only one who thought Sheila and Taylor's scenes after Taylor almost fell came off as a little romantic? That hug was almost couple-ish.

You're not the only one! I only watched the rooftop scenes today and I half expected them to kiss when they were sitting curled up next to each other leaning against that white wall. I definitely saw chemistry there and the scene really did feel sort of romantic.

Now, if the show had actually gone there, THAT would have been a twist that would have lived up to the hype. Taylor the psychiatrist getting romantically involved with Sheila the lunatic who tried to kill her and everyone else in her family would have been epic.

1 hour ago, I Am A Swede said:

I don't think that's a bad idea, and something I wish soaps would do more. Stop trying to surprise or shock the viewers with unexpected twists. There are so many spoilers around, and everything has already been done before so the audience will figure it out anyway. I know that I can get just as much pleasure from watching the characters reacting to events and trying to solve mysteries without it having to be a mystery for me.

Exactly. Sometimes a lot of suspense can come from the viewers knowing something that the characters don't. 

4 hours ago, I Am A Swede said:

Maybe Ivana's murder? But that was almost 30 years ago....

Yeah, I was going to say Ivana's murder too. That was a suspenseful storyline, even though the viewers always knew the identity of the murderer (or maybe because of it). And they played all the beats in that storyline - there was the scene leading up to the murder (although the killing took place off screen), there was an arrest, a morgue scene where the body was identified, a bond hearing, jail scenes, a prison escape, a dangerous plot to catch the killer, and the final scenes with Macy and Anthony having a romantic date while secretly planning to destroy each other were edge of your seat stuff.

Wasn't this whole major plot twist supposed to result in the show "never being the same"? And now we're back to status quo.

5 hours ago, DramatistDreamer said:

I don’t really think you have to write an overtly sexual character to write a character who has a healthy sex life.

Emma Snyder on ATWT was certainly no sexpot, lol. She ran a farm where she worked her hands until calloused and had a gaggle of children. Still, the show didn’t shy away from showing her as a sexual being, especially in the first six years she was on the canvas. 

Lucinda Walsh was a businesswoman who ran what was described as a Fortune 500 company. She was hard charging in the boardroom and the bedroom. She had many aspects to her character but she had needs and desires and made this clear. A few times, she almost teetered on the verge of desperation but not to the point where she was offering men her company to marry her, she was never that desperate.

To me, Eric was far from sensual yet we still saw him with a harem’s worth of women in his life. Had Bill Spencer stayed longer, I have no doubt he would have caught up to Eric, or come close. I just don’t understand why we couldn’t have gotten more attention to those aspects of the lives of the women who were supposedly in Bill and Eric’s age range, especially in those years where the show was supposed to be at its best.

 

Well, going back to watch those classic B&B episodes from the 80s and early 90s their views on gender roles are often surprisingly old-fashioned.

We have characters worrying about having a child out of wedlock.

We have strong characters like Sally Spectra uttering lines like "like every real woman, I need a man in my life".

We have a supposedly "nice" character like Thorne demanding that Macy quit her job and then suggesting that they have children to "keep her occupied". And later when he asks Karen to move in with him and she asks why he wants that, Thorne unironically replies "my plants are dying and I haven't had a home-cooked meal in months".

We have wives cooking for their husband but never the other way around.

We have mothers of young children deciding to simply leave town with the kid without anyone worrying about the child losing contact with their father.

We have the Brooke/Ridge/Taylor triangle which I have a lot of trouble getting invested in because if Ridge could simply stop encouraging both women at the same time there would be no triangle.

And I've just started watching the Macy/Thorne/Karen storyline where they both move in with Thorne and share him, and it is really painful to watch these accomplished young women choosing to demean themselves like that.

So I guess the depiction of middle-aged women is just another symptom of the same disease. 

48 minutes ago, DramatistDreamer said:

I just compare Stephanie and Sally with women in that same age group on other soaps—someone like Lucinda Walsh (ATWT) and there’s just no comparison. Even Emma Snyder (ATWT) in her onscreen prime outpaces Beth, Stephanie and Sally. Lucinda had an active onscreen sex life, that rivaled any man half her age and for awhile, so did wholesome Emma Snyder. And Lucinda legit had a man who, hard as he may have tried, couldn’t escape his love and desire for her.

I can’t think of any comparable comparisons for women in that age group during that same period of time on B&B.

Bill Spencer also had Donna Logan, a young woman younger than his daughter, fawning all over him for a period of time. One gets the sense that if he had wanted her, he would have had her.

Well, there was Jackie and Owen, but that was a bit later of course.

As for Sally and Stephanie, they just seemed like character types that were mainly defined by other characteristics than their sex life.

Stephanie was mainly a matriarch and although she always loved Eric and was fiercely protective (or controlling) of him and the rest of her family, she never really gave off any sexual vibes with anyone. She and Eric had a great "old married couple" dynamic, but a passionate bedroom scene between them would not really have worked.

Sally, although primarily a businesswoman and a mother, was very much a sensual/sexual character but that side of her was always played for comedy (probably because the actress had a talent for playing hilarious over-the-top seduction scenes). Nevertheless, she did have one man - Saul - who spent many years loving her and only her, but she never felt the same way about him. And Adam also had very deep feelings for Sally but again Sally was the one who was hesitant to explore it (although she was obviously in love with him too).

Interestingly, Sally and Stephanie were sometimes in triangles competing for a man, and both times (Jack Hamilton, Massimo Marone), the man preferred Stephanie although she was never openly seductive the way Sally could be.

41 minutes ago, kalbir said:

@DramatistDreamer There was the Stephanie/Sally/Jack triangle and James having feelings for Stephanie but that was really it as far as a viable non-Eric love interest for Stephanie. I think Sally loved Clarke but he used her for his own agenda.

Eric had three wives (Stephanie, Brooke, Sheila) and many love interests (Margo, Beth, Taylor, Lauren) but Bill only was ever paired with Margo and Darla. I don't think there was really any love between Bill and Margo, and the Bill/Darla pairing was more fun and games than actual love, at least from what I remember.

Let me just say that I'm currently watching the Bill/Darla story and I think they are adorable together. Their mutual awkwardness when trying to navigate their vastly different personalities is very entertaining and endearing to watch, and I didn't realize that Darla's backstory (being an orphan moving from foster home to foster home) was first revealed during one of her dates with Bill.

And Bill and Darla having a night out at the Bikini Bar, drinking tequila and dancing, is right up there with Sally cutting Stephanie's hair as a candidate for the funniest scene in the history of B&B.

1 hour ago, DramatistDreamer said:

Did this show ever write Stephanie and Sally as having loving relationships with men who genuinely had eyes for only them? Even for awhile?
 

Even as a child, something about B&B struck me as being “off” in the way certain characters were written. Looking at these episodes now, it’s obvious that there was a certain narrative being written about “women of a certain age”, that was not written for Eric or Bill Spencer.

Sally did have Adam Alexander, I believe he was the love of her life. But of course he had to disappear several times because the mob was chasing him.

So I am a bit late to all this, but I FINALLY caught up and watched the supposed twist. And the biggest plot hole is Sheila's gun. She wasn't planning to have a confrontation that fateful day, so what was she doing with a loaded gun in her purse? Does she always carry a gun to Il Giardino for "protection"? And if so, WHY the silencer?

It would have made 100% more sense if it had been Steffy bringing a gun when she went to confront Sheila, than Sheila going out for a drink, with no intention of meeting anyone, and randomly bringing a gun.

Thank you!

9 hours ago, DramatistDreamer said:

Eww, B&B is wrong for that. They just didn’t want to come up with new theme music. They’re cheap as hell.

The odd thing is, it actually works. It sort of gives an "innocence" to Eric and Sheila's relationship that just emphasizes how taken in he is by her, and how Sheila dreams of starting over with a clean slate and finding love. The music doesn't portrayal the relationship as it is but how Sheila and Eric want to see it. It's brilliant in a way.

8 hours ago, DramatistDreamer said:

Probably because RJ has been an afterthought since Brooke had kids with Eric and is the bio-mom of Nick Marone’s child, not to mention that crazy Deacon Sharpe. Not since Stephanie and her brood has anyone been in the running for populating practically half of L.A.’s upper crust enclave.

I think the main problem with RJ is that he's related to too many people. It limits him as a character. Also, it is convenient to forget him now that Steffy and Thomas have been saying Ridge should be with "his family, the Forresters" because it wouldn't be a good look for them to root for the destruction of their little brother's family.

The writers were on to something when they paired RJ up with Coco Spectra. They could have played the Romeo/Juliet angle for years and made them true star-crossed lovers, but sadly they lost interest after a couple of months and resolved the conflict too soon and too easily, basically killing that potential. 

24 minutes ago, DramatistDreamer said:

Some people claim they hate Stephanie because she ‘stole’ Eric from Beth but Stephanie even know about Beth when Eric got her pregnant? Wasn’t it Eric who actually cheated on Beth?

Stephanie did not know (or didn't know much) about Beth at the time. What happened between Beth and Eric was ALL on Eric. He cheated on Beth and left her without so much as an explanation when he learned of Stephanie's pregnancy.

Speaking of Beth and Eric - I just noticed a VERY interesting choice of background music. Beth and Eric had their own music theme in the early days - a beautiful, nostalgic piano theme. And I just realized that Beth and Eric's theme comes back again when Eric starts falling for Sheila. I can hardly imagine two women more different than Beth and Sheila. Yet they evoke the same feelings in Eric.

On 5/13/2022 at 10:03 PM, Soaplovers said:

She probably was killed off because Bradley Bell didn't understand subtext...which the actress infused into Aly.

 

I have always wondered how much of Aly's characterization was really Ashlyn Pearce's idea rather than Bradley Bell's. Her quirky character was so totally different from his usual way of writing, and I got the impression the actress was a very intelligent young girl.

-----

So the classic episodes have already reached 1990 and we have Caroline and Ridge getting married, the start of Eric and Brooke, the start of Thorne and Macy, the start of Sally and Clarke, Felicia being introduced, and so on.

I like the 1990 episodes - it was a good year for the show. In a way, it was the last of the "early" years since it marks the end of the Caroline era.

28 minutes ago, DramatistDreamer said:

Looking at photos of Colleen Dion, her “Felicia” and Ronn Moss’ “Ridge” look as much like siblings as any of the Forrester siblings. They were clearly meant to have the same exact parents.
 

One can always debate the “nature vs. nurture” factor when looking at the earliest episodes where the show was clearly trying to highlight the similarities between Ridge and Eric, but the Felicia factor really makes it odd and incongruent that the show chose to undo those  obvious biological ties between Ridge and Eric and Ridge and his siblings. Looking at these early seasons, it is especially regrettable to consider what will take place decades later.

I think making Ridge not Eric's biological son was one of the worst, possibly THE worst, decisions the show has made. Aside from short term drama, the only function it served was opening the door to a whole lot of quasi-incestuous pairings between people named Forrester.

So I know we've been speculating a bit about when Brad Bell took over as head writer and when he started influencing the writing. I was just watching episode 1301 (from 1992) and it seems to me like there's a HUGE shift in the writing in that episode. Not entirely out of character writing, but massive shifts towards the extreme and villainous in characters like Stephanie and Blake. Did anyone else notice it? Could this be Brad's influence?