Khan

If even Hall and Oates can't make it in this crazy, mixed-up world of ours....! https://variety.com/2023/music/news/hall-and-oates-lawsuit-restraining-order-1235805425/

You've seen Hunt Block essay one role, you've seen him essay them all.

It sounds to me like JG wanted to salvage J.T., even though Thad Luckinbill was not back permanently.

Did GENERATIONS ever break 3.0? Again, it just seems like that show never stood a chance.

I agree, lol. I have my favorite actors just like we all do, but I don't think I would want any of them paired up with anyone, regardless of chemistry (or lack thereof), just because that might guarantee more screen time for them.

I guess Pamela K. Long was smart to leave GL when she did, because if she hadn't, I suspect P&G would've replaced her.

Didn't AMC's Edmund and Tad dress in drag once?

Which would be fine, I guess, if Thad Luckinbill still were on the show. Maybe he's planning to make a surprise cameo?

And I think that (the audience support) was due more to nostalgia than actual chemistry. I could be wrong, and I probably AM wrong, but I think the audience just liked to pretend it was still Andy Kavovit and Melanie Smith playing Paul and Emily. I don't blame her. It's as if Frank and/or Ron took a giant dump on Marty's legacy. The only thing worse would have been if she had raped John, or if she had faked another assault in order to steal him away from Natalie.

For sure, I don't believe Ben would've been killed off. I think Rauch, James Harmon Brown and Barbara Esensten had it in mind to make Ben, as Ross' long-lost half-brother, a permanent fixture in Springfield, but that would've required an actor who could be empathetic, if not likeable, two things Hunt Block (God bless him) just can't play.

"Fresno" might have been more successful if it had been a comic miniseries about the behind-the-scenes doings of a hit primetime soap, rather than a parody of one.

Once Abby had achieved her goals, there was nowhere else to go with her, short of her losing it all and having to start all over again.

I'd love to know more about that story's origins, not only because of how it impacted DAYS, which had been flailing for the past 3-4 years, but also because that story, along w/ Luke & Laura, helped set the tone for the genre in the '80's: less introspective, psychological drama; more thrills, more chills, more jaw-dropping twists and turns. According to an old SOD article, I think, Gary Tomlin and Michelle Poteet Lisanti initiated it, but when PFS returned, she expanded upon it. I wonder if Tomlin/Lisanti just had Marlena's talk-radio show, with the mysterious caller who was threatening her, but PFS decided expanding it into a serial killer tale be a good way to trim the cast and bring some excitement back to the show. Of course, the problem I have with serial killer stories on daytime - aside from their extremely gruesome and exploitative natures - is that most clearly begin with no idea who the culprit will be; and that when TPTB do decide upon a culprit - which is usually at the halfway point, if not later - the writers tie themselves into knots trying to explain/justify how and why that character would kill so many others, to the point of making it all so darn convoluted, and leaving more questions for the viewers than answers. Moreover, rarely do these kind of stories employ actual pathology. IRL, serial killers have a certain type of individual that they target. It might be that they prefer to kill members of one gender or another; or they may prefer a certain body type; or hair or eye color; or even members of a certain profession (like how Jack the Ripper supposedly targeted prostitutes) or of a certain neighborhood or socioeconomic class. On daytime, however, serial killer victims tend to look arbitrary, with no connections that you can spot right away; and if there is a connection, it's a flimsy and preposterous one. ("She killed everyone in Corinth because they all were in so much pain." Yeah, as if the Zodiac killer worried over their victims' emotional issues, lol.) Years ago, when the citizens of AMC's Pine Valley were still in the grips of the Satin Slayer, I think, Amanda Dillon and another character (blanking on who atm) visited her mother, Janet "From Another Planet" Green, at the sanitarium where she had been confined to (after nearly wiping out half the town with a gas valve explosion at the Mardi Gras ball) in order to get some ideas on who the SS might be. "First of all," I said, as I watched those scenes, "neither one of you is a trained psychologist or criminologist, so it's ridiculous how you're attempting to get this information. Second, a person who kills someone with a crowbar (Janet, ICYMI, off Will Cortlandt years before) and rigs an explosion that kills another is not a serial killer. The pathologies are entirely different."

It's Victor's long-lost sister, Nicole. No relation to Nikki, or Nick, or the designer of cheap quality goods that you can purchase at JCPenney.

I agree. And I don't think it's that people are knowingly choosing fascism either. It's just that the world is changing too fast for many people and this is their response.

I don't understand his reluctance either. It wasn't as if we wouldn't care about Victor if he were German.

Seeing Sophia in drag reminds me of someone, but who? Oh, yeah:

After that spoiler, she better be Eve Howard or some other past character whom we know about or remember, or this story's gonna be so damn insulting.

Didn't ATWT end with Paul and Emily reunited? I remember hearing about that and thinking, "You know, if it were still 1989, I would be all for that. But Paul and Emily had been through so much separately and together, and they had CHANGED so much, that it doesn't make sense now to put them back together." Frankly, I was appalled at how Marty had devolved by the end of Susan's second run on the show. Here we had a rape survivor who had grown so much in the years since, and now she's plotting against the likes of Natalie for John McBain like some garden-variety psycho. It was gross and demeaning - not just to Marty, but to rape survivors everywhere - and I wasn't even a fan of hers!

I really think the new series needs someone like Christopher Lloyd or Joe Keenan there to help guide the new, younger writers on not just how to write for Frasier/Kelsey, but how to do that kind of situation comedy that isn't all just one-liners but actual storytelling.

I definitely agree that OLTL lost a lot of its' heart when Marilyn Chris left.

Thanks, @vetsoapfan! I didn't know that about Brad/Leslie and Steve/Alice!

Hunt Block shouldn't have been hired at all. He was completely wrong for Craig, but I tend to suspect he was hired only because GL must have let him go sooner than planned (after writing his character, Ben Warren, into a corner and having no choice but to kill him off) and P&G needed him to finish out his contract, lol. As for Alec Wallace - again, their casting choice (Michael Woods) torpedoed any chance of that character making a real impact on the show. I mean, I like MW, but I don't think he has much of a range as an actor.

And it's tanking in almost record time, too. I don't think it can be overstated how vital Andrea Evans was to the show's success in the mid- and late-'80's. When Peggy O'Shea left as HW in 1987, she took with her the show's ability to ground even the most far-fetched ideas in some semblance of reality. As long as AE was still on the show, however, you could ignore the ridiculous storylines, because Tina remained a very captivating character - sort of an anti-heroine, if you will - in her hands. For me, the low point of that era - lower than Eterna, lower than all the Mendorra [!@#$%^&*] - were the hijinks that S. Michael Schnessel and Paul Rauch concocted for the Badderley (sp?) storyline. That was the clear sign that OLTL had become a victim of its' own excesses and needed a serious overhaul. Unfortunately, I don't think Linda Gottlieb and Michael Malone were the answer, lol.

And then there was Y&R, who took it one step further and had an African-American pretend to be white.