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Unfortunately, @Cheap21, I don't think the reboot is worth checking out. The reboot should have been an opportunity to retell the story for the late 2010s-early 2020's, with a greater emphasis on character development. Instead, it took the worst aspects of the original series - the paper-thin characterizations, the improbable plot twists, the emphasis of style and gloss over substance - and turned them up to eleven.

Wow, Larry Hagman looked really good in that ad, lol.

I agree, @Paul Raven. Consistency is one thing, but ATWT seemed to lapse into inertia by the late '70's. Characters appeared to be playing the same scenarios over and over again. The show definitely needed a jolt.

Something tells me they won't have to worry about Trump's passport. I could be wrong, of course, but I don't think he's the type to color his hair, put on some eyeglasses and flee the country like someone on "Unsolved Mysteries."

I agree, @dragonflies. However, like I said in the Y&R July thread, even a brief return could still impact everybody's lives down the road, and it's becoming clear to me that this story probably won't have such an effect. In fact, I predict that, this time next month, it'll be like the whole mess had never happened.

On the one hand, springing Cameron from prison and bringing him back to Genoa City in order to terrorize Sharon and her loved ones so more seems pointless since it's likely the story will be wrapped up and forgotten by the time I finished writing this post, lol. On the other hand, however, even if Linden Ashby won't be sticking around for the foreseeable future, his abbreviated return still should shake up the canvas significantly; and I'm afraid that it won't. Again, if his return doesn't impact the Newmans' lives for years to come, then what was the point of bringing him back?

Elizabeth Hubbard was and is one of my all-time favorite actors, but it's hard to take some of her opinions seriously when she professed that Althea Davis was her favorite (soap) character to play. She thought Douglas Marland's conception for Gloria Walters was "cheap" and "obvious"? Well, that's peanuts compared to how Eileen and Robert Mason Pollock wrote for Thea on THE DOCTORS

I agree, @te.!

I agree, lol.

I can just imagine what the three or four other Marlenas would be doing right now. You have one clone living in squalor in a trailer park in Florida; another living a life of splendor as the wife of a wealthy businessman in England; a third living and working as a nun in an African orphanage; and maybe a fourth who is now a spinster librarian at a college somewhere in the Midwest.

It's continuing, because Ron Carlivati personally believes that if you pound a silly gag into the viewers' skulls often enough, sooner or later, the viewers will begin to love it; and if they don't, then, at the very least, they'll become so numb to it that they'll stop resisting. Speaking of head trauma, I'm sorry, because I'm trying very hard these days not to criticize the folks who make these shows, but what this show is doing to Abe Carver and to James Reynolds is so foul that Ron, Ken Corday, Albert Alarr and everyone else involved should be indicted.

Oh, you are so not kidding, @DramatistDreamer, lol! That scene had to be the lowest moment I've ever experienced in all my years of watching ATWT. Lower than anything Stephen Black and Henry Stern could've done and did during their brief tenure as HW's for the show.

Well said, @Vee! I guess it was for those moments when he inevitably found himself out of toilet paper.

I do, too, @P.J.. However, I would have brought back Scott Eldridge for that function. He, like Rick Ryan, was a virtual blank slate with a sketchy past and multiple ties on the canvas. Plus, imagine playing "bad" Scott against his "good" half-brother, D.A. Tom, with their mother, Lisa, who was once Oakdale's most notorious "bad girl," caught in the middle.

Maybe there could be some storyline where Marlena agrees to do a limited podcast series where she tracks down each clone and shares intimate, one-on-one conversations with them, lol.

I did. At no time did I ever believe that Ben had anything but his own, personal, self-serving interests at heart. Even when Paul Rauch/B&E tried to sell us on a Blake/Ross/Ben triangle, I didn't believe for one second that Ben had any romantic feelings for his sister-in-law (which annoyed me, because there was a time when Blake wouldn't have been so gullible). To this day, I wish that either James DePaiva or Philip Brown had played the role instead. Except, I wouldn't have wanted for Rick to be so two-dimensional. I would've wanted an actor who could put SOME emotional layers into that character so that he wouldn't come across simply as this out-and-out bastard who was beyond redemption or empathy.

I have no words for the "Body and Soul" crap. None.

I tried to come up with an instance where I saw Hunt Block play any role with anything other than smarminess, and...I couldn't.

I think Marcy Walker would have been fine on GL even as a Mindy recast.

I cannot agree with you more, @marceline. Bernie Sanders and his followers believe that economic inequality is a separate issue from racial and ethnic inequality, which they tend to dismiss as "identity politics," or whatever. However, the truth is that the former, in my opinion, is a byproduct of the latter. If you want to address the economic inequalities that continue to keep the middle and working classes in this country from earning even respectable wages, you have to shore up human and civil rights for all first. Otherwise, you're placing the cart before the horse. Obviously, @DRW50, I can't speak for everyone, but I, myself, never cared about how long it might take to indict Trump on anything, so long as the DOJ's probe resulted in a clear indictment. Trump broke the law. In fact, he broke MANY laws. At the very least, the DOJ needed to say that aloud by formally indicting him, or else what kind of justice system do we really have in this country!? Do I believe Trump will ever see the inside of a jail cell? Frankly, if it ever reached that point, I think he is the sort who would swallow poison before allowing his own incarceration to happen, lol. For one thing, Trump knows his followers well enough to know that they would look upon such an act as martyrdom (which is why, if Trump's suicide ever came to pass, it would be CRUCIAL for us and for the rest of the world to hold the media accountable if they even attempted to spin the act as somehow being more noble than it really is). For another, Trump is someone who has always held a rather reductive worldview. To him, the world is divided between two types of individuals: those who are "winners," and those who are "losers." If you're put on trial and found innocent, then you're a "winner." If not, then you're a "loser." If he were ever placed on trial, found guilty and sentenced to prison, then, in his mind, that would make him a "loser"; and to someone like Donald J. Trump, being seen by the public as a "loser" is a fate worse than everything. I agree, @Vee. I also agree with @marceline that we are far too early into this election cycle to worry about Biden's (or anyone else's) chances for "pulling through." Of course, I'm not naive enough to assume that the 2024 election will be a proverbial cakewalk for Biden. It should be, because his administration actually accomplished several, important tasks, despite being hamstrung by the GOP and the likes of Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema. However, thanks to the media and social media's usual practice of obliterating a Democrat's genuine accomplishments and focusing instead on trivial matters, such as a person's age, or whether his Dick Van Dyke-like trip over a [!@#$%^&*] sandbag somehow means he is in the initial stages of Lewy Body Dementia (I'm not joking; someone on YT actually floated that theory), chances are better than good that unfortunately Biden won't be able to sail through this election. Again, though, I think it's entirely too early to start gnashing one's teeth or pulling out one's hair and declare that the republic is lost forever. There was a time not TOO long ago when I might have believed the opposite. Now, however, I'm taking a lesson from QAnon followers (and from GH's Willow, WHO IS CLEARLY FAKING HER CANCER) and just trusting the plan. As @marceline said upthread, by no means is the finale for "AT&T Presents the Donald Trump Indictment Hour." In fact, to keep with the TV variety series analogy, yesterday's indictment from the DOJ is the equivalent of fulfilling the network's initial, 13-episode order, with the guarantee that the network will order the "back nine." Yours is a fair assumption, @DRW50. However, I think it's one based on the belief that the majority of media consumers in this country remain blind to the media's overall agenda. As I think I posted over in the Media/Journalism thread, I think this country is gradually waking up to the fact that the mainstream, corporate media no longer holds the so-called "public interest" in their hearts. Citizens are seeing for themselves how the media steadfastly refuses to shine a proverbial spotlight on the REAL issues that continue to undermine our nation's progress because it doesn't give the media the horse race they think they need to continue selling newspapers, magazines and everything else they produce. I mean, having the likes of Governor Greg Abbott or Senator Ted Cruz march themselves down to a press conference at the Texas/Mexico border just so they can castigate the Biden administration again over their handling or mishandling of the "immigrant crisis" (without offering zilch in the way of an actual, workable alternative) might attract a lot of eyeballs, but so did Kimberly on MELROSE PLACE whipping off that wig so she could fondle and caress her brain surgery scar in the mirror one more time. Politics, in this country, has become yet another opportunity to sell refrigerators and toothpastes. Both the media and the GOP have long been hip to that fact, but they haven't realized yet that the people are now one step ahead of them.

I honestly could not tell whether Sharon Case was crying or laughing in that scene.

Angela Lansbury always maintained that the network and the advertisers misread the show's demographics entirely. They thought that MSW appealed only to older viewers, but, in fact, MSW attracted viewers of all ages on a regular basis. I think families in particular enjoyed watching the show, because they knew that the show wasn't gory or sensationalistic. It was also nice to see a weekly series where the bad guys were punished, the good guys were vindicated and everything was tied up in a nice bow at the end. MSW might not have been cutting-edge; nevertheless, it was always a very satisfying show to watch.

"We're glad to have you black!" has to be the best soap opera blooper ever, lol.

I hope someone will do an AMC oral history one of these days, if only so we can maybe get to the bottom of the "Susan Lucci threw a carton of yogurt at Henry Kaplan!" rumor.

In other words, Black women saved us from ourselves one more time.