Khan

If Maxie goes, though, who's gonna look after her 30 kids? I'm so awful for wishing for another, even more fatal school bus accident like the one that killed B.J. Ironically, @Darn, I was thinking last night that if Chandler Massey never returned to DAYS, then ML might make a halfway decent Will Horton recast. (Relax, @Soapsuds, CM would never turn down another opportunity to return, lol.)

How were the ratings at this point? Maybe the ratings were slipping, and they thought the story would goose them a bit.

I'm sorry for the casts and crews of "East New York" and "True Lies," especially because these cancellations are happening right in the middle of a strike. But those shows were just more of the same, IMO. Leslie Moonves might be long gone from CBS, but his sensibilities continue to shape the network's lineup.

It also didn't help that the actor who played Joseph Barringer was a total drip (no pun intended).

I think we all know the answer to that question:

Well, there goes my idea of having her and Drew co-host a daily chatfest called "Day by Day with Drew & Sam."

It took me awhile, but I finally got what Carlivati & Co. are going for. They're trying to set themselves apart from everything else on TV and streaming, because there's just so much out there vying for people's attention nowadays that "playing it safe" or even going back to basics might risk getting lost in the crowd. And okay, it ain't exactly the DAYS I grew up with, or the DAYS that once made the cover of Time magazine, but I'll go along with that. I just wish the show had a HW/EP team there who could do what Carlivati and Alarr are attempting, only with more taste and savvy.

If Josh Griffith can pull off the ultimate miracle and make Y&R look and sound and feel like Y&R again, then I'll be among the very first to praise him. But with both CBS and Sony clearly in penny-pinching mode, I think it's going to be a very tough fight.

I agree.

I just hope Liz finds something firm to hold onto when he does, 'cuz it sure won't be his ass! (Again, thank you, @DRW50.)

Wouldn't THAT be a "daytime first"? Taking two indistinguishable and boring characters and literally merging them into one before our very eyes? It's the kind of stuff that happens only on Joss Whedon's shows! Nah, I couldn't tell the Ford brothers apart either. John Wesley Shipp (ex-Kelly, GL; ex-Doug, ATWT; the original Flash on TV) played their dad for a semester, and I was like, "No way would he have fathered sons that bland-looking." And the only way I still can tell Josh from Mark is that Josh has no ass (thank you, @DRW50).

You make a good point, @Vee, especially about Josh's -- er, Mark's performance on OLTL. That's what I mean when I say he really tries. But I think it's hard to give good performances when your body is too stiff from working out that much. Plus, I can't blame @carolineg for getting the two mixed up or thinking Frank had brought back Mark in a different role. After all, it wouldn't be the first time he'd done such a thing. (How many roles on GH have Michael Easton and Roger Howarth had anyway? Have they set any records?)

(Please forgive me, @Vee, I couldn't help it.)

I believe you, lol! I think that's the trouble with so many young actors on soaps today. Many are so pretty and bland...and pretty bland. They give nothing to the audience or even the writers, I'll bet, to sink their teeth into. And right there, @Vee, you've just proved @carolineg's point, lol.

Yep. Poor Mark Lawson. He tries, he really tries, but he and Josh Kelly are just so vanilla.

I remember Dustin biting the dust and wondering whether we were supposed to care. But that's about it.

That was when the Floating Rib exploded? Jeez.

That type of transformation could not happen today without a ton of pushback from the viewers.

Gotcha. And I would have to agree.

DYNASTY's setup in the beginning was beautiful and classically soapy: the well-to-do Carringtons vs. the working-class Blaisdels, with Krystal as the character struggling to exist in both worlds. It was all very down-to-earth, and also the most complex and emotionally layered we would ever see characters like Blake, Fallon and Steven, too. Unfortunately, because the Shapiros had no idea how to write for the Blaisdels (Claudia notwithstanding), that whole season was written off as, "Well, no one watching cared about what was happening outside the mansion anyway"; when, in fact, had they put more effort into writing for Matthew and Lindsay, the audience might have welcomed keeping the original, "rich vs. poor" structure of the show intact.

I'll say this much: if the choice is between a Sonny/Alexis redo or the continuation of Alexis and Gregory, then I choose the former, lol.

I guess it beats having him and Mac decide to open a new bar and nightclub together. Or maybe they could have decided to open "Scorpio Brothers Investigations"? I dunno.

You find DALLAS, the series, repetitive; or just the self-contained episodes? I will admit that I, too, have a rather love-hate relationship with FC. I think it always had potential, but I also think it constantly shot itself in the foot, too. Whenever the show appeared to be on a roll in terms of story, they'd always do something to mess it up and make me question why they (or I) even bothered.

There's nothing wrong with depicting relationships like Todd and Tea's -- or Todd and Blair's, or Roger and Holly's, or Luke and Laura's -- so long as all the complexities are acknowledged by everyone observing. You only run into trouble when you try to paint the lovers in question as star-crossed super couples of the same level as, say, Phil and Tara, or Jeff and Penny.

Also -- and please, take what I say with a grain of salt -- but David Jacobs has said (and maybe everyone else at Lorimar agreed) that DALLAS and KL began with self-contained episodes, because he didn't believe that audiences knew enough about the characters yet to invest fully in ongoing storylines. As a matter of fact, I think he said that's why he thought BERRENGER'S failed: it jumped right away into ongoing stories, and there were too many characters who were too new to the audience for them to follow along. The initial seasons of DALLAS, FC and KL with self-contained episodes can be real slogs to get through, if only because the quality varies from episode to episode -- some are well-written; others...aren't -- and you know that very little of it will be recalled as the shows move forward. If you're watching for the first time, then I do think you just have to push through, because they'll help acclimate you to the shows in general. But if you've seen it all before, watching them all over again is definitely unnecessary, lol. Now that I'm thinking about it, didn't I read somewhere (maybe it was on here) that when ratings for DALLAS and FC began to fall, Lorimar considered returning to the original, self-contained format, but soon decided against it?