P.J.

LOL...well, Van's a little over the top and Reva (surprise) is WAY over the top....but I consider it an homage to screwball comedies, so I just roll with it. Van and Reva would've been so much more fun as straight up rivals.

@Khan lol. To get us back on track, today marks Jerry verDorn's debut as Ross. One of my favorite Ross moments starts at 1:14 @alwaysAMC it's been a blast having you! As they say, "welcome to the tribe!"

There's really no conflict within the family either--or when there is, it's quickly resolved. At least outside of Eva/Kat, and Eva isn't a problem for anyone else.

I just read an interview from just before the premiere with Val Jean, and specifically said she didn't want to do a show with a "downtrodden" black family. (and I'm paraphrasing) She'd seen enough of that. But (and I think it was brought up a lot in the discussion) without having a strong family to counter the Duprees, like you said, there's no conflict. The only premieres I've watched, Capitol and Bold, had exactly what you described, a source of conflict from the jump. What Val Jean's got is more Tyler Perry than anything Bell or Irna Phillips created. It's surface and slick.

I do wonder what they thought they'd accomplish with the Dani/Bill/Hayley story, which I guess they saw as their big hook. But yeah, the only couple that comes close to working is Dani/Andre, and that was purely accidental. (I do not count Anita/Vernon, who are clearly meant to be the bedrock couple.) The actors that truly showed some spark initially (for me that's Nicole, Kat and Eva) were stuck with absolute washouts. They really missed on a majority of the casting on the show, and it continues to hamstring them.

I was on the fence about watching it too. IMO, it really has to find some emotional resonance if it wants to make it to the five year mark. As much praise as I've heard for Val Jean over the years, it's surprising.

Oh, that's being very generous.

Right? It does almost feel like they're ashamed. And while I don't want to trash talk BtG---it's not exactly groudbreaking television. I forgot--but yeah, they did have June mention Jessica and her stories. I'm not sure that's slamming the door on a "universe" exactly. And it's not like they don't have scriptwriters on staff who could write some throwaway lines. (at least in ATWT's case. although all the P&G shows traded behind the scenes people almost as much as they traded actors._)

Y'know, couldn't they throw us P&G fans a bone? Instead of some (virtually) meaningless "crossover" with Y&R/B&B, why can't they figure out a way to bring up the Oakdale or Springfield folk? Anita even comes from Chicago. (which is close enough to either.) Maybe have her mention how she spent her first big royalty check on a Barbara Ryan Original. Either viewers get the easter egg or the don't. But the obviously one-sided calls with fauxRidgeForrester or three lines from Neil Winter's kid are stupid.

spit take...Reva unwilling to let Josh lay pipe? snort Sure, Jan. Kim probably had whoever came up with that idea fired on the spot.

I'm not a Beth Chamberlain fan. I really wish they hadn't brought her back in '97ish. Lord, imagine Reva having to mime what she wants? My eyes, my eyes!!

Was Rauch still there for the Beth/Lorelei story? La Zim scenery chewing in stereo surround sound? Lord love a duck.

"Reva's Amish Adventure!" playing now....ugh.

With our luck, they'd put up the last crappy five years, and that's it.

Yes, it's two separate incidents. Pharo's SA happened when she was around twelve. Reva got pregnant at 17, when she had sex with Billy. Mindy's mother had died, and Josh went off to college at Berkley. I've never heard a direct reference to the gap between Billy, Trish and Josh. But from the way Josh occasionally referenced their childhood (watching Billy in high school football games, while he ran up and down the sidelines for example), I'd say there's supposed to be at least six years between Billy and Josh. Reva's at least a year younger, since Josh was going to college and she got pregnant at 17. I can't stomach the scenes around Dylan's conception (Reva is just ticking me off in the present as she remembers the past and having concocted the rape story for Sarah's benefit), but I think she may be talking about how Josh didn't come back to Oklahoma the summer after his first year at college. One of the few references to Mindy's mother happens when Billy tells Phillip that he had gotten Mindy's mother pregnant and they'd had to get married. It sounded like that was during his college years. And IIRC, Blake had a minor car accident when she was chasing after Phillip. She was afraid he'd found out that Beth was alive, I think. Phillip was being gaslit that Beth was alive, and tried to convince Lillian to exhume Beth's grave to verify if her body was in it.

Maybe a basketball court set is too big an expense for that specific of a function, but a couple of shots of balls going through hoops, guys dribbling and bumping into each other until some blow up happened between Kial and Carlton doesn't seem that hard. Even the confrontation between Vanessa and Deanna was a let down to me. While Vanessa has gone on about Deanna for the past six months, that's not a substitute to seeing their relationship. I needed to see Deanna figure out that Vanessa was sleeping with Joey over more than three episodes. (or actually one) I just need the plot over Leslie's mansion to disappear. It's stupid.

IA. It would've been a lot more meaningful to see the animosity on the court between Kial and Carlton, not be told about it second hand. It's always too much build up and not enough follow through. The gala Winterfest was a HUGE disappointment. And while I get that it's hard to predict location shooting, a couple of outdoor scenes would make a huge difference.

No, I wasn't. My memories of SFT are few. If I ever did know, I'd forgotten. I probably shouldn't have been surprised, as plenty of broadway folk worked daytime too.

I definitely agree Rick and Liz had chemistry---but it was a gentler chemistry, not the raw edgy chem that SS had with him.

Truth. While she's grown in the role, deep emotion is not in her wheelhouse. For a moment I thought she was going to snot-cry, ala Kelley Meighan Hensley.

Mary Stuart sang?

I get your idea. It's just hard for me to buy into given how they started out. Maybe if Curlee had stayed, she could have built something like that.

It's not the theme, it's the arrangement or maybe I mean orchestration. The switch from the original to the synthesizer version makes it more "zippy" (for lack of a more technical term.) At least imo. I don't think they would've put Blake and AM back together had SS stayed. There was just too much bad history between them. While that true with a lot of couples, GL wasn't going to pin AM and Blake down with each other.

Thanks for the tag! I had never heard of this show. It's funny how different Eileen's voice was later. I would cringe whenever Lisa sang on the show. Don's voice is exactly what I thought it would be. GL used to have him sing at Christmas, but I hadn't heard him otherwise. (I guess GL didn't believe in having a lawyer moonlight as a lounge lizard. lol)

Patrician was the word I was trying to come up with, but couldn't. lol. Definitely with British aristocrat vibes. Baklava entrepreneur and resale shop owner. (lol sounds better than junk store owner..)