soapfan770

I do wonder if Hotel would have benefited from something like what Season 7 of Falcon Crest attempted to do with the multiple short arcs and rotating guest stars every few episodes. Shoot maybe have hired someone like Freilich to give the show some energy, although not at the same high octane pace lol. Without a doubt to me, the underrated Sisters was a soap, and later shows like Providence and Once and Again definitely had soapy elements to them at a time when primetime was going full in on reality shows. I agree with the others about L.A. Law and St. Elsewhere. Funny my parents never watched Hotel they were too busy watching St Elsewhere! I’d throw Northern Exposure in the mix too along with Picket Fences. Always enjoyed the more serialized/soapier arcs of The X-Files despite the sci-fi nature of the arcs, and I could say the same thing about those WB shows like Buffy and Charmed, at least in their earlier seasons lol.

Thanks! Was thinking it was the doomed Timecop series but wasn’t sure if that was right. Prey looks like it had its own tank/sabotage job done by getting scheduled at 8PM Thursday…. Of course ABC threw so many, many dramas on Thursday nights in the mid-late 90’s but nothing was able to stick at all and ABC was impatient. Eventually Thursday nights became another movie night for the network for a few years there.

@dragonflies mention of Lois & Clark in the four seasons and done thread made me remember the tank and sabotage job done to that show during the fourth season. Tank: Lois & Clark had a successful third season coming in a #44, the show’s highest rated season yet. After the much anticipated wedding finally occurred, the show weakened in its time-slot due increased fierce competition in the 8PM Sun slot from Touched by an Angel breaking out in that spot, 3rd Rock From the Sun, and a resurgent Simpsons. So ABC flip-flopped the and AHV around on the Sunday night line-up. The show tanked in the 7PM slot. Sabotage: With the Disney takeover and the collapsing of the show, ABC then shipped the show to Saturday nights with little to no promotion and of course viewership fractured in half. Although ABC had agreed to a two season renewal at the end of Season 3, ABC/Disney changed their mind about the WB-owned show and promptly cancelled it. I recall ABC later green-lit some other short lived WB-owned show to make up from the loss.

Haha glad I’m not the only one who bought the box set cheap lol. And I’m confused how Hotel got labeled as a soap opera to begin with… After I mentioned it I did end watching the Bette Davis pilot with also Morgan Fairchild in it (it’s the 80’s!) along with the first episode with Anne Baxter this evening here…Both were very entertaining but I also don’t have any real desire keep going at this episodic pace until 3 seasons later when the Cabots feud with Peter 🙈 In the meantime I feel like I should revisit MP, or one of the 2000’s soaps. I recently tried also rewatching 2017 Dynasty but it was hard to rewatch knowing how the 1st season ended up being entirely retconned from existence.

Is Hotel worth re-watching? I'm trying to find something soapy worth revisiting that wouldn't take too much time, and I've had the complete series on DVD I picked up from a flea market years ago that's just collecting dust. I recall watching a few episodes back in the early SoapNet days but wasn't terribly impressed by the guest star stuff taking away from the actual continuing storyline i.e. Peter and Christine's courtship. There's not even a Hotel discussion thread on here LOL, so I have my doubts. I'll at least watch the pilot with Bette Davis.

Playing catch up on the week…. OCD….? What was that PSA story about? Of all the things that could have been troubling Connor…What in the heck has Griffith been drinking lately??? So crazy Jordan is running around town offing people, literally starting fires, changing wigs and glasses left and right? Sigh. I mean I love Colleen but it also feels so aimless/pointless at this point as JG tries to milk this dry to the bone. I feel like if JG had done this right we would have had a slow build with both Jordan & Claire, have them introduced, have Jordan secretly spike Nikki’s drinks like Meggie did all those years ago to get Nikki heavily drunk again etc. before the big May sweeps reveal/climax. Looks like the throwback stuff with Phyllis/Danny/Christine is mercifully done for now. Couldn’t happen to a nice psychopath lol. And yes I agree WHY was Abby being nice to her? Still think Chance should be launching his own PI business or private security firm with Summer “moonlighting” with him. Thursday’s episode has Ashley going bonkers again with her personality clearly splitting. ED’s facial expressions are perfect and Thursday’s ending gave me possessed Marlena disguised as Kristen vibes for real.

Okay, so I’m stuck in traffic as my usual 30 minute commute turned into a 50 commute with heavy and while I had a minute I scrolled at my Facebook and the news and I totally thought it was fake lol. That said, now that I’m home, WOW!!!!!! I was totally not expecting this here in 2024 at all, especially on the heels of Y&R’s renewal. I’m shocked especially that P&G is also involved. While I see I‘ve got 9 pages to read up on and share my deeper thoughts later I’ll just say if it replaces The Talk I would relish the irony of that. I really sincerely hope this comes to pass and succeeds. 🙂And here just a couple weeks ago before Y&R’s renewal I was wondering in 2024 was going to be the end of CBS soaps.

What else but to complete his quadfecta of appearing on all four of the CBS soaps, with the fourth appearance coming 15 years later after deciding to us a break 😉

Have we ever dissected Reilly’s appearance on Friends before LOL?? I only ask because as I was flipping through channels I saw the Friends episode where Reilly appeared for the first time in like 15 years where Ramoray dies lol. I’m assuming that Emmy on JER’s desk is from his time at GL?

That’s correct about Johnny’s exit. After the whole Looney Rae Rooney story wrapped up Johnny found out Roxie had recovered and dumped Chelsea to go be with her, with Johnny leaving in May 1990. 1991 GL was fantastic but I do think the high number of fan favorites that departed put a damper in the ratings. At least the show did stabilize in ratings for a few years there.

I had to LOL that this article started out gossiping about Saturday morning cartoons, especially on mentioning Snorks. 🤣Ah the joys of being an 80’s kid. What I’m curious by is why did TVG think one of the game shows was a goner for the upcoming B&B? CBS had just ended the programming the 4PM slot, did someone think they could maybe save Capitol by moving it to a late AM timeslot? No way could I see TPIR getting bumped ahead at a time when the big three where already quietly turning back the 10AM ET slot back over the affiliates as well. Back to basics is laughable. And while not CBS related I will say poor Mary-Alise Recasener was pretty much done wrong by all the soaps she appeared on.

I can respect that 🙂 I will say that the era of neurotic NY’ers in every sitcom was overkill, however it was a heck of a lot better than the era of crude sitcoms that always featured an obese man and his skinny wife. Now that was a bleak era lol.

Yep by 2002 after shoving Millionaire on like every night lol, Millionaire was gone off the network and into syndication, while ABC fell into a another mess era where it became the first Big 3 network to rank at #4 behind Fox. ABC’s fortunes wouldn’t turn around until the 2004-05 season when finally caught a break with multiple big hits. LMAO especially probably Reiser. I think the show was wayyy too NYC centric which is why it failed in syndication and just wasn’t funny overall. I like Hunt as actress but I was puzzled by all those endless Emmy wins.

So true, and I think CBS also had an identity crisis of what it wanted to be during this era. For every Central Park West, High Society, and that terrible Andrew Dice Clay sitcom, we’d get a show like a New York News with MTM and Madeline Khan or a show like Orleans with Larry Hagman, a show CBS went all in on. CBS actually moved Orleans to try to save it by giving placing Orleans in a 9PMET spot thinking people would be familiar with a Larry Hagman drama in that slot 😂 Too bad that didn’t happen to that Mad About You revival that, no one, I mean one asked for. And of course it didn’t work. For the record I thought Bill Fagerbakke was probably the only good thing about Coach I liked and that’s being kind lol. Wings was indeed funnier and watchable until 1995 or so. Ah I know we’ve examined the CBS mess era in the past, and while 97-98 was the nadir they managed to come in at number #2 while ABC was dealing with a different sort of animal at the time. Maybe soon we’ll examine the disaster that was the Jamie Tarses (RIP) era that caused ABC to plummet to #3.

Coach had very similar issues that Wings had. Both shows were decent enough timeslot hits (Coach after Roseanne, Wings after Cheers) both were at least mildly entertaining to watch at least in the early years, yet neither show proved they could stand on their own once they got moved around to other timeslots and eventually as changes occurred to both shows (Thomas Hayden Church leaving Wings, Coach changing settings from Minnesota to Florida) both shows became unremarkable and collapsed.

Boy Meets World was definitely the last classic ABC TGIF show as well as probably the most realistic of the lot. Yet upon rewatch it hasn’t aged well either. At least this and the first few seasons of Sabrina anchored the TGIF line-up for a few years before ABC shelved it. Nah MacGyver died in its time-slot, which was ultimately awkward to begin with as a lead in to Monday Night Football, MacGyver would get bumped and/or pre-empted for its Mountain and Pacific time slots. Meanwhile NBC and CBS flourished on Monday nights in the late 80’s and 90’s with strong counter programming for the most part. The same thing happened a few years later when ABC thought it it would be cute to air Coach on Monday nights, have it backfire and move Coach back to airing after Roseanne.

Sabotage and Tank Job that backfired @kalbir? For the 1997-98 season CBS decided to air Diagnosis Murder at 9:00ET/8:00CT opposite Seinfeld. Seinfeld was obviously #1 for that season, but DM made shockwaves coming in at #26 and was also a top #30 hit the following season as well. Despite the infamous disastrous start for the 1997-98 season, CBS would rank #2 for the 97-97 for the first time since 93-94 given the success of their Sunday, Monday, Diagnosis Murder on Thursday, and a unusually strong for the 90’s Saturday night lineup.

You’re welcome @kalbir it’s funny as a late 80’s preteen I remember watching Dallas with my parents and siblings atill the bitter end along with other shows like Knots The Equalizer, LA Law, and shows like Scarecrow and Mrs King and Remington Steele yet Falcon Crest was a show I just occasionally watched and lost track of. I knew of Dynasty but it was always on a school night (although we were 8:00MT lol) I guess I have a fonder memory for the late 80’s primetime soaps in their later days than most because that’s when I started watching them even though they were past their prime in retrospect.

Sooo I decided to do a rewatch of of this and WOW I forgot on how uber serious this reboot was for the first season before turning into utter campiness the following season.

TNT 1991-93ish and the SoapNet broadcast’s actually lasted til 2005 when MP and 90210 took over.

In a weird way to answer you Donna yes that is what was inferred if that makes sense lol. The best example was the book explaining the show changing locations to Selby Flats, California came at a time the show’s production moved to LA and stayed that way through the 1960’s when GL changed locations again, when in reality GL only was produced in LA briefly in the late 40’s and not some 20 year period as the book suggested.

Speaking of this, I vividly recall one reference book I remember reading back in the late 90’s or so that GL changed its locations as it moved filming locations (ie Chicago for Five Points, LA for Selby Flats CA, and NYC for Springfield) when this was clearly not the case. Also the misconception that GL was always on CBS, when in fact it actually premiered on. NBC radio and didn’t get air on CBS radio until circa 1948-ish or so.

LMAO I did notice the dailies from Zap2it spin a total different take from SoapDirt (who has a tendency to exaggerate)🤣, which is why I made sure to post the dailies as quick as I could. Ever since SOD went to online only and with other past reliable sources like DR and Soapdom scaled back and/or gone, it’s hard to find a good source anymore that isn’t complete crap like Celebrity Dirty Laundry or TV Seasons & Spoilers.

As of today 3/1/24 it’s gone off Freevee and Prime. The first four seasons are currently available for purchase on Prime but none of the later seasons are available. Guess we’ll have to wait and see where FC ends up next, and who knows how long that will be.

B&B dailies: The Bold and the Beautiful Monday, March 4, 2024 – Episode #9222 Deacon confronts Steffy, making serious allegations. Finn tells Steffy he needs time to process the enormity of their situation. B&B Tuesday, March 5, 2024 – Episode #9223 A heartbroken Deacon breaks down over Sheila’s body. Li and Finn argue voraciously about Sheila’s death. Steffy confides in Liam that she is concerned that her marriage may not withstand this latest tragedy. B&B Wednesday, March 6, 2024 – Episode #9224 Liam threatens Finn that he will step up for Steffy if Finn won’t. Hope consoles Deacon and helps him grieve. B&B Thursday, March 7, 2024 – Episode #9225 Finn and Steffy come together for the first time since Sheila’s death. The Bold and the Beautiful Friday, March 8, 2024 – Episode #9226 Poppy and Zende interfere in Luna’s decision to come clean to R.J. Memories of Sheila haunt Finn and Steffy.