bongobong

I liked that Steffy told Liam that he should tell Hope about his tumor. As acrimonious as Steffy & Hope are to each other, I'm glad they don't use their kids as pawns.

Damn, Darlene is great as a menacing Sally. Can't wait for her to cross paths with Stephanie. LMAO, even the editor of Stud Magazine can't resist Caroline. Oh, the 80s.

It's overlooked that Bold can still see spikes with younger viewers because they have long-running young characters. Steffy, Hope & Liam (granted, he's been sidelined for 18 months or so) have been power players on the show for 15-ish years, and they are all 40 or younger. Looking at Y&R and GH's end of year episode counts, you get a bunch of 50+ characters in the top 5 with rando under 40s fluctuating year to year.

Another week of no flow between the CBS soaps in the demos.

I'm a moderate voter. I voted for Bonnie Crombie's Ontario Liberal party a few months ago. Pollievre is nothing like Trump. For American readers, every Canadian conservative politician since 2016 has been compared to Trump. Before that, Bush.

Agree to disagree here. Outside of his scenes with Stephanie, I find Clarke to be nails on a chalkboard. Hoping this changes when he interacts with Sally. I liked Katie & Rocco a lot at the start of the show. She was green but was a sweet, realistic character with some smarts, if not naive. Rocco was a ton of fun and very unique for this show. But once he went to FC, he became very low-energy and the (scab?) writers dropped the ball on what made him interesting: a good guy with big dreams willing to work for it. TBF, there are bits of that, like observing Eric & Ridge work but it just feels like scraps. Whereas is the first year I'd argue he was 1 of the 4 anchors of the show (Brooke, Stephanie & Caroline being the others). 100% agree on the Stephen story. Aside from some nice moments from Carrie Mitchum, it made the Logan girls seem borderline psychotic in how they treated their mother. IMO, the Beth character seemed to falter when they recast the part. I don't blame the actress at all though, she was quite good. Rather, the show made here too aggressively into a blue collar caricature. I guess to differentiate her from Stephanie, but from that point it was obvious she was never a true contender for Eric. Even look at her opening credit shots - the clunky car smile, holding groceries, frumpier clothes, etc.

Nice. The FF button has helped me get closer to Sally as Kalbir mentioned. The only thing I'm not looking forward to is the Throne recast

Ah, thanks for the explanation. That accounts for the stop and start of a bunch of plots. I'll choose to believe that the scabs were responsible for Bill not recognizing Donna - one of the 10 or so guests at his daughter's wedding.

Well into 1988 thoughts: -The actress playing Donna is the the most improved actor by far, even if the character has to suffer through dumb storylines -Conversely Katie & Rocco regress tremendously. I think the Katie actor suffers from lack of practice as her screen time is like 1/5 of the year before. Rocco seems to have laryngitis for months on end - though maybe the show told him to tone it down...but it doesn't work. -Clark/Kristin/Margo is the absolute worst. It would be the worst plot on the current show too. Playing a victim is not Lauren Koslow's strong suit. Terri Ann Linn still sucks. -Glad to see Caroline get complexity back after being so 1 note post-finding out about the letter. Her relationship with Stephanie is a highlight. Their scenes are always antagonistic, but there's a respect between them. A very different dynamic than Stephanie steamrolling over people she hates. -Speaking of...KKL and Susan Flannery quickly developed a great rapport. So fun to see Stephanie slowly boiling over her hatred of her before the big bang happens. -Finally, does young(er) Eric remind anyone else of

Don't forget Finn divulging Liam's private medical information to his ex-wife!

I literally said that in the post you quoted. I don't want to be combative, I was just giving my perspective why it might be harder to get back the sampler dropoffs. Anyways, I'm glad the show is doing well, even if I don't care for it. Hopefully it encourages the big media companies to take more creative risks.

It's for sure meeting, more likely exceeding its guarantees at the moment. No way CBS guaranteed more than 80% of Y&R's demos. I sampled for 2 weeks or so (saw the wedding etc.) and followed the comments closely to see what people were saying for maybe a month. Pretty much just interested in its ratings now.

It still can, the show is only 2 months old! The show can improve (maybe it has already, like I said, I'm not watching) and get a buzz. To be perfectly honest though, it might be tougher sell to have word of mouth trust if the social media commentary matched this board. Gaslighting is probably too strong a word... but reading the gushing comments from the first 2 weeks certainly didn't match what I was seeing on screen at all. I don't want to cast aspersions on any of the posters here - it's possible I'm in the minority opinion and they really did love the first 2 weeks that much - but I remember the Passions & Sunset Beach premiere opinions being MUCH more honest.

100% I picked Bold up again regularly during COVID WFH. I had watched GH & Days previously but even when we weren't supposed to leave our homes I didn't want to sit through an hour of a daytime soap. God knows B&B isn't perfect, but it has the strongest identity of any soap since Bill Bell retired from Y&R. We're fundamentally coming at this from complete opposite viewpoints. I don't see total viewers as an important metric at all in broadcast. This isn't the 90s: the 55+ don't pass shows onto younger generations because they watch their own stuff on their phones/tablets if the main tv is being used. CBS probably doesn't expect the show to run for 10 years either. I 100% think having an almost all Black cast helps the show WAY more than it hurts. Does anyone honestly think the ratings would be higher if the Black parts were played by White actors and vice versa? CBS smartly created something for an under-served audience. I haven't come across the diversity haters complaining about the show....but that's hilarious considering BTG is less diverse than Passions & Sunset Beach, the last 2 hour-long soaps to debut. We're overthinking why the show shed viewers from its big premiere. It's the same reason as every show. People are curious, they sample, the ones who like it tune in again, the ones who don't stop watching. I'm in the later camp, but I give credit where it's due. Looking at the numbers, the show is still a success at this point.

I don't want to come across as rude, but that is an INSANE idea. You don't handicap the marketing team by limiting their use of their key assets - the Black actors. You don't bait & switch your audience. For CBS to "pull that off" they'd have to embargo the cast list, etc. Does anyone think it would have had a higher premier and audience if 60% of the pre-show ads featured Nurse Elevator Baby? Not to pick on the actress, but should she have done the big interviews instead of Tamara Tunie? And that strategy would have limited the enthusiasm of the fans who've carried the show to respectable numbers for 2 months. Honestly, reading the comments here the ratings expectations for a two month soap are crazy unrealistic. There is no need to hit the panic button. Read Toup's report: in week 7 a new show doing 77-81% of the #1 show in both major demos. Yes, there are only 4 soaps on broadcast now... but has that ever happened before? Come even close??

Brad can do something really funny and resurrect their credits on Monday.

Not a woman, nor over 50, but I'm a B&B viewer who stopped watching the show after a few days and stopped sampling all together after a few weeks. I wasn't planning on being a regular viewer unless it wowed me (mostly due to it being 1 hour and being the familiar rich family set-up) but initially planned to watch the week. There were some structural issues that dampened my interest. First and foremost was the absolute mess of the character ages. None of the generations (outside of Ms. Tunie's & her husband) seemed distinguishable so it was frustrating to figure out who was who and how they related. Yes, soaps get generationally messy over time, but why start it even messier compared to B&B is now? The mistress character being the friend of the daughter of Karla Mossey's character is laughable - if you showed a picture of the 2 women and asked 100 people who was older, 40 would say the mistress. The men all having beards and dressing the same was annoying too. Two specific events made me not bother finishing the premier week. I didn't even make it all the way through Tuesday to be honest. The first was the slap/weird reaction walkoff from the family at the end of the pilot. It felt like something out of a reality show, and I'm not a big reality show fan at all. The second was the baby in an elevator in the next episode. That felt hacky on Saved By The Bell in the 90s. A few other things bothered me too. The cut outs between scenes. I expected Tamara Tunie's to be a force but was given a generic diva. And all that political talk took me out of escapism and made me think about politics..which soaps are supposed to be refuge from. That said, there were things I liked. Even if the acting wasn't perfect, it was better than the start of any other soap I've seen. No Ashley Hamiltons, Dana Sparks or Terri-Ann Linns to be found. Having a primarily Black cast is innovative and overdue. I'm glad that people on this board are enjoying it. Not every show is for everyone. My opinion is also clearly the minority view as the show has been remarkably stable in viewers under 50. BTG's renewal will surely be announced shortly, and deservedly so based on its performance.

Caroline becomes such a shrew in the months after finding out about Brooke and Thorne hiding the letter. The actress is still charismatic, but does she ever get the 1987 magic back, or is this the new normal for the character? She of course has a right to be mad, but piling on Brooke - who took her into her home for 3 or 4 months after she was after she was assaulted - and forgiving Thorne right away rings false. Speaking of the OG quad storyline, the other major plot hole is the Eric/Beth/Stephanie connection. Brooke obsesses over Ridge finding out about the letter, but the thought that Eric leaving Stephanie for her mom never seems to enter her head that this would be a bigger roadblock to getting with Ridge.

I get your point about rotating in and out past characters... but Jessica? Why waste those actresses on such a non-entity. At least Ivy gives B&B the opportunity to promote the show in Australia where the show is popular.

Yeah OGT isn't great either, but not on the Mark/Kristin level. That said he's much better than what I remember of #2 who seemed like he belonged on a TGIF show. Refreshing to see a blue collar version of this show, with only 7 rich characters. The current show needs some strivers.

Good to know. Though before that happens, for sh*ts & giggles I'd love a scene with her & Mark.

Sampled some season 1 for the first time. Was Kristin Forrester an actual character in the 80s or was she inserted via AI so we'd appreciate Daphne Rose?

Pretty sure they get ahead a bunch of times because they take multiple production breaks a year.

I just heard of this show that has apparently been on for 12(!) seasons. Hallmark is notoriously low-paying, so that probably didn't improve his quote.

Interesting, Friday saved Y&R from being swept by B&B all week in 18-49.