Manny

These contract guarantees of 1 ep per month are ridiculous. How can you even have a story if your character apprars 4-5 times in a month? It's sad.

She looks like she could be Chandler Massey's sister, def not his dauguter. These SORASes are just ridiculous. Its almost like Christel Khalil having college aged kids.

Yes, that's what I was thinking - I trust you more than IMDB Here you go, I did it Thanks once again for the data!

Oh good, that will help! Thanks!!

Does someone maybe have a list of years with a total number of episodes aired per each year? Maybe @JAS0N47

Fair point. Just think that a lot of (mainly younger) people today don't watch TV anymore at either time of the day, hence would not be aware of the existence of soaps.

It's not just Aussies.. I've seen recently several examples where Americans online thought Days of Our Lives is not on anymore. But that's not to think they lost track after the show moved to Peacock... First example, a young American couple who review TV shows on YouTube.. they are currently watching Friends and there is the whole "Drake Ramoray storyline" going on. When they first mentioned Days on Friends, the guy said: "Oh that's a real show from the 80s my Grandma used to watch!" The girl never heard of DAYS and the guy was saying it used to run on tv many years ago and said the show was one for "like 20 years, like Grey's Anatomy". I told them in the comments that DAYS still exists and that it's on for sixty years. Second example is a bunch of young guys commenting on music, somehow got to the topic of Days of Our Lives and one of them referred to Marlena being possessed by the devil and wondered if Days was still on or not and if Marlena was still on the show. I told them yes. Also I spoke to one British guy recently and mentioned EastEnders to him and he had no idea it was still on, but he also said he never watched it in the first place, so I guess he was avoiding it altogether. So I think a lot of people are not aware of the soaps anymore. There is so much content elsewhere, so they don't watch daytime. And I guess since soaps are not advertised in primetime anymore (aside from BTG now), someone who doesn't watch daytime would have no clue about what soaps still exist.

I usually LOVE Italy. It' s probably my favorite ESC country. I gotta say, I loved Olly (the winner of SanRemo), and I am sad he's not going to Eurovision. Lucio... I love the lyrics. They really are relatable. But I just don't like the song as much. Serbia is boring. But since Serbia qualifies every year, I don't mind them not qualifying this year and giving up the space for someone who hasn't been in the final for a while. Croatia (my country).. I gotta say, when the songs came out, I really loved this song. However I knew it would need to have amazing staging. Also I had no idea who Marko Bošnjak was, and when I heard the song, I thought it was some cool new band. But then when I realized who is singing it, my enthusiasm went down, because I just didn't believe Marko could pull it off. And now that he won (pushed by the juries, not the televote), I am still not convinced. The staging looked cheap (but okay, they can elevate for Eurovision), but I am still not convinced by HIM.. He needs to massively improve vocally, the big notes are not there. And also he needs to be better and switching between the "cute" and scary moments. Also, I think his "cute" moments should be more like, cute-creepy. UK and Czechia came out today. I don't know why but I thought Czechia would be a banger. But it's not. It's nice, I suppose. He has a nice voice. UK is fun! I hope the ladies can sing, because I like the studio version. And in previous years I enjoyed the studio version as well, but it would fall apart live. So I hope they can sing live. Otherwise I predict another bottom 5.

My favorite it still Albania after all these months. Such an interesting song, with strong lyrics and charismatic performer (the girl, not the guy lol). I do enjoy some other songs, but none are really giving me winner vibes. Austria came out today and I guess I could see that win, but isn't that just too similar to Nemo? I don't see the same thing winning twice in a row. I just hope Mans doesn't win for Sweden again (sorry, I am Swede). Mans' song is just horrible. He is an amazing performer and the staging is awesome, but the song itself is just a bunch of nothing, in my opinion. So I hope Kaj goes for Sweden, it's a real fun song. Even if it does sing about sauna culture lol Out of other songs, I do enjoy Netherlands (even though the chorus is so weak and repetitive, I like the rest of the song a lot), Luxembourg, Belgium... I love Australia unless I actually listen to the lyrics. The groove and music and the singer are really cool, but again, the lyrics are just bad. This year's fandom favorites like Finland and Poland do nothing for me. And I hope Estonia does not qualify.

OMG, you are Sue Osman on Walford Web? How exciting! I loved this post there as well.

I am currently in hate mode for this show. The way they made me feel tonight, I shouldn't allow a TV show to make me feeling. And yet here I am several hours later, angry and heartbroken.

I have been on a real high with the show last year, but during the last few months, I have cooled off sadly. I was really disappointed with Christmas, simply because I found the Cindy/Junior storyline such a weak storyline to be fronting Christmas. And then when that switched to a whodunnit, I cared even less, just because I felt it was such a poorly constructed storyline. I honestly don't think anyone (except maybe Junior) would have hit Cindy because she cheated. And whoever is revealed to have done it will be ruined, in my opinion (again, aside from Junior). I did enjoy Sonia/Reiss/Bianca stuff, but there was on such a long break from that story (I know, actresses went on vacation, but I don't care, I still blame the show for such bad planning and pacing of that story) and then I have a feeling now has been rushed through. So again, somewhat poor pacing. I hated Sonia's trial, when out of nowhere Sonia wanted to plead guilty, when I didn't understand why she is doing this, other than to push the plot. I enjoyed Sonia's discovery of the truth and the scenes where she confronts Reiss. Natalie and Jonny were both awesome. I didn't like Bianca just arriving out of the sudden and saving Sonia. But I am curious how this will go on now. I hope we deal with some PTSD for Bianca before both ladies leave the show. Phil and Nigel's storyline are amazing. I cannot find faults there (or can I ). I have really been enjoying them and the performances have been amazing. I was slightly disappointed with the special Phil 1985 episode, just because I thought it would hit me more, that I would be crying, but it didn't. I was taken out of the story when we would cut to the stag party or for some reason Linda's return (even though they tried to connect it to Phil's story, it didn't work for me). Also Jay and Sharon just leaving Phil, even though he almost broke down in front of Jay, yet he just left... So yeah... But I am still enjoying this storyline immensely. Denise's little instant love triangle is a disaster. Probably my least favorite storyline. Which is shame because Denise is one of my favorites. But she should be with neither of them. Jack is scum for cheating on her, Ravi is a drug dealing, children bridge hanging, kidnapper and murder and aside from Aaron Thiara being hot and charismatic, I don't get the appeal of Ravi as a character. There was no investing in Jack/Denise for months, they just got divorced (what was the point?!) and she clearly told him she sees him as a friend like two weeks ago and yet now suddenly she is choosing. Whatever. From technical perspective it is impressive that they created wrote and filmed two different paths, but for me it was a wrong storyline to invest so much time and effort in. I hate how the Six fizzled out. I hate how Tommy/Kat story fizzled out. I hate that Nugget is such a Nish worshiper now. I didn't get why Ian took Cindy back after the brick thing. I hate that Gina slept with Freddie, made no sense, both characters suffered A LOT for me here. George basically forcing Kojo to lie for him and be his alibi was a huge character assassination for me. The market storyline was probably one of the most boring things I have ever seen on a soap opera. And as much as I love Stacey/Martin, the whole addition of Ruby has been really dull. Okay, maybe "hate" is a too strong of a feeling, maybe it's just disappointment, but whatever.. So yeah... was great for a while, but last few months, the show did a lot of mistakes in my opinion. But weirdly enough, I am still excited for next week and for the 40th and the live show.

I have put this as my desktop background

Yes, same here. Basically all the young actors were unknown inexperienced newbies. As for the older actors, I only knew the actress that played the mother of the twins.. all of the other older actors were also unknown to me, and were also hit or miss.

Being Croatian, I saw first 2 years of the Croatian version. It was the first time Croatia ever did such soap opera. It was exciting at the time, but realistically it was pretty meh.

Ah okay, that's interesting! Thank you!!

Thank you so much, @FrenchFan! You always sharing your collection has been priceless! And I will happily write recaps out of scripts, if that will help you Btw, ATWT went from episode 2296 on Monday, to 2299 on Thursday, which would mean that ATWT aired on Tuesday and Wednesday. But it says that all soaps were pre-empted on Wednesday. But maybe ATWT still aired, since the episode numbering suggests so?

Y&R and AMC really popped up in this period, wow!

I haven't watch GH in years... and seeing this, I am happy I am not watching. This list is just sad.

I have to say, I'm not a fan of these special episodes, even though it was well done and great acting here. I really liked both. I was a bit more familiar with Nancy, because I've seen some videos previously when I am watching random scenes from the past. But I must say, I don't think I've seen Lee before and I really liked him.

This was the first time really seeing Lee and Nancy and I really liked both actors. I would like if they came back full time too.

Well Lauren found out that Cindy had a secret (the affair), but didn't know what it was and she learned that Cindy was somehow involved with Kojo's accident. At the same time, Cindy learned that Lauren was addicted to painkillers. So they both blackmailed each other with the information and Cindy even provided Lauren more painkillers. When Lauren burnt down the house due to the drugs, she confessed everything to Peter and Ian, but Cindy convinced them Lauren was lying, so Peter and everyone turned their backs on Lauren. So when Lauren overheard Cindy speak about the affair, she revealed it all on Christmas via the recording. But for some reason everyone blamed Lauren for revealing it in such a manner. Tommy is not beating Kat anymore, we haven't actually seen him in a while now. We saw a glimpse on Christmas and they all seemed happy and laughing, so Tommy is "cured"? That would be a disappointing ending to that storyline, since all of Tommy's "recovery" would have happened off screen. Alfie and Kat are back together. Oh and the campy lady is Elaine, Linda's mother and George's wife. I actually enjoy her and she had some great moments this year. A nice character journey. That's true. This is what was lacking from the reveal, the fact that we haven't seen Cindy with her daughters at all. Junior was also severely underdeveloped. All of this was lacking in this storyline.

Actually Clenshaw said somewhere that Cindy's attacker will be revealed for the 40th. So in a month and a half. So luckily we don't have to wait long for this story to finish. EDIT: Oh and regarding the familiar moments, I think someone told me that it was also Clenshaw that said that they wanted to recreate the familiar moments as an homage to 40 years (hence why we had Ian recreating Arthur's scene by having a breakdown in the living room; Cindy falling into the snow like Pauline and even the affair revealed via a recording a la Sharongate/Stax). For me, that's nice, but I didn't need that to be the centerpiece. When you do homage like that, you do it in small scenes, sort of like crumbs that fans notice. It shouldn't be a copy/paste for your main storyline of the Christmas season.

I did not enjoy it. I just don't care about the Cindy/Junior storyline, like at all. And the only thing that was keeping me hopeful was the fact that Lauren was going to be a winner and she will have everyone apologize to her for treating her like [!@#$%^&*]. Oh, wait... Hated that everyone was dumping on Lauren in the midst of Cindy drama. I did not like that the Kojo reveal was basically nothing. That Elaine knowing reveal was nothing. That Cindy giving Lauren pills that same evening reveal was nothing. We didn't have time for this because we had to have everyone threaten Cindy with murder so that we could have a new whodunit. So I don't really care who hit her. I am looking forward to see other storylines and hopefully she'll be in a coma for a few weeks so that we don't have to watch this storyline for a while.

I loved that opening too... in 2007. So if they do something similar, I'd at least hope it's a modernized version! Or just have a completely different modern opening for a fresh new soap