Skin

7 hours ago, Vee said:

Erica was beloved by virtually the entire audience, good stories or bad. She never dismantled the show. Sonny, not so much. You don't have to like her, but that's the way it was. The reaction to Babe. the Careys, Ryan, etc. in those years was far more negative and tethered to what Brian Frons and Megan McTavish did to the show.

You always do this, and it goes nowhere productive when you do. No one was talking about the Carey's, Ryan or Babe and your post is an over reaction that is unneeded but predictable. Literally no one was arguing that Erica wasn't a beloved character on the show. Literally no one has said that in the three pages we have in this discussion. No one said that Erica dismantled the show either, so again where is this coming from? 

Regardless of your thoughts on Sonny Corinthois, whenever he was on screen the show tilted to something that was sort of unrecognizable in an effort to deflect or protect him, and Erica often was in an entirely different universe when her stories were playing out similar to the armor that you would experience for a Stefano, Victor or Todd sort of story. That is all anyone was saying. AMC's writing concerning Erica could have been better handled if they had taken some notes on how OLTL wrote Viki during the same time period in her front burner stories.

If you hate Ryan, the Carey's and Babe that's great, I guess (?) not sure what they have to do with Erica's stories being teflon where nothing bad could ever happen to her. 

On 9/18/2021 at 11:51 AM, Jonathan said:

 

I don't recall Erica winning every argument. Brooke more than once got the best of Erica. The same with Maria and Natalie.

Maybe it was the era in question, but I just remember feeling all through out the 00's that Erica was this untouchable goddess and everyone else were the equivalent of street urchin's compared to her, and everyone knew it. Perhaps it wasn't intentionally supposed to come off that way, but that was the way it felt. Erica had a tremendous amount of plot armor similar to the likes of Victor Newman, Sonny Corinthois and Stefano Dimera, just of a different kind.

I never thought at the Emmy perspective before. Susan being nominated all of those times and losing, while having to embrace another actress who won immediately after being cast. 

20 hours ago, Soaplovers said:

Barbara Montgomery was a worthy opponent to Erica because unlike pious Brooke...Barbara verbally delivered against Erica.

I think you hit on another aspect of the show and it's relationship with Erica here too. Erica always had to have the last word and ultimately win in all of her arguments, or 'takedown' scenes, which smacked of everyone else who ever opposed her just being 'jealous of her', after awhile that just became grating. You would literally have Erica going up against people like Brooke and Maria who were sort of expected to maintain the high road, and turn the other cheek due to them being virtuous and supposedly morally better but not getting much for it. This made the associated rivalries meek and uninteresting, because Erica was able to act like a child and always ended up getting exactly what she wanted by the end of it any way. Then as the showed progressed they refused to have Erica age up, so you would wind up eventually having scenes with Erica tangling with Greenlee and Kendell and it was embarrassing because they shouldn't have been seen as adversaries or in the same league as one another, all of it was very much below her pay grade, and you just knew in all of these "rivalries" none of them were ever going to win, so what's the point? It was all just useless. 

A lot of people give Sonny (GH), Jason (GH), Luke (GH), Victor (Y&R), Todd (OLTL) and Dollar Bill (B&B) grief for their plot armor, but I feel you could ultimately say the same thing about Erica at some point too.  

17 hours ago, Pine Charles said:

Remember when Erica went to jail for insider trading, and all the inmates LOVED her??

”This is America - Freedom for Erica!!”

And then that hip-hop boyband serenaded her from the yard or whatever, with their “Erica Kane” track??

This sounds like a parody, but it wouldn't surprise me as I think it further exemplifies what I mean by the wish fulfillment of it all. 

16 hours ago, Joseph said:

I get your point but that bubble popped a few times like in the early 2000's when Bianca Was Raped and got pregnant by this that affected Erica deeply as she herself experienced a similar situation as well as when she developed a drinking problem and needed an intervention 

You are sort of making my point, that awful thing happened to Bianca, not Erica and that was because they couldn't have anything horrible happen to Erica, so they had to make her daughters suffer to move the show forward. Nothing bad could really happen to Erica after a certain point. 

Erica's Vegas show girl storyline was a disaster but it was done because they couldn't really show her spiraling out in a real way because Erica was for many members in the audience severe wish fulfillment. 

I think I've said this before, and I am aware that this is an unpopular opinion and that Erica can do no wrong in some viewers eyes but I remember watching her and a sort of transition happening from the late 90's to the early 00's, where it felt like Erica became sort of untouchable and wish fulfillment for the audiences, and a sort of plastic-y sense of writing appeared around her that insolated and bubbled her from anything truly bad happening to her. As such it felt trying to watch scenes with her in it, because well you knew she was always going to win, and everyone else was just poor, ugly and too stupid to deal with the great Erica Kane. She became unrealistic and stories suffered for having her in them because no one could really go against her meaningfully, and have that have consequences and meaning. I get the sense that's why the show started transitioning focus to others like Kendell, Bianca and Greenlee because they had real stakes associated with them. 

The last real storyline it felt like Erica had was the Betty Ford clinic one, and maybe the original Babyswitch in 1997, with Maria and Dimitri. But even in those storylines it felt like they needed to end them prematurely because they didn't want to risk Erica 'looking bad' by the audience, so that's when they ended up with Bianca's anorexia storyline, which was largely structured to get Erica out of prison on sympathetic release. 

This would go on for years with her love triangles, her marriages, and her affairs being written but they were sort of useless because nothing ever happened. They just sort of parked her with Jackson, and even if the broke up, it was clear they were going to get back together with each other eventually. She just regressed as a character, and didn't have much meaning.

No disrespect to those that love her though, I am sure at the height of her powers in the 70's and 80's she was a powerhouse figure. But to me the 2000's greatly damaged her legacy, and I tend to think of the two Agnes Nixon shows from 2000 - 2011 OLTL did a better job by Viki than AMC did by Erica.   

1 hour ago, FrenchBug82 said:

It is a story as old as time on soaps and has happened many times before: writers often do not know how to sustain a "bitch" type character over the long run without softening them. They seem to think a woman can't be tough and complicated and a romantic lead we can root for without dulling her edges almost to nothing. And when it is a recast they feel very free to change the nature of the character (see Y&R Victoria for a similar trajectory)

I agree with you, that this is more on the writing side (I would say maybe 75%), however I also think the writers wrote towards the strengths of the actors they had. I personally think the soap would have had a greater appetite for making Kendell more dynamic if they had a stronger actress. Minshew always skewed towards being a romantic leading actress more than a dramatic one. She eventually grew towards a more mature dramatic presence, but it took the better part of a decade for her to get there. 

This is ultimately why the show ended up being split between Budig and Minshew in it's last years. Budig brought the dramatic tension and bitchy soap presence in spades, while Minshew brought the more tender romanticism of a quintessential soap heroine. They both had in excess what the other needed badly. 

If Kendell had a Sarah Jo Brown or SMG caliber actress I think AMC would have played with having a Carly on their own show for better or worse. 

Eden was the only Bianca to me. 

I always felt SMG played the better Kendell. I felt that Minshew played Kendell for 2-3 years tops and then they transformed her into something else because the writers got tired writing that character and she became a basic soap heroine. 

3 hours ago, Darn said:

I agree. The story fell apart as soon as Babe found out, what, a month into it? It didn't track, we barely knew her, had no reason to like her and she had almost no time to bond with the baby. It just made her look like a monster.

She found out at the end of May. Krystal found out the month prior in mid April and stopped Tad from finding out the truth, he would later find out at the end of the summer/early fall and do nothing.

The problem to your point was aggravated by the fact that Babe was hospitalized most of March and had amnesia and wasn't able to bond with 'Bess' initially because she thought she had a son. I agree that Babe found out too early, but I also think that was in part due to the fact that I don't think the switch was supposed to be as long as it was. Pretty much during the same time period Babe, David, Brooke and Tad all had moments in the story where they were about to reveal the truth and then they didn't and the story just died until sweeps period. 

That's my personal speculation though, nothing concrete but when I put it all together that's what I get. There were a ton of avenues to stop the switch introduced in the summer and early fall that eventually were false exits, but much of the baby switch story after September doesn't make much sense and is mostly just padding the show until we get to November, which was when things started happening again with the engine of the story being kick started for the end. For pretty much two months though, nothing of note happened which makes me think the writing room didn't know what to do with the story and executive meddling made them keep a holding pattern until the holidays for better ratings during sweeps and the Christmas holiday. 

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I don't think the story lasted too long, I think it didn't last long enough...Was the story really meant to be over by the end of summer 2004? Miranda and AJ were born in March, what's the point of a 3-4 month baby switch?

This is the first time I've heard a fan say that the baby switch didn't last long enough. It went on from March to December of 2004. It lasted almost a year. Most baby switches with Days, ATWT and even AMC's own baby switch back in 1997 lasted 3-6 months at best. Not 9 months. Although I disagree with you on the timing, I do agree that in 2004 nothing else of interest was worth watching outside of the baby switch. 

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@DemetriKane...I could get behind Babe leaving in 2004, especially if it meant Amanda took her spot in the next storylines.

My thoughts here are once Alexa proved that she could handle the material and worked as front burner to keep the trains on time they wanted to use her as a back up lead if Minshew, Budig or Reigel ever left. This would later prove effective planning when both Reigel and Budig left in 2005, and Babe essentially became apart of the Fusion squad. 

The show seemed to recognize that it needed 3 actresses front burner to steer the ship, and they seemed to balance the show on 6 front burner leads for actors and actresses. Ryan, Zach and JR were the lead actors during that same period which complimented the three lead actresses on the show more or less.

Chrishell's Amanda was never lead material. She was at best a romantic supporting actress who could support a second-tier leading man, which is eventually what she became with Jake/Ricky Paul Golden. They tried to pair her with Jonathan and Jaime and both pairings failed to catch the audiences eye.   

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As for Jamie, he worked for that story only. He wasn't meant to be just another boring Martin, Brooke and Tad's son deserved more of a edge. I wanted Jamie to be of a troublemaker and force Tad to grow up himself.

They just never got Jaime's character right, after Babe they tried to transition him to Amanda, but I think they realized Chrishell/Amanda wasn't hacking it and making an impact the way they wanted to. Then they paired him with Julia, which was another misfire. I don't blame Justin for wanting to leave the show. In his last months, they basically just had him shirtless in whatever location they could put him in. 

On 7/22/2021 at 4:44 PM, Vee said:

there's never been a single shred of evidence to back up SMG's side of the story... she beefed with Lucci for clout when no one else has ever said an unkind word about her. That's all there is to it and it's on her.

Or they could just not have gotten along? A lot of people seem to have this knee jerk reaction where they have to protect Lucci at all cost, and it's kind of odd. I'm sure many people don't love all of their co-workers in real life too. 

Sarah may have been 'difficult' as well but she also seemed to have fairly positive and life long relationships built on the AMC set too, that have stayed intact through the years. Lucci just isn't one of them. During her time she had a specific cohort group of people who she seemed to bond and gel with better. I don't see why there is a need to demonize Sarah who was a fair bit younger at the time, in order to make sure the Susan shrine shines. Just because Sarah didn't like the face of the show, doesn't mean she didn't have friends there. 

If anything the grace would fall towards Susan as she is the elder, and it would fall upon her to act with maturity and grace with a younger performer. So if this is a 'loss' for Sarah, it would as such be a 'loss' for Lucci too.  

Also status and position play big factors in any set. The fact that Sarah went on to bigger and better things and didn't need the soap [while others did] may have actually been one of the reasons why she felt comfortable being vocal enough to share her experiences. Others could have been scared to vocalize not having a shining experience with Lucci. 

On 7/22/2021 at 5:38 PM, David_Vickers said:

  I think Gellar was waaayyy toooo young to play Kendall, and looed like a little girl playing dress up most of her run.  She might be able to do a much better job now, but Alicia Minshew has the looks and talent and carries herself much more like a daughter to Erica Kane. 

This is ridiculous, Gellar always played the better Kendell, and could act circles around Minshew with her eyes closed, and both her hands and legs tied behind her back. 

On 8/27/2021 at 4:23 PM, DemetriKane said:

Guys you don't have to play the storyline the same way McTavish wrote it. That's the beauty in using Legacy characters, it SHOULD force you to write from character and with more care to not ruin them. I believe if taking more time to build towards the story and setting the stage, Amanda questioning/struggling with if she's just like her mother, pitting Bianca/Amanda as rivals this could have worked and gave them years a story.

I would have made Amanda jealous/resentful of Binks life and relationship with her mother from the jump. I would have killed little A, after witnessing her baby takes his last breathe, Amanda hides the truth out of desperation or she actually does lose it a bit and becomes Drawn to Miranda. Janet comes in later, finds out the truth and is conflicted about exposing her own daughter. You can show Janet's growth by her being the whistle blower and that causes more friction for she and Amanda. It's many ways this could have been done. 

I guess for all intensive purposes, I more or less liked the way the Babyswitch storyline worked, at least from the beginning. It's not a badly written story from the onset. The problem to me mostly stems from the fact that the storyline went on way too long, and the writers lost focus because they wanted to tell 12 different stories inside of the Babyswitch one.

They basically held the baby switch storyline hostage to keep viewers, and flooded the show with their other pet projects because the rest of the show wasn't great. I also think a lot of it was networking interference and a desperate attempt to keep ratings high. They saw a way to hook audiences in for a year and just kept going, even if it damaged the characters and the show. You could tell that the storyline went on too long, because the story had natural exit points to end, but the executives kept extending it. David becoming Babe's father, Tad (a Private Investigator) finding out about the secret but not telling, Babe finally choosing to tell the truth in September, but getting lost and going on a drive to Llanview, and Brooke keeping the secret for Jaime are all examples of the story being stretched out longer than it needed to be, and forcibly being derailed for little value other than to fatten the ratings.

The story was naturally set to wrap by the end of summer, but the ratings were good so they extended the story to the end of the year. I also get the sense that somewhere along the line they realized Alexa's strength as an actress, and you could basically hear the production team barreling down the hallways telling the writers to change course, because Alexa was continuously turning the dreck they gave her into utter gold. However, by that point it was too late. You could see Megan initially scoped the Carey's as expendable, and then somewhere around the summer of 2004 they had to be salvaged. They wanted to have their cake and eat it to, which further frustrated audiences.   

The way the quoted story progresses, Amanda is pretty much unlikable from the onset, which I don't think would be viable for trying to launch a heroine, and she is further isolated from other cast members as the main antagonist of the story. When you reflect upon the babyswitch story the foundation was pretty quick -- the preparation for the baby switch only lasted 4 months. I doubt the writers would want to fail launching a legacy character by putting her against a fan favorite one as mega popular as Bianca, especially without context. It would be better for Janet to be the bad guy, and then have Amanda struggle with it all similar to what they did with Krystal and Babe.  

I would say all of this is a practice in understanding the character motivations of your material, but I also think the show was a bit confused about how they wanted these characters to be perceived. I definitely think Babe was supposed to be written out in the summer or fall of 2004, initially. There were multiple ways that could have happened. Somewhere along the way they wanted her to be less of a schemer and more of a heroine, they just botched it horribly.   

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 I agree with a lot of what you said. If Alexia was cast as Amanda she still could have accomplished all that though. and Jamie is still a lame duck in my eyes.

In hindsight we can say Jaime was a dud, but I don't think that was the case in 2003. Jaime and JR were huge deals for the future of the Martin's and Chandlers, and as such they needed to be transitioned from teenage kids, to fully realized adults. If nothing else the Babe/Babyswitch storylines did that. It's a shame that the writers couldn't figure out what to do with him, after those storylines but I think they ultimately succeeded with Babe, where they failed with both Joni and Laurie for JR and Jaime earlier.

4 hours ago, FrenchBug82 said:

I also think that it wouldn't have quite fitted Janet even admitting she had lost her mind again. She suffered so from having to deny she was Amanda's mother for so long... I think she would have been too sensitive to the cruelty of separating a child from her mother in that way. At least in a universe with good consistent writing.

I agree with this as well, I was trying to play the story in my mind and I got to the point where Kate Collin's could have performed it, but I think it would have strained the audiences credulity to have Janet break in this way, and not have anyone notice for the better part of 8-9 months. The reason Janet worked in 2005, was because she was basically on there for a few months to spice up the sweep period, and even then she was sort of used sparingly like a sort of thriller villain. Having her on the canvas for an extended amount of time, the way Krystal was, basically necessitates a psychotic break for a prolonged period. It's basically the Nikki Smith/Viki story from the early 2000's on One Life To Live, but a bit worse.

Not going to lie this makes me sort of rethink the value of the Carey's honestly. I know a lot of people hated them, but I think they accomplished a lot of (for the lack of a better term) functional writing needs that wouldn't have been possible without them. For all the grief they get, I definitely do think they were able to rebalance the show towards the Martins and Chandlers after we essentially got the Kane show all through 2003. As good as 2003 was, that's not a sustainable or balanced show. The Martin/Chandler group needed essentially a Liza/Mia combo to bring them back to focus in some way.

Also Babe assisted in successfully transitioning JR and Jaime into adulthood, which is something that was sort of a gamble at the time as both teen love interests Joni and Laurie weren't able to do that for either character. This solidified a next generation of Chandler's and Martin's and made the potential for future leading men viable. No mean feat when both MEK and DC were aging. Chucking Amanda in there and having that not work, would have had the impact of potentially creating 3 lame duck legacy characters in a row. It made sense for the writers to save her for later.  

On 8/11/2021 at 12:35 PM, DemetriKane said:

@FrenchBug82 beautifully said. I will still switch babe/Krystal out for Amanda/Janet in this storyline. All Legacy characters carrying this show and becoming the lead characters is what I wanted.

Stause wouldn't have been able to produce. That was always the thing that held Amanda back as a character. 

I wonder why they are waiting for 14 days? I didn't read the article is there an explanation for that? 

19 hours ago, carolineg said:

 

I actually like him more because of the hustle.  Good for him.  He seems like a nice enough guy.  He's completely unnecessary on GH, but that's not his fault.  

Was he the one who got into a fistfight with Ingo at the emmy's like 20 years ago?  Or was that Josh Duhamel?  Ingo was hitting on one of the two guys girlfriends (allegedly) but I can never remember which one.

Apparently is was Josh Duhamel, who shared this on Watch What Happens Live. 

^ Associated Press has an article delving deeper into why she won. 

I personally don't think it takes much to understand. Support the sitting President of the party you were apart of, and you will see wins from that party. Progressives complaining and insulting Biden while they run for election makes no sense to me.  You can still want to see more progress, while not nuking the sitting President and the Democratic base. 

24 minutes ago, Forever8 said:

Due to that scene, several viewers think Lucky never should return again and that he is essentially worse than Peter August.

I know there are a thousand and one Liz apologists on this board but just no to Jonathan Jackson's Lucky not being able to return to the show because he called Liz out on her whoring around GH like a common tramp. What Guza did to GV's Lucky was disgusting, and the way he used Liz to apply endless abuse, after endless abuse was something out of a farce.

It was vindicating to watch JJ's Lucky call her out on all of her despicable actions after Liz cheated on Lucky with Jason, Nikolas and then pretended Jake was his. Enough with the crocodile tears for Lies Webber. 

18 hours ago, FrenchBug82 said:

I read that stat on the other thread and yeah I am pretty amazed too she has been on that long. She certainly isn't treated that way by the producers, writers OR the fans.

Cue the JaSam fan who started this current conversation by suggesting Sam be recast to "save" JaSam. I can't imagine any other actor playing a character for 18 years being considered ripe for a recast by anyone, let alone people who are fan of a couple she is in.
And yet here we are.

 

Has this ever happened before in the history of soaps? The closest cases I could think of, off the top of my head would be maybe Drucilla Winters or Dixie Cooney.  Both of those cases have a caveat in that even though they didn’t have the support of their producers and writing staff they at least had fan support and were audience favorites. Kelly Monaco’s Sam is really up a creek here. I just find it so odd, that she is so senior within the cast and she feels like such a non-entity. 

7 hours ago, FrenchBug82 said:

It sort of breaks my heart to hear people say this about KeMo considering her promising start on PC.  Honestly, her Livvie from Port Charles was beautiful, dynamic and pretty much the sole reason to really watch the show. She even managed to get a Supporting Actress nomination back when the Daytime Emmy’s still meant something on a little do nothing show known as PC. 
 

I think KeMo works if she is paired with the right story, and with the right love interest. I definitely see her more as a romantic lead, than a dramatic one. She was fire with GV’s Lucky, serviceable with Patrick and she was really lovely with BM’s Jason. I just think her with Burton has lost its sell by date. They messed up her and Easton. The selling point with Calivia, was more or less that they were both misunderstood, unhealthy anti-villains who struggled due to their own flaws and obsessions. Sam is a more tepid, earthy, grey-ish character. She doesn’t have the more interesting characterization  of a Livvie.

Still it seems odd to me that Sam has been on this series for close to 18 years, and it still feels like she is a day player that doesn’t mean much to the larger GH canon. She’s technically the 7th or 8th most senior actor on the show but she’s treated as disposable. 

Goodness gracious, she's been on this show for 18 years (in soaps for 21). I don't blame her if she wanted out. Only Maurice, Steve, Genie, Nancy, Rebecca, Anna and Ingo have been on longer than her. While she has the tenure, she is almost never truly treated as a vet on a show she's been on for nearly two decades. 

16 minutes ago, carolineg said:

Much like Courtney, Kate/Connie is anyone gonna to care about Nina in 5 years?

That's a level of long game that I don't think can be afforded on soaps any longer. It's been clear for decades now that it's a herculean effort for them to think through six months to a year, let alone 5. 

I don't find BD attractive in the slightest so JS is a no brainer in my opinion when it comes to looks. I also feel that Lucas after like 2005 just became Austin-lite, which does his character no favors. Corday and co. also do relatively nothing for Lucas' legacy, and he's a character who is like 30+ years in at this point, but doesn't feel like it. 

As far as JS not making an impact on AMC, he was on as a day player more or less, so I wouldn't expect him to be a main headliner. He did initially make a bit of a splash with his pairings with Kendell and Simone, but once Thorsten Kaye was cast they pretty much stopped writing for Ethan and killed him off pretty swiftly thereafter. The fact that Days made him such a huge soap star just shows that he had potential that AMC didn't realize, which isn't that surprising considering there were other stars casted on AMC that went on to bigger soaps and bigger projects. After a certain point that soap only cared about Greenlee, Ryan, Kendell and Zach. Everyone else was just fitted to fill time until the soap could eventually cycle back to those four. 

42 minutes ago, carolineg said:

I think Days really screwed up making EJami this amazing love story and endgame after JS left.  He was pretty clear he was never coming back.  

I kind of don't blame them too much for that. How many soap actors say they will never ever return, and then they are on their nth return a few years later?

For every Renee Jones whose departure is real, there are a thousand and one others who are willing to return as long as they get a break, a few contract stipulations and the money is right. 

JS was just...the whole package, so it's going to be hard to find a replacement that fits the bill with all James was able to do. He really was something out of a harlequin romance novel. He was born to play a romantic leading man, and he added to that with being able to bring dramatic range be it a damaged hero or a Byronic villain. He had a dry comedic wit that made him fairly funny, along with a level of charisma that made him immensely watchable. It's hard to think of another actor in recent memory who checked all those boxes feasibly, and solidly. We'll see what DF will be able to bring, but seeing as all of EJ's clones sort of missed the bill the past few years since his departure (Chad, Stefan, Jake, etc.), I don't hold out too much hope.  

I think there is a plethora of material to pull from, it may just be the cast members who are holding them up (in addition to the perceived belief that there is a lack of demand for the properties itself). The top ones that come to mind to me are: 

• Fresh Prince of Bel Air 
• In The House 
• The Jaime Foxx Show 
• The Parent Hood
• Hanging with Mr. Cooper
• Smart Guy
• Martin
• The Wayan's Brothers
• Kenan & Kel
• The Steve Harvey Show
• The Parkers
• Moesha

In addition to the giants of Sister Sister, Living Single, and A Different World.

Part of the issue to me may be that the sitcoms in general are so heavily nested in one tv personality, and they may have other projects or may not want to return to the previous roles which basically takes the selling power away from the project (Brandy, Steve Harvey, Will Smith, etc.). 

I mean pretty much every single television series listed comes from a cult of personality comedian or actor that was central to the success of the series, and it's less of an ensemble and more of a showcase of that individuals specific talents, which launched them to future success.  It's a little like trying to cast a Mary-Kate and Ashley television series, when they no longer want to act anymore, because they are the reason for the built-in audience. Sex and the City 3 was halted for years because Kim Cattral refused to be Samantha anymore. I can imagine these properties would struggle in the same way given the weight of these characters and the impact to the series.

I think the main reason why some of these actors are less likely to do reboots is because they may see it as taking away from the new work, new business or new property that could extend their shelf-life in the business. For instance Will Smith and Jamie Foxx could likely land other shows, that would pay them for their name recognition. So they would want to focus on their new projects instead of retreading old properties. Instead of reinvesting their legacy shows, they instead want to branch out and establish new ones to keep a steady stream of work. I think the addition of streaming plays a role in this too. Actors have more opportunities than they used to with network or cable television productions. Now with streaming they have more work to audition for, so you can see them doing multi-modal forms of acting with television, film and streaming all at once.