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Fox News: His fiancée, Paige Press, says Musser was suffering from "a severe case of Covid," and believes he died from the illness. He was both vaccinated and boosted. She says he died at their home in Del Mar, California.

This is a wonderful tribute to their enduring appeal. Thank you.

He really seemed to enjoy life and he was obviously deeply in love with Susan and his family. My heart breaks for them. Thanks, Bill, for all the years of enjoyment. You will be missed.

Agreed. That was just a perfect melding of character and actress. And Julia-Lane Davies Mason remains one of my favorite soap pairings. I think the Dobsons' Santa Barbara had (many) moments of sheer brilliance sandwiched in between a fair amount of substandard material, and the inconsistency was its downfall.

Thanks! I have to say, I'm liking some of the more character-oriented stuff happening under the scab writers. Melinda and Wendy, Tate and Holly, even Rafe and Jada had some good moments today.

Did I miss a line explaining why Bonnie wasn't at the Kiriakis celebration?

Man, we lost a lot of great people this year.

I don't know if that was true. Susan Hayes: “I was surprised when Julie’s son [David] went away to summer camp and was played by a 10-year-old and came home a 6-foot-4 blond and an unhappy adolescent with a sex life and pimples. That seemed very jarring. I’m used to it now, but I was hurt. The head writer explained to me that I was just being … that I didn’t want to be in an older category, but had to get used to it." https://www.soapoperadigest.com/content/icymi-susan-seaforth-hayes-interview/

Yes, and Elaine Princi was even worse as a replacement for Margaret Mason than JLB was for Susan Flannery.

I recall Susan's Laura as being much warmer than her Stephanie, and she had great romantic chemistry with Ed Mallory, friend chemistry with Bill Hayes and fellow doctor/surrogate daughter chemistry with Mac Carey. She could be cool and clinical at times, as you'd expect from a doctor, but nowhere near as much as Rosemary Forsyth, who was one of her successors. I can't really recall anything about Susan-Laura's relationships with other women on the show. JLB was so far removed from Susan's Laura that I never bought them as the same character, similar to my feelings about Carmen Duncan's Iris on AW.

I loved Bell's Days but could not get into Y&R at all. I tried a few times, but to me in those early years the style greatly overwhelmed the substance. Y&R did seem cold and chilly to me in comparison to the more homespun Days. Y&R bored me; Days, though it could move just as slowly, never did. Bold & Beautiful was even less to my taste. Even though those show were not for me, I acknowledge he was a master of the form.

They seem to call the custody battle on and off every time they make a joint appearance on the show, so you may yet get your wish.

Iris makes reference to that toward the end of this scene. She's saying it to torment Rachel, but I suspect Lemay wrote it deliberately to help explain why Iris was the way she was. And I can still remember Rachel referring to Mac as an "aging playboy" in one of their titanic arguments.

IIRC -- and that's a big if -- Mac wasn't impotent but infertile, as a result of his poisoning at the hands of Janice.

A physiatrist and a psychiatrist? Dr. Marlena Evans is a hell of a woman! 😀

Brilliant of Alex to want to resurrect a magazine in this day and age. I like Emily O'Brien, but she's not working for me as Theresa so far, and she and RSW don't have much chemistry.

I've always liked Camilla, even though she has a tendency to overdo it. But the writing for Gabi & Stefan has been just atrocious, I don't care a whit about them or their quest for DiMera dominance, and I never have. Camilla does scheming well, but Gabi lost her rootability when they removed the connections that gave her character more dimension – namely, Arianna, Will and Sonny. The EJ as DA twist defies all belief, but that's pretty much the MO of this show.

That had never occurred to me before, but Judi would have been great as a returned Nancy. I liked Cali well enough but Judi's chemistry with Tom Eplin was off the charts, and Nancy & Jake could have easily been paired.

I thought Marlena as the Salem Stalker on Days was a real mistake for the show narratively, but I have to admit it got me to tape the show again every. I was glad that all the "dead" residents of Salem returned, but the explanation was so nonsensical that I stopped watching again.

I'm just happy when characters get exits, as opposed to saying they're going to the mailbox and never being seen again.

Thank you, @JAS0N47 and @j swift! It is indeed interesting. I just wonder why it's happening. Why would you waste an episode guarantee for either actress on a single expository scene per show?

I continue to be mystified by the Marlena-Kate scenes randomly dropped into episodes.

I didn't see a lot of JKJ's portrayal (or Kyle Brandt's, for that matter), so I have no strong connection to the character. I like JPL's take on it.

I think AW did a pretty great job casting black actors, all the way back to Micki Grant as John Randolph's secretary and law clerk, Peggy Nolan. They just didn't write much of anything for them. The exception to that was Corinne Jacker's headwriting stint, with the introduction of the Morgan and Harding families. Unfortunately, the writing was sub-standard. But the actors were very good.

This is one of the (many) cases in which the taping schedule really does the show and the fans a disservice. I have to believe this storyline is almost universally disliked but it's already in the can so we have to suffer through it. Back in the olden days, fan reaction could have killed the monstrosity in its tracks. It really is amazing that this story was approved, presumably by several layers of creatives and management. All three characters are vile, so there's nobody to root for. And I say that as someone who doesn't mind Leo as much as the rest of you, and who really liked Gwen ... in her first month or so on the show.