Paul Raven

This is weekbeginning July 27 1981 . Royal Wedding was a preview of Charles/Diana nuptials that aired Tues 8-9 It's A Living aired after 3's Company, hence the Top 10 ranking. Taxi and 20/20 aired 9.30 and 10pm Thursday showing that during Summer people tune in later as they outrated Barney Miller at 9pm. CBS Royal Wedding special aired Wed at 8 and Champions was the CBS Wed movie at 9pm. In fact all networks had Royal Wedding specials on Wed. CBS at 8pm ABC at 9pm and NBC at 10pm. Robert Klein was a repeat airing Fri @9 opposite Dukes. Eight is Enough, BJ and Games People Play all aired Sat night.

With so little happening, this counts as an event in the Y&R world. Mind you Jermaine Rivers got in the main titles... I wonder if Y&R actors are watching BTG with envy after seeing the concert sequences, while they spent 5 weeks standing around in a maze of plastic greenery.

I believe that 1974 schedule was a complete bust for ABC. Only The Rookies and Streets of San Francisco made any impression. Paper Moon, Get Christie Love, New Land, Texas Wheelers, Kodiak, Sonny Comedy Revue, Nakia all bombed. It looked like ABC would be in the basement for years to come. But Happy Days, Six Million Dollar took off and ABC slowly started building hits. By mid season 76 they hit #1.

Thinking about some of the casting of those recurring/guest characters. I really wish Tina Louise had have stayed beyond the initial eps. If she had been there when the show took off maybe she could have finally shaken off the Ginger from Gilligans Island' tag. Maybe Julie could have shot JR!! Barbara Carrera and Marc Singer were duds. By the time Barbara Eden was cast, it was too late. There would have been way more publicity and interest had it happened earlier. Or should it have happened at all? Lois Chiles? Leigh Taylor Young? What do you think?

Exactly!

If anything some of the BTG cast should be visiting Y&R to give that show an energy boost. The only Y&R cast member I want anywhere near BTG is Sean Dominic in a new role.

Yes and she could have been the first woman on the moon. It isn't in any way necessary to the story or character. There is enough suspension of belief inherent in soaps and other forms of drama w/o adding unnecessary details.

I don't see it as negativity. Just an overreach that takes away from 'reality' Like Anita being an EGOT. I could buy a Grammy for something like 'best group vocal r&b performance' or some such category but an Emmy,Tony and an Oscar?? Really?? As for Alex Alegria-how did he get past the audition? I get that they don't want to recast and let the weaker performers grow into their roles but he is not improving at all. It's spoiling the Kat/Eva storyline.

3 deaths occurring at the same time... But it gives the characters something to talk about for a few episodes. Maybe Josh should go full throttle on this. Bring back Scott, Noah, Anita, Ana etc just to kill them off.

Remember at one point Griffih had Chance join the corporate world so he could be a part of 'The Young and the Business'. But that went nowhere b/c it was dumb move. Maybe have Chance become a PI so that he would have more reason not to be bound to the GCPD. The set issue seems to drive Y&R story decisions so Chance as PI would make more sense if he was always at CL,Society etc. Oh well...too late.

I think one of the problems with the current soaps is that a lot of those involved have the 80's/90's soaps as their experience/reference point. So their vision of what a soap is involves far out plots, back from the dead, big business etc That's not how soaps played earlier on with character based domestic stories. With the shrunken budgets, it would make sense to return to the roots and and once again focus on intimate relationship stories, Instead of pale imitations of the big budget years, As for location shooting, Neighbours had decades long permission to film in a particular suburban street to represent Ramsey St. I'm assuming if you bought in that street you would have to agree to filming taking place. Don't know they could enforce it.

I hate the whole 'man creates romantic fantasy for woman' trope so Andre/Ashley left me cold-even more so b/c I'm not buying for a minute that Andre would be attracted to a wet blanket like Ashley.

Andy was a character that had 2 short runs, under the Dobsons and then Marland. It was good Marland gave the character another go, even if it didn't pan out.

He killed off Mary in the first place!

CBS reinvented themselves with AITD and MTM. They followed up with MASH, Bob Newhart, Rhoda, Maude, Good Times, Jeffersons etc But they failed to replenish the sitcom stockpile. Admittedly that is hard to do when you have so many hits, that available timeslots are few. ABC faced the same problem when they failed to replace the likes of Happy Days, Laverne & Shirley, Three's Company, Barney Miller etc with new hits. And how did NBC get to #1? On the strength of sitcoms. The network with the most successful sitcoms in the 60's,70's and 80's was always #1.

Please, I don't want anything Y&R to taint BTG. Using the word exciting in association with Devon? Bryton will probably be disoriented to be on a set that's bigger than a shoebox and with extras milling about.

Talk it up any way you can Billy, but you've been handed a poisoned chalice. Hope the money and working conditions are an improvement on Days, cos the role and the writing is a dud.

To be fair he also likes to bring in a psycho every few months eg Martin/Allen, Ian, Jordan, Cameron to kidnap someone or some antagonist that ends up dead eg Jeremy, Ashland.

Again, we had the makings of a potentially interesting story. Who exactly was Carter? What was in his past that created this devotion to Cane? Had we got to know the character over a few months and sense his instability there might be some investment. Instead he is just some random cliched weirdo day player who kills off a promising newcomer and legacy character with no consequences. Chance was only brought back to be offed. I'm sure the funeral will take place out of town. Can't wait to get back to GC. Really missed CL,GCAC, Society and Jazz Lounge. More sitting around discussing big business.

Sex on soaps is usually presented as fantastic, mind blowing etc with both partners totally in sync So to see someone not enthralled by her first time is refreshing. It doesn't make Kat asexual, rather typical of a lot of people's first time experience. This might lead to Kat realizing she likes Tomas as a person, but not necessarily a sexual partner. Or maybe she'll go along with it to hold on to him and avoid awkward conversations, convincing herself that her inexperience means she is at fault and things will get better.

Not the best photo of Eileen out of everything they could choose.

I hardly recognized Colby out of the cutesy clothes and wigs Kat wears. She looks way better IRL.

The teen drama has hardly been essential to the plot. What happened to the girl interested in Tyrell? The actor playing Tyrell is good. Surely they could have found a girl the right age? Or better yet child actors if they needed to have kids at all. I think Smitty and Martin having kids is unnecessary. They could have been applying for adoption which would have given Martin more of a reason to cover up his crime.

There have been way more demands placed on Brandon, acting wise than Alex, and he has been unsteady in some of he more dramatic moments for sure. But Alex has trouble with even the most mundane scenes. Watching him interact with Timon, for example is such a contrast. The latter fully inhabits the character and has all sorts of body language and facial expressions at play, even when not speaking. Whereas Alex just stands there and waits to say his lines. I do feel sorry to be ragging on him. And why hasn't our other great thespian Ben Gavin entered the discussion?