Paul Raven

The Claire character from inception has been a misfire, Did Victoria need another child when she has nothing to do with those she already had? Cole has disappeared. Reed could have returned or if we wanted a new character to mix it up with the Newmans have Matt return to announce he has discovered a daughter. Matt brings her to GC and then is tragically killed. 'Claire' joins her newfound family.

Maybe the original plan was to have a May sweeps storyline where Dana is exposed and goes out in a blaze of glory leaving Eva to pick up the pieces. Now with all the positive response, they have to reconsider plans? Just a theory... I wonder whether there will be adjustments or they'll stick to original projections?

Can't beat having a convicted killer and gang member as a consultant.

Did you read the thread?

Next week on Y&R Crimson Lights, GCAC, Society...

This is something that comes up again and again, when new producers/writers come onto a show and don't bother to learn the history-somehow thinking that the past is unimportant, when that is one of the great assets of a soap. The characters and the audience have a history that can be explored and used to move things forward. Linda should have thumbed through a few reference books and talked to longtimers at the show to find out what had gone before. She certainly would quickly have learned of Robin, for starters.

Dean Santoro. Tape was more expensive in those days and could be wiped and re-used. Still think it was a mistake to kill Paul. He could have just left town for treatment.

I think Karla had a difficult road to travel at the start with Dani in manic mode-that was done to grab eyeballs-how many times did we see the golf club sweep in Bill's office? Those actions coupled with her getting into the role itself made Dani hard to take at times, but I think it is settling down and she and Dani are becoming more nuanced. As for villians being punished thru karma, I'm not there for it. Oh - you tried to murder someone so now your kid is frosty towards you-too bad #not punishment enough.

Villians are a soap staple but let's hope BTG doesn't fall into the trap of holding on to Dana passed the use by date and have her get away with stuff and still interacting with her victims like Sheila, Phyllis etc have done. At some point she needs to be found out and punished eg jail. Or at least skip town with the possibility of a return to cause more havoc. Meanwhile the show develops other villians so that the loss is less noticeable.

A review of the 85-86 season in Broadcasting magazine shows NBC dominating primetime. late night, Sat morning, weekday morning and competitive in news. But all that success could not translate into daytime. In demographics, NBC dominated as well. The final numbers were not in at press time, but through mid March, NBC was well ahead in delivery of men and women in all the major age groups, teenagers and children. Cosby and Family Ties were first and second, respectively, in delivery of men and women. NBC had five of the top 10 shows drawing the largest female audiences (the other three were Cheers, Golden Girls and You Again). CBS had four: Murder, She Wrote, Dallas, 60 Minutes and Knots Landing. ABC had one, Dynasty. NBC also had eight of the top 10 shows drawing the largest male audiences, including Cosby, Family Ties, Cheers, Miami Vice, Night Court, Amazing Stories, You Again and Highway to Heaven. CBS had the other two, 60 Minutes and Murder, She Wrote. Among teenagers (12 -17), NBC had eight of the top 10, while ABC had the other two. Among children (2 -11) NBC had nine of the top IO and ABC had one. NBC's momentum has spilled over into other dayparts as well. At the beginning of the season, the CBS Evening News with Dan Rather had a lead of about two rating points over NBC's Nightly News with Tout Brokaw and ABC's World News Tonight with Peter Jennings. At the end of the season, Nightly News had pulled to within one rating point of CBS, having tied CBS twice in share and once in rating toward the end of the season. And NBC's Today strung a I 4-week winning streak together in the morning news race, taking the lead from ABC's Good Morning America in the first quarter of 1986. It was the first time Today won a quarter since 1980. In daytime, however, NBC still lags considerably in attracting the crucial women, 18 -49 demo. Through mid -March, NBC was last in daytime with only a 3.4 rating in the women I8 -49 demo, compared to CBS's 4.1 and ABC's 6.1. In the late night race, NBC was maintaining its lead through April 13 (the last available numbers) with an average 5.5/22. CBS was second with a 4.5/18 and ABC was third with a 3.9/14. NBC also held its strong first - place position on Saturday mornings, averaging a 6.0/22, compared to CBS's 4.7/17 and ABC's 4.0/15. In hindsight,any ideas what could NBC have done at that time to boost daytime?

Maybe Brad is like Ken Corday where he feels an honor and a responsibility to carry on a family legacy but he really doesn't have the passion or the talent to see it through.

Always good to revisit. I'm assuming that is parts of 2 episodes. In the first sequence Dan has an injured arm but he's fine in the latter part. I wonder what caused Irna to seemingly change direction? In a matter of months Paul and Liz were dead, Dan left town and Susan married and divorced Bruce. It seemed years of storyline past and future were dropped.

Nowadays i believe it is a requirement that child actors not partake in scenes involving violence, bloodshed etc. They edit such scenes to make it appear the child is present if necessary. But back in 81 things may have been different. So good on Brooke for taking a stand. Speaking of Ms Bundy she was a constant guest star on primetime in the 70's. I always wondered why such an in demand actress would go to soaps -first DOOL and then GH when she still seemed to be getting work in primetime.

There are no ATWT clips (yet) of that era. I believe there is 67 ep and late 72 but nothing in between.

I wasn't blown away by the fashions at the show and agree there weren't enough people there. They tried to cover that with tight shots of the audience but some shots slipped through that showed the minuscule crowd. They needed a minimum 10 extras to fill up some space. Why weren't Vanessa or Pam there? Naomi and Jacob? And I'm still pushing for a Dupree housekeeper. Someone to give Anita her jacket on the way out to the Gala. And spray Febreeze. No staff is ridiculous.

Was it impossible to find a competent younger actress to play Samantha? Agree. Some hospital drama and something challenging for Ashley to play.

But originally Loving was placed at 11.30 am from July 83- Nov 84 so Agnes didn't seem to get her way at first. By late 84 I think RH was tanking and they probably thought Lov had more potential to grow in a better timeslot. I don't know why Lov wasn't originally placed at midday to lead off the soap lineup with Family Feud moved to 11am.

I know it's very current/on trend but having Samantha wanting to be a model doesn't reallysit well with me. We already have Chelsea modelling and now wanting to design purses. I'm surprised Nicole and Ted,two college educated professionals would be happy with Kat doing whatever she does-not sure exactly what that is. Same with Smitty/Martin all excited their daughter is walking a runway. Not to denigrate modelling but it would be nice to see the show portraying young women as serious about careers and education and not feeding into the women are just into fashion/beauty trope. Or am I just old fashioned?

Does Pamela live out of town? If not, she's not much of a friend to Dani. Leslie/Dana is gonna spend that $50,000 at Wig City.

I remember Rachel was blind (after the car crash that killed Steve?)when Mac pretended to be Reginald Fearing,but what were the circumstances of the 3rd time she was blinded? At some point, soaps stopped using the blind/paralysis stories, when disability awareness grew. Same with rape as a plot device.

Monday and Tues episodes were played out on 3 sets. Hardly conducive to good story telling. Mon- Sharon's cottage, Jazz Lounge, Society Tues- Jazz Lounge, Society, GCAC room. Nonetheless, I thought Tues ep was well done. The vets know how to bring it.Great to see Eileen. Traci's hair is not flattering and aging. And I hate the ugly floral jackets she wears. Are she and Julie on Days sharing them? The acting and script was fine. The problems is with the actual stories.

Do we know how Dana become friends with Mona/Jan and what she does to support herself? Not following up the cliffhanger was weird. Laura is going to be OK but I wonder if Ashley will be investigated as nurse on duty?

Today's episode worked better because we saw some plot movement, family interactions, variety of characters, confrontations and intrigue etc Martin's acting is improving-thankfully. What is with Nicole and Febreeze?? It's not like they even show a closeup of the can, so I don't know what they're thinking in terms of product placement.

No way would AW send Rachel to a spinoff. She and Mac were all that remained of the glory days. Fans would be furious if Rachel left Mac and headed off to a new show. The only reason Bev went to Texas was her decision to leave AW. So they offered her $$$ and a shorter contract to star in the new show.

Bye bye Miss Susie Toot. OK her thing was 20s flapper. That's fine but you better be damned good at it and know how to elaborate and elevate so the essence remains in all the challenges. Which she didn't. The Las Vegas showgirl was Broadway chorus girl. And her level of deluded confidence didn't help. The judging is all over the place and shifts to suit the predestined outcome. I'm now seeing Sam Starr as the winner. Really like Onya but she doesn't have the extra oomph that Sam does. Jewels has received the Vegas gig as a consolation and Lexi delivers great looks but her personality is too volatile and the trauma porn is too much for me.