DaytimeFan

Although she's loathe for anyone to mention a number...happy 92nd birthday Dame Joan. To your health and happiness and many more years ahead. Dame Joan is busy this week filming The Bitter End, her new movie about the last years of The Duchess of Windsor, costarring Isabella Rossellini. First look photo:

I am so pleasantly surprised at how the new writing team is approaching Kate. Towards the end of R*n's run, she faded right out, off contract, pouring coffee at the Brady Pub...and then somehow it turned around and she's back in suits, woven in and out of multiple storylines, and inching back towards the business world, while having her relationship with Roman being written maturely.

I figured because Kate received her cancer treatment at the hospital that she decided to “give back” by being on the board.

Dorinda hasn't started filming. The word on the street is potentially June.

I sincerely hope that NuRHONY is dead. What an awful show and a good lesson for Bravo to learn: you don't fire vet OG Housewives like the NY ladies and expect to find lightning in a bottle with a bunch of random women who don't know each other. Dorinda is working on a Bluestone Manor show for Bravo in the vein of Vanderpump Villa. Bethenny Frankel has just moved to the Miami area. Jill lives in Boca. Ramona and Sonja both live in West Palm...throw in Luann and Dorinda and we have ourselves a show. Call it RHONY: Snowbirds.

Delighted to hear it's returning, though as a total reboot I'll reserve judgment on whether it'll be any good. The expats in the original were mostly cringe so I hope they do better with casting this time. Julie Montague, The Countess of Sandwich (she was Viscountess Hinchingbrooke when LoL was on) has made a nice littler career for herself doing royal commentary in the UK. The Valley is a mega hit for Bravo so I can see why they'd want to expand the franchise, somehow, and Reza and MJ always played ball. The Real Housewives of Rhode Island was rumoured quite a while ago so there was someone with good intel. A new city is a good thing. I think RH Wife Swap will prove to be a hit, just as Love Hotel is proving to be. What they need to do for next season of Love Hotel is replace Joel Kim Booster with Luann as the host. ATL Britt's sister is insane. I still dislike Britt though! Angela reminds me of an OG ATL Housewife. Shamea has no storyline. Porscha has no storyline. Kelli is a financial disaster and fronting big time. Drew is appearing in 50% of the airtime. Cynthia is excelling as a Friend Of. I see why they brought in Phaedra.

Not that I want to defend Y&R's writers, but it's not as absurd as you'd think and I believe they plucked it from reality (and then bungled it). The Estee Lauder Companies purchased Tom Ford's brand several years ago and I am willing to bet that's how Jabot came to buy Marchetti.

Very happy to see Lauren Koslow’s numbers for April up.

If they bring on Mia...they'll regret it. She is beyond trash.

Yeah, I just really enjoy her. Cynthia is pretty easy breezy and amusing.

ATL Enjoyable episode for the most part, though the only cast member I genuinely like is Cynthia. LOVE HOTEL Luann, Gizelle, Shannon, and Ashley are the HW looking for love at a luxe resort. Luann is the type of wing woman that everyone deserves and she is hyping up Shannon's rock bottom self esteem.

I think DAYS has proven, time and again, that it bounces back and is nimble because the foundation of the show is the actors and they have endured so many awful head writers for decades that they can handle most anything. DAYS having Paula/Jeanne come on at the same time they have promoted Noel Maxam, is one of those times where I think the show could actually be on the upswing...the Plan to Save DAYS is legendary for never quite panning out how we'd hoped though...

The show had a much better sense of itself and its exterior back in the 90s, but it's always been a mashup of vague Cape Cod (the Brady Pub), Victorian (the Horton house), and urban landscape (I recall the backdrop of Marlena's penthouse was San Francisco) with some fantastical mansions thrown in. The show started going with Illinois in recent times but for years it was some kind of fantasy land where it was in the Midwest but you could sail into the ocean.

The stock footage they use for establishing shots is weird across the board. The establishing shot for the Kiriakis mansion would be better used for the Newman Ranch over on Y&R.

These three episodes are truly excellent television. Trial By Error is one of my favourite episodes for how it ends: Jessica playing sweet to the real killer and then showing her total disgust in the last frame.

I’d watch the hell out of this. The return of the Jabot Men’s Line, Jill’s big success, passed onto Billy, would be so relevant given the real world explosion in men’s grooming.

I tuned in to see Sami and Vivian return to the show. I have also dipped into Y&R, B&B and BTG and I have to say I think DAYS is easily the most entertaining of them by a mile. There have been so many fun 'moments' where regardless of the writing, the actors have chemistry and history that makes their scenes magical. Lauren Koslow and Ali Sweeney haven't lost an ounce of their chemistry. I loved the scene where they gossiped in the Brady Pub. Have also enjoyed LK's scenes with JPL, who has won me over as Philip. Galen Gering has been great lately and his scenes with AS were no exception. Loved the random Rafe and Sami hookup. Finally, Louise Sorel is always wonderful. She brought the chaos. I loved the last scene between Sami and Vivian - the show, back in the 90s, would have Sami and Vivian scenes where Sami would get advice from 'Auntie Viv' - a great little wink to the past.

I watched today's episode - does Brad Bell actually have the guts to write out Scott Clifton? It would be a good decision, so I doubt it.

I really feel we might have just watched the death of BH during this reunion. It was so ugly. Kyle talking about LVP's house...typical Kyle wanting to live on Oak Pass Rd just because someone more fabulous than her already is. In Countess Luann news...I saw her cabaret show recently. It was amazing how much the audience loved her. People were screaming like they were seeing Elvis or the Beatles. She packed in a great crowd. Sang much better than you'd expect, had 4 costume changes, a 3 piece band, did a Countess Trivia game where her mugshot was used when the wrong answer was given, and belted out all of her greatest hits with the confidence of Tina Turner. She has a lot of energy and clearly loves the audience. Yes, it's really interesting to take a breather from these shows when they've reached toxicity like BH has - and not for the first time.

100% - it would be a grave error for Tilly to return. She has had a great 'Friend Of' season and she should leave it at that. The banshees will be coming for Sutton and Tilly and they'll divide them to conquer.

BH What was that third part of the reunion? Talk about filler. This was, at best, a 2 part reunion. Garcelle walked off and knew she was done with the show right then and there. Good for her.

ATL Despite Bravo's best efforts to give her a sympathetic edit, it only took Angela asking her a simple question, which demonstrated just how full of crap she is, for the real Brit to come out as she cussed out Angela for not 'reading the room' - Brit comes from the Mia Thornton School of Lying. WWHL was illuminating because it appears the only person Brit doesn't have an issue with, post filming, is Cynthia. Brit said the photos of her were taken when she was underage. Is that confirmed anywhere or just more BS flying out of her mouth?

Early on they had Roman and Kate get stuck in an elevator together. Lots of those classic love/hate tropes over the years, culminating in them getting married (and Roman "dying"). Sheila would have been the natural choice when she poisoned Stephanie and got her in the mental ward...but they were out of each other's orbits a bit at that time.

Throughout the Sami vs. Kate feud, once Josh Taylor as aboard as Roman, the writers would throw in scenes where Roman and Kate would flirt. Dating back to when Kate framed Sami for Franco's shooting, Roman was flirting with Kate while trying to figure out who really killed Franco. It's one of those odd through lines that the million HW regimes never totally dropped. Kate forging a bond with Sami was an interesting endgame and the writing was good because it hearkened back to Kate's origin story of being a mother fleeing an abusive relationship...except this time, Kate made sure Sami got to keep her children when she fled EJ, unlike what had happened to her with Curtis Brown. It's a total credit to Alison Sweeney and Lauren Koslow that they imbued this feud with so many layers that Kate and Sami could be vicious enemies, but then ally themselves, and then go back to hating each other.

Absolutely. For years he was an albatross to the show as Brad Bell tried to shoehorn his character into the canvas wherever he could and it never worked.