te.

I don't think you can quite describe the absolute u-turn this show does around episode 70 - all of a sudden everyone's into satanism! It's the hip and happenin' thing to do. It's absolutely bizarre and hilarious.

So I've been putting this on in the background and I like how it's suddenly just like "hey, let's join a cult and start worshipping the devil". This is a very logical thing to do.

I'd watch a vertical drama where Bo Derek is a bad actress. Justice for Linda Evans!

Unfortunately, the actress has been in the soap press talking about it. So it's hard not to.

Ooh, I wonder if she's a lesbian.

I think this must be the best example of someone who is a soap pro and someone who is a bit slow on the uptake:

Sweden's entry:

I wouldn't say the reviews are "fake" - because while I liked it, if I had to review it there would be so many issues. At the same time - it's such a fan-pleaser of a movie that I like it. I'm happy to see how successful it's been - with that said, I hope this is a set up for Scream 8.

I realised that this year it's been 20 years since MyNetworkTv tried to launch with a schedule of American versions of telenovelas, the popular Latin American format of limited serialized shows that would have complete stories in approx 60-65 episodes each. It launched with little fanfare with a line up of Desire (a version of Colombian telenovela Mara Para Tres) and Fashion House (a version of Cuban telenovela Salir De Noche), the latter having the "star" castings of Bo Derek and Morgan Fairchild. Little to say, they didn't do too well but MyNetworkTV - already having shot several telenovelas, continued on with Wicked Wicked Games (a version of Venezuelan telenovela Aunque me Cuesta la Vida; starring Tatum O'Neal as the "star" casting) and Watch Over Me (version of Argentine telenovela Resistré). With all four telenovelas being rating bombs, they cut the orders of American Heiress (adaptation of Mexican telenovela La Heredera) and Saints & Sinners (version of Mexican telenovela Calle de las Novias), airing them in two hour blocks once a week before quietly pulling them off the schedule. All shows are now available on Tubi and with two decades (!!) gone since the experiment I thought it was time for a retrospective I guess. Was it before or its time and would've been more successful in the streaming era, or was it always destined to bomb as Americans can't successfully translate what makes telenovelas so alluring to their audience? What was your favourite if you watched them?

I think ABC would be the most likely to attempt another soap considering how badly GMA3 does, plus they have Hulu/Disney+ where GH performs well enough.

The cast of Generations should try and get them to add it to the "block", lol.

Like... couldn't they have done more with Peter instead since fans had been asking for him for, what? 25 years? Only to get a few days with a recast. I guess this Lexie will last a few months (judging from her recording dates), but still. What if she takes off as nuLexie? It'll be at least a year before we'll be able to see her again (assuming that this actress would even want to commit long-term). I don't get this bring back long-gone (or dead) characters only to have them a limited time on the canvas. Same with Megan.

One of the issues with taping so far ahead I guess. If the viewer response is tepid, we're stuck with her for a few months, but if people love her it'll be a year before she can turn up again.

Remain in Port Charles?

Aaand the talks about it in past tense, because of course she is. Another one of those "quirks" with the show filming a trillion years ahead.

It just seems to me like they had no idea how to run a once-a-week prime time soap (which I guess hadn't been done since even Peyton Place were two episodes to start with) and thought the larger scale, the better. Of course, as we've seen with later successful prime time soaps, they tend to start out with smaller casts and a few focused stories in order to not entirely confuse viewers. No wonder it bombed.

Oh yeah. I've got to the nude woman with a snake pitch. It all seems pretty random. But still, early Chances pretty much looks like Neighbors or Home and Away from that era - it's just obvious to me why it couldn't gain traction. I mostly play an episode here and there in the background and it's not attention-grabbing imho. I look forward to getting to the crazier parts to see if I suddenly feel the need to sit down and take more notice.

Good for BTG for staying above 1.7m viewers again!

Look at the whole "Three Musketeers" thing with Larry, Linda and Patrick post-Dallas. While it's nice they had a good friendship going, it's obvious they effectively - consciously or not - locked others out. As you I get the feeling it was just hard for newcomers in general to penetrate (teehee) that particular group, though I'm sure Dack being openly gay and a bit flamboyant didn't help smooth things over. Victoria has always been portrayed as putting herself on the outside of that group, but part of me wonders how true that is. She comes across as quite reserved and I'm sure Larry and Patrick "playing pranks" got to her more than one time on set. I know it'd get to me.

To be fair, aside from some tit and ass shots, the early episodes of Chances aren't really "racy". I think "Home and Away with tits" sums it up - if anything it's kind of jarring to go from kind of wholesome family drama to a shot of Jeremy Sims ass getting out of a pool.

I put on the first few episodes and in all honesty, I can see why this bombed. There's really nothing remarkable about it and the theme is hilariously mismatched with the "sexy" tone they're trying to go with. It's obvious that someone pitched this like "a soap for the 90s - sexy, hot and hip" but then those are just buzzwords. It's not exactly bad or the worst soap I've seen, just very unremarkable.

Spin-offs only really work when they're not just an extension of the mothership. Early on it just seemed like Port Charles was General Hospital Pt II, so essentially an attempt at a 30 minute extension without directly tagging it onto the mothership (as AW had shown, that experiment didn't end up well). You could argue something like The Bold and the Beautiful is a de facto spin-off from The Young and the Resless, even down to similarish names. But still different enough to be interesting to be separate entities.

Yeah, I 110% believe Lisa on this. There's been stories about RKK from both DOOL and Another World. I don't think it's a coincidence he got the boot once Kristian Alfonso got back - she definitively would've had the power to get him fired pronto. It's a shame from a story perspective, because as I said it took away any question who Bo would end up with. But of course, his abusive ass deserved to get booted. It's just a shame it didn't happen earlier to maybe establish something between Lisa and Peter Reckell before Kristian made her comeback as Hope.

They definitively could play a bit with perspectives on these small sets instead of having the background lead directly out to a balcony (which is never used anyway). Then again, I suspect the reason they do these "box" apartment sets is because they're just easier to redress and re-use which they obviously have to do (ironically, I think Beyond the Gates have the opposite issue where they've done somewhat unique living spaces, but it makes them harder to re-dress for other purposes).

They didn't even save money on Ana Alicia's firing - she was infamously contracted for 22 episodes as Melissa Agretti, so got paid for those and then when the show started bombing they had her sign another contract to appear as doppelgänger Sam, essentially giving her double salary for five episodes. It's the absolute dumbest move the show ever did - even if they wanted to write her off at the end of season eight, it could've been a season long storyline and help usher in the rest of the Agretti clan.