te.

Oh wow! She's only 15, but I guess with shorter streaming seasons that might not be an issue. Her dad, Dean Armstrong, played Blake on Queer as Folk (US) btw.

I don't think that would be the reason tbh. Thinking about it, it's probably storyline related - I could see bio mom / dad eventually turning up (or maybe it's June as speculated) and wanting the children back. I could also see it being a part of the fall-out of Martin's secret being revealed now that he's backed down from a presidential campaign - his and Smitty's ability to be parents comes into question, which the bio parents use. They might've wanted the kids to be at a age where they could reliably speak for themselves what they prefer, but also have enough memories of their bio parent(s) not doing a good job. I'd also think that they might want to avoid having the image of this gay couple keeping a mother away from her small children, as it might skew the viewer to sympathise too much in one direction.

Honestly, either 6-7 and 10-11 would've worked better. But maybe they wanted actors who wouldn't be held to child labour laws and needed them to be able to act, especially if they're (eventually?) going to go with their bio mama showing up (June??).

It's a shame because I like the actress, but she was miscast. I'd say they should pull a DAYS and put her in another role.

Are we sure we're not going to go down a Natalia Grace storyline here?

I kind of assume they're toning down Rachel's bad seed tendencies a bit to make it less obvious if they're going for her as the shooter. At least that's what I hope they're doing - I've really enjoyed Rachel being a bratty evil DiMera princess and Marlena finally getting a grandchild she deserves.

Nope still in development. ABC/Disney are having their upfronts today though, so there's a very slight hope we might get an update.

I don't think there was ever a chance that this wasn't getting renewed, but with the ratings doing well and helping out the rest of the line up it was a no-brainer. As for Guza - I kind of assumed he was brought in to help get the show up and running (similar to how they had to bring a soap director out of retirement), but it was never there for the long haul. He's 71 years old, so he's likely mostly enjoying retirement especially as this isn't his passion project.

Honestly, they should've ordered more of 2000 Malibu Road for the 1992-93 midseason and aired it when Knots went on a break. That was probably their best shot. Then of course they fumbled Central Park West by airing it in the 9PM slot instead of a 10PM slot where it would've been away from the Fox dramas. CPW got its best rating by airing randomly on a Sunday and when it was taken off the air for a "re-tooling", Party of Five's ratings actually had a spike, so clearly they were feeding off each other. But being a smaller network focused on a certain demographic, Fox could afford to be patient Party of Five, CBS couldn't...

Maybe we'll meet Leslie's mama who'll be a former Articulette and they'll build the rival family from there that a lot of people seem to think is missing. It'd make sense considering Anita's been hammering on about going on tour and reviving her music career.

Shout! TV has now added season 26. Not sure what the reasoning for that was, but maybe it was the one that was ready to go...

Interesting that they started going into a supernatural direction with ghosts - I don't think they really did that before? I wonder if it was a response to getting put so late in the afternoon and I guess trying to appeal to that former Dark Shadows audience?

Interesting. Makes me wonder how the day to day looked for Secret Storm at this point in the run. This seems very to deal with the psychological aspect, I guess the "inner storm", and the music is almost sinister. If this is from 1974 there's not much room for dates it could've been from as it ended on February 8th. It's hard to tell from an edit featuring just one storyline, but if this was the day to day it might've been heavy for the casual viewers. ETA: Stephanie Braxton is credited to have appeared as Laurie from 1970-1973. David Gale is credited only in 1973 and Alexander Scourby from 1972-1973. I know IMDB isn't always right, but I'd say this is likely 1973 - I'm guessing all these characters exited before 1974 and this might be a part of their final storyline.

I really wonder how they'll handle Netflix's usual long breaks between seasons. That girl is going to grow up fast... makes me wonder if this wouldn't have been a better fit for HBO Max considering they're leaning into a more broadcast style of production model with The Pitt.

Well, that was down to CBS being weak and not being willing to just pulling the plug entirely. They didn't want to commit to cancelling the show in case they needed it for their schedule basically; plus they kept showing that they were willing to make cuts if needed to be.

Yeah, and quite honestly, are there really that many scenes that are flashback-worthy at this point in the run?

I think the party reveal was what made them recast Ted since they saw he couldn't handle it and the fallout. It'll be interesting to see if the same will happen once Martins secret and the ensuing fallout is set to happen - it might give an indication with how far their patience for green newbies is.

I think Jason might've posted some numbers for the syndication a while ago and the numbers for Falcon Crest was horrible. Like 1.5 rating or something, which was terrible. ETA: it was actually Paul Raven: New to syndication 60 min Fall Guy 67 markets 3.1/8 Falcon Crest 110 markets 1.1/5 To get into the top 40, you needed a 4.6/9 rating for reference - and Falcon Crest managed to get into a lot of markets to begin with. In the fall of 1985 Dynasty, Dallas and Knots were syndicated (show / rating / share / coverage % / markets): Dallas 3.4 10 51.7 92 Dynasty 3.4 10 48.7 47 Knots Landing 3.3 10 12.5 20 So, Knots as an example trippled Falcon Crest's rating with 20 markets - I'm sure those were major ones but it just goes to show you how much Falcon Crest bombed in syndication.

I suspected that the performance with the reveal was the reason why the Ted actor got the axe and it looks like I was right. He wasn't really good at conveying what needed to be conveyed in those scenes. Claybon is at least slowly improving (but I agree that he still needs to work on his line delivery), but I do wonder what will happen when his big reveal is coming up.

The title track from the follow-up album Hot On the Trail is also co-written by Val Jean:

I always felt like they struggled to write for Edie since they originally only meant for her to be in the pilot. I think they should go with four main housewives again. Since I think in this timeline all should be moved out by now, I hope they just use the original street. It was implied as much in the series finale that people moving onto the street were doomed to repeat the cycle of keeping secrets. With that said, I wouldn't mind them just starting from scratch without the Desperate Housewives bagage. It's hardly a unique concept...

John Dye started starring in Touched By An Angel in January that year and his character quickly seemed to become popular. I'm sure that had something to do with it.

For me it works, but I'll always advocate for writers to start noticing what's happening on screen and adjust more. I think this Gabi could benefit from it is what I'm saying. Yeah but Belle's kind of a hoe tho'...

I'm pretty sure Belle was five years old in that alternative timeline and also a mother of five. Jada was rough in her first few months, but the actress have grown so much over the years. And yes, I want her and Shawn D to be end-game. She's a good recast, but she's more ice as opposed to Camilla's fire. I hope they start noticing that and write to the actress in the role more because I do think she's good.

Did anyone notice the odd cut in Wednesdays episode with Phillip / JJ / Sara / Xander? As Xander's telling JJ that he might want to murder Phillip, there's an odd jump-cut to Sara saying he just "has a dry sense of humor". I wonder if that was an adjustment towards the new writing regime?