te.

Maybe it's my bias, but I always thought he was "inspired" by the Swedish mini series Don't Ever Wipe Tears Without Gloves: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don%27t_Ever_Wipe_Tears_Without_Gloves Sure depicting the AIDS crisis in country X isn't the most original idea, but I just found it coincidental.

From what I understand, NBC was never as strict with their affiliates where the shows were aired. I think it really impeded any success any soap they launched could have.

She did tour in October / November, so they probably had her on the mind when they wrote that dialog.

It could've worked as a companion piece with Murder She Wrote, maybe. But they seemed to be all-in on having CBS Sunday night movies at that point with only a short break to air some Designing Women and Nothing Is Easy episodes.

I mean, they're obviously aware that the show isn't working right now since they brought Maxam in and then Quan back. A tired point, but it's just unfortunate that they're taping so far ahead that they can't really do much.

I think it's more down to the 80s Reagan-ism, the worship of wealth and letting the villain continuously get away with it due to perceived viewer popularity. The Ewings and the Carringtons were originally bad guys, but became more and more "aspirational" as the 80s trudged on. That's still something that echoes in soaps today (see: "Dupree strong" for the billionth time). And while I certainly don't want soaps to go back to being morality plays, but I can't help but feel that the bad guys getting their comeuppance in major ways just... don't really happen that much anymore? Instead it's very much "ruh-oh, how will they get out of this mess this week?" (again, see JR).

Odd First Love couldn't last a bit longer considering it has the highest sponsor, but maybe they dumped it.

These shows just never work out well for the contestants, do they?

I'm glad to hear that they're at least working on fixing the show, but the way it's being done so far in advance really sucks. Noel Maxam has been a welcome a change, but now they really need some "oomph" in the writing. I hope Quan can add that.

Well, he can't worse (can he?).

There's a few soap tropes that I had hoped that BTG would at least try to avoid for a couple of years - one was the endless SORAS-ing and confusing ages (HAAAI Days of our Lives), but they kind of screwed that up from the start with casting lol. The next is that moustache-twirling villains aren't indefinitively kept around despite doing the most heinous [!@#$%^&*]. Yes, keep around the "grey" villains that have limits, but I think once you go into attempted murder you kind of need to be punished at one point. The other is that deaths are permanent, and the last one seems like they're hopefully keeping track of? ETA: a solution to the Leslie / Laura thing could be that they can't prove she did it in criminal court, but Laura brings a civil suit and end up ruining Leslie.

To be fair, some actors actually do prefer to stay on recurring for various reasons so it might be a choice on his part.

I don't know if the 1985 reunion is that well-liked, just that it would've worked better as a series. But there's still a lot of rewriting and retconning going on to fit whatever ideas the new producers have. I mean, I wouldn't have minded if it had gone to series and it's certainly better than the Murder disaster, but I wouldn't say it's great or even that good. On the plus side, they killed Allison again. The poor girl just can't catch a break.

I don't know, but I do know Moviecraft does buy and transfers tapes themselves. So it's possible it might be new, but someone else might have a list of what has survived from Hawkins Falls.

To be honest, I'm not sure that would've lasted very long. The first 13 episodes are decent enough, but there's jarring moments like the Gioberti's realising Angela is messing with them, only to be friendly again without any indication of them having realized what Angela's doing. The show really got a jolt in the 14th episode which is where I suspect Hamner's original vision ended. I think he got a somewhat free reign of the first 13, then when CBS ordered a few more to close out the season, it starts changing quickly (and quite frankly for the better).

Moviecraft is uploading an episode of Hawkins Falls from 1954 later today:

I was a fan of Grosse Pointe when it aired - unfortunately, it was simply before its time and the ratings just weren't good. WB tried to make a night out of it and Popular, but it didn't work. The whole X got Y cancelled [!@#$%^&*] are usually just excuses. WB wouldn't have ordered it if it was that objectionable. But also: Ooki oka shan, tamishun sobeirjo, oh oh!

TBH, I got the impression that he was really hurt with how the reboot did and just chose to ignore the EW thing that was about two years later. I know he's been said to work as a yoga instructor and I'd assume other non-acting jobs, so I wonder if he felt like it would be a key to another long-lasting role and then it didn't work out. I felt like his comment was always a gracious glaze over.

I'm honestly disappointed in Cwikly, whose last run in the headwriters seat wasn't perfect but not bad (and honestly, after Langan came across as a relief). Maxam has definitively brought a renewed energy to the show and seemingly made it more focused, but even he can't work magic on something that doesn't seem well thought out in the long-term. I just don't see an out for the Lexie story outside from "what was the point". Jackie seems to like doing the show too, so I don't think her and Abe are breaking up in the long-term realistically.

When Lexie was at her most interesting, she was clearly conflicted about being a good person vs embracing being a DiMera, but even that isn't a storyline that's necessarily restricted to her. They could certainly play up this dynamic with Chad more, especially as the recast has been successful. So it's like, what was even the purpose here? The show has improved since the initial boring switch and certainly better than the Body & Soul days, but this still just baffles me. What's the end game here? I don't think the writers really know.

I'll give him credit for being very gracious about his exit. He did improve as an actor during the run too after being a glorified wooden board.

There was a SONY related soap channel that seemed to advertise that they were uploading DAYS episodes from 1994-95, 2015-16 and 2022-23 seasons. It's gone quiet, but I do think DAYS might be coming. We also the recent All My Children episodes being uploaded with Agnes Nixon's estate / family saying that they're working on things like Loving / The City. I feel it in the waters that we'll start getting more soap material since it's a never-ending stream of content and unless they want the material to waste away, they'll have to get to digitizing them anyway.

BG himself said it - he was a character that was floating around on his own island with no family and no real work place. It makes complete sense to write him off as a "big" death as it doesn't really affect the canvas itself much. He'll be one of those characters we'll quickly forget in the coming years.

This is such a great and thoughtful response by their team. They're really just doing a bang-up job with every aspect of this. I really hope other soaps follow since having a small income stream on your archives is always better than none.

I've said it before that I don't mind someone like Abby staying dead for the sake of death becoming less of a joke on the show, but then they bring back a character that so publicly died in a very final way so that argument doesn't hold water. Add that we do actually need more Hortons on the show and they've struggled pairing Chad off with anyone new. The don't want to recast argument doesn't work either now that they've recast a character that pretty much had only one portrayer during her 15-odd year run. Again, Lexie is just a bizarre choice to bring back from the dead.