te.

Ooh, that makes sense. I tried looking over the BTG fan wiki, but yeah. A lot of names floating around.

I think they might've meant Caroline, who is Hayley's best friend at the office and maid of honor? https://beyondthegates.fandom.com/wiki/Caroline_Lee

I think the big issue with doing a proper rural based soap is that the popularity of those Taylor Sheridan shows are as much based on plots as showing off the landscape and just small town life. I'd feel like in order to do a successful rural/small town soap you'd need to at the very least build a small town set a la Peyton Place and maybe even do location shots (not Peapack style). It would be a huge commitment that I'm not sure a network would want to do. Weirdly enough, setting soaps in a more urban area is probably cost effective because we end up not expecting as much from the sets to represent that.

I'm going to be nice and say that I thought it started to come together a bit for her in her and Naomi's phone call because she came across as human having an actual conversation. I'm just not sure how much you can do when every scene you have is clunky variants of "I'm a nurse", "I'm a newly examined nurse", "nursing has been my dream my whole life", "screw it, here's confidential patient information", etc. I half expected her to yell out that she loves kittens at one point!

To be honest, I thought one of the biggest issues this week were Ashley's scenes - not necessarily because of Jen Jacob, but because a lot of them ended up saying nothing else but that she's a Nice Nurse Who Loves Nursing (when she's not breaking HIPPA) and it ended up breaking the flow. They felt clunky and I get the feeling they wanted to get her character in this week, but had no place for her in the story yet. It started to come together at the end of the week, but a lot of that felt like they could show, not tell with her character. I could've done without the majority of her scenes and had her come in more subtly, maybe in connection with Laura's accident. I think that time could've gone to smooth out the exposition scenes.

I think when you look at where she started the week and where she ended up, it makes perfect sense - as I've said previously, she's been the archetypical Woman on the Verge all week, even taking shots at her dressing room table. So I don't think she's meant to be like this all the time (see how she handled the fashion shoot), it's just that we've dropped in at a very stressful time for the poor dear. Her behavior makes sense if you're viewing it from the perspective that she's having a complete and utter meltdown, culminating in her having a shoot out at the wedding.

I agree that people are being a bit hyperbolic when they say that it's "one of the greatest first weeks ever"; I guess people are still a bit high on the "new soap smell" after mostly having cancellations for the past quarter of the decade. It was a nice opening week, but there are definitively things to work out. Technically, I probably prefer Dark Shadows and Sunset Beach (I love the 90s prime time soap gloss, ngl) at least. But in all honesty, most soaps opening weeks just aren't available to watch anywhere, so we have little to compare it to. Most of the soaps that launched since 1980 were short-lived on top of that (with B&B being the only survivor).

Add that he's such a key part - the whole thing about Anita and Vernon having to protect him from Bill is obviously going to be a big storyline... or at least is meant to be. Chelsea is kind of just there for now - as a character, she's given more grace to grow into the part as they can always hand over too meaty material for others to carry. LOL, that just made me think about how people use "narcissist" as the latest buzzword. Maybe Bill is, but Hayley clearly isn't being written as one.

Derek is probably worse, but he's so marginal to the story that they can always end up underwriting him and then write the character out once his usefulness is done. Martin is more concerning because he's really a centerpiece character and needs to improve fast. As a character, Martin is clearly in this for the long haul. And yeah, I'm not putting him and Smitty's lack of chemistry on Manning - he's not giving him anything to work with unfortunately and there's only so much you can do if your scene partner is flat. I'm hoping once the Bill / Hayley wedding drama dies down that Dani calms down a bit. They've clearly played her as a Woman on the Verge all week in order to lead up to the cliffhanger, but they need to tone her down a bit after all this otherwise it'd be inexplicable that she's not in the nuthouse.

Well, you know Leslie and Dana can both be male names...

I'd assume it's down to CBS investing money to get the production going - so right now everything is brand-new and shiny. I mean, once some characters drop off, we get new sets I'm sure there will start being more... dodgy choices and obviously re-dressed sets because it's sort of inevitable. With that said - it obviously helps that they're in Atlanta where everything is likely cheaper. I don't think it's slow at all - we've already had the nemesis stage a car crash and move in on the family and now we have a wedding on Friday. With that said, I do think there's pros and cons with doing this in media res thing Val did - it did make it feel like we were dropping in on an on-going show on Monday. On one hand, she did a good job with making everyone feel familiar, on the other we've gotten a lot of awkward exposition dialogue. This is why a lot other shows choose to have an expository character (ie Victoria in Dark Shadows, Meg in Sunset Beach etc) to ease up that awkwardness. But these are things that will be ironed, which is the beauty of daytime really. It's the same thing as I'm sure that by the first 13 week cycle, at least some actors and characters will have fallen to the wayside.

I think it's worth to remember that shows these days need good elevator pitches and the only ones that I can truly see that with is Dark Shadows and yes, Edge of Night. All other shows are bit "life and times in a X small town where we follow X family's trials and tribulations". They're just not very unique, so you might be better off creating a new show without any baggage of the old show. Though I guess I could continue to advocate for Love of Life with the story of saintly Van's never-ending search for dignity while her dastardly sister Meg keeps getting in her way (cue organ music). With that said, they were supposedly developing All My Children movies for Lifetime as of last September (?), so I'd assume AMC has a good shot at going to series again if that works out.

I feel like fries would quickly go rank on set though 😂

Michelle had a liver transplant recently, so it's likely complications from that unfortunately. RIP, Michelle.

Re-filmed I don't know, but they definitively re-wrote those scripts to fit in Angela. Obviously, the writing was on the wall at that point. I agree though - Falcon Crest probably had the best ending of the 80s prime time soaps.

Michelle is famous for not singing in her own girl group so I wonder if that'll tie in 😂

'tis a bit of the Alfred Hitchcock "bomb under the table" analogy. If you lay it on that thick... something's gotta give.

I like Vanessa - she's definitively one of those characters that can low-key move across the canvas and relay information to others without it feeling forced. Yes, Lauren Buglosi is a bit of a find in that sense. Delivering those one liners can't be easy. I don't need them to expand on her character at this point since she serves her purpose, but definitively one to watch.

TBF, Vanessa was all over the show. I think the random white couple is supposed to represent the "downstairs" for now that will inevitably be tied into the Duprée drama. Health care workers are always going to get dragged into soapy messes!

I will say I don't get Marquita Goings opening credit - she's giving way too much sass with the eye blink and from the first episode you'd think she's more innocent, but maybe there's something unfolding there 😂

TBF, Nicole seems to already be over it so it looks like we'll get other characters reacting to her being ridiculous. I think that's what's missing on soaps these days.

From what I could tell there's likely several openings - Core 4 + 8 other cast members.

It seems like it was the core four + 8 cast members. So 12 in total. I don't think Vanessa was in this version of the cast credits, despite being heavily supporting.

Definitively. Nicole isn't as outrageous as Dani, but it's obvious there are things going on beyond the surface. I think her getting shut down despite being the successful sibling will rear its ugly head eventually. Maybe not in year one, but there's no way there's not going to be conflict here. Especially with Dani and Nicole's kids being "best friends". How would Nicole, the award-winning psychiatrist, deal with Dani's kid leading her kid astray?