te.

You'd think so, but they all are ridiculous in a way where you'd have to have a flowchart who likes / doesn't like the other. Jennie and Tiffani were close friends at one point, but then got into a one-sided fight due to Tiffani not just taking Jennie's side in her divorce since she and Jennie's ex-husband were friends from before. I wonder if Jason is still pissed at Tori for selling his wedding invitation for like $5 bucks in a yard sale? They did the short-lived 90210 show, so maybe they're on decent terms now. Ian seems nice enough, but in a very fake Hollyweird way. Gabrielle Carteris always seemed to have a low-key chip on her shoulder, but also played it all off in an "I'm the ADULT in the room" kind of way. I can't help to feel that Shannen's cancer and passing away from it kind of made all their dynamics worse because she was always the convenient scape goat, even though I'm not defending her unprofessional behavior at the time. And yeah, Thomas Calabro allegedly took himself quite serious as an "act-thor" and the cast just seemed to deal with it by low-key making fun of his pretensions lol. I think Heather not having a huge ego and always being willing to take the backseat really helped though, unlike someone like Joan Collins who came onto Dynasty with the mindset of being the star and pulling ranks on the show. During Melrose's more balanced seasons Heather / Amanda would often take the backseat and in some episodes she just dropped by and did a quippy remark.

I think in general that Lexie was always such a strange character to revive, especially without Renee Jones. Had they recast her back when Renee left it could've worked, but her death always seemed final to me. I don't think anyone was sitting around longing for her character to be back, especially without the OG actress. It's not like there's not enough DiMera's on the show or that Paulina / Abe had run out of storylines. Spoiler

I thought Josh Henderson (John Ross) and Julie Gonzala were finds in the younger cast, but yeah. Even before the show debuted I was raising my eyebrows when I heard the casting of Jesse Metcalfe - who is fine in "dumb himbo" roles like the one on Desperate Housewives - but in order to make a character Christopher work believably they needed someone with a lot of gravitas. Poor Jordana Brewster felt out of her depth in a weekly serialized drama and couldn't overcome the Mary Sue writing of her character. Julie Gonzalo on the other hand became wasted, sidelined and there were very weird writing choices for her character. Well, Juan Pablo di Pace was / is a snack at least.

All cast members, those from the early years to those from the later years, seem to be on very friendly terms. I've yet to hear that any of them do not get along aside from the occasional guest star like Antonio Sabato Jr supposedly not getting along with Heather. It's very refreshing to see as it allows them to focus on the show whenever they get together, even if it's very often the same things (wedding dress catfight, Kimberly blowing up the building). That it now seems they're taking Vanessa along to these reunions has actually refreshed these talks a bit as they've gotten less stale. I think the worst thing I've heard is that Thomas Calabro was a bit up his ass in the early days and made a comment about Heather being a "soap opera actress". Per Heather herself she quickly shut him up by saying "well, so are you" and that was that. 90210s cast seem to be constant drama central still and they're all now in their 50s and 60s. Apparently Jennie for some reason has a beef with Tori or vice versa. BAG seemed to not-so-subtly shade Jennie when he visited Tori's latest podcast, lol.

God damn you Diana Ross!

I rewatched the whole China Beach series not long ago and Reflections has stayed in my mind:

Wow, almost like some people want to overlook this mans obvious pedophilia because he made Thriller almost 50 years ago. Stunningly shocked (not really).

@Vee I have no idea why you'd think I'd act maliciously towards tou..

Also, "unastalker" is such a bad motive. I can dream up a better one!

Oh Fallon HI @Khan Hi

Underappreciated soap!

One day I will find my tape with that dodgy Lisa Hartman voice-over on the ending of 2000 Malibu Road. It exists I swear!

Which is interesting considering David Jacobs wanted to originally kill off Bobby and have a Pam vs JR dynamic on the show. That they couldn't achieve that once Bobby was finally killed off is a testament to how the show had just delved into the "JR Show" and couldn't ever have him not win. Seriously - season nine as full out blown out war between Pam and JR could've been epic if they had actually dared to go for it - but they were too scared to change the dynamics of the show. Then they went and brought Bobby back (erasing an entire season), Victoria bolted and they kept bringing in replacement characters to keep up the dynamic they had in their head.

Seriously. Outside of Michael and Peter, most males where just eye-candy. It was definitively a female-skewing show and they knew it. Like, relationships like Alison / Amanda and Sydney / Jane were always more interesting than the ones they had with those pesky males lounging around shirtless.

They seem to have gone on a bit of hiatus, so let's just enjoy this Siobhan b-side in the meanwhile:

Eleven and counting.

If pedophilia is okay often depends on if you like the person or not.

You can also tell the writers aren't really experienced with serialized writing because it's not like "plot thread A starts - middle of story (plot b quietly starts) - end story (plot b amps up)". It's just one plot thread that starts and stops within a few episodes. Then all of a sudden another plot thread starts and runs for another few episodes. It's quite clunky.

Hotel was always dependent on Dynasty, and that had begun its slide, so yeah, that might've been a part of the change. But I think more importantly, Love Boat had floundered until it got cancelled in May 1986. I think they saw that the format was on its last legs, especially with shows like Glitter and Finder of Lost Loves not gathering any steam in the 1984-85 season (which were also variations of the Love Boat formula). That probably was more of a factor to the change. (Season 4 is the 1986-87 season, so it's directly after Love Boat got canned)

Hotel actually got a bit more serialized in season 4 after Anne Baxter passed away, starting with an multi episode arc about who owns the hotel with Michelle Phillips as one of Victoria Cabot's scheming nieces. Whenever a multi episode arc would end, another one would begin so the serialization was never heavy. But it was there. The first three seasons were very light, with the major thread being the will they / won't they with James Brolin and Connie Selleca.

I don't think the issue was that it felt like another MP/CPW - I think the issue was that everyone felt isolated. I think community soaps should have interaction - early Melrose had that, the first 13 episodes of CPW had cast interactions over the canvas (though I feel they were building for more and then Darren Star essentially got sacked). Pacific Palisades felt later seasons of Melrose, or Knots, in the sense that in those shows characters started living in individual bubbles but at least dynamics had been established between characters before that. If I were to compare it in "feel", I'd say Paper Dolls is better where you it sort of felt tonally mismatched and like you were entering a fifth season show. A lot of story bubbles that never seemed to interact or connect, which I think is important in the early years.

To be fair, it sounds like the production of the first season was a mess due to strikes and then the break between the first and second was filled with quite a bit of uncertainty due to turn-over of the brass. So I think his attitude stems from that.