te.

I mean, historically that's how daytime soaps have always operated due to how large their casts are. I guess since there's only four soaps left, we've gotten used to established soap actors moving around like chess pieces. Just look at the casts of soaps launched in the past... plenty of newbies with the odd established actor to draw people in. KKL was an unknown when Bold & the Beautiful started.

Addie Horton is the first one who comes to mind. Primetime: Catherine Harrington on Peyton Place was only on it for 20 episodes at the start, but her impact was felt during the rest of the run. Jaqueline Perrault was in six episodes in seasons 1 and 2 of Falcon Crest, but arguably kept stirring up trouble from beyond the grave.

I'd think that the issue with politics on soap has been the issue of putting viewers, advertisers and affiliates off.

To be honest, just reading David's history I'm not sure how many memorable stand-out moments he actually had. His conception and adoption is of course a big story, but that's more Julie's story. I guess the interracial love story, but that was from what I can tell mostly played as a will-or-won't they until they scrapped it. Plus they were going to bring on a new Valerie. The only scenes where I could think they could've used is when David was presumed dead and I guess Julie should've had scenes where she reacted. But I'm not sure if those were really stand out scenes that would've been appropriate to air (though of course I'd like to see anything from those days).

I think they're just keeping the date under wraps in case something happens to delay production. I'm sure they know very well what date it is, but things can go wrong so no point in putting it out there too early.

A shame they're pulling her out already though - I would've waited until they reached that point, but I'm assuming they're just getting more listeners from interviews.

Probably not enough demand / nostalgia for it to make it seem worthwhile to go through the archives. Plus they might've not entirely decided if he was dead-dead or "dead" at that point, so maybe they wanted to keep the door slightly open for a recast.

Interesting... Vanessa says Rhonda's role was first conceived as a Jewish girl aka the Andrea of the show.

Vanessa Williams was on Still The Place: https://poddtoppen.se/podcast/1754955354/still-the-place/vanessa-estelle-williams

I think it was a mistake to set it in modern day tbh. I think the whole thing would've worked better when the novel was originally set in the 1920s - it would certainly make more sense that during the prohibition that powerful men would keep meetings in the local brothel / Speakeasy. It also explains why someone like Lane would have such a limited worldview that Flamingo Road would be a goal; in the 80s you'd think a talented singer would be off to Los Angeles or New York pretty quickly.

They're actually interviewing Vanessa Williams in the next episode of the podcast.

The issue for Another World is that it's tied to Procter and Gamble. I know they're dipping their toes lightly back into the game with Beyond the Gates, but so far they've shown zero interest in mining their vast soap library. This is the Mouse trying to do something with their old IPs - if anything I'd view the AMC movies as a test balloon like Beyond Salem was. Is there still any interest? Will AMC's audience stream it on platforms? Doing two Lifetime movies is a pretty safe way for them to test it out without having to invest too much. I wouldn't be surprised if this does well, it'll get some sort of series order on some Disney owned platform.

Ironically, Married the First Year seems more in line of Family and perhaps the original vision of Knots Landing. It really seems like David Jacobs wanted to do these twee kitchen sink dramas, but was just steered towards night time soaps since that's what the audience actually wanted. I'm surprised he didn't do more of these shows in the late 80s/early 90s when thirtysomething, China Beach and similar shows took off on ABC. He did do Paradise I guess, and produced Homefront. Still, I'd think a drama similar to thirtysomething would've been right up his alley.

S9E07 "Say Uncle" according to IMDB.

I started re-watching it last month as it approached it's 60th anniversary (September 15th, 1964) and it really is an excellent show that's both fairly fast-paced without really feeling rushed either. I'm at the winter of 1964/65 now and I think the way they transformed that backlot with the fake snow is amazing. It's a shame of seldom we see this sort of thing even in prime time these days.

I started re-watching Peyton Place last month as it approached its 60th anniversary and it has really excellent production value, especially with the entire backlot that they turned into the town square. ABC clearly didn't spare any expense, as opposed to Our Private World which seemed like a cheap way to cash in on ATWT's daytime success. Tying it into a daytime soap probably also meant the pace was closer to the daytime counterpart rather than the more quicker paced Peyton Place.

I think the issue is also seeing the Weldons it kind of breaks the fantasy, especially as the show doesn't really do a good job with separating the "bad" part of Truro with the good part. I've said it before, but what's wrong with living like Lute-Mae? I never really got why Lane would aspire to live on Flamingo Road with I guess the Weldons and Titus?

😬sorry, dumbass joke. But if we're being serious, the investment in THE GATES is very obviously based on the African-American audience and their potential to be monetized, if we're putting it in very blunt terms. "STAR" on Fox had a high viewership but couldn't be monetized for prime time because it came largely from "low-earning households" (aka the pay disparity between AA households and non-AA households became an issue). In daytime, this doesn't matter. It would be interesting to see how this disparity figures into FAST models on streaming. I suspect for FAST shows, minorities might come into importance with how their shows are developed.

Black people will reject THE GATES due to not being able to snark about white people. Mark my words, cancelled within six months on air!

It's funny, because I was watching an episode of Beverly Hills 90210 the other day and was like "that's Robin Strasser", but it turned out to be Elaine Princi. How random.

Plex is a small streamer without any impact, so I imagine that something that's serialized with a famous name would get curiosity streams. I hope Falcon Crest and Sisters can just climb up there to show that there's interest for these shows, lol.

It's funny that people try to point to streaming as an issue for soaps - if anything I think it's helped, especially with the advent of the FAST model. You have a format that makes people check in your platform regularly and on top of that is cheap to produce compared to those expensive 8 episode seasons that drop every two years. There's a reason why DAYS have somehow managed to survive for three years on Peacock, Neighbours got picked up by FreeVee and The Gates got picked up.

Odd topic to start given we're about to see the launch of the first daytime soap in the quarter of a century.

This is just very common. I think it's because they're obviously afraid of retribution from the ones in charge, but also because they're promoting that product at that point in time so speaking out against it would be seen as unprofessional. Once they're gone, obviously airing out the issues you had and how they've been "fixed" will be seen as promoting the "new" and "improved" show.