te.

I just hope they don't settle into too many "meant to be" pairings of characters, since I think that's an issue with todays soaps going in circles. You know certain characters will just end up together no matter what, so I'm hoping they will break that rut.

I've been re-watching Peyton Place lately and they had a rather large outdoor town square with store fronts that definitively helped it pop. Of course, that's unrealistic, but some sort of smaller outside set with fronts would be nice to make it less claustrophobic. I'm hoping that there was a strategic reason for choosing the studio in Atlanta that wasn't just dictated by cost.

I would definitively love it if they had some sort of Salem Place-type of location at least. IIRC it was actually quite tiny, so it would be doable as the studios in Atlanta shouldn't be too cramped.

I remember a lot of people back in the day moaning that Sunset Beach didn't look like a daytime show and eventually they relented a few months in, so it's probably a good choice.

To be fair, I'd assume that the first few weeks will take longer to film and that they're bracing themselves for any potential issues that might arise with a new production. If they want to get closer to the airdate they can just take days off here and there until they have an appropriate time span from recording to airing.

Wow! That's late, but I guess they want to take their time to film the first few weeks of episodes at least and work out kinks before airing. Makes me wonder why they didn't just order another two months of The Talk episodes.

Fitting advertisement there as Larry wore the worst toupé on television.

Probably. I guess they didn't know Marlena would take off as a character (she was obviously there to fill in for Laura initially) so her first apartment set was just likely a re-dressed temporary set that they didn't give much thought into. I guess once it was obvious she was taking off on the canvas they probably wanted to give her something more "her".

Yes, the house set is still used, though it's mostly just the living room which is a shame. I think we saw the dining room when Marlena was last possessed which was nice. I guess we've seen some upstairs bedrooms over the years, but it's been ages since we saw the kitchen I believe and Tom's study of course hasn't been seen in decades. For DAYS the obvious one is Marlena's old penthouse which was such a nice set. I prefer the new roomier DiMera house set, even if it just debuted without even a mention of remodeling.

It's also worth remembering that all soaps will just take a life of their own and deviate from their bible for numerous factors, least of all with how the cast gels, who the break out character / performer(s) are, where the unexpected chemistry between actors take you and so on. It's sort of why I've been thinking about the politician angle, how it will work on the show in the long run and why it might end up fading for reasons not relating to any nervousness of political hot button issues (which can be dealt with either way).

Well, there would be repercussions for the scab writers, so if it's ever revealed, it won't be until they retire / leave the industry. To be honest, the scabs weren't the worst. I sort of liked the whole night of chaos with Harris shot and the Horton house on fire. The episodes with the box were nice, even if it was understandably low stakes due to it essentially being a filler storyline but we got nice moments and nostalgia out of it. The dialogue writing was mostly quite trite, though.

I've said it before, but the Body & Soul storyline really feels like a passive-aggressive swipe at the show and the brass in general, so I suspect there were already tensions mounding backstage before his firing. I think he knew he wasn't getting the contract renewal and decided to flip them the bird.

Location is one thing, but I feel like there's a limit to the conflicts that can be played out without representing the life in DC. I mean, it's fairly obvious that we're going to have the Senator father who is likely pushing his son to get as far as he can, while this is putting a stress to his home life since being a politician is time-consuming and everything you do is put under a microscope, so nothing is truly too private. But eventually they're going to have to resolve that conflict in some way before it becomes repetitive. But most of all, while I think politics in general is ripe for soap opera material, it's also an insular world in itself. That's why I think there might end up being problems if they're not really going to have a set of characters / physical sets to represent that - and that might end up causing issues with budget as it's hard to incorporate non-politician characters into that set too deeply and it might end up feeling like two-shows-in-one. There's a reason why soaps tend to opt to having their own businesses as you can always play musical chairs with the boardroom - not as easy in with politics. I don't know and I might be getting ahead of myself as the show hasn't started yet. But I could see it becoming an issue a year or two down the road as they'll run out of angles to play with it. As for the whole "they'll push it to BET"... let's see how it debuts first and how it performs on streaming. Ultimately, the audience CBS is trying to target hasn't gone anywhere regardless of election results and I'm sure they did a lot of market research before even contemplating on ordering a new soap. This wasn't done on a whim.

This is why I suspect that the politics angle will fade within the first year or two - unless they're actually going to invest in sets and a set of characters to represent it, it's just going to fade into the background. But since the show since based on this "community" and high-level politics tend to take you away from your community, the character will either disappear or have him quit for some reason.

Getting aside from any concerns over audience rejection, I think this is kind of the issue with characters as politicians on soaps - they can run for what they want and win... and then what? On Scandal, the focus started at the very top - Olivia was a problem-solver for the President. So there were nowhere for the character to "go". If the son has the ambition to become President one day, then that would inevitably mean climbing the ladder and getting further and further away from his community. For that reason alone it wouldn't surprise me if the politician storyline eventually gets jettisoned - not because of real world politics getting in the way.

I mean, the audience that CBS is targeting hasn't gone anywhere. But having politics was always going to be tricky (and has historically been), regardless of who won due to the daytime audience often being more conservative. On the other hand, CBS wouldn't have greenlighted the show with the politics angle if they were overly concerned with it. Ultimately, they need to give this a big push on streaming in the US so that people can get on it at ground floor.

Because Biden is obviously not doing well healthwise. By the time they finally got around to adressing that, the primaries had already been done and they were more or less stuck with Harris, despite her not being a strong candidate (again, has it passed people by she was at the bottom when she did her presidential candidate bid?). There's a reason why the Democrats were sniffing around Michelle Obama for a bit when Biden first stepped down. They screwed themselves unfortunately in thinking they could just "Reagan" it. But the internet and social media has changed everything since then - you can't hide when someone's sundowning.

Update: https://deadline.com/2024/11/warner-bros-response-lawsuit-the-pitt-er-michael-crichton-estate-1236167651/

I know that for his movies he pays well, especially for the leads, but I'd assume that his on-going tv series works on a different budget (hence the ridiculous shooting schedule). Then again, he uses a lot of non-union talent and perhaps the quick shooting schedule makes up for comparatively small per episode pay especially if they're not based somewhere crazy expensive like Los Angeles. There are a bit of stories out there about actors not liking his rapid shooting schedule (no surprise) and at least in his TBS days there seemed to be a conflict with actors wanting to triple their pay (to a $1000 per episode!) and get food service on set. But maybe he's changed since then...

I mean, isn't it held every year? Or were there new organizers?

I'd expect a bunch to turn up since it tapes in Atlanta and they want at least the lesser known names to be based there. I'm sure Beyond the Gates will also pay better than Tyler Perry's shows, even at recurring capacity.

Christ, I forgot that. I guess her last exit was so underwhelming that it just merged in my mind with the one before that.

I mean, Sami was last seen getting kidnapped in 2022 IIRC, so it makes sense he would try to bring her back. Have they adressed Sami since that?

The only explanation I can think of is that they're trying to emphasise on the fact that Marlena and Belle are mother and daughter. But yes, them getting a Belle that was barely different from Alison Sweeney in age was always an issue and the dress just ages her up. Maybe Martha pissed someone in the wardrobe department off. It's interesting that they're airing stuff that's clearly not coming for another six months - as someone else said, maybe they did go back and re-edit? Then again, it's probably that they just want to tease the new regime - another issue with being eight to ten months ahead...

The idea, the concept and the characters were alright. The issue is that Tyler Perry wrote every episode and he's - at best - a mediocre writer. If he had left it with coming up with the basics and then allowed other writing talent to take over, maybe it could've been a decent show.