te.

This is great! The fact that these old episodes are still being found gives me hope that a lot more are out there.

Their new album will be out in early 2024 on BMG (aka Kylie, Steps' etc label).

Hey now, Johnny throws around a few italian phrases here and there!

The big issue is that those other soaps aren't digitized and that takes a lot of time and money to do; I suspect the reason why Bold is on streaming is because the Bells just kept up with the technology and probably had it digitized early (especially as they sold it in reruns to some countries in the past). If someone decides to digitize the archives that remains then *maybe* I could see it happening on some form of FAST service, but it would be more of a passion/preservation project and there are so many (shorter) tv shows and movies that it would take a long time before they came around to the soap archives.

Sydney really better be the child Sami deserves.

Well according to @Errol they're working on it - but lots of episodes and I'm sure they're either looking to license or replace some of the music. I assume they also are looking if they can sell it somewhere (ie IMDBTV or whatever it's called now) or put it on their own platforms.

I think the issue is that you're basing this on what people on niche soap forums (which in itself is a dying format) are saying, rather than would could concievably cross over at least a bit to a more casual audience beyond that. It's unfortunately obvious that "soap fans" aren't a big enough group to sustain these shows being uploaded, or else they would've been already.

In all honesty, the only old soaps that I could see being moderately "successful" on streaming are Passions and Sunset Beach; in Passions case it obviously has that cult factor going for it and the fact that it's very "meme" worthy (for better or worse) that could draw people in. Sunset Beach mostly because it was so popular in parts of Europe, again a bit meme worthy and had a limited run so that it doesn't feel like you're never going to finish it. The others... well. Maybe doing arcs could work, but then again would anyone outside the established fanbase want to watch those? I feel any few "casual" viewers would be turned off by the fact that they couldn't continue beyond it.

Saw these two actors supposedly stepping into the roles:

Honestly, I wouldn't have minded if they had done a long-term arc for these two when they actually realise that they were more in love with idea of being Shawn & Belle, star-crossed lovers from two "supercouples" (though not use that actual wording on the show, it's cringe), rather than being in love with each other. It would actually make a good storyline, but this show can't plot more than three weeks in advance it seems.

Beverly Hills 90210: Luke Perry as Dylan - Fox kept wanting to kick him off the show in season one and only wanted him to be a one episode character, but Aaron Spelling persisted and paid for his salary out of his own pocket to keep him on. Melrose Place: Laura Leighton as Sydney was supposed to be a two episode arc, but was brought back in season 2. Marcia Cross as Kimberly was supposed to be a one episode character, but Marcia and Thomas Calabro ended up playing it somewhat flirty in outtakes and they took notice.

Yeah, I mean, retcons have always been a part of soaps with secret children, forgotten marriages and what-not turning up from characters' past (I've never even watched AMC but Erica's non-abortion is kind of infamously bad), but I don't think any of the soaps are quite as bad as DAYS. As you said, the writers just can't seem to stop meddling with John's backstory, Hope / Gina and Tony / Andre for whatever reason. At least when they add Stefano's latest kid to the mix you can sort of believe it because he wasn't young when he came onto the canvas and spent a lot of time off it during periods.

The issue with anything that's of a certain "period" is that it's always inevitably more expensive due to not being able to just buy things like clothes off the rack etc. so I can see why ABC, if they were having issues with money, would ultimately back out, likely when the reality of the costs came back.

That did make me laugh - I mean, come on dude, it's literally 15 minutes... how nicotine addicted can you get?

I guess @vetsoapfan

Fun thing about Paradise - they had a young actor auditioning for the third season; they felt he was talented - too talented for a series that was probably getting cancelled, so they adviced him to take the other job he had lined up. The actor? Luke Perry. The show? Beverly Hills 90210. Maybe David Jacobs had nothing to do with that audition, but from now on, I will imagine he had a part in creating the defining prime time soaps of the 90s.

Brief drop-by I assume. She's been pretty vocal about not liking doing the show in the past (but maybe that'll change with Alan Alarr gone?), but also - she's 83, so she might just be semi-retired and not interested in taking on any long-term gigs at this point.

Yeah, that's definitively a part of it, but to Passions' credit, it did grow in the first few years and showed promise, which is more than most soaps do (SuBe just fell and fell and fell... no matter how many stunts they tried); it just couldn't sustain it and even Passions fans seems to acknowledge that JER went completely off his rocker. With that said, isn't there some sort of Passions convention going on occasionally? So those young fans did grow up and continue being fans of their soaps in a real life way (sort of like a lesser Dark Shadows I suppose). I guess the fantasy element helps it stand out among the regular soaps.

I'd assume the head writer change had to do with them probably filming the show in blocks to sell in syndication rather than doing long-term contracts; normally syndicators like to plan in three months blocks (65 episodes), so if that's how they sold Rituals then they only had two blocks with the same head writers. It'd be interesting to know the filming dates.

Indeed it was - Simon Fuller / 19 Entertainment produced it (aka the production company behind American Idol) so I assume that at least one edition of the show would've aired there, especially as they sometimes had 1,5 hours / 30 minute result shows. I'd assume the issue would've been to find another appropriate place on the schedule. And of course, Mal Young was an Eastenders producer. I'd be interested to see ABC tackle something similiar though - especially as they have a lot of reality shows that might be cut down to pair it with - ie have a 1,5 hour version of American Idol / DWTS / Bachelor + a potential half hour results show of any of those and you'd have a decent pairing. Won't happen, but it would be the most ideal situation.

$55 just seems a bit too steep for a group that's essentially a covers band at this point; I'm sure they're having fun with it, but yeah, I probably wouldn't pay that much to go see them (especially not the VIP and beyond prices, but I'm sure there are some fans that would so fair enough).

I've always heard several scenarios / pictures were leaked to the press by Lorimar as to not spoil the "dream" resolution (it also looks like Patrick in the profile picture, though the face has obviously been photoshopped); one of those scenarios was that Bobby was going to be a lookalike imposter, which I assume these pictures were meant to convey. My understanding is though that these scenes were never shot and were just photoshoots (because why waste time to rehearse and shoot a scene they knew weren't ever going to be used). There's been talk of other pictures / photoshoots being leaked to the press, but I assume those might be a case of chinese whispers. Considering how big Dallas still was at the time and what a furore Bobby's return created in the press, I don't think those wouldn't have been found by now.

I agree that it's a huge part of it, especially when you start looking at vintage interviews; women's interviews tends to focus more on personal interests, while their male counterparts, especially those who were interviewed for younger focusing magazines like Tiger Beat can get... quite intrusive. It would be far harder for male actors to dodge the questions without either flat out lying about their dating life or lying by omission, or just word answers in a "please Mary" kind of way. Having watched Dark Shadows during co-vid and also reading vintage interviews with people like Jonathan Frid and Joel Crothers is illuminating.

@Toups @Errol a soap pilot leaks online (how often does that happen?)