te.

I tend to mock Aaron a lot, but he clearly did have a great eye for picking up unknown talent and seeing beyond them being "green"; it's something where I feel the Lorimar soaps often failed at - as I said, I find the casting, especially in the latter parts of the series, very bland or just plain miscast (Leigh Taylor-Young comes to mind, who is just too likeable to play a spoiled rich bitch like Kimberly Cryder was meant to be). Sasha Mitchell was such a disaster as JR's bastard son - you would think they would absolutely hold extensive casting calls to get such a pivotal part cast and they come up with the one who gave Andrew Shue acting lessons.

Heather was pretty shaky in early Dynasty and Aaron invested a lot into her; somehow I doubt the Dallas producers would've done that.

Watching season 11 I thought Dack might've made a good Casey Denault. One of the biggest issues in the later years is that the casting is insanely bland for the most part, but then again all Lorimar soaps seemed to have this issue. If there's anything where Dynasty had the upper hand on them it was in the casting department, which was usually spot-on there with a few exceptions (even if they didn't utilise them well).

To be honest, DAYS has been on the brink of cancellation for 15 years now that I fully expect when the nuclear holocaust comes those that'll be left standing is cockroaches, Cher and Corday somehow plotting the next plan to "Save DAYS".

God, season 11 is really awful, despite not necessarily needing to be - technically, the Ewings losing Ewing Oil and having to rebuild is a decent storyline, but it's handled... so odd. And all of a sudden we have an appearance by a madam and AIDS reference (topical!). Cliff's storyline with Dandy Dandridge is just furthering his decent into comedyville - I get where they were going with it (breaking Cliff's illusion about Digger), but it just doesn't work especially as I don't recall Cliff really changing (mostly because Dallas is allergic to change unless it's forced upon them as VP's departure). Obviously, Pam's departure because she's so vain (a dig at VP?) is awful no matter how you look at it - funnily enough, unlike when Bobby died, the Pam effect was actually instant on the ratings, giving them a low season premiere with the episode where "Pam" takes off her bandages and disappears as the highest rated episode of the season. Even if they had pulled it together and written a decent season I feel like the ratings would've plummeted regardless, but maybe they at least would've stayed stable in the lower top 20 for a while.

Boo! We want Dena! We want Dena! Now everyone else shout: "We want Dena!"

Since I always say that be careful what you wish for, so if Ron's replaced by Dena Higley I would just laugh. Christ.

Oh, I don't blame them - I think both initially agreed to do Beyond Salem though and the logistics of filming that probably looked different than doing the regular show. I fully blame Ron for not changing it into something more satisfying for long time fans and not some cliffhanger for BS4 (that'll never happen) and that might or might not be followed up on.

I think the biggest issue is that this was clearly the planned storyline for Beyond Salem 3 folded into the show (even down where you can speculate if some scenes were specifically filmed for that). I have no doubt that it would've too ended with Bo in a coma, leading into possibly Beyond Salem 4. I just think they were way too lazy to change it and Kristian / Peter probably weren't willing to film the regular show properly. I honestly hope they don't go the alcoholism route with Shawn and he's "just" on a bender; the show doesn't need more alcoholics / addicts.

The only reason I can see them conceivably doing this is to try and force Peacock's hand in handling the PR. Either that or they just don't it'll affect the viewing figures and it's an unnecessary cost.

I'll be fair and give them a break on this one - he last appeared when he was 12, so I doubt anyone who doesn't know who he is will recognize him. But yes, I totally expect annoying and tired "winks" to the audience because Carlivati can't help himself. Maybe they can get Lauren Boles back to play his girlfriend.

Yeah, richer older men marrying much younger isn't unusual - I guess ultimately, they had these younger women fall head over heels in love with JR without there being a sort of cynical edge to it that was a bit unrealistic. Even the Winger tramp was shown as being truly in love with him, despite being portrayed as a gold digger at first. Then you had naive, sweet, virginal Cally...

That's just... odd. Why? Wasn't the show recently renewed for two more years? Surely the PR department can't consist more than a few people who cut up the promos and send out things to soap rags?

I think another obvious issue is that paternity wasn't that easy to determine - DNA testing didn't really get to that point until some time in the mid-80s. So either paternity would've been obvious from the timelines not matching up or that the blood type made it impossible for someone to be the father; or obviously as in DAYS's case someone being sterile.

JVA strikes me as someone who spends a lot of time in the mirror finding imperfections, hence why she's gone overboard. Good plastic surgery tends to be subtle and not necessarily about to look younger, but less saggy.

Mandy and JRs first time was very rapey. We almost need a thread about the whole "Woman overtaken by passion" trope that Dallas and similar soaps often tried to present.

I guess if I had written the Jenna character into the show again I would've taken a note from Knots Landing and what they did with Abby and Abby / Gary. Jenna wouldn't necessarily be malicious, but she'd be someone who likes money and fortune and clearly see Bobby as an opportunity to get back what she felt she lost, while also obviously being in love with him so it wouldn't be an entirely gold digger move. It also would've underlined the difference between Pam and Bobby's relationship - she'd actively push him to get more proactive in business and be just a slight bit manipulative about it. Bobby would be intrigued by Jenna because she'd challenge him more in a sense that Pam never did. As it was, Jenna did indeed only come across as an obstacle for Pam and Bobby to overcome and it was hard to take them seriously as a couple. She felt more like a place holder in every sense of the word.

To be fair, the show was mostly going well right up until Swan Song (or rather into the first 10-ish episodes or so on season 9 when it became apparent they didn't want to properly do a Pam vs JR plot). Sure, it had its ups and downs in those seasons, but mostly it was good - and that's a long time for a show to keep up being decent. Dynasty barely managed half of that. As for Jenna; they clearly blew it by going with celebrity casting with Priscilla. I've been having season 7 running in the background while doing other things and it seems like early on they did write her more in line with Fairchild's version (see: confrontation with other Ewing ladies at the Oil Baron's Ball; telling Katherine that she'd just marry Bobby if she wanted money when Katherine tried to buy her off). The issue with it seems like Priscilla is just playing Jenna as an airhead with little machinations going on inside her head. Take the plot where Bobby offers to buy her a store - Jenna outright refuses to be a "kept woman", sulks for a bit at home, Bobby goes over and pleads and then suddenly she makes a u-turn and accepts the offer on her terms. Had Fairchild played the part, you know it would've come off as Jenna more being quietly manipulative when initially rejecting the offer and then setting up a plan of her own.

The DAYS plunge is so drastic, yikes! Normally when soaps fall that hard it's due to a change of time slot, station coverage dropping etc. Changes on screen do usually take some time to be noticeable in the ratings, so Nina just bombed from the get-go.

This is sort of true, but also not really - what happened is that the average dropped, but the truth is also that season ten stopped free-falling like it had been in the second part of season 9. Season 10 averaged lower, but also was more steady and temporarily stopped the bleeding, iirc. Susan Howard felt very strongly about her storyline in season 9 with adopting a handicapped child and was majorly pissed off about it (and vocal) - it's likely a part of why she was cut at the end of season 10.

Their best bet would be a FAST platform as a lot of them host fairly random stuff and they won't necessarily pay for more than it's viewed. If they went through all the trouble of digitizing it they might as well take the meager dollar they can get at this point rather than try and sit out for some dream deal that'll go tits up again. Another alternative is to do what Bold and Beautiful does and put it up on YouTube with ads - again, not highly profitable but putting up a soap opera from 60-40 years ago was never going to be.

Well, obviously - she hasn't acted since 2000 and doesn't need to do the promotional circuit (the one promo she does/did for Principal Secret and her foundations are different), so there would be no gain for her to do these reunions besides her own gratification. I believe the official story was that she had a "back injury". Take that for what you will.

While he's clearly suffered from The CW being bought out by Nexstar, he does still have You, Doom Patrol and the upcoming Girls on the Bus (plus some film projects) on streaming, so he's probably going to transition there as CW keeps cutting its ties to CBS Studios/Warner Bros.

Let's be honest here - doing these reunions wouldn't even reach pocket change level for her considering the wealth she supposedly managed to amass with Principal Secret and related products. The only reason she'd do a reunion would be for fun and while the interview section on stage wouldn't be too bad, sitting down for a meet and greet for several hours sounds like my idea of hell.

The CW reboot was everything I expected a Dynasty reboot be on the CW, so it never really disappointed me - it's not how I would've done it necessarily and there are points where the show is stronger in places and weaker in others, but if you go in knowing what to expect it's enjoyable.