te.

They've been putting up Brookside on streaming, so I imagine this is also a way to promote and generate interest in that.

CBS had a period in the early 90s where they seemed to do short test runs of shows in the summer - 2000 Malibu Road, Freshman Dorm, Angel Falls and of course Northern Exposure, which actually did get a successful long run. To be honest, I would've ordered another batch of episodes of 2000 Malibu Road to air in the Knots Landing spot since it had an extended break in March / April. Angel Falls also didn't do too badly and could've easily had another batch of episodes ordered. But I suspect they were all in on Second Chances being their soapy Knots replacement.

Insane how many people in the comments are claiming it had nothing to do with the financial situation despite not knowing the massive decline in late night revenue. They'd certainly cancel more shows if they were doing it to curry the favour at the White House. I read a suggestion that the future of late night would be televised podcasts essentially since they can be produced cheaply.

I feel like we're severely lacking her point of view; I still can't figure out why exactly she felt like she had to fake a pregnancy. By all accounts they hadn't tried for children and failed, nor had Bill been making googly-eyes at Dani or anyone else. Usually when someone fakes a pregnancy there seems to be... a point? There just doesn't seem to be one for now, except to give her a secret that Ashley knows and to give Dani some points for clocking her faking it.

I fully expect the duration of this bookstore to last as long as Stephanie's new found passion for writing literary smut lasts.

Again, what was the point of this pregnancy sham?

Two episodes of Angel Falls (CBS, 1993) are on YouTube, though they were uploaded three years ago I've never seen them: 1.5 Lost Souls: 1.6 The Fall From Grace:

Well, no shame in putting yourself out there I guess. Though it'd be odd to see a Javi that suddenly grew taller than Leo.

I mean, I get in general when actors say that they aren't watching their own shows. If I was an actor, I probably wouldn't either! I assume some people just feel odd watching themselves, while I'm sure others are unbothered by it. However, once you get creatively involved... you need to watch the show you're making, period. How else can you understand what people found appealing about it in the first place?

Compare that to the Dexter franchise which seems to go from strength to strength with the three new series surpassing the previous one. They absolutely expected "And Just Like That..." to run for years, but they botched it. SJP admitted to not watching the original - which is fine if you're just an actor doing your job, but if you're going to step up to the plate you clearly need to understand the appeal of the original in the first place. Cynthia Nixon seemed to want Miranda to reflect her own life, despite it making zero sense in Miranda's case. Michael Patrick King seemed mostly into the whole embarrassment as humour thing, but seemed to have little ideas beyond that.

I mean, no songwriter is going to waste a potential hit record on a fictional daytime soap group. I'm just happy we got to hear some actual music from them - I wouldn't mind if they threw it up on streaming.

I think this is a classic case where the show really didn't think some things through. If we were talking about Diana Ross going to solo, she pretty much kept going in the Pop/R&B mainstream direction. The Supremes also continued to exist, even if it was at diminishing returns with each line up; Mary had some minor hits and so on. However, in Anita's case they had her go in a completely different direction to her girl group roots - jazz. I very much doubt that a lot of fans of The Articulettes would expect to hear her jazz stuff since that's miles away from the usual girl group pop and would sound out of place. And I agree with those that said it's odd how they limited Tracy and Sharon's personal lives for no reason. Sure, I think it's obvious that they'll likely be written out and barely mentioned again after this mess of a storyline, but basically making them props in Anita's storyline isn't good writing. Plus it's always good to have those sort of characters existing somewhere out there in the future.

Indeed. There's a lot of accomplished people who've never won an award in their life, so I'm not sure why they had to go OTT and have Anita be an EGOT, while also she's supposedly been retired from showbusiness for I don't know how long. The timeline in Beyond the Gates has to be the messiest thing and I'm just not sure why they made it so from the get-go. Usually soaps end up having conflicting timelines due to ill-thought out SORAS.

For all we know, Al Calderon could've left months ago in real time.

Oh I agree. Even if Brilliant Minds gets cancelled, it might lead to better things for him. I suspect that he'll leave DAYS and wouldn't go back until all other options tanked. Javi has hardly been a great role for him to show his acting chops, even if I'm sure he's happy to have had a reliable income. But we'll see. He might reason that if he can do both for a bit it'd help him build up a nest egg.

Yup. Besides DAYS, we also have Love Island which is basically a reality soap that airs daily over a period of time. I could see streamers starting to experiment with a more seasonal format with maybe 65-90 episodes airing in the spring / fall with breaks.

Half hour could happen if we're talking about a soap developed for streaming exclusively.

I know this is just Tamara Tunie's word and it might not be the same as MV, but man does this just further messes up the timeline. So, The Articulettes was a popular girl group with enough hits to support a reunion concert (songs which we've heard that sound very New Jack Swing), which she then left and had a successful run of jazz albums, in addition to an acting career that earnt her the EGOT. Then she met Vernon and put everything on hold to have their children, who are now in their late 40s / early 50s, so sometime in the first part of the 1970s she essentially "retired".

Is he even worth recasting? He's done nothing but to prop up Leo so far. He's essentially a non-character at this point and his cousin tie to the Hernandez clan isn't that strong. If they had made him Rafes son I could see the effort being worth it, but now? Nah, just write him out unless his storyline/position in the canvas gets more intriguing in the coming 8 to 9 months.

They'll kill off Javi and they'll give Leo a hugely dramatic storyline how all of Salem grieves with him because he's such an amazing and witty person, everyone will constantly talk about how bad they feel for Leo that they'll tear down the Horton monument in the town square to erect a statue of Leo in tribute to his incredible resiliency and rename it "Leo Square". Also, they'll have a hot young hunk randomly appear and fall in love with Leo, because he's such an awesome person and the show will rename itself to "Leo of our Lives".

Yeah exactly. They're what? 8-9 months ahead at this point? So Al Calderon might exit Salem as Brilliant Minds wraps up its season. Plus, last season NBC failed incredibly badly in the drama department that unless Brilliant Minds has some sort of ratings spike, it's not likely to last beyond season two. So Calderon might want to keep that door to Salem open...

Salem Place lasted over a decade, didn't it? That "construction" started across the street was the initial excuse why they ditched it, but I think it became a parking lot eventually. Either way, I think Salem Place was actually very efficient in using the space. Everyone who visited it when it existed have said that it was much much smaller than it looked on tv. I think if any of the current soaps have a shot at doing a backlot location it's Beyond the Gates since they've already used space outside the studio. I think the weather / seasons in Atlanta might be an issue though.

Al Calderon (Javi) has been cast as a series regular on Brilliant Minds, so I guess he might be out in about three years...

TBF, they live in a townhouse, so it makes sense that they have maybe a big master bedroom with smaller adjacent rooms. I guess you can reason that Tyrell's bedroom is directly above the living room corner area lol. I think it's a smart way to use the set either way, especially as I doubt Tyrell's bedroom will feature that often.

I get the feeling they designed very specific sets from the start with the budget and that those doesn't lend themselves to easy redressing. They probably could use a generic apartment set that's isn't very specific-looking and the police office probably should've been designed a bit blander to easier double as a office set for Naomi and so on.