te.

Well, at least they're adressing this (though this should've been the #1 thing that should've happened the moment Sarah stepped foot in Salem, at least a psych eval).

I was always surprised that Garita wasn't able to land a long-term gig on another soap since she did good work on SuBe, then again, so did several others we don't see. Maybe she was hoping for more prominent prime time gigs and by the time she was willing to do daytime the moment was gone?

I said from the start that it'll turn out that there was a switch between Bonnie and Adrienne where some DiMera henchman brainwashed the other to have the others memories. Not that I particularly want that to happen (I don't care for Adrienne either way), but it just feels like something they'd eventually pull.

I always thought it would be more interesting if a female took over the DiMera enterprises (preferably when Stefano was still alive), but for whatever reason they never gave Lexi or Kristen any real ambitions in that area. Plus most of Stefano's female children end up actually dead (Renee, Megan, Lexi).

I'm guessing it's moving onto Abby and she dies as a shocker conclusion to the arc.

With both Ron and Jamey Giddens on the writing team? Realistically, they'll never accept the 80s are over so you might as well give them advice to at least make it somewhat believeable (if not out-dated story trope). It's like when they brought back Larry Welch back in the early 2000s when Joe Mascolo was off the show. It didn't work and yes, they maybe they should just retire the concept of a super villain, but if they need to go there, at least have them build up proper resentments toward the town instead of essentially just twirling their mustache for shits and giggles.

I mean, in theory they could set up someone like Orpheus to have beefs with more people in town - or for that matter take (or create) another character that systematically is "betrayed" by everyone else to the point of being villainy against all of Salem. But that takes character-building over several months, if not years and soaps have become all about quick pay-offs. (Ironically, I've argued that I've actually not minded Sarah being a loose end because it was a good opportunity to build up Xander having a new relationship and could set up a proper long-term triangle that's more grey than a black-and-white so-should-be-with-so triangle, but besides having the patience of keeping Sarah off the canvas for a year I'm not exactly impressed with how they've handled it.)

Eh, by all accounts it was Corday (and the network?) that pushed the Possession 2.0 as Ron apparently didn't know how to handle it until he started seeing the devil as "just another villain" (parafrased from his own words). Corday strikes me as both being hands-on and hands-off in the worst possible way - he'll pitch ideas but won't actually keep up what's been happening on the show in the past 30 years or so. Hence all "Plan-to-save-DAYS"/"No, characters that die are really dead"/"Let's bring back Jack from the dead for the 36th time despite all his organs having been donated" stories. This is the show that had someone running around town possessed by the devil and instead of having every character freak out that the [!@#$%^&*] Prince of Darkness is literally out there, everyone but John was like "oh, okay, someone else will do something about that".

Not as much fan outcry as the ratings falling. Her reappareance didn't really do much for the ratings except it helped it stabilise a bit into the spring when shows usually fall.

I don't think Susan got paid for the entire season; the story is that when they announced they had to cut costs for season 9 she "volunteered" to be written off the show. I'm not sure if Wyman was paid for the full season either or if she had a pay cut at the very least per episode. But yes, Ana Alicia did have a contract to play Melissa for the full 22 episodes of season 8... so she also got paid for further five episodes when they brought her back as Samantha since her contract specifically mentioned Melissa. Savvy woman.

It's just odd from the perspective that while Renée seemed to be popular during her three year stint, her character really didn't leave much of a mark on the show unlike say Addie, Samantha and Isabella. Not that I'd want LG to think she's any of those characters, but still. Renée really hasn't had a presence on the show since Philece last appeared in 1984. Although I guess Sarah-as-Isabella hanging around John's neck and calling Brady her special little guy would be fun. Then they could have Sarah recover for a while, get with Brady (wait, Sarah and Brady aren't blood relatives right?) only to wake up post-coitus thinking she's Isabella again and becoming suicidal because she thinks she's slept with her own son! Hijinks and fun to ensue.

I think that is actually a good way of putting it - I feel like after having seen Ambitions that he's a type of soap fanfic writer that's partly very stuck in a time period (the 80s) and also just one of those people who remembers those big moments but doesn't understand the mechanics on why those big moments were so satisfying in the first place. Dynasty is a good example - the reason why that first studio catfight was so satisfying wasn't because you had Linda Evans and Joan Collins (well their doubles) duking it out; it was because it had been boiling all season long and it was a gratifying pay-off when Krystle finally realised the depths Alexis would go to and just completely snapped. On the other side of the spectrum, you had that ridiculous catfight between Dominique / Alexis in season 7 because the writers suddenly remembered they hadn't had their yearly catfight yet. Giddens strike me as the type who would write the later scene because he operates in moments rather than actual storytelling. And you can see it with the Renée plot - he loved Renée so came up with this Sarah-as-Renée abomination despite it making no sense. If he wanted to pay a tribute to Renée/Philece it would've been better to just have Anna and Tony find her diary on the island and have them talk/remember her with flashbacks as fan service.

To be fair, Sarah isn't Renée via some serum or microchip she's just brainwashed herself into believing she is based on a diary (?). So she's technically Sarah, just a a very lost, mentally ill Sarah. So that she's not amazed by the new technology isn't weird since everything she knows about being Renée comes from a diary. Not that I'm defending this stupid story...

RIP Mitchell "Burke Devlin #1" Ryan. https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/mitchell-ryan-lethal-weapon-dharma-greg-1235104831/ Considering the rough patch he hit during Dark Shadows in his personal life, making it to 88 is a feat.

Well, as I said, the issue with Falcon Crest's final season is that they pretty much threw everything out and kept a few characters, unlike Dynasty and Melrose Place where they tried to tie their final season to their glory years even if they also suffered loss of characters (Roger Grimes mystery / Matt's diary). I think if you view FC season 9 as it's own thing - a one season prime time soap - it's pretty enjoyable, but if you try to compare it to what came before it's completely unrecognizeable.

I think as long as you go into season 9 with an open mind and knowledge that it is a complete reboot you can enjoy it for what it is. I think the main issue is that it really does feel like a different show while other prime time soaps that perked up in their last seasons, like Dynasty and Melrose Place, at least managed to "feel" like they were still the same show Falcon Crest pretty much just throws out everything and keeps a few characters. I'd say it's at least better than Dallas's and Beverly Hills 90210's final seasons where they just sort of petered out.

Since Pluto is owned by Paramount+/Viacom/CBS Studios, Sunset Beach could realistically pop up there.

Season 7 is wacky, season 8 is pretty terrible and an attempt to get back to basics and I think as long as you think of season 9 as a spin-off with some characters from Falcon Crest you'll enjoy it. It's actually a much better plotted out season than the three or so seasons that came before, but most get turned off by the fact that it doesn't have most of the glory days characters.

Pluto TV is owned by Paramount/Viacom/CBS studios.

I definitively wouldn't skip season one as it sets up the rest of the series nicely. Plus it's not Karen-deals-with-bikers type of episodes bad - just a tad less serialised than what was to come.

The majority of two hour specials are actually intentionally produced as two episodes for syndication purposes. I think very few of them are actually written as a proper full two hours (or rather 90-100 minutes). Back in the day you also didn't have the act before the opening credits, so you'd basically just have to cut off the end and opening credits and stick them together...

I believe there's talk about Dallas being re-released properly, so I assume they might be working to fix it to have it on HBO Max. I assume they don't really see Dallas or Falcon Crest as subscription drivers though, so they're probably going to try and get their money's worth on licensing them out to other streaming sites like IMDBTV before landing on HBO Max. I think CBS Studios did a similar thing to Dynasty / 90210 / Melrose Place before they landed on Paramount+.

I think it's just a sign of being a show that never really generated much hype either way. Falcon Crest had a similarly low-rated finale. (Dynasty doesn't count since I don't think ABC really promoted it as such)

Great! There's some season 7 episodes missing in the episode pack that's been on sites, so it'll be nice to be able to rewatch in full.

To be fair, did it really make him more of a jerk than the whole pitting JR and Bobby against each other in the will? Plus, JR got his chops from somewhere. I think it got a bit Jock the Saint for a while because of Jim Davis tragic passing, then again people tend to do that in real life too, so...