te.

I believe it was in the Jenny McCarthy interview that Tori mentioned that she first suggested doing a proper reboot to Jennie on the phone and she said "[!@#$%^&*] no" and hung up - apparently she was not amused at the thought of playing another Kell-Me The Victim storyline I enjoyed it. But I enjoyed So noTORIous and Grosse Pointe too, so... I suspect Shannen's so-called animal sanctuary project will turn out to be a huge scam and all the money goes directly to her.

The new ABC president re: bringing back AMC and OLTL:

I think there should be a new Cristal each season tbh.

😂 Poor Kell-Me... That's Aaron Spelling for you! Dynasty, Melrose Place and countless of his other shows had this "problem". We'd just call him Mike.

I agree that Eve would've been a psycho no matter what, however I could see them wanting to clear both Amanda and Eve of the murder and the obvious route would've been to have someone else put in the final blow so to speak. I always found it a bit suspicious that they ended up hiring a famous soap actor like Jerry Douglas and Julie Adams, known for Creature from the Black Lagoon, for what seemingly was two very small parts. I could've seen there being turned out to be a cover up between the Damarrs/Woodwards to keep Amanda and whoever really killed Kent (probably mrs Damarr, because you know, famous horror actress). It would've kept present day Amanda out of jail (since she had no idea) and Eve would've been allowed to stay on the show as the new resident nutcase with a continued axe to grind against her.

You're right - I remembered wrong: http://www.geocities.ws/Hollywood/4616/sod0413a.html I assume she would've been toast then as I can't imagine them allowing her to live through that car crash for whatever they had planned.

Yeah, I was pretty surprised by that but it did seem that in the soap press that she was going to become a regular. I just assumed she was going to snuff it in the original finale in the car crash and that they didn't want to have to do any sort of funeral or memorial service for her character once it was decided that the show was ending. Either that or she was going to slip away with Sarah to keep kids off the show. I also kind of assume Jane would've managed to run away to accomodate Josie Bissett possibly having a maternity leave. If they wanted to re-introduce Taylor, they always could've had her staying with her since the characters bounded a bit before Taylor left. There likely would've been some kind of final twist in the Amanda / Eve story - possibly Sleazy Jock Boyfriend being alive after being pushed off (and killed by someone else? Amanda's step-mother?), hence freeing both characters from the murder charge?

I definitively wouldn't have gotten rid of Megan and Ryan - yes, they weren't exciting, but I do think one of the biggest mistakes on these shows is that they go all out campy with everyone trying to out-do everyone. I thought they provided a nice balance, especially Kelly Rutherford. From what I recall from before they announced the show was ending it seemed set that Alexandra Paul was going to become a cast member, so I assume that would've been a huge part of their storyline for season 8. IIRC, they had basically written two endings to the show - one that would lead into season 8 written by Carol Mendelsohn and then the "meh" kind of series finale that Chuck Pratt wrote. It's not the worst series finale ever, but you can definitively tell that there are threads meant to be potentially picked up and that they just hastily wrap up.

... his abs? ... his Shakespearean acting abilities? ... the fact that the character is written like Brandon where he ends up learning lessons like "racism is bad", except Brandon is 16 and Billy is supposed to be 23?

Oh yeah, the last half of season six is definitively one of the peak periods of the show, even if Alexis's sudden realisation that she's in love with Blake comes a bit out of nowhere. It's too bad that the squandered it in season seven as Alexis taking control of the mansion could've been a fantastic storyline but you know... it's Dynasty.

I don't hate the Rita storyline either, but from people I've talked to who watched it way back then, it's worth remembering this was dragged out for three or so months on the show (and it's worth remembering that this plot was supposed to last all season in the original bible!). So yeah... it probably got frustrating for those viewers - as someone who watched the show in reruns on weekdays, it was rather exciting if ridiculous!

I love the picture of Meg with her laptop on the beach. This was pre-wifi and internet everywhere! I agree it was dumb to drop them, but I assume they wanted to bring in Meg's parents and needed to clear the canvas, hence Elaine and Paula gone.

Shannen was added to the cast after Luke Perry died, so I imagine they re-wrote it quite a bit. I think they start filming next week.

Yup - while it sucks that soaps, DAYS in particular, has no budget these days, they really need to stop trying to pull off plots that takes any budget. Hell, they can't even afford to hire extras to make Jack's ridiculous mayoral rallies believable at this point, so why even trying (not saying that they should've even attempted that particular storyline but still...). Soaps did after all originate from radio to begin with and even today some of those are still running.

I think it just had to do with their infatuation with James E. Reilly. Plus, Spelling himself wasn't a patient man going by his prime time record - Models, Inc had three retoolings within one season; Dynasty (post-season 5) and Melrose Place (post-season 3) had several "save the show" type of reboots, sometimes twice per season and so on. He sometimes got it right, but a lot of the times his impatience led to unnecessary changes...

The issue is that they kept changing it over and over again and the audience that liked the show to begin with tuned out - if they had left it alone for a bit it might've been able to have viewers find it to begin with. Say what you will about Passions, but it seems like they mostly left it alone for the first few years and let it do its own thing, which partially paid off when it grew a bit in the ratings during 2002-03. Of course, that was temporary (and JER obviously went off the deep end towards the end of his life), but we've never really had a soap grow since then.

I'll admit that "Titmuss" is a hot last name.

I don't think he personally got her fired, but I suspect that "focus groups" reacted negatively to their storyline and since they couldn't actually fix the actual problem (ie fire Randy) they put the blame on Adrienne Frantz. I suspect they wanted a love triangle where neither Leo or Sean were the "bad guys" and actually having Emily conflicted when it was finally unveiled that Amy had schemed to break them up in the first place, but I suspect they knew that Randy would lose that one with the viewers so instead they opted to focus on having two really bad guys (Amy + her sidekick) and ditched Leo all-together.

He literally had no storylines and was only there to prop up the younger set / add to the Deschanels. I've kind of wondered that if the main problem with the youth set was that the focus groups kept pointing it out as a problem, except they wouldn't fix the actual problem (ie fire Randy Spelling) and kept trying to reconfigure it around him, which led to Adrienne Frantz being blamed / fired, Leo appearing and doing nothing etc.

I mean, SuBe was pretty much concieved to be a 90s Aaron Spelling prime time soap, but in the daytime. Once it didn't take off in the first nine months they desperately tried to make it more traditional soap opera, including ditching characters, trying to introduce more family elements, dropping the glorious Tim Truman theme song, making production values more in line with "traditional" soaps and then bringing in James E. Reilly as a consultant. Personally, I preferred the show before they tried to "daytime soap"-ify it.

I suspect Jeff will make Alexis Carrington Alexis Colby, if you know what I mean. Then he dies, making Alexis rich and a widow (I guess poison paint might be deadly?).

Even in the late 70s she looked very much like "mama Walsh".

The guess who's coming home teaser is so good too. Just a shame it's wasted on this project.

Holy [!@#$%^&*], that ending. Now that's a good twist of the original.