te.

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.

Do you know what year it is? Location shooting is pretty rare on soaps. There's a decent chance it could be in an early episode.

Honestly, it sounds like Buzzfeed expanded ridiculously and now have to scale back - I mean, does anyone need a full time "director of quizzes"?

Was this around the time the Salem High spin-off (Belle, Shawn and so on crew) was talked about? IIRC it was proposed to air on weekend mornings.

More than likely this has to do with the show that Jennie / Tori has had in the works with CBS: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-6484093/amp/Tori-Spelling-45-calls-Beverly-Hills-90210-Jennie-Garth-46-ying-yang.html As I said above - it's rumoured that they're playing versions of themselves basically.

Well, Emma was apparently miserable on the show and the female cast members pretty much frooze her out. By the way, it doesn't look like this is a proper "reboot" as such, but possibly them playing fictionalized versions of themselves.

"Dark Mansions" was originally developed as a potential tv series described as a cross between "Dynasty" and "Dark Shadows". Produced by Aaron Spelling with Joan Fontaine as the draw, it was eventually re-tooled into a tv movie and shown on ABC during the summer. It got pretty bad reviews from what I can tell.

True, the stare after Alexis shot that gun is just icy cold. Then there's the scene afterwards where a "concerned" Alexis goes to the mansion which is Alexis at her sociopathic best (or worst - depending on how you view it). It's disconcerting. But in the long run they had to re-write Alexis a bit just like they had to rewrite Blake to make it believable for Krystle to stay with him. Of course they tended to go too far in those re-writes, but still. This version seems to know that both Alexis and Blake are in it for the long run, so they're sort of making them both monsters, just not enough to entirely turn you off.

I think a lot of people confuse Alexis with what she was in season 2 and what she eventually became (basically The Empress of the Universe) - she wasn't rich in season 2 of Dynasty. It was pretty clear that Blake paid enough to keep her away, but certainly not enough for her to get lawyers and go after custody. We're also unclear what original Alexis did in Europe - there's this terrific scene on original Dynasty where Joseph has kept a scrapbook; obviously referring to her misadventures in Europe (which tends to be treated like one big country). We know this Alexis at one point tried to launch a make-up brand under the Carrington name, prompting Blake to trademark the name Carrington to stop her. This Alexis also took one big pay out rather than getting monthly checks. In all honesty, I find the FakeAdam business way nastier than anything past Alexis did - yes, Alexis shot that gun and threw Krystle off the horse, but it was a spur of the moment thing and not premeditated like the FakeAdam business. I think they needed Alexis to go and try to save Cristal, otherwise she'd just be too nasty - it's like how Donna refused to have Abby actually being directly responsible for Val's babies being kidnapped. Wisely she knew it'd write Abby into a corner, I feel that what the writers felt at that point (plus they needed people to be in danger of the fire). Granted, I doubt Nicollette could ever do Joan's sociopathic icy cold stare, but few can...

Kelly's 49. Anyway, it was foreshadowed by her mentioning that she and her husband had been trying to have children and late in life pregnancies happen. I'm happy Kelly Rutherford will stay on the show.

I'm one of the few who liked the original Kirby, but never did I think the new show would make me excited about her arrival. Sociopath with a certain hate for Fallon!