DeliaIrisFan

Thank you!

For once in a blue moon, I'm up to date on watching the show, and it's early enough in the month that I was able to catch up on this thread before the weekend was over. So I'm jumping in with a bunch of random musings. Winter Fest is not what I was expecting, but I won't write it off just yet: I was just relieved to see (halfway through the coming attractions, which really should have been in chronological order) that the event isn't completely over. I agree with parts of both of these posts. I have no interest in GH or any other of the remaining 20th century soaps. I will say some of these down times on BTG can start to feel like a chore for me, which in a way is a compliment, because I am already invested in some of these characters that I feel obliged to keep up. I maintain the non-event phases where characters not directly involved in each other's stories reconnect would be much more enjoyable with better dialogue. The exposition is sooooo clunky, and when we're bouncing back and forth between catch-up scenes... +1000 I feel so badly that by the time this show finally made it to air, it had to be in this moment. For a lot of reasons, but most relevant to this topic, I don't pretend to know how MVJ and Co. could effectively navigate the national and network politics. DC is a ****show and for probably multiple reasons they clearly can't say that in the script, and yet these characters are in the thick of it: some more so than others. Martin's character has really suffered from this, and that makes me sad because I really want to like him (and Martin/Smitty), but essentially every attempt to incorporate politics/reality has seemed behind the times or depressingly reminiscent of the headlines, or sometimes both all at the same time. Speaking of which... That's a good point that I hadn't considered. Although see above, re: keeping pace with the headlines - we've already escalated from arguments with anti-vaxxer relatives at Thanksgiving dinner all the way to RFK Jr. being in charge of U.S. health care policy. Why wouldn't the Duprees say something about that when discussing this topic at this point? It's also unfortunate that this isn't the first part of Chelsea and Madison's relationship that happened off-screen... I thought of Mac Cory as well. I've been struggling since the '90s to understand how a crowded restaurant scene is cheaper/more efficient for a soap to film than a comparatively smaller number of people on the set of the core family's home, and I still don't get it. At this point, I guess I can live with it. This reminds me of the story Patrick Mulcahey told in an interview about MVJ's only note on his first GH script: that Sonny wasn't smart enough for the extended monologue PM had written for the character... In some ways, Vanessa's arc with Joey is like Brenda on GH, if all of her stories from 1994 to 1997 (or possibly up until one of her later returns, which I never watched) were condensed into ~6 months, plus some of the subsequent Real Mob Wives of Port Charles's drama thrown in for good measure. She was so fun, and she became really draining, but we skipped the part where at least most of the journey made sense. Speaking of Vanessa, I'm sure this is old news but is Donnell just gone? If he was meant to be short-term, why didn't they cast Deanna(sp?) for the funeral as well? It made no sense that she wasn't there, but I assumed they wanted to leave a blank slate if and when they introduced her as a main character later on. And where exactly is Banneker supposed to be: Isaiah works there and is frontburner, but Vanessa's kids aren't around because they're "away" at school? In hindsight, I wish THAT secret had been the catalyst for Leslie/Dana and Eva infiltrating the Duprees. At very least, I think they could have pivoted at the time the original actor parted ways, and made Eva's paternity a red herring for the real revelation re: Barbara and the trust. To me, Ted has seemed aimless since the recast. Eva and Kat don't need to be sisters to have a feud, and Nicole had plenty of reason to be pissed at Ted over his role in keeping Martin's secret from her. If they really wanted to keep Ted around and even have him in the Thomases' orbit, they could have established that he did know Dana (not biblically) in the past and he could have befriended her and Eva.

I'm still loving this show, although I have been bad about keeping up with the episodes, let alone this board. This week I'm actually up to date on the show, and there's only 12(!) pages of this thread, so I figured I'd jump in before I fall behind. I feel like maybe they're starting to overcome some of the pacing problems. Or maybe it's just that enough of the show has been compelling for me lately and I'm just hoping they'll continue to keep those threads going. I do agree with what many have said about the dialogue, which has been my biggest disappointment. I don't watch B&B so my expectations were based entirely on MVJ's work on GH, where she wrote truly some of the best scripts in soap history. To be fair, I'm not sure how many from that team are still in the industry (Mulcahey seems to be really done?), and I don't want MVJ herself to be bogged down in editing every line, when the stories and characters need to capture an audience. All to say I get that she has to make do with who's left in the industry and/or train newcomers. I can deal with it, especially in weeks like last week when the stories really do work. Apart from the pacing, they've clearly started to reset some things, now that I presume we're seeing scripts and story projections informed by how the original vision has translated from page to screen. Much of that is probably for the best, even if a bit jarring, like Chelsea/Madison. I just hope they slow down with some of the soap cliches that I was happy to start a new soap fresh without: I hate the fake/temporary paralysis trope, which is not doing Ashley/Derek any favors, but also Eva having not one but too long-lost relatives in the Duprees' sphere is starting to catch up with the soaps that have been rewriting characters' family trees for decades now. I'm actually not entirely sure where they're going to land with the tone. Case in point: I could easily see Naomi's pregnancy ending in either a baby switch story with Hayley or Naomi having an abortion and that being that. I truly hope it's not the former, but in any case I actually am unable to predict what's going to happen next right now. Relatedly, it seems like the scripts seem to be de-emphasizing the political element, at least the day to day of DC in 2025, which is probably for the best (or should I say the least worst they can do) under the circumstances. Something like The Good Fight would not be sustainable on a daily basis, especially given the pace of the news cycle now even compared to the first Trump administration, not that there is any way CBS/Paramount's current owners would air that today. BtG is progressive in so many ways, not to mention a beautiful artistic creation for any time, and I want it to stay on the air.

What a week. I got behind later in the week, after taking off work for the premiere, but I'm all caught up and eager for Week 2. I don't know about the Dani shooting at the wedding, mainly because it makes me think of how AW wrote out Iris, but I very much doubt that is happening with this character so I am happy to see how it plays out. The gothic/thriller story they're setting up with Leslie/Eva could be really good - after the past 2-3 decades of soap rewrites by committee, I just hope it gets to play out as planned over what I presume would be many months. I'm starting to be afraid this is true, but it's still early. I'd like to think the actor will settle into the role. Wow... I love this. I can understands she's biased because she's hurt by what her friend and father did. I appreciated that what she said could apply to Bill and Dani. +100

I too am hoping this is intentional and there will be LGBT intimacy. I'm also not sure of their chemistry after this first episode, but maybe that too is deliberate. It is a little jarring given the "racy" intros some of the straight couples got, but as I mentioned in an earlier post, whatever Bill has on Martin gives me hope that the gays aren't going to be sanitized and boring. I did assume they were newer parents if the source of conflict is meant to be that the one is weary of being a stay-at-home parent unless there is some recent event that is giving him second thoughts: maybe even what Martin's Aunt(?) Dani just went through after giving up her career for Bill, and not wanting to end up in a similar position.

The discussion about the ages of the kids made me think of when it was Nurse Ashley's(?) turn for back story today, and she went on about how rough her mom must have had it as a "young mother." My first thought was how Dani and Nicole both look at least as young as the actress playing this character's mother, but maybe that's just me. On that note, they're also really going out of their way to let us know Anita and Vernon aren't THAT old. Today he made a point to say that MLK and John Lewis "came before" him, which while unnecessary was innocuous, but it reminded me of a line yesterday that I had meant to mention. Did anyone else hear Anita say the two of them met at THE (I swear, I heard "the") March on Washington, and then went on to clarify that this was "in the '70s"? Of course, there were marches on Washington in the '70s, and every decade since, but I feel like that phrase—without any additional context—implies the 1963 March, no? Those quibbles aside, I enjoyed the show again today. I agree that Bill's unapologetic selfishness is fun and the actor has that charisma. I'm not sure how I feel about Dani at this point, but I like the fact that I'm grappling with what are clearly deliberate choices to depict someone who can be "too much" (as opposed to the way many characters on the other remaining soaps have literally done too much on my TV screen at this point for me to indulge any of their current drama). Haley had no business bringing those cookies or most any of the other things she's done in the last two episodes to try to ingratiate herself, but I feel somewhat badly for her even if I don't for the life of me understand the whole gated community/country club aspiration. Nicole continues to be the soap heroine we've been lacking for decades, and I too like her rapport with her husband. And I'm intrigued by Martin and his husband after this episode, even with the trope of the gay couple being the ones who adopted a bunch of kids, in no small part because I was completely floored to learn that HE is the source of whatever dirt Bill has on Vernon.

It is amazing. Also, seeing the number of variations on "good morning," I think that's right about a nod to ATWT.

I thought we were supposed to think he was naked under the apron at first too, but he was just wearing jeans with no shirt. Other than that, their scenes really were completely boring. I certainly didn't care that it was her first day as a nurse, or even about this hospital where nobody else central to the main stories seems to work. I'm going to hold off for now on saying it was bad acting; maybe I just wanted to get back to the Duprees, which I very much did and that's a good thing. They should have just had the

The one substantive thing about the core characters that I will even bother noting based on the pilot alone is the fact that Nicole got the first scene. Based on what I've seen in the ads of the surrounding footage, I just assumed that was going to be Tamara Tunie driving through the gates - which I wouldn't have minded/questioned at all. But I think it's cool that, to the extent there is one point of view in an ensemble show like this, they are giving us the most relatable (at least of the core family) female character's POV: the type of character that has become an increasingly thankless role on soaps. Someone said upthread that TT already seems like she's been developing Anita for decades, which is true, but I would say DD also gives every impression that she's been playing a complicated but true blue soap heroine for the last 15 years (picking up seamlessly where she left off when OLTL stupidly threw her over).

I really appreciate that they added that in, even if it was very obviously added in, after the fact. We know they started filming just before Election Day. I'm glad we're not pretending we don't know these characters' political leanings. I look forward to seeing how that is handled when we get further in - to scripts that were written more recently.

Thank you for this. The exposition was a lot, but I know MVJ of all writers can pen beautiful dialogue. If she's choosing to prioritize certain things for the premiere, I can live with that. Pilots are rough, even in other genres that are introducing a fraction of this many characters, and unless I'm blanking this still makes for only a handful of pilots episodes of hourlong daytime soaps (along with Texas, the SBs, and Passions). None of those shows lasted a decade, so I guess you could say there is no successful template. I care about the characters, the core actors are doing good work, and I want to see what happens next. That's a success in my book.

My better half and I subscribed for a few years to watch The Good Fight and Evil. We were always years behind on the former—and ultimately gave up on the latter—because we spent more time trying to get it to play on our TV than we did watching. Comcast and/or Apple always seemed to be sabotaging it. We tried the app that came preloaded on the cable box, Apple TV, and even projecting from the computer display; there was always some glitch. He won't be watching BTG, so I'll just stream it on my phone/laptop. The one lasting improvement I found when I watched GH last year for the first time in decades was the ability to stream it with no ads via Hulu. Where was my iPhone 30 years ago?

Hear, hear! BTG was one of the only things I was looking forward to in 2025, and it's already been a long year for me, personally and otherwise. But I am still so excited for this. MVJ is one of the only soap writers still with us whom I would be excited to see get an opportunity like this. Despite my fears about what's left of the industry and the broader climate, everything I've seen from Val Jean and the other creatives so far gives me hope. I have spent some down time this weekend catching up on this entire thread. I took tomorrow off from work, and will be watching the premiere in real time. And I will likely be subscribing to Paramount Plus afterward.

She really is. Something to look forward to in 2025: a new daytime soap opera, no less. Who would have thought? It's so nice checking in on the latest developments. I have virtually no faith left in this industry, or some of the parties involved, but I can't help but hope that somehow she'll be able to do her thing and it will work out.

The soap hits keep coming. My heart breaks for Lynn Herring, in parts for reasons that are unique to soaps and admittedly weird - she's practically broken my heart just by playing grief on screen, so the thought of her going through this for real just seems horrific.