Contessa Donatella

41 minutes ago, Soapsuds said:

I mentioned earlier there is no one to root for in this show anymore. The characters that remain only a few are upstanding citizens. The rest have turned very dark. There is no gray area with them. Most all of Salem are evil unrootable characters. 

There's no reason to invest in the next generation when the writing for them is horrible or nonexsitent. Then they're let go once again and were left with unbearable characters.

This will never change until Ron Carlivati is let go as HW.

I disagree in part. I think there are plenty of people to root for. I do not think the canvas is overrun with dark characters. I do not think most of Salem is evil.

I do think that it is time to get a different HW. 

And, frankly, I don't believe you've watched enough of the show to put forth all the opinions you have. And, I don't mean to be rude saying that. I just think it's observable fact. There's been a lot of excellent dialog even when there's a perhaps undesirable plot point going on. I think the writing for Eric & Brady & Gabi & EJ & Nicole is strong & within character. So, I don't think a whole generation is being short-changed. I do think they screwed up with Challie & Allie but they are writing amazing dramatic scenes with excellent dialog as they split them up. 

3 minutes ago, carolineg said:

The show is bad, but I don't think it's worse than it usually is lol.  It's just sort of the same.  Nothing really makes sense, sometimes there are good shows, and sometimes there are really bad ones.  The notdead flower saga isn't good, but there have been much crappier stories in the last few years.   The pacing bothers me more than the actual stories.  Idk, maybe I am just used to mediocrity, but I don't think the show is the worst it's ever been by any means.  The show is full of missed beats and offscreen happenings and it is weird (like @j swift mentioned) they don't talk about EJ/Nicole's long history or a lot of history in general. 

 

I agree. The things that are bad were bad a year ago. The things that are new are good. And, yes, often things don't make sense. That's not new. Pacing & balance & use of personnel, bad, also not new. Sometime the show is chock full of history. Other history is ignored. I think that's true of every soap. Being selective about what history you use is really a choice that is valid. The thing that I think is new that's bad is that they completely ignored the family dynamic of grieving that was needed to make this psuedo-death work. These people are inter-related & they're being written like they barely know each other. Anna's visit to Roman was great & there should have been a lot of people visiting the three men. Instead they did cellphonegate. 

Remember Holly Gagnier? Most recently Jennifer Smith, on DOOL & OLTL back in the day? She's an Acting Coach at GH. 

1 minute ago, Melroser said:

If AW had made it to 2000 when Hogan Sheffer was brought in by P&G, I wonder if he would have been interested in AW. Didn't he get the option to pick between the P&G shows, ATWT and GL at the time? I wonder if he could have gained some traction if given the chance for AW.

All the what-ifs...

I have never been an ATWT viewer. I thought he was fairly well received at ATWT. 

Yes, MADD & Goutman kind of scouted Sheffer & then kinda recruited him & MADD just thought she'd offer him the option, pick one. He picked ATWT even though he said none of the men seemed to have their manhood intact, or something like that. That's a polite paraphrase. Many people call Hogie's time at ATWT a Renaissance. 

11 minutes ago, chrisml said:

As for changes, I don't know if those ever work when it's done in a drastic way. As a viewer, I loathe when an EP comes in and changes everything. I think a lot of viewers want consistency and comfort. They want to know that when they turn into their show that they are going to get the characters they love. The constant changes drive viewers away. ...

Well said. 

7 minutes ago, victoria foxton said:

I could have sworn that Allie told Chanel that Will and Sonny were already in New Zealand with Henry.😕

She said Henry was with them already. She said she was flying that night because that's when their plans were. 

2 minutes ago, Melroser said:

I agree with the 1986 transition as trying.

Also, they tried with JFP. The revamped opening/sets. She cut out older characters and went with the younger set like Maggie/Nick/Sofia. I didn't like much of anything that she did. Starting with Frankie's death, Bridget's death, the seemingly sudden John/Felicia pairing, the Joe/Paulina pairing instead of Paulina/Jake. 

I think it was an attempt to change. An ill-fated one, but an attempt. 

Well, we believe that they told her specifically, go younger & cut the size of the cast, it's too big. And, I'm sure they told her more but the set was her doing, I believe. She stated that she didn't understand who people were or where they were. So, she conceived of 4 locales - cop shop, hospital, newspaper & Carlino's Restaurant & made a block of them & spent a million dollars on it & then it drastically changed the writing because most stories had to take place in one of those locales. The studio had very little  room & the show probably didn't have the money that was spent on it. It was like everything she did had a cascade effect from it. Early on she fired 3 people & one of them was Christine Tucci & Paul Michael Valley was her fella & it made him mad so he quit & she said if he was gonna quit she would just kill off the character, and so forth & so on. Her whole tenure it was as if she'd do one thing & it would have 4 results. I believe she ended up firing 11 people. And, Anna Holbrook & Charles Keating both got Emmies but were both fired after they won them. When going by history & story Paulina should have been with Jake, well, they needed to justify the restaurant being important, ... oops. But, this was at a time when just about anytime a new exec was hired, they'd be given a mandate for change. But, change just for the sake of change is rather random, as opposed to change that was to solve some specific problem. 

5 minutes ago, soapfan770 said:

Is Sony now having Josh Griffith secretly co-write Days with Ron?

Now, when fans said JG needed a co-HW and when fans said that RonC needed a co-HW, .... this was not what they had in mind!!! 🫵🫰🤪🤣

7 minutes ago, AbcNbc247 said:

Once again, something that should have happened onscreen is just talked about after it already happened offscreen.

Show, Don’t Tell!!!!

And, we have to assume that Allie touched base with a whole slew of people before going 8000 miles away. Lucas? Nicole? And another thing, did anyone mention to Wendy that the people she's been freeloading off of have fled the premises? 

4 hours ago, xtr said:

I enjoyed the  Spring scenes yesterday and their kiss. It was a sweet and romantic moment for them. Both TA and NC did a nice job with those scenes/kiss. They continue to both do well in these roles. TA in making the character of Sprina her own, and NC for leaning in and making both versions of Sprina work. I wonder how today's follow up scenes will play out.

I hope the show still doesn't have Sprina referring to themselves as friends for a bit even after the kiss. But I do wonder if they will try some sort of stalling tactic to keep their relationship from progressing further.

I would like to see them continue to get closer/date/be a couple and deal with their family issues. I like that this version of Sprina has started to mirror OG Sprina in the sense that they are leaning on/trusting each other again and have become really close again. 

 

 

Another thing I really loved was Spence's dialog. I don't know who wrote that but it was inspired! His speech to and about Trina was like a breath of fresh air. 

6 minutes ago, BetterForgotten said:

By the time they got to ATWT, P&G/CBS had a lot more mandates. ATWT was seen a dated show and had recently lost its #1 winning streak as ABC daytime had ascended in a massive way. It was seen as a show that was in much trouble and that needed to be "contemporary" - something Bridger and Jerry had successfully done with GL, which is why they were shipped over to ATWT to begin with. 

Allen Potter was a creative inclined EP as well (hence why he and Marland clashed), so he also played an integral role in shaping that canvas at the time. 

 

Thanks for filling in those details. Now can you tell me why in the world Allen Potter didn't see the incredible potential of the "3 Carries"? 

1 hour ago, MichaelGL said:

I've always been puzzled as to how vastly different the Dobsons are at ATWT and SB, (maybe GH too) compared to their time at GL. I can't help but to think maybe Allen Potter had something to do with their success at GL. 

If I understood what I read, they were really happy at GL & wanted to stay on but P&G asked them to swap with Marland & them take ATWT & let him take GL. He was mad & insisted that he had to have a month off in between, so they wrote both shows for one month & didn't want to be at ATWT in the first place. And, at GL, they liked P&G a lot. "We got a lot of good, basic advice on drama & story from Bob Short & Ed Trach at Procter & Gamble." - The Dobsons 2000 interview

SB was just a whole 'nother ball game from the moment they called them & said, what if you could be in complete control of whatever you wanted to do, ... it was a dream they never knew to dream. Of course, things went awry. 

"It was impossible for Anne Howard Bailey to get inside my head, and I could not get in her head. She has a darker view of life than I do; I think she thinks of me as Pollyanna, and I think of her as Darth Vader." - Bridget Dobson about the writer they wanted to fire off of Santa Barbara

And, at GH, well that was her parents turf & they never thought she did well. I think their persistent disapproval of her is one of the sticking points of her life. Possibly GL was especially good because it was the first time on her own & not under them. 

From Another World Memories on #SoapTwitter

On 2-21-1985 Richard Steen played his last day as Ben McKinnon. 

Now, I'm just using this to jump off, ... why did they get rid of Ben McKinnon? I thought he was a perfectly useful young adult, good enough actor, good looks, great family, ... I never understood. Was it either/or where we could have Jake OR Ben but not both?

11 hours ago, Toups said:

ne minor complaint about the Sprina kiss......I wish they didn't go to commercial break after Spencer says all those nice things to Trina, and that the kiss happened immediately after so it would've been one nice uninterrupted scene. 

I just now got to see the kiss & I completely agree. It was one time when the commercial break just jerked us out of the moment. It was an unusual reaction for me. Also I liked the detail of seeing her have to stand on tippy-toe. 

4 minutes ago, Darn said:

Sylvia Browne was a charlatan, like all psychics.

I'd love to know why this show kept throwing story after story at Jensen Buchanan's Vicky when according to the ratings she didn't move the needle. It's weird that they never did a real radical change to the show given it stayed at the bottom of the ratings for so long, other soaps fluctuated at two positions or more at least but AW stayed in the basement.

Not only story but perks, perks that it was questionable whether the show could afford. It was very strange. Jensen did not want to come back. She wanted to stay at home with her very young children, a desire many woman have at one point, but most can't afford it but she could. And, she could have gotten back into soap work later. Meanwhile Ellen Wheeler was available & interested in coming back as Vicky/Marley. But, someone was just intent that they HAD to have JB. I never understood it myself. 

2 hours ago, Jdee43 said:

It's amazing how hollowed out the show had become by 1987. The only thing left from the Agnes Nixon years was Ada/ Rachel,  while the only thing left from the Harding Lemay years was Mac/Rachel. 

It seems to me that most soaps were very different in the 80s than they had been in the 70s. Like the whole genre & lineup went through stuff from clothes to music to montages to supercouples, although AW didn't do that so much. I think culturally we went through changes & I think pop culture influenced soaps & soaps were themselves a big part of pop culture for once. When I think about the shoulder pads we wore I sorta cringe. Although musical montages became very popular, I think, and I have always enjoyed them. 

1 hour ago, Noel said:

What is this soap? No, I'm serious. Granted, there are so many characters. OMG. It's so much soapy goodness that I either want to bathe in it or get filthy or dirty in the pig pen with it. Utter filth. It's disgusting!

 

And I'm here for it. 

I have this odd little audio file I play. It's called "A Cast of Thousands"! 

14 minutes ago, Neil Johnson said:

It was all scripted and fictional on the show, of course. But Sylvia played herself. She made several appearances during that storyline.    

Well, that is just clever, the kind of "stunt" shows that soaps should do!

1 hour ago, DRW50 said:

Frankie was new age, but she did have psychic abilities as well. This came into play again in her final episodes, IIRC.

Eddie is a very good, long time friend of mine & I sent him a "settle an argument" email: Frankie: Psychic or not? And, I am willing to abide by his reply!!! Which was, ... yes, but not as much as Lisa. So, I stand corrected! 🫵🫰🤪

Just finished watching GH on Hulu & I am not convinced that Heather is the original Hook! I'll be stubborn & wait & see. And, I don't think the people clutching their pearls are necessarily senior citizens. Meanwhile I'm one & I couldn't be more progressive. 

11 minutes ago, Neil Johnson said:

Sylvia Browne

Oh, yes, I remember her! Excellent. Very interesting little tidbit. So, was she really giving a reading in the scene?

18 minutes ago, ranger1rg said:

It feels like Carlivati took off a couple months before the "Peacock shows" begin. I have complaints about all 4 soaps, but NONE of the others are this jaw-droppingly bad.

I have complaints about all 4 soaps & what is odd about that is that I only watch 2. But, right now, you can honestly & I think objectively form some conclusions about soaps going by what the fans, mostly intelligently speaking, are saying! That said, I watch GH & DOOL. And my complaints honestly are the same danged ones I had a year ago. They are not experiencing a learning curve. Right now GH just happens to have me by some happy strings so they're gettin off easy. But I haven't forgotten! As for DOOL, I honestly think they need a new HW. Well, that's my opinion of Y&R, too. It's time. 

2 minutes ago, Xanthe said:

I don't remember any of Frankie's psychic episodes, just that she was some kind of new age flake with crystals. Did she sense or predict anything? Or how did her psychicness manifest? 

I never thought Frankie was a psychic. 

This is not a Spoiler but it comes from a mag. What I would call it is WILD speculation. SoapHub opines, (1) what if Allie is pregnant & Alex is the father & she is fleeing to get away from him before it is noticeable? And, (2) also what if Stephanie is pregnant & Alex is the father & this drastically changes his life. Such as it is. GMAB! Yuck. Ptooey!