SFK

*ANOTHER* DID story!? You have got to be kidding me. What a lazy unimaginative hack. And to get paid good money for such mediocrity. The only upside is that BB is a good actor. The actress playing Felicity is adorable, and I like the actor playing her brother. I hope they give them both some nice material to play.

SS was before my time, so I can't attest to this takeaway, but I was intrigued by what I read years ago that Belle had no in-depth motivation for her villainy, she simple enjoyed causing trouble.

Awww, lol, to my great surprise, I actually felt kinda sorry for Leo. I'm no fan of the character, but I empathized with his heartbreak having witnessed acquaintances go through similar experiences. A straight (or straight passing/presenting/closeted) white man can be the most dangerous person in the room. They wield their currency with colonial abandon and insecure folx like Leo who mask their hurt by being "fabulous" are dazzled and fall prey to any attention, let alone, that of someone like Dimitri.

Playing catchup... Interesting how DOOL announces temporary recasts, but not permanent ones. NuTate is good, while skewing older and more emotionally grounded/mature. I feel like I missed the beats where Holly became enamored with him. Was the turnaround motivated by guilt, is it even real? BB reminds me so much of myself, physically and acting approach, no wonder why he's my favorite actor on the show. 😜 (Johnny ogling aside.)

Thank you for sharing! She handled that well. Of course, I see Ruth Warrick on a panel and I immediately think of Beverlee McKinsey now. 😄 Eileen Fulton gave Ms. Ruth a run for her money here.

I'm about to wrap up season 8 of my rewatch which has for the most part been more of a first watch. Something that surprised me as I'd missed it for all of these years was the mention of AIDS. While watching, I wondered if Reagan had even said the word publicly by that point. The scene between Blake and Steven felt uncharacteristically real and really snatched the confectionery quality out of my mouth. Lesley Carrington gets on my damn nerves. It's weird how Amanda's existence is wiped by the repeated mention of Alexis' three children: Adam, Steven, and Fallon. I don't think the Oxenberg/Cellini situations were egregious enough to ignore Amanda's existence. For me, Season 7 ushered in a feeling that the party was over. We'd seen the best years of the glitz and glam OTT Dynasty that made it famous. The death of La Mirage and the move to The Carleton, saying goodbye to Alexis' penthouse and hello to her career as the head of a newspaper... it felt like the show had gotten too expensive and was trying to transition into being more grounded which was less exciting. It still holds my attention, but the tone is undeniably different. I'm looking forward to seeing Sable again.

Natalie pulled a Ðorian Corey and concealed Silver's body in Timmy's toy chest. I forget what brought Palmer to Natalie's apartment or what possessed him to open the toy chest, but I remember him crouched down seeing the body and looking up at Natalie with a deadpan knowing glance. He disposed of Silver's body in the pond on his grounds where poor Dixie discovered it while swimming. Traumatized Dixie had the memorable line that while swimming, she always keeps her eyes open for snakes. I was a kid and recall this as an entertaining time for AMC. It led to some fun stuff for Palmer. He met Mr. U in prison and Mr. U would go on to fall for Opal and try to kill PC. Palmer would lose Cortlandt Electronics and rise Phoenix-like with the creation of The Cluck-Cluck Chicken Shack. 😆

It is not just you, it looks like a [!@#$%^&*] Ring Pop. The cheapest looking stone ever, Elizabeth Taylor would gag at them attaching her name to this.

He was the first Billy Flynn in Chicago I ever saw.

We lost yet another Broadway great, Hinton Battle: https://www.broadwayworld.com/article/Three-Time-Tony-Award-Winner-Hinton-Battle-Passes-Away-at-67-20240130

I subscribe to Erika's fanclub newsletter and my heart just sank when I saw the email. Memories of Amanda celebrating her mother's Emmy wins, and stories of her studying acting at Tisch, interning at The Rosie O'Donnell Show, and so on, all came rolling back. Just last night, I had the pleasure of meeting Corbin Bleu. Naturally, I brought up OLTL and Erika, for whom he had nothing but kind words. Erika, Brian, and Michael are in my prayers.

Very interesting! TFS I'd still like to know the exact story behind Kate O'Mara and Stephanie Beacham. It's unclear if they were both up for Sable and Kate took herself out of the running, or if Kate was set for Frankie. Kate did say in an interview that Caress ended up being the better choice which makes me think she was in line for Frankie, but I'm not sure. At any rate, it's hard (reluctant!) for me to imagine Kate wasted on Frankie, which may be exactly Kate's point. I think Lesley-Anne Down would have been a perfect Frankie.

Robin Strasser touched upon Margie Impert's casting in at least one interview I read. It was Strasser's opinion that Impert was cast based upon a physical resemblance to her, but ultimately, such superficial casting never works. (This reminds me of anecdotes about Joanne Dorian for Gillian Spencer as Viki on OLTL.) Recasting the characters with actors based upon their own merits is what worked and Victoria Wyndham (and Erika Slezak) became most strongly identified with the characters in question regardless of their resemblance to the originators.

Erica's abandonment complex is canon straight from Agnes Nixon, but something I've never thought much about is the psychology of being the child of a celebrity. We can list a number of stories of celebrity children who wanted to go into the business, their famous parents discouraging them, laying down the law that they'd have to go about it the "right" way by getting formal training and NOT getting any nepo favors... was this a missed note, or notes, in the storytelling of Erica? Did AMC ever explore the idea that Erica wanted to be famous because her dad was? There's the nepo argument that it's only natural for a child to take interest in the vocation of a parent, but there's certainly something different about being the kid of a teacher, doctor, lawyer, et cetera, versus a Hollywood director (even if he was a hack?). I find myself in this moment interested in the psychology of Erica in the broad scope of celebrity children from Liza Minnelli, Gwyneth Paltrow, Rumor Willis, Brooke Hogan, the Kardashian-Jenners, and so on. On top of that, look at the Rachel/Erica archetypal connection where they were both young attractive department store models carrying the currency of good looks, but Rachel did not have a famous dad and was content to attract a "good" husband/marry "well", she didn't need the fame like Erica. Would Erica have even craved Hollywood and Vine without the allure of Eric's career?

I felt the same way, what a weird non-ending. I had to be reminded here of the Jada-Everett connection to catch the significance of them nearly meeting because I was scratching my head at what felt like a dud of a conclusion.

Bo Buchanan

After my stories were canceled, I started checking out the other offerings. DOOL and B&B were the ones that stuck (though I am months and months behind on B&B). I mentioned getting choked up watching that Doug and Julie scene. To my surprise, I had a similar reaction when Chad and Stephanie had their breakup conversation. I've never been a "couples" kind of fan, but something struck me about that scene. I never saw the Chad and Abigail in Paris online spinoff. Is it available to watch somewhere?

Yes! The power of the soap opera. I have only watched the show for like four years and was choking back the tears.

Thak you love, happy holidays my dears!

I did too. It's a strange phenomenon scrolling through social media and seeing a familiar face that you haven't seen in a long while and having an immediate gut sense that you should not be seeing this person. This is incredibly sad news. Kamar was so young, and his poor wife and children. I used to see Sherri on the UWS running errands and such. Robin Strasser and Kamar were close, this must be devastating for her as well. It was an inspired move to take a day player but mostly unseen character like Carlotta, beef up her role and create a family around her. One of my favorite Kamar memories was a small but cute one. He was having a scene while eating a handful of nuts, shaking them in his hand like dice before popping them into his mouth with a playful grin. God bless him, he was an indelible part of countless after-school memories.

Another Rachel-Erica connection, the "I used to walk by this house on my may home from school" thing was used by AMC as well. Erica said it about the house Dr. David bought for her. It was the house she dreamed of living in someday. IMHO, Linden was the real house of dreams.

Frank seemed like he was half dressed.

You know what's missing? A room full of crazy ass rabid fans. This is just boring, it lacks all of the fun and excitement of years past. But frankly, what's left to be a fan of? Daytime's a shell of its former self.

Three Emmys?? Wow, I've really been out of the loop.

That In Memoriam was almost unbelievable, so many memory makers.