I don't remember if this was today, but when Steve said look into my eye to Stephanie...

Wow. Stephanie is the worst core family member to join this show in a long time. She could be the most annoying Brady or Horton I have ever seen in 13 years.

Wow. Stephanie is the worst core family member to join this show in a long time. She could be the most annoying Brady or Horton I have ever seen in 13 years.

I blame it on the writing for her. It gets annoying having someone on that show keep spouting over and over again about destiny and true love. There's nothing wrong with being a romantic, but to shove it in everyone's face is irritating.

It's definitely the writing. I don't think either JER or Sheffer know what to do with this character.

And yet Stephanie's "true love" fixation *does* make sense. Think about it --- she was raised singularly by Kayla who never got over the death of the one true love of her life. I'm sure Stephanie was raised with stories about her father and about how Steve & Kayla fought a gazzillion obstacles to get together, about how their true love never lost out, and about how their true love never died. That's all she really knows. It actually makes sense for the character.

It does make sense. But I just don't think there is a real place for her here right now. She kinda set the women's movement back 100 years with what happened with Max and now she's doing the overbearing daughter thing a little too much. On a show where the dialogue is so fresh these days, her repetitiveness sticks out like a sore thumb.

On the plus side, Kristian Alfonso looked amazing in this episode. I still can't say anything nice about Hope though.

I think you can argue a lot about Stephanie making sense, I totally agree. That doesn't necessarily make it palatable to the viewer. Introducing new characters is tricky, you have to give the audience something to latch on to and they really didn't do that with Stephanie. I agree that yes, you can list points X, Y, and Z about why Stephanie is the way she is and why it doesn't make her criminal as a person, but as a character that is being written by writers in some LA office somewhere they didn't plan her introduction well, and now that Hogan has to take that poor introduction and go somewhere with it, I think for me it's a matter of timing. Unless you are the type of viewer that likes a character based solely on their relation to another character (and I'm not saying I never do that), then you're not going to be ready to sympathize with the character's tragedies until you know them first. Stephanie is a new character to both old and new viewers. If I was Hogan I would've laid off showing Stephanie brooding around the hospital in her robe and wheelchair, even if it makes sense. With so many characters to juggle it's a lot to ask of the average viewer to make that kind of emotional room for someone they don't feel they know yet.

she's just grating imo, and it becomes annoying.

Hogan did say that he thought Stephanie was brought on way too early in the SL and was going to get sidelined.

Wednesdays episode was good, I noticed a different Steve too. Tuesdays was good as well.