Cat, I love your avatar! Eden & Robert as a couple on Santa Barbara almost made me turn against Cruz & Eden.

Thanks! And same here. They don't do triangles like that anymore, where you are literally enthralled and rooting for everybody involved.

Roscoe Born - swoon. Holding out hope that he finds another role like Robert Barr on Daytime. Maybe he and A Martinez will cross paths on OLTL.

I hope she stays on Days.

I totally agree with everything you said. In my opinion, B&B should be like French pop: "elegant, refined" but "without coming off as distant or unemotional"; in fact, the dominant feeling being — "romantic longing, nostalgia, sentimentality, eroticism". All that without sleaze and sap. Couple that with riveting business storylines and you've got yourself a hit. Pure pleasure to watch.

O, oui! *cue visions of Serge Gainsbourg, Françoise Hardy and Dalida*

The sad thing about your post is that it has reminded me that B&B is the opposite of everything it should be right now. The elegance and refinement sort of dissipated after Caroline's death and when Susan Flannery started exclusively donning the Mao suits.

The lack of distance, the emotion? Darlene Conley took a lot of that with her to the great dress-up box in the sky. And when Bridget became a total sap. And when Sheila stopped being a character with human, relatable qualities and turned into a cartoon.

Romantic longing? Nostalgia? Sentimentality, eroticism? Brad Bell doesn't have the patience to write romantic longing. Taylor & Rick had great potential but within two days of falling for each other, they were for all intents & purposes a "couple." Same with... oh, the list is far too long.

It's sad because as Lone Vision HW who has been at B&B for centuries (it seems), he should have a handle on the history (and therefore nostalgia) and have the freedom to push the boundaries a little as far as eroticism is concerned, too. Brooke dressed up in Brooke's Bedroom lingerie, servicing Ridge on the corporate jet doesn't do it for me.

No sleaze? No sap? This seems to be B&B's MO nowadays. Sometimes they even manage to combine both, like with this extra-special Katie-Nick story we've been given! I'd love some skin, some desire, some suggestion, some love in the afternoon and maybe I'm just picky but... Nick Marone's umpteenth pity f*ck again just does not cut it.

I still hold out hope, though...

O, oui! *cue visions of Serge Gainsbourg, Françoise Hardy and Dalida*

The sad thing about your post is that it has reminded me that B&B is the opposite of everything it should be right now. The elegance and refinement sort of dissipated after Caroline's death and when Susan Flannery started exclusively donning the Mao suits.

The lack of distance, the emotion? Darlene Conley took a lot of that with her to the great dress-up box in the sky. And when Bridget became a total sap. And when Sheila stopped being a character with human, relatable qualities and turned into a cartoon.

Romantic longing? Nostalgia? Sentimentality, eroticism? Brad Bell doesn't have the patience to write romantic longing. Taylor & Rick had great potential but within two days of falling for each other, they were for all intents & purposes a "couple." Same with... oh, the list is far too long.

It's sad because as Lone Vision HW who has been at B&B for centuries (it seems), he should have a handle on the history (and therefore nostalgia) and have the freedom to push the boundaries a little as far as eroticism is concerned, too. Brooke dressed up in Brooke's Bedroom lingerie, servicing Ridge on the corporate jet doesn't do it for me.

No sleaze? No sap? This seems to be B&B's MO nowadays. Sometimes they even manage to combine both, like with this extra-special Katie-Nick story we've been given! I'd love some skin, some desire, some suggestion, some love in the afternoon and maybe I'm just picky but... Nick Marone's umpteenth pity f*ck again just does not cut it.

I still hold out hope, though...

Sadly, I can contribute little but agreement.

That said...don't you think CBS is going to intervene soon? Numbers aren't great, and the critical drubbing is EVERYWHERE. The soap mags, the influence blogs (e.g. Bibel). I cannot imagine that Barbara Bloom won't soon enter a threatening mode. When is B&B's contract renewal with CBS?

I mean, I find this show so ungodly unpalatable. Last Friday, with the "Honey Bear" episode, I was at least able to say "this is momentarily entertaining". But, honestly, seconds later I again had that nauseous feeling that I had enabled sickness and lack of craft.

Because I have a hard time letting go, I continue to record. Yesterday was an FF day...the whole thing lasted maybe 4 minutes...I slowed down on KKL's slap, and then on Flannery's scenes (overwrought!). If ever a show needed a creative overhaul to protect its future....

At one time I also wanted B&B to create a character for Morgan Fairchild. But all those over-the-top divas of yesteryear look awful, just plain saaad, with the amount of plastic surgery done on them.

Well, I'm not going to get into a discussion about LK and alleged plastic surgery. But she still looks like Margo.

MarkH, I would say that Barbara Bloom can do nothing at B&B. But if they start losing foreign affiliate contracts, that's when things will start to get hairy. I just keep hoping that Jack Smith (who has a number of years at B&B under his belt) would step in.

We can criticize Patrick Mulcahey for overwrought prose and Kay Alden for not writing B&B all we want, but at the end of the day, the blame lies squarely at the feet of one man -- the man in charge of both production AND writing.

I want to like him because he has a lot of respect in the industry and because I don't trust network interference! But I just feel like he is bored at the show. He's not taking it seriously -- does he even care about the characters and the show's future? I'm not saying "care" in a stalkerish way, I mean just does he even enjoy writing for the characters and the actors who portray them? Sure, these are extreme characters we all poke fun at, but I just wish there wasn't such a Passions-like disconnect between the writing and us. Because right now it is so bad, it is insulting. Like somebody is laughing at the stupid fans. And we aren't in on the joke like we were with Passions.

Well, I'm not going to get into a discussion about LK and alleged plastic surgery. But she still looks like Margo.

And I didn't want you — or anyone else — to. She wasn't the one I was referring to.

That was a great post, Cat, point-to-point. (The previous one, I mean, with Serge Gainsbourg and Hardy. )

Edited September 4, 200817 yr by Sylph

Someone commented on a Dynasty forum that after its second season the show lost all sense of reality -- even its own fictional one. And that is how B&B comes across now.

I've been watching the Susan Flannery clips being posted on YouTube which are now up to 1992 and despite the obvious silliness of the some stories, it is so much more realistic than today. There really is a sense that these characters are a family and have goals and desires.

It even applies to the look. Susan Flannery isn't wearing identikit suits, the women have a certain individuality and care is taken with details. There's a scene with the ice thawing between Taylor and Stephanie, so it's written with Taylor wandering the house in the evening and Stephanie offering her a cognac in the library. There's subtext - Stephanie knows Brooke is pregnant. Taylor is smugly secure in her marriage. What do we get now? A cabana in a loading bay, lemon bars and Betty White in a rocking chair.

I miss the definition of the generations. The sense that this is a wealthy family that exists in LA instead of failing to ackowledge any notion of place.

I like the idea of a return to Y&R.

It would bring in history,which is something that works for veteran characters.

Although Terry Lester was playing Jack,so there could be no flashbacks with him or Jess Walton.

Did Lynsey just vanish from GC or was there a proper write-out?

Could Lynsey have had a child by Jack,or did she stay in town too long for that to happen?

Not that I necessarily want another long lost child to arrive.

on that subject,hopefully a recast Keemo will come to town!

Jack arranged for an invalid marriage with Lindsey so that he could get possession of the pictures of him and Jill. He did get those pictures...but Katherine had them too and sent them to John in puzzle form. The Abbotts imploded.

Jack basically screwed Lindsey over and banished her from his life. She left town feeling used...thus, she has a reason to return and destroy Jack and Jill once again.

That said, I still think she's best suited to B&B. She IS the answer for the over the top diva fashionista that the show needs.

O, oui! *cue visions of Serge Gainsbourg, Françoise Hardy and Dalida*

If B&B were the daytime version of this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sHiMDB19Dyc

I'd be a dedicated viewer.

Now that's some love in the afternoon...

Someone commented on a Dynasty forum that after its second season the show lost all sense of reality -- even its own fictional one. And that is how B&B comes across now.

I miss the definition of the generations. The sense that this is a wealthy family that exists in LA instead of failing to ackowledge any notion of place.

I still find it funny that Katie Logan and her niece Bridget are basically the same age even though Katie was in her early 20's by the time Bridget was born. I want some of that water that the Logan family has obviously bottled up from the Fountain of Youth

If B&B were the daytime version of this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sHiMDB19Dyc

I'd be a dedicated viewer.

Now that's some love in the afternoon...

LOL I love that song. And... don't hold your breath.

I hope she stays at Days of our lives

Even if she doesn't get to do all that much, she still gets screen time so the obvious smart move career wise would be to stay put. As many have pointed out, lot's of people come to B&B have their big story and then are backburned. I'd rather her meddle on Days and still see the actress, than wonder where she disappeared off to on B&B..

I hope she stays on Days..Kate is a very popular and familiar character, with lots of family on the show....And i'm excited at the prospect of Kate and Stefano..